The p
lace
of Spirit
in the rationalist world-outlook
A. Voin
In today's world there is
much talk about the spirit, the loss of spirituality of Western
civilization as a major cause of global crisis of modern mankind, the need for
the revival of spirituality. Representatives of religion claim that the
cause of the loss of spirituality is the secularization of Western society, which
took place in the Modern
Times in connection with the development of rational science.
At
the same time they identify spirituality as a purely religious spirituality. They are joined by a number of modern philosophers.
Take, for example, wrote by the Templeton Prize winner of 2007, Charles
Taylor:
«We have somehow to break down the barriers between
our contemporary culture of science and disciplined academic study (what the
Germans
gather in the term "Wissenschaft") on one hand, and the
domain of spirit, on the other. The divorce of natural science and religion has
been damaging to both; but it is equally true that the culture of the
humanities and social sciences has often been surprisingly blind and deaf to
the spiritual ».
(From his speech when he received his award Templeton.)
There are calls to establish contact, to
build bridges, find common ground between science and religion, between
different religions, confessions and ideologies, but on appeal it is not going.
However, significant progress in this direction are ascribed to the said
Charles Taylor and a group of philosophers, close to him,
such as A. Maklntayer, etc. (This is the progress in this direction Taylor
awarded Templeton Prize). But, paying tribute to the good intentions
of Taylor and his colleagues, I believe that their work is based on false
premise and therefore can not lead them to the desired result.
In his work «Overcoming Epistemology»
(Philosophical Arguments, Harvard University Press, 1995) Charles Taylor writes
that the main cause of discord between the modern humanities, philosophy, in particular, and
spirituality is the fact that the secular philosphy of Modern Times is dominated by a epistemology or theory
of cognition, based on the
achievements of natural science. And the way
to a revival of spirituality he sees in overcoming the domination of
epistemology in modern philosophy (“Overcoming
Epistemology”).
I agree with Taylor that real modern epistemology up to the present day as a basis secularized
philosophy, across a variety of specific theories and trends in it, helped to
expel the spirit of this philosophy and other humanities, and in such a way helped to non-spirituality of
contemporary Western society. But I do not agree that the way to a revival of
spirituality is through deprivation epistemology of its basic role in philosophy. The sad
part of epistemology in exile from spirituality in Western society is not
connected with the fact that it is the foundation of secular philosophy, but with the fact that, despite the huge number of
directions in it, none of
them could not still give the correct answer
to the question of how relate our knowledge
(scientific, especially) with the reality described by it. That is, there was not still a correct epistemology. But rejectionion the epistemology of
its basic role in the philosophy leads
us,
as I said, to the result opposite
to that sought by Taylor. Because the common language between members of
different religions, ideologies, traditions, etc., finally between science and
religion, only epistemology can give. Only starting from
the correct idea about how our knowledge relate to the reality described by it
(including the spiritual reality), we can formulate
a method of justifying the true knowledge, whether scientific theory or spiritual
teachings. This method and only he can serve the common language that will
allow supporters of different natural scientific theories, theories of
humanitarian or religious doctrines
agree on which theory or doctrine is true, and which - confusing.
This method was developed by natural science in the process of its
development and in it he more or less successfully applied. It is through this
method representatives of natural sciencis have a common language, and sooner or
later agree by the entire
international community to accept some hypothesis as true,
proven theory, and another hypothesis be
rejected. But among scientists of humanities and the representatives of
religion this method is still not known. So they have no common language and, despite
endless calls to find a common language between different denominations of
Christianity and with representatives of another religions (like Islam,
Judaism, etc.), the number of denominations and sects multiplied exponentially,
and the gap in their understanding of the Christ’s Teaching (despite
the fact that all acknowledge that God is one and the truth is one) grows to
infinity. The situation is similar in philosophy, psychology and other humanities, but there instead of
confessions - the endless and continue to multiply number of schools and
directions, between which there is no common language, and there is no real dialogue.
In this situation, what good is that, Taylor
believes that the understanding of the teachings of Jesus Christ by the Catholic Church is incorrect and opposes to it the understanding of new churches, Methodist,
in particular. He does not have a tool to convince the Catholics and
representatives of many other denominations. Some mistakes of the past, such as
the Inquisition, holy wars, etc. the Catholic Church
recognized without the aid of
We return to the epistemology and its
negative impact so far on spirituality. The question is, why natural science have developed a general
method
of substantiation of its theories, have a common
language and thus have made significant progress and lead to tangible results,
and epistemology, which claims to generalize the experience of natural science and its method, could not endure
this method in the humanitarian sphere, has not led to a common language in
her, and even assisted in the initial expulsion of the spirit of it? The fact
that a general method of substantiation, worked out by the natural sciences, was
not yet presented explicitly and existed only at the level of stereotype
thinking of scientists
naturalists. For them it was enough (and then - for the time being, it is now
not). But for the transfer of this method in the humanitarian sphere, it was
necessary to provide this method explicitly. This is the task of epistemology, but it it still
did not manage. Moreover, in modern epistemology dominated position is seized by schools, of the post positivists
especially (Quine, Kuhn, Feyerabend, Popper,
Lakatos and others), relativized scientific
cognition, denying, in particular, that it contains, in principle, a general immutable method of justification of
theories. In addition to the rejection of a general method of substantiation modern epistemology has given a simplified
understanding of rational knowledge, not left a place for spirit. This
explains its role in the lack of spirituality of modern Western society and accepted today in it and in the world in general opposition of the
spiritual and rational.
In my philosophy, which I call
neorationalism or spiritual rationalism, I developed my own theory of cognition (epistemology), contrasting it to all
pre-existing. (“Neorationalism”, Kiev, 1992, Part 1). Based on this
theory I have described (introduced
explicitly) the general method of substantiation of scientific theories, constracted by the natural sciences during their
development (Articles in Философские Исследования, 2000-2002, and on the Internet,
for example www.philprob.narod.ru). I also showed the possibility of applying
this method in the humanitarian field (with appropriate adaptation), in
particular in the analysis of Marxism, the current state of bioethics, the
Judeo-Christian teachings, etc., and demonstrated that the use of many papers (“Побритие бороды Карла Маркса или научен ли научный коммунизм", Kiev, 1997; "Bioethics or the optimal Ethics”, the Internet, "От Моисея до постмодернизма. Движение идеи", Kiev, 1999, etc.). In this article I want to present a
rational theory of spirit, based on my theory of cognition and general method of substantiation.
First of all, I must note that the goal of a
rational theory of spirit is not a new method
for the creation of the spirit. Its goal - to study existing varieties of
spirit, their properties and their influence on various aspects of society and
the processes operating in it, in other words goal is the inclusion of the spirit in the rational
model, describing people and society.
Historically, since the
undivided domination of religion during long time, there is tradition to accept spirit as something
absolutely positive, a priori positive. Such an approach is not a rational science.
He does not match the experience and leads to
the fact that for members of a particular religion, idelogi, teaching spirit,
absolutely positive, and unstained is a devotion, service to their god, their
ideology, their teaching. But affection and service another god, ideology, doctrine - this is not the
spirit. This is at best misleading and in any
case it is only evil.
Such
approach to the concept of the spirit engendered religious and ideological
conflicts and wars in human history and continues to wait for them today. Only rational theory of spirit can change the situation.
To build the theory first we must give a definition of spirit appropriate
to the task. (As I showed in "Neorationalism"
(Part 1), there is no absolute, universal definitions and each definition must
match the task for which it is introduced). Spirit and soul, I'll call below emotional attachment to a supra-personal.
Determination does not possess undue severity, but that is the subject. For to
make it clearer that I have in mind (as well as to
"separate" soul and spirit), I will have to embark in a more or less
verbose explanations.
I'll call “soul” attachment of a man to specific people: his beloved wife,
children (his), parents, friends,
colleagues and even more distant, but still concrete and visibly, and not abstract people in
general, and finally, concrete animals, places and
things.
Spiritual, I'll call attachment to an
abstract idea, whose contents can be very different: God, the benefit of all
mankind, accordingly understood (for
example, socialism or technological progress), the benefit of his people (its freedom, or cultural development, or expansion and the world domination),
abstract justice ("Let the world collapse, but the triumph of
justice"), truth, science, art, all kinds of fetishes such as individual
rules of morality (the family), tradition (Shabbat, pilgrimage to Mecca, the Christian New Year), rules,
prohibitions and requirements for the behavior (eg, knightly honor, bushido,
rules gentleman, Chinese tea drinking ceremony, and even the thieves 'law'),
nature as such (pantheism), a particular type of animal, as such (the sacred
cow in India), and even particular object, but as a fetish, holy (sacred stone
in Mecca, Jerusalem not just as beloved city, but as
a holy city, sacred oak of Slavic tribe Polyan, the sacred idols,
icons), etc.
Now it is
possible to go on to consider ways to include the concepts of soul and spirit
in the rationalistic model. The path to that is
shown in the book "Neorationalism" where spirit and
soul are included, as the variable parameters, in the function of the quality of life.
What is the function of this, as it is built, as you can search for the optimum
of this function by methods similar to those used in the natural sciences, but
with an appropriate adaptation needed
because the lack of quantitative measures of parameters such as spirit,
freedom, love, etc., all this I have described in "Newrationalism"
(part 4) and in the article "Formation of social morality» (http://wpf.unesco-tlee.org/eng/offpap/top2/avoin2.htm).
Here I will focus on study of the linkages between
the spirit and other parameters
appearing in the function of the quality of life. That will help us to understand the effect of the
spirit (of various kinds of it) on the social processes on the one hand and on the individual involved in these
processes, on the other, and get an idea of what kind of spirit are useful and
which are harmful to society.
Above all, we must to show, that the spiritual and psyhic needs really exist in nature of
man, and to compare the
potential of these needs with potential physiological and others needs. That will permit us to includ them in function of the
quality of life in addition to physiological and other needs. The existence of at least some of the psyhic needs in human nature can easily be
illustrated, and even proven (to the extent that in general we can speak about prowing outside of mathematics). For example, such kind of psyhic attachment (ie, the need for such an
attachment) as the love of parents to children, is well known and accepted
under the name of the maternal and general parental
instinct, the more so because it exists not only in humans, but many higher
animals.
