History of the civilization of Vila Duranta

• Our Eastern heritage
• Greek Life
• Caesar and Christ
• Age of Faith
• Renaissance
• Reformation
• The beginning of the era of reason
• Age of Louis XTV
• Age of Voltaire
• Rousseau and the Revolution
• Age of Napoleon

The method of synthetic history allowed Wil Durant to show in all its manifestations the greatest drama of the rise of Rome to the greatness of its fall. The era of Caesar ended and the era of Christ began.

Wil Durant - Caesar and Christ

Series: Academy

Publisher: Kron-Press, 1995 - 736 p.
ISBN 5-8317-0136-0

Wil Durant - Caesar and Christ - Contents

Preface

• Chapter 1. Etruscan Prelude: 800-508. BC

BOOK I. REPUBLIC: 508-30. BC.

• Chapter 2. The struggle for democracy: 508-264. BC
• Chapter 3. Hannibal against Rome: 264-202. BC
• Chapter 4. Stoic Rome: 508-202. BC
• Chapter 5. Conquest of Greece: 201-146. BC

BOOK II. REVOLUTION: 145-30 BC.

• Chapter 6. Agrarian Revolution: 145-78. BC
• Chapter 7. Oligarchic reaction: 77-60. BC
• Chapter 8. Literature in the era of revolution: 145-30. BC
• Chapter 9. Caesar: 100-44. BC
• Chapter 10. Anthony: 44-30. BC

BOOK III. PRINCIPLE: 30 BC - 192 AD

• Chapter 11. Reign of Augustus: 30 BC. - 14 AD
• Chapter 12. Golden Age: 30 BC - 128 AD
• Chapter 13. The downside of the monarchy: 14-96. AD
• Chapter 14. Silver Age: 14-96
• Chapter 15. Rome at work: 14-96
• Chapter 16. Rome and its art: 30 BC - 96 AD
• Chapter 17. Epicurean Rome: 30 BC - 96 AD
• Chapter 18. Roman Law: 146 BC. - 192 AD
• Chapter 19. Philosopher Kings: 96-180
• Chapter 20. Life and thought in the second century: 96-192

BOOK IV. EMPIRE: 146 BC - 192 AD

• Chapter 21. Italy
• Chapter 22. Arrangement of the West
• Chapter 23. Roman Greece
• Chapter 24. Hellenistic Revival
• Chapter 25. Rome and Judea: 132 BC. - 135 AD

BOOK V. THE YOUTH OF CHRISTIANITY: 4 B.C. - 325 AD

• Chapter 26. Jesus: 4 BC - 30 AD
• Chapter 27. Apostles: 30-95.
• Chapter 28. Growth of the Church: 96-305
• Chapter 29. Collapse of the Empire: 193-305.
• Chapter 30. Triumph of Christianity: 306-325

Index of personal names and literary sources

Wil Durant - Caesar and Christ - Preface

THIS volume represents an independent whole, being at the same time the third part of the History of Civilization. Its first part was the book “Our Eastern Heritage”, and the second was “Life of Greece”. If war and health do not prevent this, the fourth part - “The Age of Faith” - will be completed by 1950.

The method I use is that of synthetic history, which studies the most important phases of human life, work, culture in their simultaneous manifestation. Its necessary scientific prerequisite is analytical history, which is equally important, but studies only certain individual aspects of human activity, such as politics, economics, morality, religion, science, philosophy, literature, art, in one civilization or all together.

The main disadvantage of the analytical method is the isolation of the part from the whole, which distorts the overall picture; The main weakness of the synthetic method is the impossibility of a single researcher having first-hand knowledge of every aspect of a complex civilization extending over a millennium. Errors in detail are inevitable; but only in this way can the mind, fascinated by philosophy (which is nothing more than the search for understanding by means of perspective), find satisfaction in immersing itself in the past.

We can discover perspective with the help of science, that is, the study of the relationship of things in space, or with the help of history, that is, the study of the relationship of events in time. By observing human behavior over sixty centuries, we learn more about him than from the books of Plato and Aristotle, Spinoza and Kant. “History has now deprived any philosophy of all its rights,” said Nietzsche.

Strictly speaking, the study of antiquity, unable either to capture the living drama of history or to contribute to the understanding of the modern world, is devoid of any value.

The rise of Rome from a town at the crossroads to the heights of world domination, its achievement of a two-hundred-year period of security and peace in the space from the Crimea to Gibraltar and from the Euphrates to Hadrian's Wall, its spread of classical civilization throughout the Mediterranean and Western Europe, its struggle to maintain an orderly power against the sea of ​​barbarism raging on all sides, its long, gradual dying and final fall into darkness and chaos - this is truly the greatest drama ever played out by man; it can only be compared with that which began at the court of Pilate, when Caesar and Christ stood face to face with each other, and continued until the handful of persecuted Christians, which - despite persecution and intimidation - gradually and patiently grew, became first an ally, then a master and finally the heir to the greatest empire in human history.

But this multifaceted panorama attracts our attention not only with its scope and grandeur. Another thing is even more important: it is extremely reminiscent, sometimes with frightening clarity, of civilization and the problems of our days. This is the advantage of studying the full life span of a civilization, that it becomes possible to compare each stage or each aspect of its activity with the corresponding moment or element of our own cultural trajectory; the development of a situation in antiquity that is similar to ours can encourage us or serve as a warning.

Here, in the struggle of Roman civilization against external and internal barbarism, we see our own struggle; Roman difficulties associated with biological and moral decline are signposts on our path today; the class war between the Gracchi and the Senate, Marius and Sulla, Caesar and Pompey, Antony and Octavian is the same war in which the forces we accumulated in the short intervals of peace are burned up. Finally, the desperate effort of the Mediterranean soul to defend at least a small share of freedom in the fight against an oppressive state is an omen of our urgent tasks. De nobis fabula narratur: this story of Rome is told about us.

Wil Durant

He studied at the parochial schools of North Adams and Kearny (New Jersey), then at the Jesuit-owned St. Peter's College in Jersey City (New Jersey) and Columbia University. In the summer of 1907, as a novice reporter, he served in the New York Journal, but, finding that this work required too much effort from him, he settled at Seton Hall College in South Orange (New Jersey), where from 1907 to 1911 I taught Latin, French, English and geometry for a year.

In 1909 he entered Seton Hall Seminary, but left it in 1911 for reasons described in his book Transition. From the silence of the seminary, he moved into the most radical circles of New York and became a teacher at the experimental Ferrer Modern School, which professed the principles of freedom-loving education (1911-1913). In 1912, he traveled around Europe at the invitation and expense of Alden Friedman, who became his friend and decided to expand his horizons.

Returning to Ferrer's school, he falls in love with one of his students - Ida Kaufman, born on May 10, 1898 in Russia. He resigns and marries her (1913). He studied at Columbia University for four years, specializing in biology under the guidance of scientists such as Morgan and Caulkins, listening to lectures on Dewey's philosophy. In 1917 he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree. In 1914, in one of the Presbyterian churches in New York, he began lecturing on history, literature and philosophy. For thirteen years he has been holding them twice a week, collecting material for future works.

The unexpected success of The Story of Philosophy (1926) allowed him to leave teaching in 1927. Since that time, with the exception of a few essays, the Durants have devoted almost all of their working time (from eight to fourteen hours daily) to “The Story of Civilization.”

To better prepare for their undertaking, they travel around Europe in 1927, in 1930 they visit Egypt, the Middle East, India, China and Japan, and in 1932 they circle the globe again, visiting Japan, Manchuria, Siberia, European parts of Russia and Poland. These travels allowed them to collect material for “Our Eastern Heritage” (1935) - the first volume of “The History of Civilization.” Several new visits to Europe helped prepare Volume II, Greek Life (1939), and Volume III, Caesar and Christ (1944).

In 1948, they spend six months in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Europe, and in 1950, Volume IV, “The Age of Faith,” is published. In 1951, the Durants again traveled to Italy to publish, after a lifetime of painstaking research, Volume V - "Renaissance" (1953); in 1954, new research in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France and England opens new horizons for Volume VI - The Reformation (1957).

Mrs. Durant's participation in the preparation of these works became more and more significant, and when compiling volume VII - “The Beginning of the Age of Reason” (1961) it was already so great that justice required that her name be placed on the title page of the volume. The same was the case with subsequent volumes: “The Age of Louis XTV” (1963), “The Age of Voltaire” (1965), “Rousseau and the Revolution” (1968, Pulitzer Prize). The publication of Volume XI, The Century of Napoleon, in 1975 summed up five decades of achievement.
Ariel Durant died on October 25, 1981 at the age of 83. And 13 days later, on November 7, 96-year-old Will Durant died.
The last of their works was “Double Autobiography” (1977).

