Our house, our house, our house -
Is full of drafts, drafts.
And the roof is warping in the wind...
(Bulat Okudzhava)
I am looking back and peering into the first signs of the storm that is shaking our American home today, which only yesterday seemed invulnerable, unshakable, and eternal. Signs that I have been witnessing since the mid-70s of the last century, but the meaning and significance of which are beginning to reach me only now.
Why to speak about the past?
I fell in love with this country, but not at first sight.
Not everything I liked about it at first, not everything made me happy. Something seemed strange and even ridiculous. Cities looked disappointing: the preponderance of pragmatics over aesthetics. I was surprised by the same preponderance in the way my new fellow citizens dress - if only it was comfortable and practical. I noticed with sadness that women somehow do not try very hard to look feminine, and that this affects their gait: it has less smoothness and grace inherent in their European sisters.
But two or three years passed, and I felt myself here like a fish in water. Which was lucky to find itself in the best ocean on the planet. "Lucky you!” – my soul sang. “You will live the second half of your life in a rational world, ruled not by ideology, but by common sense. In a world where there is no imposed unanimity, there is no political repression, humiliating fear, censorship, deafening state demagogy and disgusting lies”.
I categorically did not believe that these and similar charms could grow on American soil. I had no ill presentiment in my head, intoxicated by the air of freedom finally found and the communication with young Americans, in the midst of which I fell almost immediately after my arrival. What can threaten America, the flagship of the free world, a well-equipped and powerful ship? Our ship is unsinkable. It will cope with any misfortunes, overcome any bad weather. No wonder the fathers of America laid a miraculous protective mechanism in it. Which is called checks and balances.
And what do we see today? The ship is rocking, shaking; it lists strongly to the port side. Passengers’ reaction? Judging by recent polls, many of them like this roll. Socialism, they say, is better than capitalism. Fairer, more reliable, more generous. Among the young respondents (from 18 to 34 years old), the percentage of lovers of socialism has exceeded half. Then the shaking and pitching because of what? It is very simple: because of a certain contingent of passengers, behind which a long trail of vices and crimes stretches. Slavery came from them, and colonialism, and wars, and oppression, and racism, which permeated everything that was created by their mind and hands. From biology and mathematics to music and literature. Even the American highway network is not free from this evil: high-speed roads have been laid closer to areas where racial minorities live! To protect the white population from exhaust gases...
What is my reaction to this nonsense and the incredible thing that is happening today with my second homeland? At first, there was shock. Confusion. Too suddenly and quickly the world, which seemed reasonable and unshakable, was disintegrating. Then came the thought that this suddenness was apparent. That the crisis that broke out in the summer of 2020, these monuments flying from pedestals, burning city blocks, murders, robberies, these demonstrative kneeling, angry accusations and heart-rending repentance - that this bomb that exploded today was filled with explosives gradually. Did I miss something important? Didn’t I recognize the symptoms of an incipient disease? Didn’t I hear alarm signals? No! I saw the symptoms and heard the signals - they arose six years before my appearance in America, during the “youth revolution” of 1968. But I did not have enough intelligence and insight to see the potential danger of strange dissonances that are alien to fundamental American values. They scratched my ear, but did not cause serious concern. After all, my inner voice whispered to me, even the most beautiful music is not complete without dissonance. It is also in beautiful America. How without it? Unresolved problems, contradictions, contrasts of light and shadow are normal. All this is in any healthy, free and reasonably organized society. It will cope with its problems, otherwise it cannot be.
I was wrong. Not only have the problems I noticed been resolved, they have gotten worse. Sharpened to a dangerous limit. And I decided to look again at what surprised me and disturbed me in the old America, but this time more closely. Certainly, it is important to do through the prism of today’s reality. For what? For better understanding how the storm was brewing, how it was shaping today in our spaces. This, in turn, will help to understand the extent of its danger to our ship in distress.