Likewise, love of children to parents is
not merely the result of upbringing. It is well known that early became orphan people who could not have this feeling be
brought up, as a rule, sneaked through the entire life of thirst for this love,
longing for it, have a feeling of dissatisfaction
that psyhic need.
As for love between
man and woman, love, though related to sexual attraction, but does not reduce
entirely to it, there is no need
to cite examples that it exists in humans and can reach extraordinary power,
surpassing all other potential needs, including the instinct of life . You can
refer to examples of selective love (very selectivity of which indicates that it is not reduced to a libido only) also in the animal world,
such as swans, who, as we know, the male dies of grief, having lost beloved,
and never paired with other. All this, however, is not evidence that love between a man and a
woman is mandatory, a normal part of human nature, as there are so many people
(at least not without exception) who lived his entire life without love and at least do not complain that it
lacked.
The same and even more can be said about
most other types of soul attachments. Namely, we can
provide many vivid examples of the existence and power of them, but it turns out that many people,
for certain types of attachments - the vast majority, live their lives without experiencing
them, and not realizing its deprivation at the same time. For example, there
are cases of strong attachment to beloved dog, but those who do not have such
an attachment, do not feel deprived.
To a greater extent it relates to
spiritual affections. We know that in the service of truth, the God, homeland,
honor code, etc. people rose in the fires, closed by chest at
embrasures, and passed through unimaginable torture, torturing himself by
hunger, enclosing voluntarily in the cave, fighting duels, and even sacrificed
their children. On the other hand, in our unspiritual age it is extremely difficult to convince the average man of the West,
that he was something missing, especially if he has a good "Jobe", villa, car,
etc. However, you can refer to other periods, such as the Middle Ages, when
hardly anyone in Christian Europe would have thought to deny the existence of
human spiritual need. Even today the situation is similar to many Muslim
countries, for example, humeynistic Iran.
You can continue to study the issue,
whether soul and spiritual needs
of human nature exist in the same sense
as a need for food and drink, but I will not do that. I personally think that
there are, even though they are younger in origin in evolutionary terms than
the physiologic needs and according the spirit, I believe that the need for it has not yet completed the process
of formation. In addition, these needs exist not in such differentiation, as listed in
the the definition. That is, maternal instinct and the need for some other
kinds of soul attachments exist as
such, but are unlikely to exist in a pure need for affection, for instance, the
dog. Likewise, specific
spiritual needs do not exist in the differentiated form. Rather, besides
the
maternal instinct and some other species, there are still undifferentiated soul and spiritual needs, which may manifest
itself in the attachment to your friends, animals, specific subjects, places,
etc., and in the attachments to the above one or more objects of the spirit .
But as I said, I will not to prove that, because my model does not
matter whether there are soul and spiritual
needs
in human nature in the same sense that, say, the need for food or are the
result of upbringing and life circumstances. I will only note that even if they
exist in human nature, then, in any case, their differentiation, ie direction on a particular object, including the idea, is certainly a result of upbringing and
circumstances, which is particularly evident for the spiritual attachments. Man
is not born with any faith in God, the more so in particular, the Jews, for
example, or Christian, or with a love for the
country, nor a code of a gentleman.
What, then, is important to model? It is important
that the quality of human life, other things being equal, clearly higher among
those who has or is aware of their soul and spiritual needs
and satisfy them, compared with those who are aware of, but has not satisfied
these needs, or in comparison
with those who do not have or do not realize them. Proof of this is the
strength of positive emotions to a man with spiritual affection and living a
spiritual life, and strength of
negative emotions or simply the depth of
suffering and grief man, whose attachment ideal,
the former object of his spirit for some reason is broken or destroyed. As soon as soul and spiritual needs, regardless of whether
they have the same nature as the physiological or not, being satisfied, increase the quality of life, they must be included in the function of the quality of life as
well as other needs, and in a such way as it has been described in Parts 3 and 4 of "Neorationalism",
ie, in the form of addition with the correction coefficients. This is key to integration of soul and
spirit in the rationalistic model.
As it is in the case with morality (see "Neorationalism, Part
4) I will not continue to operate directly with the function of the quality of
life, limiting evidence that, as shown above, the parameters of soul and spirit
belong to this function and how they included. For the same, to see just how
psyhic and spiritual needs of human impact on the quality of life and to
compare these effects with the influence of other parameters, as well as to
clarify the relationship of spirit and soul with them, let us consider the
properties of soul and spirit that are relevant to the model.
First of all, I note that the soul and spiritual needs are more flexible than
the physiological (especially such as in food). Flexible means that their
satisfaction may be delayed for a longer period, especially if they have not
woken up initially. In the latter case, their suppresstion may not be noticed during the life. However, this flexibility does not
mean a smaller potential of them. Rather the reverse
is true. As mentioned above, motivated by spiritual impulses
in the service of spiritual ideals people are able to sacrifice their lives.
(With regard to other people's lives, the sacrifice is successfully occers and because of a soul-spiritual reasons and under the influence of physiological
and other needs). This is an individual plan. With regard to potential impact
on social processes, there the spirit and the stomach, but at the same time and
libido and desire for freedom successfully compete, though, as for me, the
spirit has a greater impact on human history than the stomach and so on. Of
course, not a few large and bloody events of history occurred under the
influence of hunger or the oppressed freedom - riots, wars, revolutions, mass migration, etc. But only food riots, and migration can be
attributed entirely to non-spiritual
needs. Already wars of liberation - a phenomenon more spiritual than any other
plan, because the main idea of them - the
freedom for all people much more
prevalent over the auxiliary goal - individual freedom, which for many was,
perhaps, the initial impetus to the fight, but for many others, it not only became bigger, but even decreased
in the fight (through military
discipline). In the various revolutions the spiritual and non-spiritual elements strongly intertwined and diverse. Of
course, almost all of them worked for the potential of a hungry stomach and a
thirst for personal freedom, but on top of that certainly was applied and was
dominated by the spirit, as worries about not just personal freedom and stomachs, but all the people,
and as such ideals as equality, justice, dignity and so on.
Finally, history tells of a powerful and
longer purely spiritual movements, especially religious, including religious
war, but even more about domestic than
military, but profound and significant changes in human society under the
influence of religions, as well as the great non-religious teachings, such as
the ideology of the bourgeois revolutions , Marxism, existentialism.
Speaking about the potential
soul-spiritual needs, we must note one of their features. The capacity of most
other needs as its satisfaction decreases, or, if increases, then bounded.
Therefore, opportunities to improve the quality of human life and society by
meeting the needs of the majority, except for the needs of soul and spiritual, are also limited. That is,
during the acute dissatisfaction of these needs, their
potential could be enormous: in the minus, to the hell of life we can slide
infinitely. But when we're in a decent mid-level of satisfaction of physiological needs, say, in modern
industrialized countries, the possibility of a substantial further increase the
quality of life at the expense of further meet these needs are becoming more
limited, although the inertia of the life of the consumer society prevents to
understand that (a significant role
plays here artificial fanning of consumer passions). Replacing a refrigerator by the best refrigerator, a machine by more elegant vehicle
is relevant only to the very illusive happiness and satisfies mostly relatively
weak and only skillfully fanned need to be better than others, with better or
no worse - only in the sense of the material level. Unlike other needs the spiritual-soul with
their satiafaction not only reduces their capacity, but quite the contrary.
And though the spirit often flares up, bumping into obstacles, but it is
unclear whether these barriers are
unsatiafaction of spirit or they
are his food, ie satisfaction. An interesting example of this in St
Exupery’s "Night
Flight", where he describes the attitude of the Arabs to Lawrence.
Lawrence was their sworn and fervently hated enemy and fight with him gave food
to their spirit and filled
their lives meaning and keen interest. When he left this life immersed in the
sleepy hibernation. The main thing is that in many cases the satiafaction of the needs of soul
and spirit, and without these deficalties and severity
contributes to buildup, enhance and deepen their capacity. This happens in the
case of the love of children and in the case of love for a woman (not always),
and in the case of love for the motherland and love of art, etc. And the
essential point is that this buildup can occur, obviously, in the unbounded
scale. So even though the soul and spirit played a significant role in all
previous stages of history, but from some point soul-spiritual
sphere would be the main and almost the only battleground quest to further improve
quality of life of man and society.
Here we should note
that in fact not only the spiritual needs can grow because of their satisfaction, arousing, awakening, upbringing, etc. Even such basic needs, like food,
you can develop to gluttony. This applies even more to the needs of not purely
physiological, but not a soul - spiritual, for
example, such as the need for entertainment, adventure, excitement, risk,
success, etc. Furthermore, it should be noted that there needs initially not
inherent in human nature, but are the result solely of upbringing, instilling and incitement, and therefore
generally occur only in those with whom they caught on. These are the needs of
smoking, alcohol, drugs etc. However, the potential of all these needs (except for the needs of freedom) can not be developed to the
same extent as the potential spiritual needs. The man, being hungry, can kill
another because of the food, but do not sacrifice themselves. People can risk themselves for the sake of risk,
as such, the excitement of the struggle for success, in pursuit of a beautiful woman, for drugs, even for a bottle of vodka and cigarettes. But!
But do not deliberately sacrifice themselves, as it is done in the name of the soul and spirit
(and freedom).
There is another way of comparison of potential maximum capacity of spiritual
and non-spiritual needs. Numerous memoirs, fiction and personal experience
confirm that, if in his youth, say, the man had a rich spiritual life with the struggle for ideals, but at the same
time with the physical hardships associated with this struggle, and eventually
"settle down", etc. e. spirit waned and financial situation has
stabilized, then his whole life he will remember the spiritual period, not only
as the best part of his life, but in general
as the only part that only he can truly call “life”, unlike contentedly quiet existence .
It should be noted that any needs under the influence of external
circumstances can not only burn, but also suppressed and fading. A classic example
is the wilting of sexual needs in old
age. For our model it is important that not only the
satisfaction of some needs may limit the satisfaction
of others, but growth of one needs can
suppress others. The extreme examples is the excessive use of drugs or alcohol,
which can lead to the destruction of the body and at the same time to wilting
of its vital functions and needs.
