Professor Asmolov: "Cultural therapy through the great Russian classics is now needed"

“I don’t know how my parents would accept the current situation. How they, who went through the civil war and the Great Patriotic War, would have accepted this situation ... I don’t know.

I can only assume that the mother would have had enough wisdom ... And the father would have found some options for communication ...

Why am I talking about this? It's already personal...

Before my eyes, the husband of my beloved sister many times tried to explain to my father, Grigory Lvovich, this is the totalitarian Stalinist system, Grigory Lvovich, how can you accept this?

These dialogues have always been going on in my family since 1964-1965.

Father answered: we saved the country. Yes, I had to blow up the station in Rostov so that the Germans would not conquer Rostov, but we did not let the Germans pass.

And another wonderful writer who was present during these disputes, Viktor Nekrasov, the author of the book “In the trenches of Stalingrad”, tried to make my sister’s husband somehow understand my father more.

Another writer, science fiction futurist - no one calls him that - close to my heart, Vladimir Voinovich knew how to look at reality with humor.

More than ever - today fantasy, humor, discussion of those things that are common values play a role ... All this is important to discuss ...

Tell me, please, do you like "Inhabited Island"? Do you like The Brothers Karamazov, do you like it? Or, listen, here is what Tolstoy writes...

I just mean that - don’t go with this jackhammer that will destroy the consciousness of another person ... From this, he will only fall into an affect and lose the ability to communicate through the intellect.

In other words: cultural therapy is needed through the great Russian classics, through the great classics of world literature.

Today, more than ever, she shows that there is a way out. Even with those who can't see you at close range. Even with those who are like zombies ...

The more we call them "zombies", the more we degrade their dignity and deny them the right to be individuals.

Therefore, in such discussions, armed with love for a person, we grab a gun just because, “oh, you are not a liberal”, “oh, you do not love this or that liberal leader” ... Discuss the questions “are you for this or that?” is nonsense.

This kind of communication has a key defect: it does not go beyond the framework of cultural coordinates.

The entire issue with the participation of Alexander Asmolov can be viewed here.