We wanted to do the best…
The black and white problem of America intrigued me seriously from the moment it touched me directly. It happened a month and a half after arriving in this country. I arrive at Oberlin College, where an unexpected vacancy has opened up for the modest position of director of the Russia House, a hostel for students studying the Russian language. At the end of the intensive two-day “showroom”, the dean informs me that I fit them in all respects and was hired. “Tentatively,” he added after a short pause. That is, with some conditions. Because if I have a black opponent or rival before the application deadline, he or she will get the job under a federal law called “Affirmative action”. At the Russian department, they explained to me that in translation this means “Affirmative Action” or, if closer to the point, “Positive Discrimination.” Wow! Live and learn. It turns out that I, burned by the Soviet experience, was mistaken in believing that discrimination is a purely negative action! Anytime and anywhere. And vile, besides, because all these disgusting and shameful percentage norms and quotas were hidden from the public: a state secret! And now it turns out here, in the great country that sheltered me, it is used for good! To help those who are unfortunate, who have suffered injustice in the past and today deserve special care and special benefits. In a short time, the seeds of positive discrimination planted by President Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s will, to put it mildly, give very dubious sprouts. Personally, this law did not affect me; there were no new applicants, so in August 1974 my wife Lida and I safely moved into a modest director's apartment on the first floor of an old brick mansion with a sign over the entrance: RUSSIAN HOUSE.
Directly opposite our hostel was the German House, a little further away - the Spanish and Jewish (Hebrew House), even further - the French and Asian. In each of them lived students of different races and ethnic groups. They were united by only one thing: their chosen foreign language. We also had the African House, the largest of the so-called "program" hostels. It could accommodate 66 students who, according to the fact sheet, “want to deepen their understanding of the cultures, traditions and issues of African, African American and Afro-Caribbean societies”. The population of this hostel was homogeneous: it consisted of African Americans and black students from other countries. As you can see, there were empty seats. I know this because African House activists almost poached a student from my dorm. Valerie B., “Valya”, pretty and slender, with large radiant eyes, studied Russian and had a clear, pleasant soprano voice. She quickly mastered the songs of Okudzhava and Novella Matveeva, and I included her in the female trio, which, to my modest guitar accompaniment, performed with the bard repertoire both in Oberlin and beyond. Valerie's compatriots from the African House did not like all this. Russian house? Russian language? Russian songs? Alien, white culture! There is nothing for you to do there. Come on, move from Russian to an African home! Hurry up! Telling me about it, Valerie was weeping bitterly. Tears were flowing from her shining eyes. She asked for my advice what she should do. Should she give in or not? “Think carefully and decide for yourself,” was my answer. “I was thinking,” she said a few days later. "I'm not going anywhere from here”.
Well, a girl with character. She resisted the pressure of activists and the demand for a new fashion, the meaning of which was this: goodbye, integration, hello segregation! The student cafeterias on our campus exemplify this fashion: black students sat at separate tables, not wanting to mix with whites or Asians. Meanwhile, white students, as if nothing had happened, took every opportunity to express sympathy and support for their black brothers. They came to the Africa House when there were discussions of racial problems. And they left embarrassed: uninvited guests were turned back with the words: “Thank you, we can do without you”. It looked, to put it mildly, not very well. One might even say it was ugly. But no one was openly condemned. Neither the administration nor the student community. They want to dissociate themselves, isolate themselves from their fellow practitioners with a different skin color - their business, their right.
Over the years, this desire to isolate gave birth to a surprisingly bizarre fruit: separate graduation ceremonies. Black students began to receive diplomas at a special, separate celebration. On May 21, 2019, the Washington Examiner noted that more than 75 universities in the country have already switched to this unheard of practice. Adding that the National Association of Scholars called the segregated graduation ceremonies an example of the "new segregation" on college campuses. “The report — keep on reading — clearly states that “non-segregation is the breeding ground for racial conflict in American society. It instills in young people a willingness to cling to the identity of the victim instead of striving to become a positive member of the larger community. There is no doubt that the incitement of racial discontent in our society is to a large extent an elaborate product of neo-segregation among students.”
Well, how does the American society react to all this? It is confused and depressed. How much effort and lives were required to abolish and then overcome the consequences of slavery! What wonderful laws were adopted to ensure that the descendants of slaves have all the civil rights as well as Americans do! To laws of rights special privileges and benefits were added under President Lincoln Johnson's "Great Society" program, which began in 1964. And continued by the same “affirmative discrimination” law that I encountered when I first found myself in America. Needless to say, there have been remarkable improvements in the lives of African Americans over the past half century. They have their own middle class, successful businessmen and rich, prosperous people. Millionaires and billionaires. Unemployment (by 2020) decreased to record levels. What’s on you? On the one hand, undeniable progress, on the other hand, voluntary segregation, self-image as a victim of “systemic racism”, an escalation of discontent, culminating in a colossal explosion of violence that swept through two hundred American cities in the summer of 2020.