The growth of spiritual needs may
also lead to wilting of other needs, what strongly depends on
what the spirit directs at his ideas. Again, as an extreme
example, the various monstrous sects, exhausting body and even pushing its
members to commit suicide (whips, Seventh Day Adventists, etc.). But even if
the idea of spirit is not directed specifically against any human needs, exalted,
unbalanced, inharmonic ministry that spirit can lead to wilting of many, so say
the normal needs, the fading of
interest in life itself.
Continuing the theme of potential
soul-spiritual needs, it should be noted that the above expansion of them, as they meet satisfaction, has a downside, namely, if the satisfaction is terminated, this
leads to a decrease in quality of life, the greater the potential, the sharper
decline in principle, and to the instability of human life and society and can lead to
disasters and tragedies. It depends on what is directed spirit and what the
possibilities of its satisfaction at this time in society in general and
individual in particular. This is the reason that many centuries for the
majority of the population needs such as love of man and woman, love of art and
even the thirst for justice and honor were
considered and really be luxury, which only aristocrasy (all sorts Nifertiti) can permit to themselves. Moreover, even
today in both developed and enlightened countries have a lot of people who
voluntarily waive these needs, the development
of their capacity, fearing that their dissatisfaction will make life worse,
than it is, not wanting to risk instability, not wanting to fight, and dooming
themselves to gray existence.
It should be noted, however, that in cases
where circumstances permit satisfaction of some soul-spiritual needs, their
availability doing a man's life, but at the same time, and himself, not only
richer but also more stable. Not surprising, therefore, not only in the harsh
old days, when the family unit was essential to survival of people as the most convenient form of
cooperation (the husband chases with the club for the wild beasts and his wife
sew clothing from their skins), but also in developed countries family people, on average, more reliable and stable in
life. Examples of unusual stability, which gives people the true and high
spirit, helping them go through unimaginable trials will not lead: there are
too many and they are well known from history and literature.
Another property of the spirit, it is the
spirit, not soul, distinguishes it from every other human needs is its possible
intolerance of another spirit, the spirit directed to another object or idea,
often very close to the object or the idea of the spirit. Examples of this
without number in history. That - and the age-old enmity between Christianity
and Judaism and Protestantism to Catholicism in Christianity, and of the
Pharisees and the Sadducees in Judaism and Marxism with bourgeois ideology, and
the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks within Marxism, etc., etc., etc . The
peculiar spirit (though not necessarily) bigotry and intolerance, as already
mentioned, have no place in other human needs such as physiological, creating
the illusion of the benefits of the latter and
dangers of the spirit to humanity, illusion, widely used by representatives of the "new
mentality" of modern society
in
their struggle with spirituality. I want to
emphasize that this is still an illusion, because no matter how many disasters
known to mankind from fanatical spirituality, even more disasters occur from
such nonspiritual needs, as the thirst for power and the like, which always
bloom where weakens the spirit.
Now let us consider the relationship of spirit and soul with the other needs of human
nature, and other parameters of the model, of course from the perspective of
how these relationships can affect the quality of life and social processes.
First of all, it should be noted that the
presence of soul-spiritual needs and their satisfaction, usually combined,
promotes and reinforces, with meet certain other needs of human nature, such as the need for
communication, the need for deep, strong positive emotions (remember, for
example, "Trinity"of Rublev), the need
for a sense of belonging to some kind of human
community. All of this is additional
contribution to improving the quality of life, in addition to giving directly
to the very needs of the soul and spirit.
By contrast, the relationship of soul and spiritual attachment to freedom. Both
restrict certain freedoms. But limiting by attachment differs
from the constraints of the law or morality. The latter are imposed external
constraints, even if you understand the need of them. Limitations of affection are
self-restrictions, restrictions on voluntary, but still restrictions.
Confirmation of this is occurring type of
extreme lovers of freedom, deliberately avoiding love, family and other
affections of soul and spiritual in
the name of maximum freedom. How correctly they
understand their own nature - that is another question. Many of them were biterly repented
in
their chosen path at some stage of life. Another proof of the considered limit the freedom by soul spiritual affection, is a sense of relief and
liberation experienced by a man emerged from an unhappy love affair.
Satisfaction of the soul and spiritual needs can to limit also some physiological and certain other selfish
needs (entertainment and recreation, for example), but on the other hand may
increase. But, generally speaking, we sacrifice something for the sake of our loved ones, the more in the name of ideas which we served. Sacrifice time, which could be spent on
making money and in general to personal success, sacrifice and
"matter".
All other relations of soul-spiritual
needs, as well as the refinement discussed above, depend on what is their object of the affections. In this sense,
there is a significant difference between the soul and spiritual attachments, especially
when you take in account that we consider
these relations in terms of the extent to which the soul and spirit are
reflected in the quality of life of individuals and society. It was shown that
other things being equal, they increase the quality of life and obviously can
raise it in the highest degree. But essentially, that other things never being equal in life. And they do not just
because there is conections of them with soul and spirit. So the difference
in this respect between the soul and spirit that satisfaction of soul needs may limit the freedom, material
consumption, etc., as a rule, only the individual who has the appropriate
attachments, and, of most, those people on whom they are directed , although in
the latter case, as a rule, more is given than is taken. Ie, mainly soul attachments are important only in personal
terms, raising, as a rule, the quality of life of the individual, their having.
As for the quality of life for society as a whole, the impact on personal soul attachment is extremely limited, unless the type of soul attachment becomes the object of spiritual ideas, as it was,
say, romantic love in the times of chivalry, as it was and is the veneration of
parents or general family ties
in some people, etc.
With regard to the spirit, he is able to
enthrall the huge mass in the same direction and therefore exert a strong
influence on the quality of life of entire nations and civilizations, both in
that and in the other direction.
Between the spirit
and the object on which it is directed, there are forward and backward
linkages. Direct - if the spirit is aimed at freedom, he promotes the general
increase of freedom in society, if it
aimed at justice - is justice, if at the patriotism - the prosperity of the motherland.
Feedback is that the
strength of spirit greater, than more universal need it reflects and the more intense this need at the moment.
For example, the idea of redistribution of property in order to equalize when
it serves as a basis for a particular robbery, it is no spirit, no
supra-personal, it's malicious, criminal intent, etc. If it is extended to the
reallocation of assets across all of humanity, it becomes the object of spirit, and as we learn from recent history, even a big and strong spirit. As Rodionov - Nikitin wrotes in his famous at 20-ies of
previous age in Russia book "Chocolate": "the highest spirit
borns out of the basest needs of the
masses." On the other hand the power of the spirit depends on the urgency
of that need, for which he directed, and when it comes to material needs, it is
weakening under their satisfaction.
This is one of the reasons why the spirit of Marxism weakened in general in the Soviet Union, when the material level of life became relatively tolerable and it still strong enough in third world countries, where, roughly
speaking, many are starving. Of course, to
weaken the spirit of Marxism in the Soviet Union, there are other reasons,
primarily the fact that Marxism has not fulfilled the promise of equality, as in material
level so in rights,
that the average material level in the former Soviet Union was lower than in
Western countries, and that he infringed other urgent needs,
which are grumbling, namely freedom, but more on that below.
The
potential of the spirit depends on the credibility of the truth of his ideas.
Spirit is always to
something directed generally to something desirable in
itself, by virtue of our nature. But there is always doubt,
supported by experience,
that, obey the dictates of the spirit, we can come to negative results. So to
spread the spirit, enhance credibility, strengthen faith, in general, to
increase capacity is very significant attachment to the spirit of some general
and authoritative concept explaining, possible, all in the world, ie, religion,
philosophy and
at least history and traditions that have at
least such convincing,
that our ancestors lived in
such a way and had something good out of life, so let's not be even
worse.
Now consider the connection of spirit with
such an object or a parameter of society as an organization. Spirit, as already
mentioned, has always focused on some object, idea, ideal, as a rule,
common to many people, often commensurate with the whole community. It is this
shared focus of strong attachment of many people makes the spirit of the
powerful factor of social processes (as Marx wrote: "The idea took
possession of masses, becomes a force”). As a rule,
these idea, ideal, etc. has
the external obstacles to their implementation. Emotional attachment requires
action to overcome these obstacles and such action is, by the way, food of the
spirit, welcomed him. For example, the idea of national liberation even
occurs as a result of external restrictions on the freedom of people, ie,
enslaving it to other people, and the attachment to this ideal requires the
overthrow of the yoke. The idea of social justice requires the
accomplishment of social revolution or social reform or philanthropic
activities.
Sometimes these obstacles are the result
of the above-mentioned fanaticism of spirit, its intolerance to another spirit. This was
the case for all religious wars, when the carriers of one spirit sought to
force to receive their spirit at the carriers of another
spirit, so to speak, to make them happy against their will, because they saw the enemy in the second spirit and thought he was a
danger to their one, regardless of
whether the objective basis for this premise existed or not.
As soon as because of the obstacles for the group,
mass spirit a common goal and a work to achieve it appears, there is a need in the organization. That is, whether the
need is, it is still a question,
but it is clear that the organization that coordinates the actions of many in
the same direction, extraordinary increases the effectiveness of these actions under "other things being equal".
That's, something to these "other things being equal", which never
happens, especially in this case, no one usually pays no attention. Why not
other things being equal in this case? Because there is a very significant
inverse relationship between the organization and spirit. This relationship in
a nutshell is that the organization kills the spirit,
replacing a living attachment to the ideal by the imposed
obligation. This process is not instantaneous with the emergence of the
organization. At first, people are aware of the need for organization and this
does not diminish their enthusiasm for the idea. This is the most effective
phase of the ideas when the spirit, enthusiasm, dedication, combined with the
organization of their guide.
However, the organization means
management, and therefore power. Power meet one of the
specific needs of the human nature - the instinct of power, which similarly to the spirit and unlike the
physiological instincts flaring up as his
sutifaction. The instinct that can be called anti-spirit. If the spirit requires serving the general
interest, up to donate purely personal, the instinct of power requires to sacrifice at the interests of all to the interest of one. However, at certain
periods the interest of one which is in power and interest of many, his
subordinates, may coincide, at
least formally. This usually happens at the birth of organizations serving the spirit (idea). At the same time, those who are
initially headed such organizations, they usually
are its creators and they are the greatest exponents of the spirit and his
ministers. Therefore, at first, as a rule, there is complete harmony. However,
organizations exist for a long time, often - for many generations. The inspired creators of the organizations are
replaced by less spiritualized their followers, which due to occupy the vacant seat, in addition to
serving the idea were need also to fight for a place
with their competitors, ie, to fight for power. Gradually, the degeneracy of
the top of the organization occers. On the first stage of ossification of organization the lower classes did not notice the
substitution and maintain enthusiasm. However, under increasing the struggle for a power in the
organization, the interests of fighting rullers
more
and more divided with the interests of mass
serving at the idea. Then comes the next stage, where the masses realize that
they serve not so much the idea of how much the rullers of the organization and then the
enthusiasm starts to weaken, although it does not disappear completely.