Stoic 08/12/2011

If anyone needs it, I have links to all the volumes of the original up to and including “Age of Napoleon” (there are both the volumes themselves and audio files for them). Of course, the work of Durant (and later the Durants) cannot be some kind of exhaustive source on special problems. But it is quite suitable as an introduction to issues of history, culture, and politics.

Http://www.archive.org/details/StoryOfCiv02_LifeOfGreece
http://www.archive.org/details/StoryOfCiv01_OurOrientalHeritage
http://www.archive.org/details/StoryOfCiv11_AgeOfNapoleon
http://www.archive.org/details/StoryOfCiv10_RousseauAndRevolution
http://www.archive.org/details/StoryOfCiv09_AgeOfVoltaire
http://www.archive.org/details/StoryOfCiv08_AgeOfLouisXIV
http://www.archive.org/details/StoryOfCiv07_AgeOfReason
http://www.archive.org/details/StoryOfCiv06_TheReformation
http://www.archive.org/details/StoryOfCiv05_TheRenaissance
http://www.archive.org/details/StoryOfCiv04_AgeOfFaith
http://www.archive.org/details/StoryOfCiv03_CeasarAndChrist

He is best known as the author of the 11-volume History of Civilization, which he wrote with his wife Ariel Durant, and which was published between 1935 and 1975. He was previously known for his History of Philosophy, written in 1926, which one author described as "a pioneering work that helps to popularize philosophy."

William and Ariel Durant were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in 1968, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.

Biography

William (Will) James Durant was born in North Adams, Massachusetts. His parents, Joseph Durant and Mary Allard, were of French-Canadian descent, part of the so-called. Quebec emigration. His parents intended him for a spiritual career.

He received his early education at a parish Catholic school. In 1900 he entered the School of St. Peter's in Jersey City (St. Peter's Preparatory School), later - to the College of St. Saint Peter's College in Jersey City, New Jersey is a Catholic educational institution run by the Jesuit Order.

In 1903, at the Jersey City Public Library, he discovered the works of Charles Robert Darwin, Thomas Henry Huxley, Herbert Spencer and E. Haeckel. (Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel) Thus, at the age of 18, Durant began to come to the conclusion that he could not in good conscience take the vows of a priest.

In 1905, his passion for socialist philosophy began. He graduated from college in 1907 and worked briefly as a reporter for the New York Evening Journal. In the fall of 1907, he began teaching Latin, French, English, and geometry at Seton Hall College in South Orange, New Jersey. At the same time, he was also the college librarian. In 1909 he entered the theological seminary that was part of the college, hoping to combine socialism with a spiritual career, but left the seminary in 1911 and moved to New York with $40 in his pocket and four books. This caused a years-long rift with my parents.

In 1911 he became teacher-director of the Modern School of Ferrer (Modern School). This educational institution was an anarchist-libertarian experiment in education. The school's main sponsor, Alden Freeman, gave him a summer trip to Europe to "broaden his horizons." Returning to America, Durant fell in love with one of his students, Chaya (Ida) Kaufman. To marry her, Durant left his position in 1913 and supported his family by lecturing, receiving five to ten dollars per performance. At the same time, he attended Columbia University, preparing for his master's degree. Alden Freeman paid for the tuition. At the university, his teachers were outstanding scientists: in biology - T. Morgan (Thomas Hunt Morgan), in anthropology - J. H. McGregor, in psychology - R. Woodworth (Robert S. Woodworth) and A. Poffenberger ( Albert Th. Poffenberger), in philosophy - F. Woodbridge (Frederick James Eugene Woodbridge) and J. Dewey (John Dewey).

In 1917, as part of the Ph.D. requirement, Durand published his first book, Philosophy and the Social Problem. The book is dedicated to Alden Freeman. Durant received his doctorate in 1917 and began teaching at Columbia University, but the First World War threw courses into disarray and Durand was fired.

He began lecturing on history, philosophy, music, and science at the Temple of Labor, a former Presbyterian Church building on the corner of 14th Street and 2nd Avenue in New York City. This prepared him for later writing the History of Philosophy and the History of Civilization. His audience was adults who demanded clear presentation and wanted to understand the connection between history and modernity. In 1921, Durand organized the Temple of Labor School for adults.

History of philosophy

One Sunday, Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, publisher of the popular educational series Blue Books, walked past the Temple of Labor and saw an advertisement that Durand would talk about Plato at 5 p.m. The publisher came in, listened to the lecture, and liked it. He later asked Durand to write the text of this lecture in a form suitable for the Blue Books series. This brochure was followed by a book about Aristotle and nine more of the same kind: Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire and the French enlightenment, Immanuel Kant and German idealism, Schopenhauer, Herbert Spencer, Friedrich Nietzsche, modern European philosophers - Henri Bergson, Benedetto Croce, Bertrand Russell, modern American philosophers - George Santayana, William James, John Dewey. These 11 pamphlets became the book “History of Philosophy.” The title of the book - Story of Philosophy, not History of Philosophy - should have made it clear that the book was intended for readers with a not very high level of education. These are stories about philosophers rather than the history of philosophy. The book was a great success, selling 2 million copies within a few years; it was subsequently translated into many languages.

This financial success gave Durand the opportunity to take on the project he had dreamed of: writing a book like the one that Henry Thomas Buckle did not have time to write - the history of civilization. He left teaching, but sometimes took time off from his main job to write magazine articles. Many of these essays were subsequently included in the book The Mansions of Philosophy, published in 1929 and later republished under the title The Pleasure of Philosophy. The title echoes the title of Boethius's book, The Consolation of Philosophy.

History of civilization

Durant originally planned to write five volumes and spend five years on each. The first of these, Our Oriental Heritage, was published in 1935. To write this volume, which is more than a thousand full-length pages, he traveled around the world twice. The volume contains a description of the development of civilization in Asia from ancient times to Gandhi and Chiang Kai-shek. The volume took six years to complete.

The second volume, The Life of Greece, was published in 1939. It describes Hellenistic culture from its earliest predecessors in Crete and Asia to its absorption by Rome. In 1997, a translation of this volume into Russian was published, Moscow, Kron-Press.

The third volume, Caesar and Christ, was published in 1944. It tells the history of Rome from Romulus to Emperor Constantine. The Russian translation was published in 1995, Moscow, Kron-Press.

The fourth volume, The Age of Faith, was published in 1950. This volume describes the history of three civilizations, Christian, Muslim and Jewish, over a thousand years: from Emperor Constantine to Dante, from 325 to 1321.

The fifth volume, “The Renaissance,” was published in 1953. This volume begins with Petrarch and Boccaccio in the 14th century, goes to Florence for the Medici, the artists, poets and humanists who turned Florence into the new Athens, tells the tragic story of Savonarola , follows to Milan with Leonardo da Vinci, to Umbria with Pietro della Francesca and Perugino, to Mantua with Mantegna and Isabella d'Este, to Ferrara with Ariosto, to Venice with Giorgione, Bellini and Aldus Manutius, to Parma with Correggio, to Urbino with Castiglione, to Naples with Alfonso the Magnanimous, to Rome with the great popes of the Renaissance, the patrons of Raphael and Michelangelo, again to Venice with Titian, Aretino, Tintoretto, and Veronese and again to Florence with Cellini.

The sixth volume, “The Reformation,” was published in 1957. Subtitle: “The History of European Civilization from Wycliffe to Calvin: 1300-1564.”

The seventh volume, The Age of Reason Begins, was published in 1961. Subtitle: “The History of European Civilization in the Times of Shakespeare, Bacon, Montaigne, Rembrandt, Galileo and Descartes: 1558-1648.”

The eighth volume, “The Age of Louis XIV” (The Age of Louis XIV) was published in 1963. Subtitle: “The History of European Civilization in the Times of Pascal, Moliere, Cromwell, Milton, Peter the Great, Newton and Spinoza: 1648-1715.” Starting with this volume, Ariel Durand's name appears on the cover next to her husband's name.

The ninth volume, The Age of Voltaire, was published in 1865. Subtitle: “A History of Civilization in Western Europe from 1715 to 1756, with Special Attention to the Conflict between Religion and Philosophy.”

The tenth volume, Rousseau and Revolution, appeared in 1967. Subtitle: “History of Civilization in France, England and Germany from 1756 to 1756 and in the rest of Europe from 1715 to 1789.” .

The eleventh volume, The Age of Napoleon, was published in 1975. Subtitle: “The History of European Civilization from 1789 to 1815.”

Works about Russia

In 1933, William Durant published the work The tragedy of Russia: Impressions from a short visit, and soon after that - “The Lesson of Russia”. A few years after the books were published, social commentator Will Rogers, attending a symposium, included him in the list of participants for the event. He later called him one of the best and most fearless writers about Russia who visited there.