What caused this sharp increase in racial temperature, this unstoppable radicalization of a large part of the black population, especially the youth? Apparently, the main reason for this was the feeling of disappointment. It became clear to them, as to many other Americans, that the civil rights laws allowances and benefits did not give the expected results, did not solve all the problems of the colored population. In addition, some of these benefits turned into evil – they turned out to be the medicine that is fraught with severe side effects. In this sense, the program of monetary assistance to single mothers distinguished itself most of all. The dangers lurking in it were revealed to a Department of Labor official, future Democratic Senator Patrick Moyniham, already in 1965, the year after its introduction.
Malignant whiteness
A study by Patrick Moyniham argued that lavish payments for every child born out of wedlock destroy the Negro family. In the late 50s, the number of black illegitimate children was 15%. In 1965 it increased to 24! The “progressive public” unanimously and loudly condemned their fellow party member and dismissed his conclusions and recommendations from the threshold. The "Great Society" quietly continued to fuel fatherlessness, adding fresh reinforcements to the city's street gangs. Today, the number of black children living without fathers has reached 70 percent! Their fate is unenviable. Most of these children do not receive a full education, many of them do not know how to read and count and, with no prospects for a job, go to the streets to engage in petty theft or sell drugs. Many acquire weapons and easily use them. The so-called "hinter regions" of our big cities are like a war zone. Shootings take place there almost daily, and the number of those killed reaches several thousand a year. African Americans make up 38.2 percent of the inhabitants of American prisons, although their share in the country's population is only 13.4%. A depressing statistic well known to blacks in the US, as is the disproportionate number of poor and homeless ones. What is causing all this? Where is the root of evil? What is the reason why half a century of attempts to improve the situation of the colored minority did not produce the expected results?
Interesting and convincing answers to these questions can be found in the works of Thomas (Sowellhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell) and others from a small cohort of African-American conservative thinkers. Unfortunately, other answers turned out to be more attractive and understandable for their fellow tribesmen. According to which the root of evil lies in deep, systemic racism, which has not gone anywhere since the days of slavery. And which is unlikely to ever disappear as long as the majority in this country are people of the white race. Why? Because these people are inherently, genetically defective. Don't you believe? Take a look at a reputable medical journal, where it says in black and white the following:
Whiteness is a condition that a person first acquires and then has a malignant, parasite-like condition to which white people have a special susceptibility and which causes white people to hate and terrorize.
An article in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association is titled "\”On the Presence of Whiteness”.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00030651211008507
Its author, psychoanalyst professor Donald Moss, is convinced that there has not been invented any reliable cure for this mental illness yet.
One must think that the professor is looking forward to the appearance of such a drug: he had the misfortune to be born white. Or maybe he doesn’t expect it. It’s possible that he doesn’t believe a bit in his scientifically racist nonsense and promotes it out of purely career considerations. As, perhaps, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who recently stated that the white man suffers from a severe disease called white rage. Rage is a capacious word that includes such concepts as anger, fury, madness and malice.
Politicians from the Democratic Party (including the president of the country), university professors, school teachers and administrators, journalists, publishers, heads of government departments and private corporations carry out exposing the vices of whiteness. In record time, the “Critical Racial Theory” was developed, the simple wisdom of which is being studied in educational institutions and various institutions and organizations, up to the army and navy. School teachers and special highly paid instructors are engaged in expelling the demons of white racism from the consciousness and subconscious of children and adults.
How do children’s parents who are forced to write essays on the topic “How I became a racist” and condemn their moms and dads for their belonging to a toxic race react? Differently. Some resist, protest, transfer their children to private schools and home schooling, that is, they teach them at home. Are there many such parents? No. However, Attorney General Merrick Garland felt it necessary to announce (October 4th) that protesting moms and dads would be prosecuted as domestic terrorists (!). There are even fewer dissidents among school teachers: too much risk of being fired with the label: “Racist!” The current generation of Americans shows miracles of tolerance and does not actively protest against the destructive policies imposed on them by the left camp. They are somehow not very moved by the gigantic flow of illegal migrants whipping from the south. It is not that America has lost the independence energy gained by the previous administration; nor the sharp rise in prices; nor a radical cultural revolution under the ominous slogan of cancel culture; nor the abolition of freedom of speech on social media; nor the attempts of the left to reform the electoral system in favor of the Democratic Party, which, as a result, can get into its hands unlimited and irremovable power; nor humiliating failures in international politics. Even more alarming is the fact that many of our fellow citizens do not see (or do not want to see) any deformations and failures. What happened to us? With the land of the free and the home of the brave, which is the last line of every verse of our national anthem?