At this stage the rullers, whose strength is
based on the exploitation of idea and spirit, and therefore they interested in maintaining the enthusiasm,
take measures, of course, institutional arrangements (becouse on a purely spiritual effect they are no
longer able) to preserve and implement the spirit. These measures are the creation of various institutions
for the study, preservation, detalization and extension of
the idea, which now becomes official. That is writing countless interpretations of the
basic idea and interpretations of interpretations, etc., and the establishment
of institutions in which these interpretations are examined, and simultaneously
fabricated and evaluated, and the introduction of all kinds of academic degrees
and positions associated with the study, interpretation and dissemination of the idea, and the introduction of the idea (theory) in compulsory education, or in worst
cases, the reduction of compulsory education to study the subject and, finally,
the introduction of infinite detailed standards of conduct for ordinary members
of the organization (or society in general), the fulfillment of which should
symbolize the spiritual affection of a member to the
idea. The introduction of these standards and monitoring them is the logical
culmination of the relationship the organization and spirit. The organization creating to share the responsibilities
of its members, to exercise control
and, therefore, monitoring, wants
to control and the spirit of its carriers. But the spirit can not be
monitored as such, so it introduce the
formal signs of his presence and degree: how many people did good deeds for the
year, etc. The introduction of these measures has a dual effect. Some part of
the population it returns to the fold of the organization pulled out of a
tavern, but the genuine and original carrier of the spirit, it usually repels.
And then the true spirit leaves the system, and remains its shell - the
organization with its institutions and its aforementioned ersatzes.
At this stage, the effectiveness of organization is greatly reduced, but it
can exist for a long time, using the established mechanisms of governance and,
as a rule, suppression (the latter eventually gaining more weight) and ersatzes of spirit.
Here it should be noted that the extension
of life of these shells of departed spirit
promoted by the fact that the alternative to them is usually not a new, ripe, powerful spirit, but a total lack of spirituality and the
negation of spirit which leads all other things being equal to an even lower
level of quality life than the ersatz and the shells of practically dead,
but the great in the past spirit.
More should be noted that if these shells have striking forms of ceremonies and rites and existing over periods commensurate with the lives
of several generations, they receive, so to speak, a
secondary spirituality, spirituality of traditions,
attachment to which is not based on the sense of tradition, but on the fact that so
did the ancestors and so does the entire nation. This, of course, is also supra personal and therefore spirit.
Further development of
the plot may have many options depending on external circumstances and the
subjective human factor. It is possible reformation with dropping unproductive shells of cult and filling with fresh blood of
original ideas. Possible the emergence of new great ideas and buildup of a new
spirit and a repetition of the history first. Possible loss of just society and
creating on its ruins the new formations.
By the way, the process discussed above
coherent evolution of the spirit and organization combined also with the evolution of morality. Namely,
the process of nucleation ideas and ignition of the spirit is accompanied by
crystallization of the new morality and take-off of its authority. The process
of decay of the spirit takes place simultaneously with the entropy process of
demoralization.
A few more comments about the spirit and
organization. Spirit does not necessarily require the emergence of the
organization and not necessarily cause it. For example, the gentlemanly code,
the consecration of morality or just family and so forth do not require the
organization. On the other hand, an organization is not the direct child of spirit. It is a direct product of the need
to conduct common affairs that
existed and exists independently of the spirit, and which, incidentally, much
more than spirit restricts freedom. On the other hand, the need for managing of common affairs contributes to buildup of spirituality, acknowledge and satisfaction of it, because
when a person participates in the common
affairs,
he, wants it or not, works not only for himself but for others, and
this obstacle is the satisfaction
of spirit which, as already mentioned
above, fueling the very need for it. Thus, the spirit does not always couse, and not always preceded the emergence of
the organization. It is possible as well their simultanious development and preliminary of organization, and in the latter case, the
organization itself can, so to speak, to form
spirit, to give him an idea.
Such was the case with the monarchical spirit, ie, the emotional
attachment to the monarch, sovereign, and so forth and devoted to him. At the
core of this spirit, as well as any other, is, of course, the very need in the service
to supra personal, but the direction of this spirit, the idea has given by a specific organization, called the
monarchical state, which has historically occurred not to serve this particular spirit, that did not exist before its occurrence, nor the spiritual needs,
as such. It emerged as the best
and most efficient form of human cooperation in a certain historical period.
By the way, the organizations emerged not because of the great
spiritual ideas, but for reasons of co-operation as such, are also evolving and this evolution is
similar to the above, although there are features. The main feature is that
such an organization does not begin with the highest ascent of the spirit and during
the initial period the spirit flared up relatively slow, and largely by itself,
ie, simply as a result of joint action by all parts of the organization towards
a common goal . As a rule, those who are headed in this period at organization, relatively honestly work for
common goal (otherwise, the organization suffers a failure). Buildup in the
spirit of this period is also carried out as a result of direct
(organizational) impact in power, whose purpose - strengthening of organization and power. Beginning with a
period-maximum point, begins the above described process of immobilizing and
ossification of the spirit, accompanied by the process of decrepitude of organization. More precisely, this process
is slipping from the very beginning, but the first prevails process of buildup.
Another observation. Above-mentioned fanaticism
of spirit, often is a consequence of
killing and the curvature of the spirit by the organization
and appears at the appropriate stage. This happens because those in positions
of power and exploiting the idea, seeing the
extinction of enthusiasm and wanting to ignite it again, put false obstacles to the spirit and come up with false risk of
another spirit (as we know, the obstacles kindle the spirit).
Examples of the above are again without number, but especially
striking - a war of conquest carried out by the rulers of peoples with a view
to kindle of the dying patriotism in a situation where the power of authority
within the country undermined. An example is the Russian-Japanese war in 1905,
and many others.
Another property of the spirit that
characterizes its relationship with
the organization, is its ability to divide
itself, to create branches
into
close directions, each with its organization and with the hostility between
them. Examples of this have already been given above, when I spoke about the possible fanaticism of spirit. Namely: Christianity - an offshoot
of Judaism, Catholicism and Protestantism are the result of the splitting of
Christianity (as well as Orthodox and a number of smaller branches), the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks - the
splitting of Marxism, etc., etc. The basis of these splittings are variations
the spirit itself, its object, idea (Judaism and Christianity), or variations
of the ways to achieve the declared
goals
(the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks). In this and in another case, the splitting
occurs usually at a time when there is organization (accompanied and
organizational same a split), and as there is some degree of decay of spirit.
Examples will be given in the future.
Now I shall try, starting from
the model proposed above, to review the general history of the human spirit and
an associated history of society, by analyzing how one or another direction of
the spirit has changed above discussed quality of life and influence on social
processes and the fate of mankind.
In primitive tribes, the attachment to the
members of the tribe was psychic, to the specific visible people, to the same
family. It also was supported by the need for cooperation and mutual
protection (today I helped or
saved you, tomorrow you – me), but not reduced, of course, only to
cooperation. The power of psyhic affections, as we
know, even in animals may exceed the instinct of life, the more this should
have been found in primitive tribes (Gorky’s Danko - though it is not scientific proof,
but bright). With the growth of the tribes this atachment more spiritualized. It was no longer the atachment to specific and familiar people, but to the
abstract concept of "tribal people”. That is the
spirit.
Another way of developing spirituality - through religion.
Initially, fear forced people to worship the forces of nature to appease them
to avoid punishment and beg a better fate. That was selfish adoration, even
when in the name of the collective gain was sacrificed to the gods people.
However, thanks to the gods for the allegedly
rendered their benefit borns affection, which, becouse
it was directed on the abstract object, was already the rudiment of spirituality.
Let us consider what this early
spirituality (in the tribal stage) gave people and how it affected the social
processes. There is no doubt that it increases the quality of life of the
tribes not only by themselves, meeting the soul - spiritual needs of people and improving communication but also through improving so vital then cooperation members of the tribe, its reliability. And it was important for
the very survival, not to mention the physiological needs. As of early
religious spirituality, the belief in pagan gods, in addition to making life
more colorful and contribution to the development
of art, which, in turn, enriches the spirit, it did people mentally more stable, since
helping to carry misfortune, through faith in help of the gods.
Infringement of individual freedom, which
is certainly called by spirituality, from an early non religious spirituality were negligible. In
fact, appropriate freedom and so were greatly
impaired at the time by harsh external
conditions: the struggle for
life with the elements, wild animals, with other tribes. In order to survive,
man had to take tribal way of life, together with all
its limitations and what he felt for the members of his tribe soul or spiritual
affection, not only restricts his freedom additionly, it is only the psychologically easier
for him to conciliation with the lack of freedom, which so or else he had to
endure.
Another thing are restrictions on freedom caused by the
early religious spirituality. They always have been additional to the constraints imposed by the tribal way
of life and external circumstances. Their degree dependent on the nature of
worship. If gods demanded to
sacrify food, it was a victim of stomach, if - a living person, then it was the last
victim and the freedom and the life. In addition to sacrifices there have been all
other religious restrictions, the famous taboo. And
yet it must be assumed that in those hard times, even such additions to the
restrictions on freedom were insignificant in comparison to the objective restrictions
by nature
(death of an individual has been had not yet "Big Deal" and
taboos have been a trifle compared with the constraints of external threat). So
it can be assumed that in the balance of
quality of life this early religious
spirituality yielding positive results.
Regarding
the impact on social processes, then the tribes with greater soul and
spiritual atachments,
all other things being equal, were a
more vigorous, victorious and survive. Survival was the same in those days the
content of social process.
