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10Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 2 (2010 3) 161-168
УДК 304
From West to East: Two Branches of the World's Elite
Olga A. Karlova*
Siberian Federal University, 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041 Russia1
Received 9.04.2010, received in revised form 16.04.2010, accepted 23.04.2010
The subject matter or the article is research of the antinomy «intellectual - intelligent» in historical retrospective and prospective review.
Keywords: intellectual, intelligent, utilitarianism, universalism, pragmatics, rationality, creativity, creative, spirituality, morale, Utopia, ideal.
The main philosophical disputes of the day are devoted to the problem of understanding of modern cultural ideals. It is not occasional. The etymology of notional words has become a subject matter of scientific research, the significance of notions being preserved in them according to law of mythology. «Culture» is originated from the Latin word «colere» that meant «to till the land», «grow» - and it can be interpreted as «growing ideals and norms». Even though this explanation is not full, it can be taken for the myth name of the notion «culture».
Actuality of the cultural antinomy «intellectual - intelligent» becomes vivid to any researcher of the new young generation's ideals brought up in the informational society of Postmodernism. The tendency exposed by sociologists is controversial to Russian Self-conscience that has a 200-year tradition and so it demands serious discussion and comprehension. In particular, can one speak of a tradition if 45 % of young interviewees by no means want to follow their parents' steps? This nihilistic
attitude to the previous generation's ideals can hardly be defined as a traditional conflict between «fathers and sons». This is resulted from the gross socio-cultural movement in modern Russian society going through super urbanization, super migration, sharp stratification of the population according to income and possibilities that cause great flexibility in understanding the idea of perfection and norm and young people's denial to follow the social norms transmitting by the senior generation. Unlike them, brought up on the figurative antinomies «Bazarov-Kyrsanov», «Oblomov-Stoltz», the heroic examples of Meresyev and Gagarin - modern students do not appreciate personal examples since the characteristic feature of the post-Soviet students is anti-authority. Nowadays they are indifferent to the ideals transmitted through literature, video, cinematography, religion. The necessity of special educational measures in this process is not discussed here, but the main tendencies in building ideals for the youth - among them the greatest are consideration of the project of
* Corresponding author E-mail address: marina_b@krskstate.ru
1 © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
personal future life and the abstract character of idealistic desires must be paid attention to. The fact that the ideal has neither emotional-artistic nor emotional-religious form makes it more flexible and changeable when affected by any kind of pragmatic and rational arguments.
All the utterances of students can roughly be sorted out into two columns entitled by abstract notions «intelligent» (50 %) and «intellectual» (46 %). The latter clearly reveals the rational informational dominant. All the interviewed students supporting the ideal of the intellectual strongly believe that universities must not mold morale principles of the student or bring him up in any way. The grounds of this opinion are not explained; its adherents may suppose that a student not only can but even must manage this process without any help, or they might think intellect is a generator of ideals in itself. There is a possibility that they just do not attach great importance to moral problems of the individual.
Those who support the idea of bringing up the «intelligents» in universities claim that the higher education should also be aimed at building the moral grounds of future graduates. These supporters represent a kind of «pedagogical concept» in higher education. Thus, one can state that actualization of ideas about the ideal future exists de facto and is connected with the antinomy «intellectual - intelligent». This fact highlights the social-historical retrospective of formation of this antinomy and the aspects of its actualization in modern life.
The term «intellectual» was used to denote anything related to the intellect and ideas. Later it was applied to a person devoting his life to culture, and a social group - the intellectuals opposed to the military and commercial people. Jose Antonio Marina affirms this fact took place in France in 1898 when the country was split by the affair of Dreyfus. That time Emile Zola set the task «to create an organization
that will be able to influence the public opinion with the aim to cure it from madness caused by the hypocritical press and bring the society back to pride and generosity that have been characteristic of it for centuries» (Note: Here and further on the quotations are translated by the author of the article). The slogan became popular with the «intellectuals» that were defined by the Revue de Monde as «some noble caste who live in laboratories and libraries». One should remember that the group of defenders of Dreyfus numbered 261 teachers of secondary and higher school, 230 writers and journalists.