Here is the time to look back again, at a time when today's American politicians, officials, lawyers, professors, school teachers, journalists, artists, heads of large corporations, mostly are active allies of a strongly left-wing Democratic Party, were young students in whose heads their outlook was formed as well as tastes and preferences. Young brains are known to readily and quickly assimilate new trends and ideas, especially the freshest and most daring ones that challenge established, mossy ideas and views.
“I WILL NEVER GET MARRIED!”
It often happened that the assessments and judgments of the representatives of this tribe baffled me. I have not heard anything like it in my previous life. And I did not imagine that I would have heard it in America, which I knew from its poetry, prose, music, from its best films. As soon as I settled in the Russian House, I began to acquaint its inhabitants with the songs of our poets and singers. To my surprise, they fell in love with them instantly. And they themselves sang - Okudzhava, Galich, Vysotsky, Matveev, Kim. They didn't like everything. Confusing and alarming songs about love, about a woman. Performing them at my lectures-concerts, they warned the audience that, they say, although I will sing this song, I consider it not quite correct. These suspicious songs were jarred largely by the representatives of the fair sex, which they did not want to recognize as beautiful and worthy of admiration and chanting. “Your Majesty, woman”?, “Goddess”, in front of which “suddenly I wanted to fall on my legs, to believe in my enchantment”? Calls like "You sing, you sing, glory to my woman"? This is all from the patriarchal culture, from the knightly troubadour times! We don't need to sing. We, modern women, are equal to men in everything. Not weaker than them. And absolutely independent from them. We do not understand and are alien to Novella Matveeva's “The Girl from the Tavern”, in her irrational, unrequited love for someone who “went to another or just was not known where” there is something pitiful and even slavish...
Feminism. I've heard this word before, and now I finally understand what it means. And to what extremes this ideology can lead. I also realized that I needed to urgently change my behavior. And get rid of the old-fashioned St. Petersburg gallantry. Oh, this is not an easy job - to get rid of conditioned reflexes that have been ingrained from youth. Try to resist when you see on the street a miniature, like a figurine, an Asian-looking girl with a huge suitcase in her hands. Arrived (from South Korea?) by the beginning of the school year, goes to the hostel. More precisely – hobbles, fighting with his suitcase. Barely dragging. Male students pass by with an air of absent-mindedness. Law-abiding. Although these laws are not written, they must be implemented. So as not to be known as a "male chauvinist". My St. Petersburg soul could not bear it. He approached the poor girl and asked: “You won’t be offended if I ...” “No way!”, A girl from Asia answered with a smile, where feminism in its radical incarnation, apparently, has not yet reached. Young oberlinks of the American spill behaved differently in similar situations. I return to the Russian House after dinner in the spacious cafeteria of the German House, where we had our own “Russian table”. A little behind is one of the students living in the Russian House. I open the outer door, tight, on a powerful spring, and hold it in front of the girl who has come up. And she stands as if rooted to the spot. I wait. Okay, she finally says. OK. I will enter, but on the condition that tomorrow at the same time I will open the door for you. And we'll be even. Exactly a day later, leaving the German House, I saw across the road that my seeker of revenge was already on duty at the entrance to the Russian House. The ritual has been performed. Satisfaction received.
I remember a conversation with Debi, an American Italian with an angelic face, who had another advantage: she quickly learned to speak Russian fluently and correctly. We are sitting in the living room of the Russian House. We are talking. "Who do you want to become? I ask. What profession will you choose? And this is what I hear in response: she will be a doctor. And besides - good. No worse than male doctors. They, men, must see what a woman is capable of. “This is my dream, my goal,” Debi says, and her angelic face takes on a look of stern determination. “And for her sake, I will give up everything that can interfere with me. No romance, no family." “Are you never going to get married?” “Never!”. I felt uneasy, my heart sank: this young beauty wants to become an old maid?! To prove something to someone!
I am glad that I can write here about the outstanding appearance of my former student. There, in my college, the appearance of a woman was a taboo subject. My guys explained to me that talking approvingly about someone's face or figure is "lookism", from the English “look” which means appearance. This “micro-aggression” traumatizes people who are unlucky in terms of appearance. Women want to be valued for their content, not their form. They don't want to be looked at as a sex object. I confess: I did not like this politically correct rule, and I never got used to following it with all the required rigor. Every now and then I break down. Still…
American men acted differently. They obeyed the new rules - and showed miracles of self-control. The culture of flirting has disappeared from American culture. Students and female students behaved as if they were all of the same sex. They sit or stand side by side – and do not worry at all, like small children who are still years and years before puberty. Men do not allow themselves any flirting, no hints or eloquent glances. Complete indifference.