Views and social activities

In April 1944, two Jewish and Christian leaders, Mr. Meyer David and Dr. Christian Richard, approached Durand asking for his cooperation in organizing a movement to raise moral standards. Durant dissuaded them from this venture and proposed instead that they develop a “Declaration of Interdependence.” The three of them developed such a document and made it public on March 22, 1945, during a gala performance in Hollywood. The main speakers, besides Durand, were the writer Thomas Mann and film actress Bette Davis. The movement culminated when the Declaration of Interdependence was recorded as an official document of the US Congress.

Declaration text:

Declaration of Interdependence

While respect for the freedom and dignity of human beings has enabled human progress to reach a high stage, it has become desirable to reaffirm the following self-evident truths:

that differences of race, color and religion are natural, and that diverse groups, institutions and ideas are stimulating factors in the development of Man;

that the maintenance of harmony in diversity is the responsible task of religion and government;

that since no individual can express the complete Truth, it is essential to show understanding and good will towards those whose views differ from our own;

that, according to the testimony of History, intolerance is the door to violence, cruelty and dictatorship, and that the realization of human interdependence and solidarity is the best defense of Civilization.

Following this, we solemnly express our determination and call on others to join in action,

to maintain and extend the brotherhood of man through goodwill and respect;

to fight for and protect human dignity and virtue without distinction of race, color or religion;

to fight, in cooperation with others, against all hostility arising from such differences, and for the unity of all groups in the fair game of civilized life;

Our roots are in Freedom, we are bound by commonwealth in the face of danger and the blood community of humanity. We proclaim again that all men are brothers and mutual tolerance is the price of freedom.

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Notes

Literature

The most significant works

• Durant, Will (1917) Philosophy and the Social Problem. New York: Macmillan.
• Durant, Will (1926) The Story of Philosophy
• Durant, Will (1927) Transition. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1929) The Mansions of Philosophy. New York: Simon and Schuster. Later with slight revisions re-published as The Pleasures of Philosophy
• Durant, Will (1930) The Case for India. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1931) Adventures in Genius. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1953) The Pleasures of Philosophy. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will & Durant, Ariel (1968) The Lessons of History. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will & Durant, Ariel (1970) Interpretations of Life. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will & Durant, Ariel (1977) A Dual Autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (2001) Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient Times to the Dawn of the Modern Age. New York: Simon and Schuster. Actually copyrighted by John Little and the Estate of Will Durant.
• Durant, Will (2002) The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time. New York: Simon and Schuster.

History of civilization

• Durant, Will (1935) Our Oriental Heritage. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1939) The Life of Greece. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1944) Caesar and Christ. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1950) The Age of Faith. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1953) The Renaissance. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will (1957) The Reformation. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1961) The Age of Reason Begins. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1963) The Age of Louis XIV. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1965) The Age of Voltaire. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1967) Rousseau and Revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1975) The Age of Napoleon. New York: Simon and Schuster.

In Russian

Durant, Will. Caesar and Christ[History of Rome: Trans. from English]. - M.: JSC "KRON-press", 1995. - 735 p., l. ill. 24 cm - ISBN 5-8317-0136-0

Links

Passage characterizing Durant, William James

One army fled, the other caught up. From Smolensk the French had many different roads ahead of them; and, it would seem, here, after standing for four days, the French could find out where the enemy is, figure out something advantageous and do something new. But after a four-day stop, the crowds again ran, not to the right, not to the left, but, without any maneuvers or considerations, along the old, worse road, to Krasnoe and Orsha - along the broken trail.
Expecting the enemy from behind rather than in front, the French fled, spread out and separated from each other by a distance of twenty-four hours. The emperor ran ahead of everyone, then the kings, then the dukes. The Russian army, thinking that Napoleon would take the right beyond the Dnieper, which was the only reasonable thing, also moved to the right and reached the high road to Krasnoye. And then, as if in a game of blind man's buff, the French stumbled upon our vanguard. Suddenly seeing the enemy, the French became confused, paused from the surprise of fear, but then ran again, leaving their comrades behind. Here, as if through a formation of Russian troops, three days passed, one after another, separate parts of the French, first the viceroy, then Davout, then Ney. They all abandoned each other, abandoned all their burdens, artillery, half the people and ran away, only at night going around the Russians in semicircles on the right.
Ney, who walked last (because, despite their unfortunate situation or precisely as a result of it, they wanted to beat the floor that had hurt them, he began tearing up the walls of Smolensk that did not interfere with anyone), - who walked last, Ney, with his ten-thousandth corps, came running to Orsha to Napoleon with only a thousand people, abandoning all the people and all the guns and at night, sneaking through the forest through the Dnieper.
From Orsha they ran further along the road to Vilna, playing blind man's buff in the same way with the pursuing army. On the Berezina there was confusion again, many drowned, many surrendered, but those who crossed the river ran on. Their main leader put on a fur coat and, getting into the sleigh, rode off alone, leaving his comrades. Those who could, also left; those who could not, gave up or died.

It would seem that in this campaign of flight of the French, when they did everything they could to destroy themselves; when not a single movement of this crowd, starting from the turn onto the Kaluga road and until the flight of the commander from the army, made the slightest sense - it would seem that during this period of the campaign it is no longer possible for historians, who attribute the actions of the masses to the will of one person, to describe this retreat in their meaning. But no. Mountains of books have been written by historians about this campaign, and everywhere the orders of Napoleon and his profound plans are described - the maneuvers that led the army, and the brilliant orders of his marshals.
The retreat from Maloyaroslavets when he is given the road to an abundant land and when that parallel road along which Kutuzov later pursued him is open to him, the unnecessary retreat along the ruined road is explained to us for various profound reasons. For the same profound reasons, his retreat from Smolensk to Orsha is described. Then his heroism at Krasny is described, where he allegedly prepares to take the battle and command himself, and walks with a birch stick and says:
- J "ai assez fait l" Empereur, il est temps de faire le general, [I’ve already imagined the emperor, now it’s time to be a general.] - and, despite that, immediately after that he runs on, leaving the scattered parts of the army located behind.
Then they describe to us the greatness of the soul of the marshals, especially Ney, the greatness of the soul, which consists in the fact that at night he made his way through the forest bypassing the Dnieper and, without banners and artillery and without nine-tenths of the army, ran to Orsha.
And finally, the last departure of the great emperor from the heroic army seems to us by historians as something great and brilliant. Even this last act of flight, in human language is called the last degree of meanness, which every child learns to be ashamed of, and this act in the language of historians receives justification.
Then, when it is no longer possible to stretch such elastic threads of historical reasoning any further, when an action is already clearly contrary to what all humanity calls good and even justice, the saving concept of greatness appears among historians. Greatness seems to exclude the possibility of measuring good and bad. For the great there is no bad. There is no horror that can be blamed on someone who is great.
- “C"est grand!" [This is majestic!] - say historians, and then there is no longer either good or bad, but there is “grand” and “not grand”. Grand is good, not grand is bad. Grand is a property, according to their concepts, of some kind of special animals they call heroes. And Napoleon, walking home in a warm fur coat from the dying not only of his comrades, but (in his opinion) of the people he brought here, feels que c"est grand, and his soul is at peace.
“Du sublime (he sees something sublime in himself) au ridicule il n"y a qu"un pas,” he says. And the whole world has been repeating for fifty years: “Sublime! Grand! Napoleon le grand! Du sublime au ridicule il n"y a qu"un pas". [majestic... From majestic to ridiculous there is only one step... Majestic! Great! Napoleon the Great! It’s only a step from the majestic to the ridiculous.]
And it will not occur to anyone that recognition of greatness, immeasurable by the measure of good and bad, is only recognition of one’s insignificance and immeasurable smallness.
For us, with the measure of good and bad given to us by Christ, there is nothing immeasurable. And there is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.