The next stage of
development of spirituality has been linked to the influence of an
organization. In the tribal struggle and struggle with the nature a decisive
factor in those days was not soul-spiritual, which, of course, also played a
role in other things being equal, but a
factor of the organization. The most effective organization for the emerging
nations in those conditions and for many centuries has been a monarchy, and in
general totalitarian system. They also formalized the development of
appropriate spirituality. Monarchies and other tipes of despotism
severely limited the most essential human freedoms and for the vast number
of people meant and lower material level compared with the tribal way of life. On matters such as
dignity, honor, justice, equality, and say no. What is the monarchy but
improved the quality of life compared to the tribal order - this is, to put a
cloth modern language, in life insurance. That is, the safety of life has
increased immeasurably, of course. Primitive tribes far too successfully
exterminating each other (that we know from the history of American Indians and
African tribes), and in the struggle with nature was not too strong. Despotism
finished with tribal feuds, not to mention the wild animals. Did the despotism improved the quality of life in general
compared to the primitive communal system, the question is not so much
difficult as unimportant for today, so I will not consider it. As a monarchist
spirituality, it certainly improved the quality of life ... other things being equal. If you really had to
endure a monarchy, so it was better to believe that it is the best system and
love of the monarch. About what is appropriate monarchical spiritual
fulfillment can be judged from the fact that even in the overthrow of the
monarchy were their true supporters not only among the ruling classes, who
fought for them a life and death. Regarding the impact of this spirit on the public process, he strengthened the
monarchy.
By the end of the era of the spirit, which
can be called monarchical or despotic, there is such an interesting and
important for human civilization, its spirit and organization phenomenon, as the Hellenic democracy and its associated culture.
Specify that, under the end of an era of monarchical spirit, I do not mean the
end of the monarchies and despotisms of the world (they are even today not run
out). I mean the end of the exclusive rule of the dominant monarchical spirit
and appearance comparable to him in the power spirit and ideas, which,
moreover, since its inception determined to a large extent the development of
human civilization. First and foremost the embodiment of that spirit and those
ideas was the Grees democracy.
Whether the ancient
democracy has appeared as a result of
natural development of a form of social organization to compete with others and
to hold out, and then it spawned an appropriate spirit, or the emergence of democracy
preceded the idea and the buildup of the spirit, I can not say. Both are
basically possible. Democratic form ofrulling, though not of the States and peoples, so tribes have
historically been preceded totalitarianism and despotism, and the primitive
tribes ruled by elected chiefs and elders. The historical process has not
proceeded with equal speed across the globe, and while in Egypt for
thousands years there was empire,
blue-eyed pelazgs ran through their Pelopones peninsula still in the primitive
communal state, ie the primitive democratic governance. When they began to
merge or grow in people and build their state, then, of course, that a
democratic form of organization would have to be tested by them in the first
place. However, if we consider that among the Greek states were not only
democracy but also of the kingdom, and in
surrounding there were entire kingdoms, the earliest democracies undoubtedly had
to withstand the fight against despotism. Despotism rests on the fact that it forces by power at all to work for a common
purpose (and the spirit there has a secondary role).
Democracy can be strong only due to voluntary desire of
citizens to serve the common interest. Voluntary, conscious and emotionally
experiencing. But this is, of course, - the spirit. So do not clarify issues what were before: the chicken or the egg,
we can say that from the very beginning the Greek democracy was
carrying the high spirit, aiming at freedom, equality, dignity and
responsibility of each of the common destiny - things which still deeply worry many people. How strong were these ideals can be judged from the
fact that in antiquity, particularly in Athenian democracy
was the custom to expel from the
country people, avoided participation in national disputes and
quarrels, and to deprive them of citizenship.
In addition to the
ideals of democracy, the ancient Greeks and Romans appreciated the harmonious
development of personality, which was also one of the elements of their
spirituality. Another part of it was religion, more exactly religions, which were pagan, as in primitive
peoples, but among the Greeks and Romans, they were much richer in imagination
and colorful for the rites. This wealth of fantasy cult, along with the desire
for beauty and harmony gave impetus to the great art of antiquity, unrivaled in
the sense of harmony to this day. This, in turn, was the subject of admiration, ie, the spirit. If we
add to this the ancient philosophy, we see that ancient society was
extraordinarily rich in spirit. It woke up spirit in its sitizens in different
directions and sutisfacted these different kinds of spirit, although the thrust, as I said, was democracy itself, as forms
of social organization, with its ideals of liberty, equality and dignity. This
spiritual treasure impact on the lives of every citizen, improving its quality,
both through direct development and meet the spiritual needs and because the
focus of ancient spirituality that will ensure a democratic form of government,
and it, in turn, - higher supply of the needs for freedom, dignity and even
material needs in comparison with the life of the average citizen of
neighboring despotisms. We have no instruments to measure quality of life, but and without them, hardly anyone would dispute
that the life of the average Athenian was incomparably better life of the
average Egyptian, the same time.
Regarding the impact on social processes,
it is the high spirit ensured a long life to the ancient
democracies in the sea of despotisms. Without it, they
would have perished at the dawn. They both died after the spirit wilted in the
above-described process of interaction of spirit and organization. But thanks
to an unusually high initial take-off and a number of his reformation and
revival (for example, transfer of development center in another place and to another people - Rome), ancient democracy
has existed for so long, and gave such excellent results, both for those who
lived with her, so , and for all humanity through generations.
Essentials, a grand leap in the
development of religious spirituality, but at the same time, and spirituality
in general, was the emergence of monotheistic religions - Judaism and its
further development, in particular the transition to Christianity. Monotheistic
religion, particularly Judaism, delivered powers of all the gods to one omnipotent God and so unusually enhance its credibility. It also gave a unified and coherent picture
of structure of the world, including its origins and man's place in it, which
contributed to credibility of the conception in the eyes of believers, and
hence stability, strength of spirit. Then this
religion demanded the unconditional love of God, not waiting remuneration (Iov, and then all of
Christianity as a whole). And finally, by the authority of
God, it demanded " to love your neighbor," ie, closed ranks
with the spirituality , which is developed on the basis of the
transformation of tribes into nations and awareness of belonging each one to the universal fate of all mankind, sanctified its and raised to
unparalleled heights in human values .
Monotheism in the face of Judaism for the
first time reacted to the spirit, as to the needs of human nature: Six days a
week, thou take care of daily bread, and one
day - Saturday, take care of the soul
and spirit.
Generally initialy Judaism was a highly harmonious religion perfectly
proper to human nature and society. Incidentally, he also formulated very close
to optimum morale and highlighted it by authority of God. At
this stage the influence of Judaism on the quality of life has been extremely
positive. First of all it was due to the great
development and deepening of the spiritual needs, which monotheistic religion has
carried out and that it also meets for deep and sincere believers to an extent,
obviously, has not yet been surpassed. On the depth and power of these
spiritual affections evidenced the incredible persecution and torture that have
voluntarily adopted and imposed zealots of Judaism,
Christianity and Islam, in the name of their faith, as well as great art,
inspired by this spirit, and above all the spirit of Christianity: symphony
music of Bach and Vivaldi, gothic, architecture of Orthodox churches, painting
with all the Madonnas of Raphael and
others, icons of Rublev and
Dionysius, etc., etc.
Exceptional role
played also the introduction and
the consecration of morality, which is close to the optimum, the part of function quality of life, determined by
physiology and freedom, improved the quality of communication and so on.
But this idyllic harmony lasted in
Judaism, apparently not for long and soon the high and harmonic spirit became to die off, overgrowing with shells of interpretations, restrictions,
regulations, rituals, traditions, instances and so on. The
reason of
such transformation was the above described process of
interaction between organizations and spirit. External circumstances also contributed
to this process. First of all, it was
fighting of Judaism with spirit
of the ancient pagan culture begining virtually from the onset of Judaism, and later the fight against Christianity. In both cases Judaism was in defense and in
both cases it was accompanied by a
physical struggle for territory and survival. The
latter greatly accelerated the process of mortifiing
and fanaticism
of Judaism: it was much easier to prists to
set people against another spirit in a situation,
where its carriers
were at war with Jews
(or pursues them). That why the harmony of Judaism broke down almost from the begining by establishing of bans,
restricting some
important freedoms to which external circumstances then the validity of these
restrictions did not impose: free love, freedom to paint, sports, etc. These
restrictions, to some extent, were the result of the desire to fence itself
off from the opposing spirit
perceived as hostile, the Hellenic spirit
that these liberties highly valued and cultivated.
Then quickly flowed process of immobilizing of spirit by
the organization and at
the time of the advent of Christianity the spirit of Judaism
experienced the strongest decline. This decline beautifully
described in the Christian Gospels, which are, of course, one-sided source. But history, including history, filed in the Tanakh (Old Testament),
confirm this: the reason for the fall of the Second Temple happened shortly
after the birth of Christianity, was "Sinat Achim ', ie, the mutual hatred
of the Jews in the camp, based on religious strife, the very existence of which
indicates a considerable degree of subordination of the spirit to the
organization and fanatism
of it, as a consequence of this subordination.
Comparing the
influence on quality of life of the spirit of
Judaism and the Hellenic on, it should be noted
that on the one hand, the spirit of Judaism developed the spiritual needs of its believers and satisfied them even more than the Hellenic did the same to Greeks and Romans. Further, Judaism
sanctified morality in general and its components such as justice, in
particular, with a thirst for justice, the spirit of Judaism without equal
among any preceding or among the next. (Jewish prophets, among them Jeremiah,
rebelled against God himself in defense of justice). But on the other hand,
Judaism did not have the focus on democracy,
freedom and equality, which was carrying the
Hellenic spirit, and which, as already stated, contributed to the raising
of the qualityof life, not only by
meeting the spiritual, but practicaly all other needs. In addition, the spirit of Judaism, quickly become fanatical, restricted a number of substantive freedoms of believing Jew in comparison with, say, an
Athenian citizen.