Asexuality. But pretty soon I became convinced that the refusal to flirt does not prevent our students from making love. There was plenty of sex in our town, and everyone, including the administration, was completely calm about it.
Once I decided on an experiment: I took a winter jacket off the hanger and gave it to Jane, a cheerful girl with a sharp, ironic mind. The result was mixed, but, by and large, encouraging. Jane calmly accepted my service, laughed mischievously and said: “Male chauvinist pig!” Literally: "Male chauvinistic pig!" This scene and our further communication confirmed my hypothesis: Jane treated feminism with a certain amount of skepticism. She could talk about the rights and claims of women, but she did it calmly and restrainedly, without fanaticism. She did not make ridiculous demarches.
Alas, Jane was an exception. Many of her peers fell into captivity of a reckless faith, sublime, holy, reminding me of the one I sang about in my distant youth:
With holy faith in our cause
Let's hurry into battle.
In what cause did my young compatriots sacredly believe? For what cause (their favorite word) did they rush into battle? They had several “our cases”, but they all had the same background, the same general principle: in any conflict, the one who is small and weak deserves protection. Therefore, the banner of feminism was picked up because women, although they are more numerous, were long considered the “weaker sex” and did not receive all the rights enjoyed by men. Even the great and progressive Karl Marx, filling out a questionnaire, wrote that in women he appreciates weakness most of all! And in men - strength. But it can be partly forgiven: it was a long time ago, in the days of persistent patriarchal prejudices. He, presumably, did not favor sexual minorities either and would speak out against granting them equal rights.
Oberlin's students would certainly have forgiven Marx this sin as well: they received reverence for the leader of the world proletariat from their Marxist professors, of whom we had quite a few, especially in the humanities departments. Sexual minorities enjoyed full understanding and respect among the Oberlinites. In a building called Wilder, one of the student organizations had a sign on the door: GAY, LESBIAN AND BISEXUAL CLUB. The campus regularly hosted “gay pride parades”, bizarre displays of “homosexual pride” that attracted large heterosexual crowds. The college authorities organized seminars for directors of hostels, where they explained to us how important and necessary it is to take care of adherents of non-traditional love. One day we were ordered to come with our assistants (they were elected by the students of the hostel) to a special seminar where we were shown two films. One is about the technique of male masturbation, the other is about the technique of homosexual love. Watching this pornographic bullshit while sitting next to your student is a pleasure – let me tell you, far below average. As soon as the screen went blank, I retreated. “Ada” (the Russian version of her name) left after me. The discussion of what we saw passed without us...
Bamby syndrome
The same criterion – stand up for the one who is smaller and weaker – worked everywhere, no matter what the minorities were. It is strange but adults, it would seem, are people, but they somehow are childish, naive, contrary to obvious facts and common sense. It seems to me that I finally understood where it came from, how this infantile stereotype was formed, which, as we will see below, has not disappeared for all these years. It has been shaped by the ubiquitous, pervasive American popular culture that has tirelessly provided spiritual nourishment to generations of children and teenagers. As if spellbound, they leafed through funny cartoon comics and watched fascinating cartoons such as the series about Tom the cat and Jerry the mouse. They usually have two characters. One is big and predatory; the other is small and weak, but extremely smart: he artfully escapes from the enemy that is always chasing him. What character do young viewers identify with? Of course, with this charming and resourceful baby! This emotional reaction is absorbed into the consciousness and subconscious; it becomes a stable conditioned reflex and often confuses adults, prompting them to make false decisions and actions.
Even the ingenious and ethically impeccable Disney “Bambi” managed to deliver some trouble to America, which immediately fell in love with its charming characters. And it began to tenderly care for its reindeer. In particular, it became even more energetic to shoot their sworn enemies - gray wolves. And what? Predators had to be brought back: the bred and lazy descendants of the charming Bambi began to get fat, get sick, eat grass anywhere and eat trees. The result is sharply decreased number of useful birds and gigantically increased number of harmful insects and reptiles. In addition, the number of other negative effects. Thank God, the wolves have returned to their homes, and the natural balance has finally been restored...
It's normal, it's quite human to show sympathy for “our smaller brothers”, as Sergey Yesenin said almost a hundred years ago. Including to the deer Bambi and the mouse Jerry, as well as to people - to those who deserve sympathy and support. Here, as they say, the dog is buried. Not everyone deserve that! Alas, many of us are not able to control our feelings in time and soberly, “in an adult way”, without romance, look at the object of our love, at its true essence. And then it's up to you to decide who deserves it and who doesn't...