Which of the Russian people, reading descriptions of the last period of the campaign of 1812, did not experience a heavy feeling of annoyance, dissatisfaction and uncertainty. Who hasn’t asked himself questions: how they didn’t take and destroy all the French, when all three armies surrounded them in superior numbers, when the frustrated French, starving and freezing, surrendered in droves, and when (as history tells us) the goal of the Russians was precisely that to stop, cut off and take prisoner all the French.
How did that Russian army, which was weaker in number than the French, fight the Battle of Borodino, how did this army, which surrounded the French on three sides and had the goal of taking them away, did not achieve its goal? Do the French really have such a huge advantage over us that we, having surrounded them with superior forces, could not beat them? How could this happen?
History (the one called by this word), answering these questions, says that this happened because Kutuzov, and Tormasov, and Chichagov, and this one, and that one, did not make such and such maneuvers.
But why didn't they do all these maneuvers? Why, if they were to blame for not achieving the intended goal, why were they not tried and executed? But, even if we admit that the failure of the Russians was due to Kutuzov and Chichagov, etc., it is still impossible to understand why and in the conditions in which the Russian troops were located at Krasnoye and near Berezina (in both cases the Russians were in excellent forces), why was the French army with its marshals, kings and emperors not captured, when this was the goal of the Russians?
The explanation of this strange phenomenon by the fact that Kutuzov prevented the attack (as Russian military historians do) is unfounded because we know that Kutuzov’s will could not keep the troops from attacking near Vyazma and near Tarutin.
Why was that Russian army, which with weaker forces won a victory at Borodino over the enemy in all its strength, at Krasnoe and near Berezina with superior forces defeated by frustrated crowds of the French?
If the goal of the Russians was to cut off and capture Napoleon and the marshals, and this goal was not only not achieved, but all attempts to achieve this goal were each time destroyed in the most shameful way, then the last period of the campaign quite rightly seems to be close to the French victories and is completely unfairly presented by Russian historians as victorious.
Russian military historians, to the extent that logic is obligatory for them, involuntarily come to this conclusion and, despite lyrical appeals about courage and devotion, etc., must involuntarily admit that the French retreat from Moscow is a series of victories for Napoleon and defeats for Kutuzov.
But, leaving national pride completely aside, one feels that this conclusion itself contains a contradiction, since a series of victories for the French led them to complete destruction, and a series of defeats for the Russians led them to the complete destruction of the enemy and the purification of their fatherland.
The source of this contradiction lies in the fact that historians who study events from letters of sovereigns and generals, from reports, reports, plans, etc., have assumed a false, never-existent goal for the last period of the war of 1812 - a goal that supposedly consisted of to cut off and catch Napoleon with the marshals and the army.
This goal never existed and could not exist, because it had no meaning, and achieving it was completely impossible.
This goal did not make any sense, firstly, because Napoleon’s frustrated army fled from Russia as quickly as possible, that is, it fulfilled the very thing that every Russian could wish for. Why was it necessary to carry out various operations on the French, who fled as quickly as they could?
Secondly, it was pointless to stand in the way of people who had directed all their energy to escape.
Thirdly, it was pointless to lose their troops to destroy the French armies, which were destroyed without external reasons in such a progression that without any blocking of the path they could not transfer across the border more than what they transferred in the month of December, that is, one hundredth of the entire army.
Fourthly, it was pointless to want to capture the emperor, kings, dukes - people whose captivity would greatly complicate the actions of the Russians, as the most skillful diplomats of that time admitted (J. Maistre and others). Even more senseless was the desire to take the French corps when their troops had melted halfway to Krasny, and convoy divisions had to be separated from the corps of prisoners, and when their soldiers did not always receive full provisions and the already taken prisoners were dying of hunger.
The entire thoughtful plan to cut off and catch Napoleon and his army was similar to the plan of a gardener who, driving cattle out of the garden that had trampled his ridges, would run to the gate and begin to beat this cattle on the head. One thing that could be said to justify the gardener would be that he was very angry. But this could not even be said about the drafters of the project, because they were not the ones who suffered from the trampled ridges.
But, besides the fact that cutting off Napoleon and the army was pointless, it was impossible.
This was impossible, firstly, because, since experience shows that the movement of columns over five miles in one battle never coincides with plans, the likelihood that Chichagov, Kutuzov and Wittgenstein would converge on time at the appointed place was so insignificant , that it amounted to impossibility, as Kutuzov thought, even when he received the plan, he said that sabotage over long distances does not bring the desired results.
Secondly, it was impossible because, in order to paralyze the force of inertia with which Napoleon’s army was moving back, it was necessary to have, without comparison, larger troops than those that the Russians had.
Thirdly, it was impossible because cutting off a military word has no meaning. You can cut off a piece of bread, but not an army. There is no way to cut off an army - to block its path, because there is always a lot of space around where you can go around, and there is night, during which nothing is visible, as military scientists could be convinced of, even from the examples of Krasny and Berezina. It is impossible to take prisoner without the person being taken prisoner agreeing to it, just as it is impossible to catch a swallow, although you can take it when it lands on your hand. You can take prisoner someone who surrenders, like the Germans, according to the rules of strategy and tactics. But the French troops, quite rightly, did not find this convenient, since the same hungry and cold death awaited them on the run and in captivity.
Fourthly, and most importantly, this was impossible because never since the world existed has there been a war under the terrible conditions under which it took place in 1812, and the Russian troops, in pursuit of the French, strained all their strength and did not could have done more without being destroyed themselves.
In the movement of the Russian army from Tarutino to Krasnoye, fifty thousand were left sick and backward, that is, a number equal to the population of a large provincial city. Half the people dropped out of the army without fighting.
And about this period of the campaign, when troops without boots and fur coats, with incomplete provisions, without vodka, spend the night for months in the snow and at fifteen degrees below zero; when there are only seven and eight hours of the day, and the rest is night, during which there can be no influence of discipline; when, not like in a battle, for a few hours only people are introduced into the realm of death, where there is no longer discipline, but when people live for months, every minute struggling with death from hunger and cold; when half the army dies in a month - historians tell us about this and that period of the campaign, how Miloradovich was supposed to make a flank march this way, and Tormasov there that way, and how Chichagov was supposed to move there that way (move above his knees in the snow), and how he knocked over and cut off, etc., etc.

Will Durant

History of philosophy
The lives and opinions of the greatest philosophers

Time Inc. New York, 1962

I. Plato's Context

If you look at a map of Europe, you will see that Greece, like a skeletal hand, has extended its fingers into the Mediterranean Sea. To the south of it lies the great island of Crete, from where these fingers pulled out the beginnings of civilization and culture in the 2nd millennium BC. To the east, beyond the Aegean Sea, lies Asia Minor, quiet and apathetic now, but bustling in pre-Platonic times with crafts, trade and speculation. To the west, across the Ionian Sea, are Italy, Sicily and Spain, then Greek colonies, and finally the Pillars of Hercules (which we call Gibraltar), those dark gates through which only a few ancient sailors dared to pass. And in the north there are wild and semi-barbarian regions, then called Thessaly and Macedonia, from where later came the tribes that gave the geniuses of Homeric and Periclean Greece.

Take a look at the map again and notice the countless curves of the coast and hills on the land: deep bays and coves are everywhere, and the whole land is cut and crumpled by mountains and hills. Greece was divided into isolated regions by these natural obstacles, each valley developing its own independent economic life, its own sovereign government, its own institutions, its own dialect, religion and culture. Cities appeared, surrounded by villages and cultivated fields stretching to the foot of the mountains; This is how the city-states of Euboea, Locris, Aetolia, Fotis, Boeotia, Achaea, Argolis, Elis, Arcadia, Messenia, Laconia with its Sparta and Attica with its Athens arose.

And look at the map one last time to understand the position of Athens: it is located on the farthest east of all major cities in Greece. They are located so well that for the Greeks they became the door to Asia Minor, to its business centers, to those ancient cities where the Greeks sought. Athens had an amazing port - Piraeus, where numerous ships could find refuge from the harsh sea waves; There was also a large navy in Athens.

In 490-470 BC, Sparta and Athens, forgetting mutual grievances and joining forces, repelled the Persians, who, under the leadership of Darius and Xerxes, tried to turn Greece into a colony of the Asian Empire... In this battle of young Europe against the senile East, Sparta gave an army, and Athens - fleet. After the war, Sparta disbanded its troops and experienced associated economic unrest, while Athens turned its navy into a merchant fleet and became one of the largest trading cities in the ancient world. Sparta fell into stagnation, while Athens became a business center and port, a meeting place for many people with different cults and habits, which gave birth to the Athenians' ability to compare, analyze and think. Traditions and dogmas are quickly destroyed in such centers: where there are a thousand beliefs, it is easy to doubt them all. Perhaps it was the merchants who were the first skeptics: they had seen too much to believe too much. They also developed sciences: mathematics - in connection with the growing complexity of exchange, and astronomy - in connection with the growing daring of navigation. Increased wealth brought leisure and tranquility, which formed the necessary prerequisites for research and reflection. Now the stars were required not only to provide guidance in navigation, but also to solve the mysteries of the Universe: the first Greek philosophers were astronomers. “Proud of what they have achieved,” writes Aristotle, “people have advanced far since the Persian wars; they made knowledge their destiny and sought wider research.” People have become brave enough to begin to provide natural explanations for processes and events previously attributed to supernatural forces; magic and ritual slowly gave way to reason and science; This is how philosophy began.