Regarding the impact on social processes,
it should be noted here two additional
directions of spirit of Judaism: one on the Jewish people
as such, the other on its national liberation. The first direction led to the
fact that Judaism having a high, in general,
degree of fanatism in most of its
history, it has never had the slightest expansionist tendencies, spiritual,
above all, but as a consequence physical also, unlike, say,
Christianity or Islam. That is, fanatically struggling with Hellenic and Christian spirituality for influence over
the souls of Jews, Judaism was tolerated, even simply indifferent,
to what gods worshiped by non-Jews. The second focus, on national liberation,
has played a significant role in the history of the Jewish people, leading first to the final dissemination of Jews throughout the world after the doomed
to defeat uprising for independence under the leadership of Bar Kochba against
the powerful at the time Rome, and then to the revival of the Jewish state in
2000 years after the dissemination. And together they
have identified in the highest degree of isolation and non solubility of Jewish people with others in a period of
two thousand scattering.
Christianity originated in the period of decay of the spirit of Judaism in its
asphyxiating shells, and which was in essence the reaction to this decay, was the Reformation of Judaism, preserving basicaly its original
orientation, but emphasising a spirituality as such. Therefore,
Christianity has provided an even higher rise of spirit, and as for me, the highest in the
history of the human spirit rise, but this spirituality from the beginning has
been deprived of harmony, was ecstatic, not controlled by reason (religion of
revelation) and not caring about compliance with all other human needs.
In its relation to liberty, equality,
dignity and democracy as a form of governance
which provides them, Christianity is even more contemptuous than
Judaism: the man is "God's servant", "Blessed are the poor in
spirit", "All power is from God," etc. e. And in relation to justice Christianity less
zealous than Judaism, preferring to it mercy and
forgiveness.
In general, Christianity, even appeared as
a reaction to the decline of the spirit of Judaism, but does not spread among
the Jews but in the Roman empire and
its possessions in the period of empire decline, with the spread initially
among the slaves after the suppression of several desperate attempts to escape
through the rebellion. For slaves, who before
appearing of Christianity have been deprived of freedom and dignity, and
justice, and equality and hope for them in this world, Christian spirituality
gave unequivocal improvement in quality of life. However, it was not so
unequivocally in relatios to Jews, who were
thirsting and justice and national freedom and have not lost faith in the
possibility of achieving them. Therefore, despite the decline of spirituality
in this period, the Jewish people for the most part did not accept
Christianity, but went for the former spiritual leaders, even though they have poisoned his life by immoderate regulation and fanatical strife between
the various branches of the spirit of Judaism (such as the Pharisees and the
Sadducees), and their organizations.
Christianity following the spread among
the slaves of Rome, spread among its free citizens and then among the peoples
of Europe, then conquered by Rome. Over time, Christianity
has given rise to his organization, which as expantion of Christianity was
becoming more force and more and more puts to death and fanaticism spirit. This,
coupled with the fact that Christianity unlike Judaism did not have focus on
one nation, not only led to a strong intolerance of the Christian spirit to any
other, but also to its expansionist tendencies, first as a missionary, then in
the form of numerous and bloody religious wars, as with the heterodoxes, especially the Muslims (Crusades), so, the extent of branching of religion,
whether as a result of its geographic spread (the Byzantine and Orthodox), or
splits on the basis of the Reformation (Protestantism) - between Christian
nations.
In addition to the religious wars
immobilization and fanaticism of spirit of Christianity led to such
phenomena as the Inquisition, the enrichment of the church hierarchy and
robbing by it of the masses of
believers, and the unconditional support by
church of the most barbaric and cruel forms of power.
Regarding the impact on quality of life,
Christianity, highly developed spirituality and gave it a very rich food, including through
art, inspired by its spirit, and through
ritual, on the other hand greatly reduced the liberty, even in comparison with
Judaism (not including the freedom to engage in painting, but also greatly
curtailed until the Renaissance), not to mention the ancient democracy. As
already mentioned, Christianity was once a spirit of non-harmonic, exalted. It
is not only neglected the
aforementioned democratic freedoms and such concepts as equality, dignity,
honor, and even justice, it is neglected and physiological needs. Moreover,
unlike Judaism, Christianity was originally contrasted the spirit to the body, declaring all of
the normal human physiological needs of sinfulness, and their satisfaction, at
best, a sad necessity that can really only tolerate (although not always). As a
result, Christianity not only gave rise
to forms of life, infringing the physiological needs, such as monasteries,
voluntary confinement in a cave and even the mass self-burning (in some Christian sects), but in general
(along with the monarchy, which it supported), unusually restricted meet of all human needs other than spiritual, in
the period of its maximum rule, ie, in the Middle Ages. Of course, as always, we have not instrument for
the accurate measurement of quality of life, but it seems almost obvious that
the life of ordinary
resident of the European Middle Ages, despite the high development and meeting
the spiritual needs, was pretty grim, and sometimes unbearable, as compared
with life of the average Athenian at age of Pericles, or the life of the Jewish shepherd or
husbandman at the time of King
Solomon or the Hasmonean period.
Regarding the impact on social processes,
Christianity, who believe all authority from God, was the very substantial and
reliable support of the autocracy in medieval Europe, though not Christianity
gave rise to it. Any rebellion against the authority it considered displeasing
to God, even if the government was cruel and unbearable (“nonviolent resistance to evil ").
Furthermore, Christianity because of its extreme fanaticism,
strongly inhibits the development of science and in this sense throw back
medieval Europe compared with the Hellenic
world.
As a reaction to the immobilization of Christianity and its initial disharmony happened reformations, main among them -
Protestantism. There were
appeared also other kinds of the spirit, not denied
at Christianity and combined with it at first, but eventually greatly limit the
areas of its influence.
The first was the Renaissance. As can be
seen from the title, the spirit of it was the revival of
the Hellenic spirit, naturally
not in its full extent and with other accents. Interestingly, the emergence of
this spirit, like his ancient predecessor, is associated with a democratic form
of government, which was this time among the
Mediterranean trading republics of Venice, Genoa, etc. As in the previous case,
it is hard to tell exactly what was there
before, a spirit or organization, but when it comes to the main content of this
spirit, as we imagine it today, it has developed considerably later than were
born Italian Republic, the more so that this spirit has spread and influenced
the whole of European civilization, but without changing the monarchical form
of government most European countries. Accordingly, the main thrust of this
spirit was no longer a democracy as a form of government, but on the harmonious
development of human personality. The Renaissance opposed
primarily not a monarchical form of governance, but the spirit of Christianity, though not all
and not rebelled against him directly. Against what the spirit of the
Renaissance really revolting - it is against neglect of not spiritual needs of human nature, what medieval Christianity does, particularly in the
love between a man and a woman and freedoms, particularly freedom of art and
science. "I believe" of the Renaissance was Human Being harmonious with all his needs, both
spiritual and physiological and freedom.
This harmony of Renaissance helped
mitigate Christianity in his bigotry, and served as the foundation of powerful new flourishing of art and
science development. The influence of the Renaissance to the quality of life
has been extremely positive. Spirit of the Renaissance raised no specific
organization and is therefore not undergone a process of immobilization and
fanatism. Thanks to this
spirit Christianity in the epoch of the Renaissance, and
under his influence, not only did not wilted, but reached their peaks,
especially in the arts (Vivaldi and Bach, Raphael, Dante, and so forth). But in
parallel with the religious spirit a purely human spirit bloomed and glorify the beauty of man, his
actions and feelings, but especially love to a woman. (Same as Dante, Petrarch,
Botticelli).
Construction of the Renaissance to the
pedestal of love for a woman, but at the same time and generally human love, for example, the parent’s love (all these Madonna, in which earthly love
for his earthly son competed with the love of the Son of Heaven), played a
crucial role in enriching the spiritual and soul life of as the contemporaries of Renaissance so all subsequent generations, until our
days. The atmosphere of the Renaissance helped to revive souls, frozen by Christianity, which all strong soul attachment, even husband to his wife and
mother to son, tends to be regarded as a sin, deprive affection for God. In this atmosphere it was easy to bloom ordinary earthly human
love, and she blossomed. The friendship and
affection to own home and town also bloomed. It was so warm and rich of the human sense era. The Renaissance influenced positively and
social processes, greater liberty, moderating fanaticism and paving the way for the
future of the bourgeois revolutions. Let me remind you that although the spirit of the Renaissance was not so accentuated on democracy as the Hellenic one, but, of course, gravitated to her. In
general, the Renaissance created a beautiful living environment for those who
lived in this era and left an
indelible mark on the entire future of human civilization.
Next for the Renaissance of a major spiritual phenomenon (as adopted by me
here scale) was the ideology of bourgeois revolutions and its spirit. As
mentioned bourgeois revolutions were largely prepared by the Renaissance and
therefore their ideology in many ways was the successor to the ideas of the
Renaissance. However, you should not take the matter as
if the bourgeois revolution were simply a means of meeting of the spirit at a
certain stage of its buildup. As mentioned above, there are possible and there have been phenomena
of human history, which was driving only by
force
of spirit (referred to the Crusades, for
example) have been phenomena, where the main propulsion was the stomach (food
riots), were phenomena in which various spiritual and non-spiritual factors are mixed in
varying proportions. In the case of the bourgeois revolutions, a significant
and perhaps primary role played purely material process, called technological
revolution. Although whether it was purely material process, is still question, because at the basis of this process lay of scientific discoveries and the development of
Science had a duty to its ability to the spirit of the Renaissance. In any
case, there is no doubt that the bourgeois revolutions would have been inconceivable without the
technological revolution that spawned the bourgeoisie, which has become the
main driving force behind them. But it has become this force
not only because of the power of money which
it received thanks to the technological revolution. This was a substantial
factor, but not so essential to political power fell into the hands of the
bourgeoisie as a ripe pear, and the bourgeoisie have to compete for this power
struggle, risking lives and wallets and donating them. The reason for the willingness and ability of the bourgeoisie to
fight and sacrifice and not willingness of other
groups, that the need for freedom
of the bourgeoisie was the highest compared to other sectors of society at that
time. We know that the need for freedom has a powerful potential, but also
great flexibility and satisfaction may be delayed for long periods and even for
life. We also know that this need can oppress to such an extent that it is not
even perceived, not understood by man. Finally, we know that the quality of
life the best, if needs are developed and satisfied, but
if they are not developed, depressed, not recognized and are not satisfied,
then this is not the worst quality of life. Worse is when they are developed, recognized, but
not satisfied. So, in the era of bourgeois revolutions freedom of the vast
majority of the population were severely restricted, but for the
majority - peasants need for freedom was not developed and did not realized by them at this time, as in the earlier Middle
Ages. They had no freedom, but do not feel it necessary. By means of long depression this need was as if atrophied.