Adults’ reflexes acquired in childhood are corrected, filtered by a mature consciousness, verified by the accumulated experience and they absorb the “adult” culture. There was no such reliable filter in the minds of young Americans in the 70s and 80s. Their intellect did not receive the information that was available to the middle class of previous generations. They lacked the necessary baggage; they lacked knowledge in such areas as history, economics, geography, and international politics. I realized this when I started teaching at Oberlin and, in parallel, at the Russian Summer School Norwich University in Vermont. It turned out that my students and graduate students have little knowledge of classical literature, painting, and music. “Remember, there is a similar scene in Goethe’s Faust?” I tell them in class. And I can see in their eyes that they don't remember. Did they forget? No. They have not read. They didn’t learn it at colleges or schools and they didn’t bother themselves.
Professor Alan Bloom explored and explained the origin and reasons of it in his 1987 bestseller. It was called “The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students”. The impoverishment of souls began in the universities and continued in the schools, as evidenced by Susan Jacobi in The Age of American Unreason. (Susan Jacoby. The Age of American Unreason. 2008). Both books describe the first of the fatal reversals carried out by the American Left, the adherents of multiculturalism and relativism: the abolition of the classical canon in the liberal arts education, the rejection of the culture created by “Dead White Men”. Books made a lot of noise, but the degradation of education did not stop – it accelerated.
Also in 1987, the closing of the American mind described by Allan Blume became visible to me. I'm giving a semester course on Soviet unofficial culture at Oberlin. In English. Pay attention, I say: Soviet culture was formed in a completely different way than in Western countries, in particular - in America. The Bolsheviks introduced culture into the framework they desired, cutting off everything unnecessary. Even such a difficult-to-control element as mass, popular culture. And in America, it took shape organically, spontaneously, from underneath. Here I prove my words with relevant sources. Indeed, my listeners say, we understood: one culture grew from below, and another was planted from above. But this does not mean that one way is worse or better than the other. We avoid value judgments; we do not recognize any qualitative differences between cultures. Only between cultures? I ask. Are there quality differences between different forms of government, between levels of development of society? They do exist, they answer, but we avoid comparisons and evaluations. We have no right to judge. Everything that exists has a reason. Any form of society, once it has developed then it was necessary. Forget, professor, about levels of development. Each society is valuable in its own way. It is important how the members of society evaluate themselves. Cannibals, for example, believed that they could not and should not live otherwise. For them, their way of life was the only possible, and it is not our business to evaluate them in terms of some abstract principles or criteria.
“So, is no criteria possible?” - In no case. There are no universal criteria. As there is no objective truth. Well, what about the value of human life? Is it unconditional for you? I ask with faint hope. - No! In different cultures, the phenomenon of life is treated differently. Would you persuade cannibals not to kill or eat people?! Absurd!
Further, they politely explained to me that the concepts of good and evil are not applicable to human activity, these concepts are naive, and they are outdated, unscientific, because they came from religion. Boys and girls, at the mere mention of moral criteria, Good and Evil, smiled condescendingly...
The abolition of the classical canon, postmodernism, deconstructivism, relativism, the neo-Marxism of the philosophers of the Frankfurt School, which was readily taken up by the American professors – this is what has undermined our minds and prepared for today’s political and moral crisis, a shift in concepts, an inability to distinguish between Good and Evil.
Paradoxes of Compassion
If talk to present day's students about the Middle East, about Israel, you will immediately remember the predatory Tom chasing poor Jerry. “Well, everything is clear there”, - you’ll hear in response. The Jews have a state, a strong economy, a powerful army. And the Palestinian minority has nothing. They are the suffering side and need our support. Despite the fact that they sometimes have to commit terrorist acts. And they will also tell you about BDS, an international movement demanding a boycott of Israel, not investing in its economy and subjecting it to all sorts of sanctions. That is, to do everything to make this state disappear.
BDS activists are present and active in most American campuses. The results of their activities are eloquently illustrated by an experiment at the University of Portland (Oregon). Filmmaker and freelance journalist Ami Horowitz stopped students and offered to donate money to Hamas operations against civilian targets in Israel: cafes, schools, hospitals and synagogues. He managed to raise hundreds of dollars. In just one hour…
Those are the things. Humane defenders of racial minorities, ardent allies of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders, do not hesitate to donate their blood to terrorists who are thirsty for the blood of peaceful Israelis. How can one not recall Nikolai Berdyaev, who warned about how dangerous “a mixture of false sensibility and affected compassion with cruelty and vicious vengeance” is? Sentimentality often leads to cruelty. This is the law of spiritual life. Or Friedrich Nietzsche, who spoke about the same paradox in other words: “Ah, where in the world did great stupid things happen if not among the compassionate? And what in the world caused great suffering, if not the stupidity of the compassionate?