At first this philosophy was physical; she looked at the material world and explored the finite and indivisible component of things. The natural conclusion of this line of thought was the materialism of Democritus (460-360) - “in reality there is nothing but atoms and emptiness.” This was one of the main provisions of Greek speculation. It was forgotten for a while, but was revived by Epicurus (342-270), and later by Lucretius (98-55). And the most characteristic and productive development of Greek philosophy begins with the sophists, wandering teachers of wisdom who were more interested in their own thinking and nature than in the world of things. All of them were educated people (Gorgias and Hippias, for example), and many of them were famous (Protagoras, Prodicus); There is hardly a problem or solution in modern philosophy of spirit and behavior that they do not understand and discuss. They asked about everything, fearing neither religious nor political taboos, bravely forcing any belief or statement to appear before the court of reason. In politics they were divided into two schools. One, like Rousseau, argued that nature is good and civilization is bad, that by nature all people are equal, and become unequal only by class; and that law is the establishment of the strong to enslave and rule the weak. Another, like Nietzsche, argued that nature is indifferent to good and evil, that by nature all people are unequal, that morality is an invention of the weak to limit and annoy the strong, that power is the highest virtue and the main desire of man, and that of all The wisest and most natural form of government is aristocracy.

There is no doubt that this attack on democracy reflected the rise of a minority in Athens, one that called itself the party of the oligarchy and abolished democracy as incompetent. In a sense, not much democracy had to be abolished: of the 400,000 Athenians, 250,000 were slaves without any political rights, and of the 150,000 freemen, or citizens, only a few were present in the Ecclesia, or general assembly, where the policies of the state were discussed and determined . The same democracy they had never existed anywhere else. The General Assembly had supreme power, and the highest official body, the Dynastery, consisted of more than 1,000 members (to make the bribe too expensive), elected alphabetically from all citizens. No institution could be more democratic, or, as its opponents say, more absurd.

During the great, generation-long Peloponnesian War (430-400 BC), in which the military force of Sparta finally defeated the navy of Athens, the Athenian Oligarchic Party, led by Critias, demanded the abolition of democracy as ineffective in military operations and secretly came into contact with the Spartan aristocratic government. Many of the leaders of the oligarchy were exiled, but when Athens surrendered, one of Sparta's peace terms was the return of these exiled aristocrats. As soon as they returned, they, led by Critias, proclaimed a war of the rich against the “democratic” party that ruled during the struggle with Sparta. They were defeated and Critias was killed in battle.

This Critias was a student of Socrates and uncle of Plato.

If we can judge from the bust that has come down to us as part of a destroyed ancient sculpture, Socrates was as ugly as only a philosopher can be. Bald, with a large round face, deep-set eyes; a large nose, vividly testifying to many symposiums. But if we look closely, then through the roughness of the stone we will see that human kindness and simplicity that made this thinker the favorite teacher of the golden youth of Athens. We know him little, but more closely than the aristocratic Plato or the strict school Aristotle. After 2300 years, we can see his awkward figure, still in the same torn tunic, walking at leisure around the agora, not paying attention to the political bedlam, gathering scientists and youth around him and in the shadow of some portico asking them to define their terms.

It was a brilliant crowd, these youth, circling around him and helping him create European philosophy. There were rich young men like Plato and Alcibiades who liked Socrates' satirical analysis of Athenian democracy; socialists like Antisthenes, who liked the carefree poverty of the teacher and made a religion out of it; there were even one or two anarchists, like Aristippus, who wanted a world where there would be neither slaves nor masters, and everyone would be as carefree free as Socrates. All the problems that trouble human society today, providing material for the endless debates of youth, also worried this small group of talkers and thinkers who felt, like their teacher, that life without reasoning is unworthy of man. Any school of social thought had its representative here and, possibly, its source.

Hardly anyone knew how the teacher lived. He never worked and did not care about tomorrow. He ate when his disciples asked to share the meal with them. He was not good at home, for he despised his wife and children; from Xanthippe's point of view, he was a good-for-nothing lazy man who brought more trouble to the family than bread. Xanthippe loved to talk almost as much as Socrates, and they may have had dialogues that Plato was unable to write down. She loved him, though.

Why was he so revered by his disciples? Perhaps because he was a man as much as a philosopher; he took a great risk saving Alcibiades in battle, and he could drink like a gentleman - without fear and without excesses. But, without a doubt, what they loved most about him was the modesty of his wisdom: he did not claim to be wise, but said that he was only seeking wisdom; he was a lover of wisdom, not its priest. It is said that the Oracle at Delphi, with uncharacteristic common sense, declared Socrates to be the wisest of the Greeks, and he interpreted this in the spirit of agnosticism, which was the starting point of his philosophy: “I know only that I know nothing.” Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt - especially to doubt the most precious faiths, dogmas and axioms. Who knows how these beliefs become convictions in us, and whether we have a secret desire to have them, clothing this desire in the clothing of thought? There can be no true philosophy until the spirit turns inward and examines itself. Gnothi seauton, Socrates said, “Know yourself!”

And before him there were philosophers: strong people like Thales and Heraclitus, frail people like Parmenides and Zeno from Elea, contemplators like Protagoras and Empedocles, but for the most part they were physical philosophers: they sought the nature of external things, the laws and composition of the material and measurable peace. This is very good, says Socrates, but there is an infinitely more worthy subject for philosophy than all these trees and stones, and even all these stars - this is the human spirit. What is a person and what can he become?

So he wandered, peering into the human soul, testing convictions. If people were discussing justice very lively, he would ask them calmly - tò tí, What is this? What do you mean by these abstract words with which you so easily pose problems of life and death? What do you mean by honor, virtue, morality, patriotism? What do you know about yourself themselves? It was these kinds of moral and logical problems that Socrates loved to deal with. Some of those who suffered under this demand for precise definitions and clear thinking and clear analysis resented that it asked more than it answered, leaving human souls in greater confusion than before. Nevertheless, he demanded from philosophy two very definite answers to two of the most difficult problems: what does good mean? and what is the best state?

There could be no questions more vital than these for the young Athenians of that generation. The Sophists destroyed the faith that these youths had in the gods and goddesses of Olympus, in a moral code reinforced by fear of the institutions of countless deities; there is now no reason for a person to deny himself pleasures, for they are legal. Destructive individualism crushed the Athenian character and finally led the city to defeat by the harshly trained Spartans. How can a new and natural morality be developed and how can the city be saved?

The answer to these questions brought Socrates death and immortality. He would have been revered by his elder citizens if he had tried to restore the ancient polytheistic faith, if he had led the youths to the temples and forced them to offer sacrifices again to the gods of their fathers. But he felt that this was a hopeless and suicidal idea, a move backwards. He had his own religious faith: he believed in one God and modestly hoped that death would not destroy him completely, but he understood that a moral code could not be built on such an unreliable theology. If it were possible to construct a system of morality, absolutely independent of religious doctrine, suitable for both the atheist and the believer, then theology could develop without fear for the cement of morality that makes willing individuals peaceful citizens of society.

If, for example, “good” means “intelligent,” and “valor” means “wisdom,” if people can be taught to see clearly their true interests, to criticize and reconcile their desires, bringing them out of chaos into true harmony, this would give the educated and morality for a complex person. Perhaps sin is a mistake, partial vision, stupidity? An intelligent person has the same strong impulses as an ignorant one, but he will control them better and less often become like an animal.

And if the government itself is chaos and absurdity, if its administration is hopeless, how can we force the individual in such a state to obey the laws and moderate his pride before the common good? It is not surprising that Alcibiades turns against a state that does not trust the capable and worships numbers rather than knowledge. It is not surprising that there is chaos where there is no thought, and where the crowd decides. How can society be saved if not by the management of the smartest?

Imagine the reaction of the democratic party in Athens to this aristocratic appeal at a time when war had silenced all criticism, and when a rich and educated minority was preparing a revolution! Consider the feelings of Anytus, a democratic leader whose son became Socrates' disciple, turned against his father's gods, and laughed in his father's face. Did not Aristophanes accurately predict the result of such a replacement of old virtues by asocial rationality?

Then the revolution happened, and people fought for it again and again, fiercely and to the death. When democracy triumphed, Socrates' fate was sealed: he was the intellectual leader of the rebel party, no matter how peaceful he himself was; he was the source of hated philosophy, the seducer of young men intoxicated by argument. It will be better, say Anytus and Meletus, if Socrates dies.

The whole world knows the end of this story, for Plato described it in prose more beautiful than poetry. We are given the opportunity to read this simple and bold apology, where the first hero of philosophy declares the right and necessity of free thought and refuses the mercy of the crowd, which he always despised. They had the power to forgive him - he refused to appeal. The only confirmation of his theory was that the judges wanted to let him go, but the angry crowd voted for his death. Did he deny the gods? Woe to him who teaches people faster than they can learn!