Another thing bourgeoisie. Its business awakened thirst for freedom
and, though this need was satisfied by the bourgeoisie more than the peasantry,
but the pent-up potential still remained much higher. This potential pave the
way for igniting the spirit of the bourgeois revolutions, the essence of which
was freedom for the bourgeoisie.
Merging the unmet needs of individual
freedom with the need of a spiritual freedom for all, as the ideal social order, was the main driver of the bourgeois
revolutions.
What was the spirit of
these revolutions in more detail? As already mentioned, its main thrust was
freedom and democracy as the political system which is providing it. (Not
coincidentally, so part of our contemporaries, in general, equate democracy
with freedom, in
what does, of course, a mistake). Above all the freedom to install, of course,
free enterprise, the one whose potential was highest among the bourgeoisie. But also political freedoms: press, speech,
demonstrations were highly exalted and sanctified. In contrast to the Renaissance, the ideologists of the bourgeois
revolutions openly rebelled against the dominance of religion, proclaiming and
hallowed freedom of conscience and separating religion from state. At the
higher level, at least initially, rose up the ideal of universal equality
before the law. Another one of the ideals that rivals in importance above, was
the inviolability of private property.
As with other ideals
of the Renaissance and Hellenism, such as the
harmonious development of human personality, the ideal of love and beauty, they
are inherited only just as…so and in the future greatly transformed.
However, before they are significantly degenerated, they could serve as a basis
for the richest of European art XVIII-XIX centuries, especially of literature and
poetry. At least in
Literature and Poetry ideal of love for woman
received further development. (Note, incidentally, that it absorbed and the tradition of the medieval chivalry and partly Code
gentleman (areas in which due to the brevity of this essay in the history of the spirit I do not stop).
As for the influence of the spirit of the
bourgeois revolutions on the quality of
life, first of all it should be separated from the influence of
the revolutions themselves, which, as already stated, were not a consequence of
mere realization of this spirit, but the impact of
scientific and technological progress.
The latter led,
ultimately, a significant change in the material standard of living and other
external circumstances that will certainly impact on meeting the physiological and other non-spiritual needs.
Immediately the spirit of the bourgeois revolutions significantly contributed
to meet the needs for freedom, for dignity, equality before the law, partly justice, but not material. With regard to the
spiritual life, it was rich enough at
first due to burning themselves
the ideals and in connection with the strong development of the arts and the
possibility of access to them to a large
population through universal education, for example. After all the same spirituality as a whole was
significantly lower from the purely Christian (medieval, say), and the
Renaissance, and, what is significantly, it rather quickly abated.
The point is that unlike the Renaissance
spirit of the bourgeois revolutions spawned its organization, firstly a class, then the state governments and
government agencies. As a result, the process of
immobilization of spirit has begun, with all ensuing consequences.
In the outside it is reflected in an
aggressive war for the occupation and redistribution
of colonies. Inside is reflected in the fact that the ideals not only of love
and beauty, but also the dignity, equality, justice and even democracy itself
began to fade, giving way to the ideal of gain. This, coupled
with a strong exploitation and economic inequality has created fertile ground
for the emergence of a new ideology and its spirit – Marxist’s socialism.
The spirit of Marxism began with ideology,
more precisely, with the theory, with philosophy. This would seem, was to give
him an advantage in the sense of not too rapid immobilization and fanaticism. However, it did not happen because of
the specificity of the theory itself, which only took an initial
push from some ideals and immediately transferred and devoted herself to the ways of their realization, which led
to the creation of the organization and determine how it must act. This is the organization - the
Communist Party was created by the founders of the spirit even before, then the philosophy was completely accomplished. This organization, directed
by the theory not only to certain ideals, but
also to quite specific in
the sense of the social process goals (the proletarian revolution), was in highest degree successful, as in the spread of Marxism and the achievement
ofproclamed goals, so in the death-grip of the spirit giving birth to her. In
the latter – with such success that if fathers of Marxism would rised again and will appear in the "country of
victorious socialism", they would be there, obviously, locked up behind
bars.
What is the basic, original spirit of the
Marxist orientation and whether such
spirit existed ever? The latter question is relevant because the presence of
spirituality in Marxism was denied initially, and up to today is denied by his political opponents, as Russian
monarchists as well as by such thinkers as Solzhenitsyn.
Let me use it to illustrate that spirit was, and that, at least for a
short time, it was a powerful and pure spirit of the poet's words:
"And where would I did not get to fight,
Whatever I may do battle on
I anyway will fall on the other,
At the distant, the civil war
And the commissars in dusty helmets
Bow silently at me. "
So wrote Okudzhava, Soviet poet of the era
in which this spirit, three times crucified by Stalin, was numb and numb "under the leadership
of the Communist Party", a great poet, the poet in disgrace, and certainly
in the opposition to power. Without this
spirit, and if it would not be so strong, the Revolution of 1917 could not win in Russia, despite the
presence of all other aspects that contribute to it: the weakness of the regime, the war, devastation,
frustration of the masses, propaganda and demagoguery.Without this spirit the newborn Soviet
power could not stand in the brutal civil war, failed to achieve success in the economic (it's at all the economic
disadvantages of a constrained system) and do not even have survived in the Second World War. Those best known
"for motherland, for Stalin" were an expression of the same, though
rebirth and weakened, but still mighty spirit that will enable the Union to
stand against the Germans.
As referred to Okudzhava "commissars
in dusty helmets", the strength and purity of their spirit and willingness to make sacrifices
and suffering for the sake of social ideal commensurate with the same of the greatest zealots of spirit of all times, such as the defenders of
Masada, the early Christians, the Italian carbonari Garibaldi.
What is same spirit of
Marxism aim? Originally there
were various values: all the democratic
freedoms gained by Bourgeois Revolution and the harmonious development of human
personality and dignity and the ideal of love (the last two, as already
mentioned, have been the spit-covered fairly in bourgeois society at the moment of the appearance of Marxism).
But the main ideal of the spirit was economic justice ("from each
according to his ability, to each according to work").
Economical justice , as we know, is not one of the ideals of bourgeois revolutions,
and never was so much emphasised in the past, except
in the exercise of utopian socialism, that Marxism, in
this sense, succeeded. But those, because of their
blatant utopian, were not subjected to the great spirit, the authority of the
same Marxist based on his alleged scientific. Even Judaism, above all exalting justice in general, not stressed so much
attention to economic justice.
That did not stop, incidentally, the opponents of Marxism among Russian
reactionaries called Marxism - the Jews' teachings,
seeing, obviously, the continuity in
attachment to justice. The continuity, however, was very conditional, not only
because from all the justice
Marxism emphasized the economic one, but also because all other justice, in
accordance with its philosophy, Marxism has
announced a relative, replacing justice in general by proletarian justice, which led to basis
for the "red terror" and Stalin's camps. Neither one nor the other
phenomena Judaism did not know and could not rise through distinct from the Marxist
understanding of justice.
Lack of economic
justice and economic inequality, Marxism interpreted as the source of all evils
of all times, including as a source of evils of contemporary bourgeois society: callousness,
corruption, hypocrisy, actual infringement
of a number of freedoms by the power of money,
etc.
History has shown fallacy of this concept of Marxism, especially in relation to freedom, dignity and hypocrisy. In the country of victorious socialism, where according to Marx just automatically should have been
democracy of the highest order, established one of the most brutal
dictatorships in the world, trampled on the freedom and dignity, and gave
birth to hypocrisy, surpassed only by communist China.
This emphasis on economic justice, and in
general on economic factors inevitably led Marxism to downgrade the importance of the
spirituality in human nature and
social processes. The latter is the cause of false accusations of Marxism in absent of spirituality. But spirit, as we know,
was, and at some point rose to the top of human
being’s spirit. The reason is that, as already mentioned, the highest
flights of the spirit can grow from the lowest masses needs. Marxist spirit was
directed although on material needs,
but not by Marx and Engels personally, but on all those in need,
which at that time there were very many (and still not missing) and a need that has been under
high dissatisfaction. Let me remind you also that this need is not faded by dissatisfaction, but only grows. This
fully explains why Marxism, being oriented like anti spirit, spawned such a powerful (at least
temporarily) spirituality. But first of all, Marxism, although downplayed the
importance of spirit, is not anti-spirit on the contents of his teachings. As
mentioned above, Marx originally wanted and freedoms and dignity, and so on, although he had seen it all, as a product of economic
justice. And in terms of influence on social processes, Marx did not deny
completely the spirit. I recall his famous "the idea, shared by the
masses." But, as in man so in the society, spirit
according to Marx, is subordinated, is secondary to
the material needs, the stomach,
the economy, the mode of production. The notorious Marxist "the primacy of
matter and the secondary of spirit,"
"base and superstructure," etc. In this sense, Marxism and in its theory, represents a step to further
reduce the spirituality of the society in comparison even with the ideology of
bourgeois revolutions, not to mention the Renaissance, and Christianity.
Regarding the impact on quality of life
and social processes, that are known, that referred errors of Marxism led to the creation of a
totalitarian regime that threatens freedom in the world, and even adored
economic justice in this case was not achieved. The reducing of the spirit importance in Marxist theory with the
immobilization of it by organization have
led for fairly low level of spirituality in Soviet society in less than 50
years after the implementation of Marxist ideas in it. The extraordinary growth
of crime and alcoholism is evidence of this.
Even more profound degradation was prevented by great tradition of Russian culture, which is not dead even
under the authority of the Soviet regime, and by the dissident movement, which, however,
lacked a theoretical framework.
On the other hand, a spirit of Marxism,
nevertheless facilitated the implementation of economic justice, greater than
in any previous time. And not only, and may even be not so much in a "country of victorious socialism",
but throughout the world, where under the influence of this spirit there was increased influence of trade unions, and laws have been enacted
to protect economic rights of workers, were significantly increased taxes on
the capitalists and the social provision was developed. So, ultimately, in some capitalist
countries was more socialism in this sense than in the Soviet Union.
But the peaks of
unspirituality grabbed all the same is not Marxism, but the spirit, or rather
anti-spirit, the so-called "new mentality", spread and dominant in
Western society, and partly in the world after the Marxist mentality, which is
based on Freudianism, ekzistentializm and several cloused to them directions of philosophy.