Leftist humanists treat America in much the same way as they treat Israel. For the same reason: big, powerful, rich, and aggressive. Anti-Americanism has become part of the ideology of the “awakened” half of the country. It is taught in schools through two programs: Project 1619 and Critical Race Theory. American hatred of America is a new phenomenon. Such a sharp rejection of its history, traditions, and values among its citizens has never existed. My students treated their country calmly, with restraint, vigilantly followed government policy and protested when it did not suit them. I liked their skepticism; I was impressed by the lack of patriotic fervor, similar to that cultivated in me by my native Soviet state. It continued its educational work even after my departure, which I was clearly convinced of when a group of Komsomol members arrived in Oberlin on a tour of America. Four guys from Omsk and the same number of girls from Vladimir. Siberians, after an almost two-day flight from Omsk to Cleveland, flatly refused to rest and began to regale us with vodka and Armenian cognac. At the same time, they treated themselves with might and main, not in the least getting drunk and not slowing down the energy of communication. The Vladimir girls also got drunk, but quickly sat aside and wearily, but with feeling, sang a song I didn’t know:
... The heart cares, the heart worries,
Postal cargo is packed.
My address is not a house or a street,
My address is the Soviet Union...
Wow, what an address, I thought. - How much strength and nerves it took me to get rid of registration in a country where life was becoming more and more uncomfortable and dreary. And they did not have time to leave - they are already willing to go back! Why not to learn from young Americans. My acquaintance with them began in the autumn of 1973, when they took a semester Russian language course at Leningrad University. And they loved to drink, and sang to the guitar or banjo. They sang funny student songs, Negro spirituals. But not a single patriotic one!
When Lida and I received American citizenship, we least of all expected that our young skeptics would show any interest in this fact. However, they showed. After taking the oath in the neighboring town of Elyria, we returned to Oberlin, but we got to the Russian House only after more than an hour: our friends, who were waiting for us at the entrance, drove us around the city for some not very clear purpose. Everything was cleared up when we finally returned to the Russian House. We were greeted by its inhabitants, dressed up and solemn, and led into the living room, where stood a long table made up of small tables, laden with bottles and snacks. Festive dinner. A surprise that worked out perfectly...
***
“Every year for my birthday, my mom gives me the same present – a nag.” So my student Eva wrote in an essay on a free topic. The same Eva Shapiro, who in a couple of years will translate Okudzhava's poems into English for the bilingual collection of his songs that I compiled. What her mother really gives her, I figured out pretty quickly. I open a Russian-English dictionary. Nag. unfold Jade. Pronounced "jade". From the English-Russian dictionary I learn that Jade, in addition to the nag, also means a whore, a rogue, a scoundrel and, finally, jadeite and jade. All clear. Eva receives a semi-precious stone from her mother every year.
More difficult riddles came across in the writings of my students. They, of course, had to be solved longer, and on some I continue thinking up to this day. One day I asked them to read "The Man in the Case" and write (in Russian) what they think about the characters in the story. I read their works - and I could not believe my eyes: the authors of the works liked the most ... Belikov. Yes, he is strange, absurd, walks in galoshes and with an umbrella, is always silent, afraid of everything. So what? He would be sympathetic, he would be sorry, but colleagues and acquaintances instead trying to change him, are remaking his personality, they even want to marry him! And now - an insensitive, cruel society brings the unfortunate teacher to death...
Excuse me, I say to the guys at the next lesson: this little man in galoshes and with an umbrella is not as harmless as you think! Just listen: he “held the entire gymnasium in his hands for fifteen whole years! What about a gymnasium? The whole city... Under the influence of people like Belikov, over the past ten or fifteen years, people in our city have become afraid of everything. They are to speak loudly, to send letters, to make acquaintances, to read books, to be afraid to help the poor, to teach literacy...” How can you sympathize with such a person! And not only we sympathize, - I hear in response. - So the narrator, the teacher of the gymnasium Burkin, says: "I even felt sorry for him." Remember? Belikov saw an evil caricature of himself with the inscription "Anthropos in love". And he said: “What bad, evil people there are! .. and his lips trembled.” It was then that Burkin took pity on him. Don't you feel sorry for him? Well, sorry, I answer, but not like you. Because I know how people lived in Russia at the end of the 19th century, when Chekhov wrote his story, and you don't know. It is even difficult for you to imagine this life, so different from yours.