So they decided that he would drink hemlock. His friends came to prison and offered an easy escape: they bribed the guards who stood between him and freedom. He refused. He was 70 years old (399 BC). Perhaps he believed that it was time for him to die and that he would no longer have the opportunity to die so usefully. “Be in a good mood,” he said to his regretful friends, “and say that you only buried my body...”

3. Preparations for Plato

Plato's meeting with Socrates was a turning point in his life. He was raised in comfort and perhaps in wealth; he was a handsome and lively youth, named Plato, it is said, because of the width of his shoulders (“Plato” is Greek for “Broad”). He was an excellent soldier and twice won prizes at the Isthmian Games. Such young men usually do not make philosophers. But Plato's subtle soul found new joy in the dialectical game of Socrates. She enjoyed watching the teacher destroy dogma and prejudice with the blade of her questions. Plato became interested in such competitions and, under the leadership of the old Gadfly (as Socrates called himself), he went from simple argument to analysis and fruitful discussion. He became a very passionate lover of wisdom and his teacher. “I am grateful to God,” he said, “that I was born a Greek and not a barbarian, a free man and not a slave, a man and not a woman. And most of all, because I was born in the era of Socrates.”

He was 28 when his teacher died. And this tragic end to his quiet life left its mark on every phase of his student's thinking. It filled him with such a disgust for democracy, such a hatred of the crowd, that even his aristocratic upbringing could hardly have led to it in itself. He led Plato to the Cato decision that democracy should be abolished and replaced by the rule of the wisest and best. The main problem of his life was the search for methods by which the wisest and best could be discovered and placed in power.

His attempts to save Socrates brought him under the suspicion of the democratic leaders. His friends were convinced that it was not safe to remain in Athens, and this was a delightfully opportune moment for him to see the world. This was in 399 BC. Where he went, we cannot say with certainty: the authorities are still fighting among themselves over every turn in his journey. It seems that he first went to Egypt, where he was somewhat shocked by what he heard from the priests who ruled that land, the statement that Greece was a child state, without established traditions or deep culture, for which reason it was not taken seriously by the Nile Sphinxes. However, nothing educates us like shock! The memory of this, of this learned caste, theocratically ruling over a static agricultural people, always lived in Plato's thinking and played a role in the writing of his Utopia. He then sailed to Sicily and Italy. There he joined for a time a school or sect founded by the great Pythagoras. And once again his receptive spirit was marked by the memory of a small group of people who withdrew from the world to explore and rule, living simple lives despite the possession of power. He wandered for 12 years, falling to every source of wisdom. Some believe that he also went to Judea and was influenced by the traditions of its almost socialist preachers, or even that he went to the banks of the Ganges and studied the mystical meditation of the Hindus. We do not know.

He returned to Athens in 387 BC, now a man of forty years old, grown to manhood, among many different people and among the wisdom of many lands. He has cooled slightly the enthusiasm of his youth, but has acquired a forward thinking, for which each extreme seems only half the truth. He acquired knowledge and poetic skill. The philosopher and the poet now coexisted in one soul. He created for himself a way of expression in which both truth and beauty are relevant and play a role - dialogue. It is safe to say that philosophy has never been so brilliant before and, apparently, never since. Even in translation, his style shines, sparkles and bubbles. “Plato,” says one of his admirers, Shelley [an English romantic poet], “represents a rare union of strict and subtle logic with the Pythian enthusiasm of poetry, fused by the brilliance and harmony of his constructions into a single indomitable stream of musical impressions.” There is no doubt that the young philosopher began as a playwright.

The difficulty of understanding Plato lies mainly in this poisonous mixture of philosophy and poetry, science and art. We can never tell in which of the characters of the dialogue the author himself speaks, in what formulations he speaks literally or metaphorically, mockingly or seriously. His love of mockery, irony and myth leaves us perplexed at times. One might even say that he does not teach otherwise than through metaphors. “Should I tell this to you, to me, as the eldest, with evidence or myth?” asks Protagoras [a famous sophist, contemporary of Plato], a character in the dialogue of the same name. These dialogues are said to have been written by Plato for the general reading public of his time: by their conversational method, their living war of pros and cons, their gradual development and frequent repetition of each important argument, they were adapted and clear (though now they may seem obscure to us) for understanding of a person who must try philosophy as an occasional luxury, who is forced to read due to the brevity of life, as much as a running person can read. Therefore, we must be prepared to encounter a lot of playful and metaphorical things in these dialogues. There is much that is not understandable to anyone except for scientists formed in the social and literary environment of Plato's time, much that today seems inappropriate and ridiculous, but can serve as seasoning and aroma for a heavy dish of philosophical thought.

Let us also recognize that Plato is abundantly endowed with the qualities that he himself condemns. He attacks poets and their myths, while remaining a poet himself and lengthening the list of myths. He complains about priests (who scare people with hell and then offer to get rid of it at their own request - State, 364), but he himself is a priest, a theologian, a preacher, a super-moralist, like Savonarola, burned by vanity and rejecting art.

He admits, like Shakespeare, that comparisons are slippery, but he himself slips into more and more comparisons. He condemns the sophists as phrase-mongering debaters, but he himself does not remain aloof from attempts to turn logic into a chop. It is parodied by Fago [French historian of philosophy]: “Is the whole greater than the part? Yes is the answer. Is the part smaller than the whole? Yes. Therefore, philosophers should govern the state? - What, what? - It is obvious! Let’s go through the proof first.”

But this is the worst thing we can say about him. And even after this, dialogue remains one of the priceless treasures of the world. The best of them, The Republic, is a complete treatise. Plato reduced it to a book in which we will find metaphysics, theology, ethics, psychology, pedagogy, politics, and theory of art. Here we will find problems that are striking in their modernity: communism and socialism, feminism, birth control and eugenics (a set of practical recommendations for breeding new breeds of people), Nietzsche’s problem of morality and aristocracy, the problem of a return to nature and Rousseau’s libertarian pedagogy, Bergsonian “life impulse" and Freud's psychoanalysis - it's all here. “Plato is philosophy, and philosophy is Plato,” says Emerson [philosopher, poet, literary critic of the Transcendental Club of New York], and says of the Republic what Omar said of the Koran: “Burn the books.” , for their entire value lies in this book.”

Policy, 1341.
Wed. Voltaire's story about two Athenians talking about Socrates: “This is the atheist who said that there is only one God” ( Philosophical Dictionary, article “Socrates”).
In “Clouds” (423 BC), Aristophanes laughed at Socrates and his “thinking shop”, where he taught the art of proving one’s own rightness, but a false one. Phillipides beats his father on the grounds that his father often beat him, and every debt must be paid in full. This satire was probably copied from life: we often find Aristophanes in the company of Socrates. They agree in their contempt for democracy, and Plato recommended The Clouds to Dionysius. Since the comedy was written a quarter of a century before the execution of Socrates, it could not play a big role in the tragic outcome of his life.

Capitalism, Russia and globalization: the road to slavery

Alexander Odintsov

“A great civilization cannot be conquered from the outside,

until she destroys herself from the inside."

Will Durant

“There are fatal moments in the life of a state when the state

necessity comes before right and when one must choose

between the integrity of theories and the integrity of the fatherland"

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin

It cannot be denied that the capitalist system, starting from the 16th and 17th centuries, has brought unprecedented progress in the development of mankind. But this progress is now combined with an unprecedented gap between the capabilities of civilization and the actual state of the world economy, which is in the stupor of a global debt crisis and a global crisis of overproduction. You have to be absolutely blind not to see the trends that are leading our country to a demographic crisis, and subsequently to a loss of territorial integrity and dissolution in the space between a well-fed Europe and East Asia (China) striving for world leadership. Of course, there is a simple way - to constantly be in a state of “complacency.” But the fact remains: globalization is the main challenge for our country and the dilemma for us is extremely simple: “To be or not to be?”

Since 1990, Russia has lost more than 23 thousand settlements (for comparison, during the Great Patriotic War, the USSR lost more than 70 thousand villages and villages, 1710 cities and towns), the population reduction amounted to about 6.09 million people and this process only stopped in 2010. However, it, like the small increase in 2011 - about 190 thousand people, was achieved mainly due to migration. According to UN forecasts, by 2025 our population could reach 131 million people, while the reduction in the working-age population by 2025 will reach at least 10 million people. According to the latest data from the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the poverty level in the Russian Federation is about 59%, the level of the middle class is 6-8%. According to surveys, only approximately 25% of Russian families can support children, 50% find it difficult, and 25% are unable to. A country with a degenerating population cannot have any basis for economic development.