Thefistpublishedrecordsofthe«intellectuals» reflect the hot disputes of that time about the hopes of this group of people for the human intellect and common sense. The intellectuals were criticized for their underestimation of instincts, traditions, lack of love of the Motherland - they were not taken for patriots in full sense because what makes nation as it is was not mentioned on their list of priorities. While describing the ideology one can already state the contradiction between the two points of view - «the intellectual priority» and «the national-patriotic priority».
It is not occasional that in Europe of the late XIX century «the intellectual priority» dominated - in 1898 la Ligue de la patrie française was organized. The members of the League criticized the modern reality for the sake of universal ideas and in thirty years the movement of the intellectuals became important for European politics. There were permanent disputes and debates about its ability and inability to stick to the principles of universalism, disinterestedness, humanity and justice, figuratively speaking its ability to be the restless conscience of the world. It should be taken into consideration that such disputes revealed the absence of a strict moral ground among the intellectuals and their lack of desire to stand that ground, what had
become especially noticeable by the 30-s of the XX century.
Just that time part of the movement set the aim to turn the intellectual back into a moralist whose function was stated in manifestoes of the XIX century, because it was necessary to consider future in philosophical and moral terms doubting the values of liberalism. The historic events occurring in Europe in the 30-40-s make the intellectuals concentrate on the defense of democracy as the Committee of vigilance of intellectuals-antifascists in France did. World War II made the abyss between morale and politics more vivid and the intellectuals found themselves in two opposite camps: Junger, Karl Smidt, Spengler, Heidegger, Rosenberg declared their position as professional intellectual strategists of Nazism in the 40-s. Humanitarian intellectuals like Sartre continued their public manifestations of philosophical reflection, the major part of European intellectual antifascists began to cooperate with the communists but it did not last long - the public discussion of Stalinism in 1956 resulted in the escape of the bigger part of European intellectuals from that camp. The Nazi and Stalin social experiments were thoroughly considered in the manifesto «The intellectuals and the authority» (1973): «No country, no regime, no social group can be considered representatives of the absolute truth and justice or by no means can become such. The terrible experience of Stalinism, turning intellectual revolutionists into apologists of crime and lie show how far identification with Utopia and attractiveness of authority - temptations characteristic of the present-day intellectuals can lead».
The 80-s of the XX century were the years of disputes about the personal interests of the intellectuals and the danger they presented to the society. Jean François Leotard announced the end of the epoch of the intellectuals. The intellectual described by Leotard is man who does not believe
in anything great, an «intellectual consumer» in the main. Indirectly Leotard's arguments prove the fact of replacement of «cultural tilling of ideals» by «cultural tilling of norms». The pattern of the intellectual's actions in the epoch of Post-modernism is turning the reality into the discourse and the analysis of the latter. In 1980 Pierre Nora claimed the intellectual oracle to belong to the past and Michel Foucault is sure that «the universalists of Justice» are replaced by «the intellectuals of the Concrete».
«The universalists of Justice» must seek for the genuine justice and help its victory. This idea of intellectuals is the closest to the notion «intelligent» of all notions known in historical retrospective of the intellectual movement. A second feature drawing the notions «intelligent» and «intellectual» together becomes vivid in the discussion about the loss of the intellectuals' ability to self-criticism. The stimuli to self-criticism are conscience and responsibility, constant doubts (opposed to ignorant self-confidence). The demand of the priority of the objective reality (opposite to Utopia) differs the intellectual from the intelligent - the Utopian way of thinking is a characteristic feature of the intelligent, at least the Russian intelligent of the XIX-XX centuries.
The social movement of the late XX century, speaking for the complexity of the reality and against the social-political Utopias as platforms of the intellectuals, suggested a rather Utopian idea - to revive the intellectual as comprehensively prepared professional explorer of morale.
The word «intelligencia» is originated from the Latin word denoting «understanding, conscience, cognition, apprehension». Related to the characteristics of the human mind at large these notions are described in the same way in French, German, and English. But the German «Intelligenz» also denotes a «group of educated and artistically gifted people».