And besides, I came to you from a country where there was even less freedom than in Russia at that time. Tell me, the absurd and strange Belikov, always afraid of what might happen; could he intimidate, for instance, our Oberlin? Or neighboring Akron? Yes, for nothing! And he scared that provincial Russian town to death. Why? Simply because his fears fell on fertile ground. For me, Belikov embodies the prohibitive essence of authoritarian power.
I can see from the faces of my opponents that they want to understand me, but they can't. Sympathy for strange, lonely, renegades who do not fit into society, they sucked it with their mother's milk. These eccentrics must be treated with tolerance and in no case try to put pressure on them, disturb them, remake them. They have a sacred right to be who they are.
Where is our ship heading?
As psychologists say, people like Chekhov's Belikov (and Gogol's Bashmachkin from The Overcoat) suffer from a severe form of social phobia. In America, they make up 13 percent of the population. I met such people here, but they were so-called passive sociophobes: they did not pose a threat to others, they did not try to impose their misanthropy and their fears on society. Another thing is active misanthropes, and even obsessed with ideology, who have come to know the light of “the only true teaching”. We saw these in the USSR in the highest positions and suffered a lot from them.
Pity for the freak suffering from his social phobia turned out to be stronger among my students than pity for the whole city, from which this poor and unfortunate took away his freedom. Why? Because freedom for these lovely guys is like the air they breathe from birth. They were not cut off oxygen, they were not put on a muzzle. No freedom for them is something abstract, speculative. And, as a result, a weakened immunity to encroachments on freedom, carried out under the guise of demagogic slogans. One of the most effective requires the introduction of equity, that is, complete equality in everything, including the results achieved, as opposed to equality - equality before the law and equality of initial opportunities.
I read Grigory Pomeranets:
“One of the problems that cannot be solved by high-precision missiles is the billions of undersized, half-educated, underdeveloped people. Primitive peoples knew how to educate their boys and girls. A simple culture fit entirely into one head, and in each head there were the necessary elements of ethics and religion, and not just technical information. Culture was a spiritual and moral whole. A natural example of this wholeness was the father and mother. Now they are bankrupt."
So. Father and mother knew how to pass on to their children the basics of ethics, spirituality, and morality. Parents were an example for them, a model. It's been that way for centuries. And what happened? "Now they are bankrupt."
I read these lines and remembered David, one of my first American acquaintances. He appeared at Oberlin as a young professor of economics and became one of the “ideological minority”: the vast majority of our teachers were leftist, Marxist and sympathetic to the country I had left. David was a conservative. He spoke Russian quite tolerably. Apparently, this language had not yet been forgotten in his Jewish family of Russian origin. “Yes,” he once told me, “I believe in conservative values and I tell you about it, my like-minded person. But I won't say a word about my beliefs to my future children." "How is that? I was surprised. - Why?". “Because children should form their own views. Without parental intervention». “Don’t you consider it is your duty to help them make the right choice? “I don't think so. Can you understand, we have a free society? Unlike your former Soviet one. Freedom of choice is our most important principle. And it extends to our children and their choice of beliefs.”
I disagreed with David. And I disagree with him even more strongly now, when the virus of the most extreme leftism has already infected more than half of young America. Many of these young adherents of neo-Marxism, sympathetic to the BLM, hating Israel and penitent for the “crimes” of their fatherland, have conservative parents. And this prompts me to the following conclusion: the principle of parental non-intervention and complete freedom in the choice of views, formulated by David 45 years ago, was and is very widespread in America.
I wonder what the wise Grigory Pomerants would say about this. Probably, I would repeat my harsh diagnosis about the current dads and moms:
"Now they are bankrupt."
Epilogue
If Professor Alan Bloom lived to this day, he might be writing a sequel to his Closing the American Mind” right now. And I would call it "The closure of the American project." At times it seems that America has passed the point of no return. Whether the great American experiment is finally closing will become clear in the near future, which I am hardly destined to see. However, the lessons of history and vague forebodings prompt me a disappointing answer in the spirit of Bulat Okudzhava's wise and sad song: "The past cannot be returned." It is unlikely that this country will ever reach a new heyday and become free and uninhibited again, renounce ideological troubles, throw away disgusting political correctness in the trash, end censorship and self-censorship, get rid of its neuroses and shameful fear of blurting out some sedition.
A huge ship, driven by untalented Cs with the support of a good half of the passengers, is moving into deadly waters. It won't be easy for it to get out of there alive and unharmed.
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