Any details can be discussed, but the end result of the current economic policy is the extinction of the Russian nation: these data are comparable only (!) with the demographic decline after World War 2, in which the total losses of the USSR amounted to 26.6 million people. Graph 1 below gives a clear picture of the scale of the disaster.

Even during the civil war - according to data from 1917 to 1926, the population of Russia within its current borders grew by 1.7 million people. It grew even during the period of repression - according to statistics from 1926 to 1937 - by 12.2 million people. The greatest failure was during the Great Patriotic War - according to data from 1941 to 1950 - minus 10 million people.

From the point of view of historical retrospect, these data indicate the following disappointing conclusion: Russian civilization is now in a state of unprecedented and profound crisis, which has no historical analogues (perhaps except for the Mongol yoke and the era of the “Time of Troubles”), which is caused by the crisis of the political and economic model of the state .

In the current model of the economy, which is of a raw materials nature, a significant part of the Russian population - for the first time in the entire history of the country, starting from the deep Middle Ages, cannot be effectively used.

This looks especially ridiculous, since in Russia there are enormous opportunities for almost unlimited creation: its infrastructure is absolutely undeveloped, there is a huge shortage of housing, and the vast majority of the territory is undeveloped. Some regions have no economy at all. At the same time, unemployment data in some regions is absolutely outrageous: the Republic of Tyva (22.0% !!!), the Republic of Kalmykia (15.0%), the Kurgan region (12.2%), the Trans-Baikal Territory (11.4%), the Republic Altai (12.3%), Komi Republic (10.3%), Kaliningrad region (10.6%), Mari El Republic (10.5%), Irkutsk region (10.2%), Republic of Ingushetia (49.7%!!!), Chechen Republic ( 43.1%!!!).

As for existing employment, what can be said about the work that does not allow one to “make ends meet”? Of course, even relatively wealthy people may not start a family or not have children. But people are uncertain about the future; we do not have social consolidation - common goals of the people, elites and the state; The level of churching among citizens is insufficient, which is a legacy of the atheistic past. The unspoken principle of “everyone for himself”, the lack of solidarity, the underdevelopment of the economy, the dull appearance of provincial reality - all this confirms in people a feeling of uselessness both for the state and for business, which leads to a reluctance to reproduce themselves.

This situation raises both the question of the effectiveness of a significant part of the economic theories currently used, and a significant part of our elites, who are unable to decide on adequate steps for the active development of the country. Of course, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and now Sochi, some other cities, the financial sector and trade, and “science cities” are actively developing in our country. But it’s worth driving more than 70 km from Moscow and we will see the true picture of our economy.

Why is everything happening this way, where are the economic roots of globalization? The basic logic of capitalism is the constant accumulation of capital, the expansion of production and the stimulation (or maintenance) of jobs necessary for political stability. Given the narrowness of domestic markets, external expansion becomes almost the only way to provide the necessary employment. Countries that have relative advantages in the production of certain goods have the opportunity to strengthen their geopolitical positions. Those countries that do not have such advantages inevitably weaken.

Our elites believe that Russia will be able to find a place for itself in the current global division of labor. Being raw materials, our elites have already found this place; as for the people, under liberalism, as is known, “every man for himself.” Russia may be able to find its place, but it is a matter of life and death - what real equilibrium population volume will this location correspond to? ? Judging by current trends, we may become a “dwarf country.” In the current situation, Russia has comparative advantages in the supply of raw materials, possibly agriculture, the nuclear industry, space, weapons production, energy, incl. atomic, science, etc. But everything is at war. The Germans do not need such a volume of pork produced, just as America did not need such a volume of chicken legs - they brought them to us.

Consider the following simple example. Although a large-scale rearmament program has been proposed, over the past few years they have been trying to convince us in every possible way that our military-industrial complex is lagging behind and we should not be importing weapons (when quite recently we were their largest exporter). If we have some kind of lag in the field of electronic technologies, then it can be solved through partnership with Western countries or China or India, which do not have these problems, but not by burying our defense industry, which is still one of the most powerful in the world . Why buy aircraft carriers in France for huge amounts of money when we could spend this money in Russia? Was it not our country that created atomic weapons after the United States, and became the first in the space race? Has anything changed since then? There is only one thing – the orientation of our state. Maybe it’s better to honestly admit: our Western partners will welcome the collapse of our military-industrial complex, our orders are very profitable for them, and finally, we are not at all averse to getting a “green portfolio”? Nothing personal just business. And this state of affairs can be seen in many areas.

The external capitalist world cannot have any other logic other than subjugating Russia and turning it into a raw material appendage. Do they need anything other than raw materials that we can produce, but which will automatically lead to a decrease in employment for them? There is no way we can compensate for the decline in employment in traditional industries, which we have observed since the 90s, through growth in export-oriented industries and the service sector. Hypothetically, we are able to compete, for example, in the sectors of production of medical equipment, medicines and medical services, as D. Medvedev spoke about. All that is needed for this is to learn how to produce those “expensive” medicines that really help, at least 30% cheaper, or better yet 50%. Or create dental implants that a teacher from our school could install for himself.

Of course, Russia could compete in everything. But this requires clear strategic plans, resources and funding - instead of which chatter thrives. And instead of developing the national economy, our state and business continue to expand imports without taking any active steps to develop import substitution, i.e. contributing to the creation of jobs outside of Russia. The volume of imports from 1995 to 2010 increased almost fourfold from 62.6 to 248.7 billion dollars, while from mid-2004 the pace of its growth took on an “explosive” character, stopping only during the 2008 crisis (see .graph 2).

As one of the creators of “liberalization” of the 90s let slip: “actually, why do we need import substitution?” Really why? Then, to create jobs within the country and become an exporter of these goods and services. Since this was done by all the countries that received an entrance ticket to the world economy - Japan, Asian dragons, China, India. Stimulation of imports is greatly facilitated by the extremely strange policy of our monetary authorities, who in every possible way prevent the weakening of the ruble, which directly facilitates the task of occupying our markets by external producers.

Russia differs sharply from the Asian tigers, Japan and Germany in that the increase in our raw material exports is not so important for our existence. We have all the resources, as much land as you want, hypothetically we can produce a lot of what we now import, perhaps for now - except for some high-tech electronics and equipment, feed ourselves and half the world, exporting significantly fewer raw materials and spending them on domestic development of the country. This does not mean that we do not need to actively compete in foreign markets, but our range of economic tasks is somewhat different. Try to answer an extremely simple question: why are our monetary and economic authorities absolutely unable to provide labor for the nation in the domestic market? There is no reasonable answer to this.

The second principle of capitalism is to maximize profits, including through constant cost reduction. This inevitably led to the implementation of the main global trend of the last 30 years - the transfer of jobs to countries with cheap labor, primarily to China, with the accompanying destruction of local national industry. Here we have the same picture as in the USA. It is easy to see that this trend is in fundamental contradiction with the need to ensure the required level of domestic employment. But if not for this law, there would never have been any modernization in China. On this occasion, the famous French economist Maurice Allais wrote a book, the content of which is set out in its title: “Globalization: the destruction of conditions of employment and economic growth. Empirical evidence." (1999). China is a champion in terms of low cost of living and, as a result, in doing business. Competing with him is practically impossible. The total supply of manpower that China has in its supply in the undeveloped and poor provinces is comparable to the total population of Russia.

P.A. Stolypin warned us more than a hundred years ago about the possible loss of our eastern lands. That is why he did a lot for the development of Siberia. But liberal authorities can never develop these territories, because they always “have no money.” But they are quite willing to lease these lands to China, and now to North Korea - perhaps also on “special” conditions. True, there is (for now) enough money for the basically necessary (the question is priorities) Olympics and the football championship. Russia must turn to a sovereign rather than independent financial policy, making our financial authorities a “branch” of the global emission center.

The logic of capitalism leads us down the same path. People of other nations do not cause any hostility among the majority of normal Russian people. That's why we are Russians. But what about when our labor market is filled with immigrants from Central Asia, who are crowding out Russians from construction, trade and services? Who is next? After all, migration is the import of unemployment for the Russian population. It’s one thing when the system-forming peoples of Russia are migrants, and another thing when they are not. But middle Asians (mostly Muslims) have an undoubted competitive advantage - they are ready to live in almost “prison conditions”, work for pennies, and the only question they have is “do you have a job?”

Now the idea is constantly being imposed on us that Russia cannot live without foreign labor. But at the same time, the current unemployment rate in Russia is 5.6 million people (according to official statistics) or 7.5%. What could be the labor shortage? Perhaps only in Moscow, but even here there is no full employment - unemployment is 1.7%. Moreover, it will not be Russians from the Baltic states and Kazakhstan who will emigrate to us, as would be the case if our state were Orthodox and Russian in its mentality, and not globalist, but cheap labor from Central, and then possibly from East Asia. Any business will never refuse cheap, almost slave labor. But here it is appropriate to remember the US planters who brought black slaves into their country and what came of it. Again, nothing personal, just business. At the same time, migrants export a significant part of their income to their home countries, which “undermines” aggregate demand in Russia.