Borrowed from the European languages the Russian «Intelligencia» implies not only higher education but also a certain way of thinking and sensation - a characteristic feature of which is defense of the oppressed and opposition to the government of the day. This meaning was reborrowed by some languages of Western Europe as a peculiar Russian notion.
Russian linguists and philosophers never took interest in the origin of the word «Intelligent» until a thorough research of Alan Pollard, an explorer of the Russian press of the XIX century, was published in 1964. He proved that the word «intelligent» in its present meaning was introduced in the 1860-s not by P.D. Boborykin, as he himself alleged it, but by three Russian publicists Nikolai Shelgunov, Pyotr Tkachyov, and Nikolai Mikhailovsky. In their articles there were no definitions of the notion - the word was used as a well-known definition of a certain type of people. Speculations on the word started later.
The bigger part of scientists agree that Russian intelligencia left the historic stage right after and as a result of the October Revolution and was replaced by Soviet intelligencia, though the surveys prove that the notions «intelligent», «intelligence», «intelligent behavior» remain actual for the public.
Nowadays the Intelligent is thought to be a person of wide intellectual outlook and high spiritual and ethical norms, which demand special education. It is vital to realize what exactly we must educate in youth. With the reference to the survey «How can one recognize an Intelligent?» published be the Rossiyskaya Gazeta, one can't but notice the fact that the criteria suggested by the experts are practically disavowed by commentary, for example, «The intelligent 's speech must be correct and free from any kind of interjections and swear words. Besides, it must be figurative, clear and capacious. But to recognize the intelligent by speech is hardly possible.
And the word «intelligent» is being forgotten nowadays.»
One more example - the traditional Russian stereotype that it is intelligent people who make the elite of the country and provide its progress adjoins the proved statement - «Elite» is replacing «intelligent», but «elite' is completely different».
One cannot but agree with the statement. The elite of modern Russian society are formed on the basis of fame. Besides representatives of the authority stars of show-business of any kind are famous: cinematography, television, sport and Xtreme, pop music, model business. No genealogy, no income, even no Nobel Prize lead to being reckoned among the elite. Apart from the top ten richest people of the country for the rest the rule is any kind of show business -mainly television - creates the modern elite in the society.
All this considered, some experts say, «The intelligent is an old Russian word with a farfetched meaning. The intelligent is known for the manners. This sort of person never interferes with your business, but is interesting to talk to. The intelligent is never categorical».
«The intelligent» belongs to the notions that are difficult to explain and to define as a category. In this case one should remember Nietzsche's words that cultural objects have no significance but history. To comprehend the history, remembering of the genealogy of the cultural phenomenon is one of the ways to understand its significance.
The main definition of «intelligent» as traditional - «that who constantly thinks of the purport of life and commensurate his actions with it». No matter what the origin of the word «intelligent» could be, the roots of this social position are in ancient times and can be found in statements of Socrates who ignored the things important for the majority because considered himself too honest. Considering principles of Socrates' philosophy R del Aguila highlights
concentration of his intellectual forces on the individual, inthe talks withwhomthe philosopher's intellect plays the role of a midwife. The similarity of the roles of a philosopher and a midwife was obvious to Socrates: just as a midwife helps a new baby come into this world, a philosopher can deliver a new way of understanding the world; as a midwife helps a wife deliver a child, giving her herbs, a philosopher helps people formulate their ideas, giving them principles of philosophical speculations; as a midwife helps a wife get rid of a retarded baby, a philosopher prescribes norms of thinking; as a midwife helps people find a partner, a philosopher sees what conceptions match each other to make the best philosophical idea, and at last as a wife becomes a midwife when she herself can no longer deliver a child, a philosopher cannot give answers to all the questions but he has a method of thinking to suggest people.
Speculation and educational dialogues characterize the position of the intelligent not the intellectual. Life without comprehension is aimless according to Socrates. Here Socrates is both a moralist and a politician as thinking provides individuals with creativity. To understand yourself is to know what you are and what you want to achieve and to do. Thinking is an absolutely painful and dangerous process that creates problems, undermining the principles of the world and of the philosopher himself, changing us.
