Were for everyone, but now are for the rich: how the landmarks of Russian intellectuals have changed

Yakov Krotov, priest

Man is what he dreams of.

In 1988, "Moskovskie Novosti" published a material that was sensational by the standards of that time: they interviewed people who would like what kind of salary. One hard worker blushed for a long time, was embarrassed, finally told out: 1000 dollars a month!

Like he took off his swimming trunks on a crowded beach.

Everyone blushed deeply, and everyone thought: "Me too!"

Taking into account inflation, this is the current 6 thousand dollars. The ultimate dream, an object of envy.

Psychologists believe that a person watches TV shows whose characters are one or two steps higher than him on the social ladder. A person from the lower middle class does not watch TV shows about billionaires, but about people of the upper middle class.

So the sailors of the ships stuck in the ice throw in the anchor forward a hundred meters and wound the chain, pulling the ship to the anchor.

An anchor is not an idol, but a social ideal - is an idol.

This is the difference between the protest movement of 2001-2021 and the democratic movement of 1965-1990. Beginning with the Khodorkovsky case, the protest movement has been strongly focused on protecting exactly the one who is higher on the social ladder and who it would like to be or, at least, with whom it would like to communicate. They did not protect the unknown Chechens and the Moscow rogues who died from the 1999 explosions, but they defended the successful, the successful.

This does not mean that people received as much as Khodorkovsky or even his secretaries. People wanted to get the same amount. 6000 per month. At that time, the HSE professor received less, sometimes "only" 3000, but the more he wanted to be one step higher.

All this is not so bad, it is normal, of course.

True, there is an old morality of the Russian intelligentsia, and this morality is somewhat different, it goes back to the morality of the Gospel. According to this morality, one should take care of the common good.

Various Black Hundreds scoffed at this a lot, they say, "they love the people, but they don't know the people." But that was not true. They knew the people, they were from the people, and did not want to benefit the people, but everyone, and this is quite according to Saint Thomas Aquinas and the theology of the common good as the goal of social activity.

The second ideal was spiritual poverty. The very poverty in spirit, which has become, thanks to the efforts of totalitarian propaganda, the most incomprehensible place in the Gospel. And what is incomprehensible? It is necessary to focus not on the one who is richer, not to dream of getting rich. We must focus on the one who is poorer. Do not try to become poor, but try to enrich, to raise you up to yourself. That's all "poverty in spirit". She is one for the recipient of $ 100, $ 1,000, $ 6,000 per month. And it is absolutely incompatible with Smerdyakov's resentment, which calculates how unfairly material goods are distributed. The one who dreams of redistribution is a completely Leninist psychology of providing from above, not the psychology of creativity and freedom.

Original is here.