It turns out to be a vicious circle, which now operates as follows: emigrants (often illegal ones) displace Russians through competition, which gives rise to increased unemployment of the indigenous population, which creates the preconditions for their displacement from life, which in turn serves as the basis for blessing the further expansion of migration.

Let's try to roughly, indicatively, estimate how much labor force is displacing imports. It is clear that imports are always necessary, but only those goods that cannot even potentially be produced in the country can be useful. For example, in Germany alone, according to official data, about 700 thousand jobs are associated with export production aimed at Russia. How many of them are there really? How many are there in China, Turkey and other countries? Should we be surprised at the catastrophic population decline in our country?

If we consider that the volume of imports in 2010 was 248.7 billion dollars. the level of wage costs is about 30% and assume that the average wage of workers in the real sector is about 20 thousand rubles. we get a figure of about 9.3 million people, i.e. approximately as much as should be lost in Russia by 2025 among the economically active population.

If only part of this money were spent in the country; if capital had not been exported from Russia on such a scale, if the ruling classes had paid normal taxes, if the monetary authorities had issued means of payment in the volume necessary for the country, our employment, standard of living and economic development would have been much higher. There is no weapon more effective than globalism: externally imposed economic policies, migration, dependent financial policies and the capture of domestic markets.

So the process of destruction of the Russian nation has been launched and is in full swing - both due to the reduction of original jobs through imports, and due to their replacement by migrants. This will inevitably affect Russians - the main base of bearers of the Orthodox faith.

If the leading strata of society and those who are responsible to the nation for the proper performance of their duties do not realize the scale of the existing disaster, the consequences can be very unpredictable. Regardless of existing policies and in spite of them, Russians must fight for their place in the sun, strengthen national unity, their families and have more children.

From the point of view of the theory of the “world behind the scenes”, what is happening can be interpreted this way: the West, continuing the so-called “cold” war, is trying to completely eliminate its potential competitor, who has an alternative culture and religion - by waging against us a comprehensive and most thoughtful economic, ideological, cultural, information and political war. You can, of course, think about a “reset,” but for some reason US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently said: “...Russia is, without any question, our number one geopolitical enemy.” Politics never forgives naivety. “There is nothing secret that would not become obvious...” And here is what Peter Zeihan (USA) writes: “...Russia does not have a population capable of holding the country within its current borders. As time passes, Russia's ability to do this will diminish even more significantly."

What you call it doesn’t matter, only the result matters. But the fact remains that we cannot overcome these negative trends, since we do not play by the rules that economic rationality prescribes to us, but entirely by the rules that are called the Washington Consensus (or the modern Western economic yoke). These are a deficit-free budget, liberalization of financial markets, open domestic markets, freedom of capital movement, issue of the national currency (ruble) for export and the influx of foreign capital.

It is necessary to remember the reasons for the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the spiritual successor of which we are - quite clearly shown in the film by Archimandrite Tikhon "The Death of the Empire. The Byzantine Lesson." As P.A. Stolypin wrote more than a hundred years ago: “People sometimes forget about their national tasks; But such peoples perish, they turn into soil, into fertilizer, on which other, stronger peoples grow and grow stronger...”

Western civilization has specific spiritual roots, which were manifested, among other things, in the intransigence of Catholicism - the West constantly subjugated peoples and colonized them, while the Russian nation, due to the peacefulness and tolerance of Orthodoxy, established mainly cooperative relations in its zone of influence. Western civilization organized the Crusades and initiated two world wars; and the current USA cannot in any way be called a peace-loving state. Now let’s remember who hasn’t tried to conquer Russia (Mongols, Poles, Napoleon, Hitler...) and where are all of them, these conquerors?

And now “happiness” (!!!) will finally happen - we will join the WTO. The relevant news is presented in maximum “major”. But there is no need to have any illusions - if we do not fight as a whole for every opportunity in the global division of labor, in the near future we will lose more and more jobs. There is no way we will be able to compensate for the drop in employment as a result of further opening our markets, since in our country there are no political forces and institutions that would actually, and not on paper, protect our domestic employment and the development of our economy. This situation may gradually lead to increased political risks and social instability. The trends are simple - more imports - more extinction of the country.

Globalization is the ideology of transnational corporations that now rule the whole world. No trade barriers, free movement of capital, a focus on external world money, and finally, a weak state that cannot be called sovereign - and on which all this “liberal noodles” can be easily imposed ». Globalization is dangerous because it completely destroys the sovereignty of weak states, forcing them to act according to the rules that please the strong. A further trend is the imposition of “multiculturalism,” which has already yielded extremely negative results in Europe (especially in France and Germany), as well as in the United States. All these puzzles lead to the destruction of all state and national barriers and to the creation of some future legal World Government.

Another aspect of globalization is the orientation of a significant part of our elites. It consists not only in using the country as a cash cow, but also in many ways - in not being unwilling to invest in its development, providing civic support by paying adequate taxes (on a progressive scale) and exporting capital to the West.

Is it possible to say in our state who is ours and who is a stranger? The property of our largest raw materials companies is largely registered in the hands of foreign companies (although their beneficiaries are our citizens), sales markets are also located outside; they are credited abroad and in foreign currency; invest a lot abroad; Even among our medium-sized companies there are many that transfer their funds abroad to offshore companies, evading taxes. Some of our elites have real estate abroad, sometimes their families live there, and their children study there. A significant part of our legal economic experts and institutions profess liberalism, i.e. the ideology of slavery imposed on us by the West. What are Western specialists (outside the commercial sector) who are here on a permanent basis doing here? Our media market is filled with Western products, as are our stores. We are fed violence, pornography and perversion. Our enterprises are being bought up by foreigners. Russia, as before the 1917 revolution, is again almost completely colonized by the West. And not only subordinated, but actually economically controlled from the outside. I wonder where the program of the leader of the “new right”, which is rapidly gaining political weight (as shown by the results of the presidential elections), leads to, which includes the integration of Russia into Europe and the introduction of a common currency based on the euro?

Russia completely and freely surrendered the geopolitical heritage of the USSR, did not in any way interfere with many Western operations, including in relation to our former allies, and even for the sake of decency did not take any measures to impede the events in Libya. Who are we - a Great Power or an appendage of the West, from time to time time for the show of “barking” at him? “Playing along” or uniting our elites with the West can cost the country too much, since it can inevitably end in a complete break with the people. And then neither political performances nor PR technologies can do it.

Actually, the dead end of the raw material (read globalist) model has been recognized more than once even by the members of the tandem themselves. What is the point of using a model that cannot ensure growth, social stability and national security? Who really rules our country? As we remember, our princes during the era of the Mongol yoke received “labels to reign” in the Mongol horde.

Doesn’t everything that’s happening resemble the path to the so-called “time of troubles”, the exit from which we celebrate on November 4? Are there any new ones in Russia now? citizen Kuzma Minin and prince Dmitry Pozharsky? But the current government, if desired, has every opportunity to “try on” their armor.

Many of the events that are happening now reproduce too accurately what happened before the revolution of 1917. One of the fundamental reasons for the tragedy of that time was not the “export of the revolution from the outside,” which took place, but would never bear fruit without soil; but the fact that a significant part of the people - peasants, workers and intellectuals realized that the elites were alien to their national tasks. We, of course, now have television and there is no peasant question, no charismatic leaders, for now - thank God for war, but the destruction of the legitimacy of power is becoming, with current trends, only a matter of time.

In a few years, we will have to go through a psychologically extremely important date - the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution. By this time, the country will inevitably take stock of that tragic time and compare it with the current, albeit “peaceful” tragedy that occurred after another, this time “liberal” revolution. But her character doesn’t change the essence.

In order not to become a “dwarf”, Russia should: regain the right to sovereign issue of the ruble, not related to our exports, but only to the need to finance domestic labor in the required volume; actively compete in foreign markets using the full power of the state; to protect the domestic market within reasonable limits, including through a reasonable weakening of the ruble; stimulate in every possible way the development of infrastructure and the development of backward regions; to build not a liberal-dogmatic, but a mixed economy, which would combine not only a powerful market sector, but also elements of a planned and state economy.

Let us once again remember the behests that the great Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin laid out for us: “ .. . Spineless Russia will be bribed, deceived, corrupted and conquered by other peoples. ... Russia, with its size and composition, will not exist under weak state power, no matter what this weakness is caused by: the lack of will of the ruler, the opposition of parties or international dependence. Russian state power will either be strong or it will not exist at all.”