The consequences of changes in the world as results of human comprehensive activity equally refer to the spheres of the intellectual and the intelligent. The closest to them is Socrates' image of gadfly: stinging, critical, ironic, making us doubt and depriving of equilibrium, undermining what was traditional and sacred. «This evil spirit makes us think, does not let a thing close in itself and turn into something rigid and completed as for our intellectual and practical life .. .is represented
not as an object or a creature but an act of thinking and thinking again. Thus its connection with thinking, analysis and critics becomes obvious. And so obvious becomes the potential danger for the philosopher - the public will always think of his presence as the least productive and most destabilizing. .And here appears the tragedy; thinking opens the way to the truth but constantly doubts the latter. Such is the nature of thinking, its purpose and its aim: self-criticism of the mind makes its genuine morality».
Socrates teaches us a lesson of moral thinking: think like a midwife, criticize (like a gadfly), act reasonably (make judgments), take care of yourself and the world (educate yourself).
It has already been stated that due to the specifics of constant reference to questions about the essence of life and due to the social-moral position the question of the intelligents and intelligencia has been taken for a purely Russian phenomenon for already two centuries. The intelligent and the spiritual life of the society, both connected with anti-utilitarian principles of culture are a kind of axioms of the Russian cultural tradition on which O. Ghennisaretsky, A. Liferov, O. Voronova, S. Shargunov and some others insist.
It goes without saying that Utilitarianism is dual by nature. On the one hand, it is immanent to social being: the principle of usefulness is the most important stimulus for the social progress and one of the most significant elements of humanity. On the other hand, hypertrophy of Utilitarianism can lead to degradation of the society, economic stagnation and loss of humanity in culture. «It is obvious that the ability to estimate the admissible degree of Utilitarianism in culture and the ability to make the optimum correlation of its elements is a crucial condition for the survival and development of the society. Without taking Western culture for the model of perfection, one can't but admit that the intellectual tradition of
estimation of the degree of Utilitarianism in culture was built in the times of Antiquity and has been kept up since. In Russia speculations on Utilitarian morality was developed as an absolute extremity. Russian social science turned from destroying criticism of Utilitarianism to the apology of its maximum and one-side forms».
E.N. Yarkova is absolutely right to claim that the sharp negative estimations of modern consistent Utilitarianism and pragmatism are connected not with their problems but the traditions to develop Utilitarianism on the basis of philosophical-theosophical and ethical-publicistic thought and Russian social practice.
The dominant of Orthodox-orientated ethical theories just as the priority of the government interests means oblivion of Utilitarianism. Later this tradition was followed not only by Slavophils opposing Russian spiritual life to Western rational spirit, but also by Westernizers whose specific Russian spirit was revealed in their estimation of the developed Utilitarianism as a negative element of Western culture.
Moderate Utilitarianism appeared in Russia in the XIX century under influence of Western Utopian socialism in the form of popular ethics. A.I. Hertzen and later N.G. Tchernyshevsky, D.I. Piesarev, P.A. Kropotkin, N.K. Mikhaylovsky opposed the priority of people's wellbeing to the morale of individualism. The end of the XX century is known for the ethical-philosophical theories the significance of which can be compared to vaccination to our culture for narrow-mindedness (in other words, even for moderate Utilitarianism). But absolutely different thing turned out dangers for Russian culture -undeveloped individualism and liberalism that led to hypertrophy of the principle of the public benefit, earlier, in the Soviet period, dominating creativity and spiritual life. Retrospective speculation on the ideas and practice of those times permits a new way of understanding of the
phenomenon of Russian intelligencia: A. Block 's mysterious delight of « the music of revolution» and ethics of renovated civilization and the paradoxical criticism of V. Nabokov who thought Soviet literature originate from Dostoevsky, that very Dostoevsky who was a prohibited writer in Soviet Russia for many decades! It is difficult to argue the fact that ethics of Marxism-Leninism became a consistent modification of Russian moderate equal-distributing Utilitarianism. The ideologueme of public benefit as a basis of Bolsheviks' ideology helped to support the revolutionary spirit, though it turned out fruitless as a strategy of social-economic development of the country and resulted in changes occurring in the 90-s of the XX century.