The reason for the spread of the "new
mentality" was the first of all, the weakening and withering of all those
great directions of the spirit, who
preceded him: the monotheistic religion, the Renaissance, the ideology of the
bourgeois wrevolution and
Marxism. This weakening was
certainly a consequence of above process of immobilization of
spirit by organisation, but not only him
(remember that this process does not necessarily develop in one direction but permits reformation,
revival and so on). Vital role in this
weakening
played by the erosion of those general
conceptions of the world, theories, which strengthened the authority of the
truth of the appropriate spirit. First of all, it happened with the
monotheistic religions, as the development of science cast doubt on the picture
of world given by the religion (although, we note, it did not apply the very spirit of
religion,) and contrasted it natural science Newton - Darwinian picture.
Secular trends of the spirit, to some extent since the Renaissance, an even
greater extent the ideology of bourgeois revolutions, and especially Marxism,
relied on the authority of science, scientific picture of the world, given by the modern science. The success of natural
sciences contributed to the spread of these directions of spirit.
The crisis of the rationalist outlook,
prompted by the change of the physical picture of the world of Newton by corresponding Einstein’s one (see “Neorationalism”, Kiev,1992, Introduction and “The crisis of rationalist
outlook and neorationalism”,
www.philprob.narod.ru), undermine the credibility of the general concepts,
which was base of listed directions of the spirit. Moreover, since these directions of spirit, except for the
Renaissance, were constructive and have led to certain political and social
systems, but those were not nearly as ideal as would have to be on the theory,
it further undermined the credibility of them. And finally, two world wars, in scale
and number of victims of disasters (absolute) surpassed all that human history knew
before, also highly contributed to undermining the credibility of those outloks.
So by the time a "new
mentality", the authority of all previous directions of the spirit and
outlook on which they relied, has been undermined and sacred place is never
empty. A new direction of the spirit, or rather the anti-spirit were based on above crisis of rationalist outlook and engendered in large part from it existentialist’s concept of
knowledge, as well as on the representation
of human nature and society, emanating from Freud and from the wrong lessons
learned from 1-st and 2-nd World War.
With regard to the theory of knowledge of
existentialism and conclusions from it relating
to freedom and morality, it is just focusing in "Newrationalism”. Here I will focus on the relationship of
existentialism to the spirit. Replacing feels by sensations, existentialism
does not have any place for spiritually.
Furthermore, by definition of our model, the spirit is supra-personal emotional
attachment. Rejecting in his theory of
knowledge the existence of something else outside of the individual,
existentialism has heaped a pile of stones at the place where previously grown
spirit.
Another theoretical basis of "new
mentality" is Freudianism. Note, incidentally, that existentialism in a strong degree perceived ideas of Freud
and many of the pillars of existentialist’s literature, Kafka, first of all, considered
themselves as disciples of Freud. This is not the place to analyse Freudianism as a doctrine, in general,
since this should be a separate paper. I will only remark briefly: where Freudianism more - less
prevailed and was accepted, he did not resolve the global problems of society, which
it pretend to resolve, and
even those more specific issues to resolve which it was intended originally.
With the proliferation of sexual freedom in Europe and America, the
aggressiveness of the population, including even sexual aggressiveness, ie rape, not decreased, but, conversely, increased. The number of mental disorders, including
the famous Freudian sexual neuroses, with the removal of sexual taboos, again
not decreased, but grew and grew terribly.
What I intend to examine here in more detail, this is the impact of
Freud on the "new
mentality" in terms of the relationship of
last to spirit. Freudianism is not itself absolutely unspiritual doctrine, the
more Freud was not unspiritual man. He cared for the welfare of all humanity,
regardless of how he understood it. His
impact on a "new mentality" in the direction of lack of spirituality, connected with how he understood and
represented the nature of man.
He represented it, as it is
known, so that the libido is the principal, dominant and subjugates all other
requirements of human nature. As for spiritual and soul
needs and inclinations, these are no more than a sublimation of sexual desire
unsatisfied. I do not know whether Freud was aware that with such
an interpretation his own
philosophy, aimed at the good of humanity (in his thinking)
and therefore being
the fruit of spirit, was nothing more than sublimation of repressed
sexual hunger.
In any case, with the light hand of Freud, not only for his theory but also by
his example, all modern Western art history, examining some chef d’oeuvre of
art, rises
especially the question: at
whom would like to fuck the author of masterpiece at the time of its creation, and
why not could do it, ie, what was the source
of sublimation, which led to a creative act.
At this approach a person with developed spiritual needs
are not considered to be normal, and two-dimensional spiritless creatures, satisfying their sexual
desires, even if only for the money or using accessories, bought in a store sex
accessories (the appearance of which - direct consequence of the spread of
Freudianism), but regularly - samples of normality. It is understandable, as
facilitated Freudianism "spiritualisation" of new mentality.
Freudianism and Existentialism laid the
theoretical, philosophical basis for a "new mentality" by giving it
the authority of the scientific approach. With regard to potential unmet needs,
to which the "new mentality" appeals, to meet which it was sent, and the
existence of which serves as the basis of its expantion and power (just as, say, a potential
basis of Marxism is the existence of a large number of ekonomically disadvantaged
people) that was in this case the
need for freedom and sexual. Nuances here is that by the time of "new mentality" no the need for freedom, nor sex had been suppressed or limited in
Europe and America, where this mentality has spread, more than, say, in other
countries or in the same Europe and America in the previous era. On the
contrary, the development of the spirit and the law, since the Middle Ages,
went only towards greater
freedoms, including sexual.
However, as I have shown (see "Neorationalism", part 2) the
development of society is not completely deterministic, and deterministic least
part of it is the movement of the spirit and ideas. That is, the emergence of a
spirit is not completely determined by the field of social forces (potencials) and contains irreducible subjective
element. The presence of the potential only contributes to the perception of
the ideas and buildup of the spirit. With regard to the capacity needs in
freedom, then it fundamentally can not be satisfied entirely within the human
society (see "Neorationalism, part
3) and therefore always exists. Potential sexual needs also practically can not
be satisfied in full. In addition, we know that the potential of need for freedom with a strong limitation
may be lower (due to the oppression itself needs) than in the case of smaller
restriction (the bourgeoisie and the peasantry at the bourgeois revolutions period).
Finally, the potential of sexual needs can be
artificially burn in excess of its natural norm, which was done, carried out by "new mentality".
Thus, the potential of unmet needs, which is basis of "new mentality" existed and will
exist forever. Another question: had the "new mentality "
led to their best satisfaction, to what extent
and at what price? But more about that later. Now I want to note that the expantion and power of "new mentality " based on another, so to speak, potential.
Potential of laziness, cowardice,
in general, on the celebration of
mediocrity and insignificance. The fact is that, as already mentioned, the
existence of spiritual needs and awareness of them
require
from man effort to
supra-personal service (of God or of the people), self-restraint, and
sometimes even risk and sacrifice. But the recognition of their lack in normal human nature frees the individual
from all this. Furthermore, the service of God, or whether, say, the ideal of
harmonious personality, even the ideal of love demands from human
self-improvement. In the outlook of the “new mentality" the very notion of improving lost all meaning. Improved where?
Where the top, where the bottom? By the fulfilment
of
natural needs and digging into own sensations
notion
of improvement is not applicable.
Now consider, as influenced by
"new" quality of life and social processes.
With regard to spiritual needs, they were
spit-covered to the impossibility to breathe. With regard to soul needs, I already wrote that in an
atmosphere of "new mentality" very hard to
blossom normal human love, friendship and so on.
Freedom - the main argument of the
"new mentality", its main
achievement. But, as I showed in "Newrationalism (part 3), it is impossible to increase it
indefinitely, and an exaggerated release in some areas has led not only to
restrict other freedoms, but also to reduce the integral measure of freedom of society as a whole, not to
mention the damage to morale and through it to lower satisfaction of other needs.
In general, the "new mentality" is anti-social from beginning to end, and led
almost exclusively to a decrease in quality of life. Even in those areas where
the quality of life, of course, grew up during the rule of the "new
mentality", such as the material level, this was not because of it, but by technological and social progress, and
contrary to the "new" that led only to increased corruption,
alienation and indifference, retarding the progress.
In terms of impact on the social processes
the "new mentality" severely weakened democracy in
Western Europe, America and Israel, as the latter, as already mentioned, is in need of a spirit of citizenship much
more than the totalitarian regimes. This statement for many today is not
evident, because the recent collapse
of the totalitarian socialist system, opposed democracy. This collapse emphasized the superiority of
democracy and free-market economic system over totalitarianism with a socialist
economy. Representatives of the “new mentality" are trying to
speculate on this, introducing the collapse of the Soviet system, which is
actually self – destroying, not even as a
victory of democracy over socialism, but as a victory the rock and roll over it. From the foregoing
it is clear that in reality the "new mentality" has just not had time
to destroy the democratic system, but the potential for this, she maintains.
Finally, some
general conclusions. We have seen that the orientation of the spirit can lead
to lower quality of life directly, due
to its direction, goal (some religion sects) and through necrosis and fanaticism of spirit by an organization. In this sense, the direction
ofspirit, which does not require and does not gravitate to organizations, such as the desire for harmonious
personality, dignity, justice (in general) and love are preferable. However, we
can not ignore the kinds of spirit directed on a certain idea about the best arrangement of society, requiring the organization.
Here is essential, of course, what one consider as the best system and form of governance, but this topic is beyond the scope of
this work. It is only necessary to understand that no matter how good is order of society, it is not in itself can
solve all problems. Just as the not solve all the problems separately taken the
law whether the morality, whether the spirit or technical progress. We need all
these components with the links between them in account and
even then it would not mean the solving of all problems, satisfaction of all
the needs for everyone. There is, however, no doubt that the life is
a beautiful thing, if not too much to spoil it and to give
good food for
soul and spirit, without depressing physiological needs
and freedom. And although
there is the danger of bigotry and immobilizing in the
spirit, but you must remember that the lack of spirituality does not relieve
the society from this danger, but only adds new ones, and most importantly,
that, other things being equal, loss of spirit- loss of the greatest value.