Less than twenty years ago we entered the epoch when «perhaps for the fist time in history of Russia the spirit of manufacturing capitalism is considered a positive value». Today criticizing the notion «Kreativ» as, in the first place, «social-useful Utilitarian creative activity on the scale of concrete big and small problems of life, not questions about the sense of life», Russian traditionalists do not distinguish between the hypertrophy of Utilitarianism and its reasonable forms, to say nothing of distinguishing between Utilitarianism and pragmatics. At the same time it is important to say that it is pragmatics that suggests development and reconstruction of experience as the main moral reference-point, spreading the creative strategy to all layers of culture, spiritual values included. In other words, pragmatics unlike Utilitarianism is not limited to useful inventions but admits ideals of creative freedom, recognizing the value of high creativity.
Characterizing post- non-classical rationalism that appeared in the informational society and post modernistic culture and that is peculiar for today's philosophers; scientists highlight its cultural basis and nominate cultural
analytics for the intellectual style. The distinctive feature of post- non-classical rationalism is pragmatics as admission of choice of philosophy and methodology depending on the tasks of research and personal preferences of the explorer, and such qualities as openness for new experience, interdisciplinary studies, tolerance and super-reflexiveness.
Development of the world we live in is accompanied by constant renovation of informational means and creative informational product. Mechanisms of creation and distribution of information become a prior instrument of social governing. In this world it is impossible to get fully educated. Education and assimilating experience are constant process, the process of survival for both those who consider themselves intellectuals and those who like to be called intelligents. Experience is becoming a lifestyle: an individual has to become active, transfer from the role of a spectator to the role of the participant in social-cultural forms of any kind. Active intellectual Stoltz is more attractive to the modern generation than intelligent Oblomov with all the morale beauty of his coach dreaming.
The XX century brought a new understanding of the antinomy «intellectual-intelligent». By R. Florida «the engine of the epoch» is a scientist, a creator and a leader of innovations. Describing «the creative class» and its social-psychological peculiarities R. Florida depicts a portrait of the intellectual of modern time - more purposeful, more pragmatic in his choice of objectives and tasks, individualistic and technological, existing practically in all spheres of life in the USA, Japan, and some developed countries. In Russia where introduction of new socially important ideas still remains one of most difficult problems the intellectuals, as a rule, are noticed only in science and, to a minor degree, in production of high technologies, creative business like fashion,
advertising, mass media, IT-technologies. Nevertheless, the role of the human ability to create new significant forms and ideas under new social-economic condition is absolutely unprecedented in human history. It applies to all spheres of life, solution of various problems of modern time, significant transformation of the process of social governing included, the latter corresponding to the socio-cultural competent society with a high level of effectiveness. Not only creative professions but the absolute majority of occupations is developing creative qualities in the XXI century. Here not a unique creative individual is meant but practically every human being.
Under such circumstances some representatives of Russian intelligencia and intellectual elite have to take a difficult choice -by all means possible to keep up the spiritual traditions of the past or to follow new Western ideas of creation and creativity. All this by no means contradicts the national concept of creativity but clearly accentuates things in a different way. Theories of creativity and creacracy are always accompanied by post-modernistic models of culture and a specific way of life, adequate to the demands of freedom and tolerance. Exactly these models are considered to be foreign and hostile to our national culture.
According to R. Florida the power of the intellectual is the change of the world by large-scale introduction of new socially important products. However, the intellectuals are still important in politics: one way or another all changes in public opinion take place under the influence of the intellestuals' criticism, their estimations and suggestions. But the question still remains open: is the function of the human mind to govern the behavior of the intellectual creator in correspondence with the moral criteria, limitations and spiritual priorities one of the most important?
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С Запада на Восток: две ветви мировой элиты
О.А. Карлова
Сибирский федеральный университет Россия 660041, г. Красноярск, пр. Свободный, 79
Статья посвящена исследованию антиномии «интеллектуал - интеллигент» в историческом ретроспективном и перспективном аспекте.
Интеллектуал, интеллигент, утилитаризм, универсализм, прагматизм, рациональность, креативность, креативный, духовность, мораль, утопия, идеал.
