ON THE CRISIS SITUATION IN THE THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL APPARATUS OF SCIENCE

1. A FRACTURE IN UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF MYTHS
   The study of methodological requirements usually comes down to comparing scientists of various profiles to a certain “conceptual bar” that is most authoritative for them, the compliance of which is taken as a criterion for the scientific nature of certain artifacts, judgments and hypotheses of a more specific nature. The formula for precisely this understanding of methodologism was given by A. N. Whitehead (1861–1947). This prominent English philosopher, speaking of “a method that generates meaningful knowledge,” explained it as the need to rely on “a coherent, logical and necessary system of general ideas, in terms of which every element of our experience could be interpreted” [1]. And the problematic nature of such an understanding of methodologism is associated with the possible discrepancy between the “coherent logical and necessary system of general ideas” and real factuality, and, therefore, the requirements of science.

In academic science of the Soviet period, the general scientific “conceptual plank” or “a coherent logical and necessary system of general ideas” was the worldview of historical materialism in its Marxist interpretation. And this same worldview, already without references to Marxism, continues to determine the thinking style of the overwhelming majority of modern, both Russian and Western, scientists.

But how can we see that it is this that satisfies the criterion of scientificity to the maximum? – After all, in reality we observe something completely different. Namely: this worldview’s interpretation of the most ancient forms of spiritual culture as the focus of so-called nonsense and prejudices [2] absolutely does not correspond to the latest empirical data on the semantic organization of culture [3], and, therefore, cannot be considered scientific.

By “inconsistency with the latest empirical data” we mean the following.

The main “prejudice”, the primary source of all the others, including religious “prejudices”, is, according to Istmatovian premises, the mythological tradition that “bewitches” a person. And it was with her that a scientific metamorphosis occurred, unforeseen by materialist-oriented historians. If in the XVIII–XIX centuries. literature was demythologized, and in science the positivist idea of ​​myths prevailed as the fruits of immature thought, inept, false generalizations and remnants of undeveloped consciousness, then “from the end of the 19th century, “remythologization” began ˂…˃ Ethnology of the 20th century, starting with B. Malinovsky, F. Boas, J. Fraser and the students of the latter – the so-called “Cambridge school”, showed the fundamental role of myth and ritual in the life of archaic society and the genesis of social institutions. The “philosophy of life” going back to Nietzsche (especially… the role of Henri Bergson) paved the way for the perception of myth not as a half-forgotten episode of the prehistory of culture, but as an eternal, timeless living essence of culture. A deep understanding of myth as the most important “symbolic” form of human activity with its special specificity was demonstrated by the neo-Kantian of the Marburg school, Ernst Cassirer. Unlike the representative of the French sociological school L. Lévy-Bruhl, who emphasized the irrational nature of myths, Cassirer also identified their rational elements” [4].

All subsequent research in this area of ​​knowledge has finally confirmed the correctness of the view of the mythological tradition as the foundation and soil of world culture. The empirical material accumulated to date makes us see in myths no longer individual fantastic ideas and narratives, but a universal worldview in its most ancient forms, which gave rise to absolutely all later manifestations of linguistic thinking: folklore, religion, philosophy, science, art, literature, etc. Accordingly , myths in this new situation began to be perceived not as a sum of errors and misconceptions in the general process of formation of public consciousness, but as a prerequisite information fund of human culture – as the primary arsenal of its visual means and ideological attitudes.

Simply put, myths turned out to be “our everything” – that “treasury of meanings” (thesaurós), ignoring which is tantamount to abandoning culture itself. So it is not at all by chance that Christianity, which was the first to subject “mythological (“pagan”) prejudices” to radical criticism, later itself found itself in the role of a victim, having with its own hands done the fatal “preparatory work to accelerate the arrival of the Enlightenment, which was hostile to it” [5]. And it is no coincidence that “overcoming all prejudices, this most general requirement of the Enlightenment, itself begins to expose itself as a prejudice” [6]. “Historical and conceptual analysis shows that only thanks to the Enlightenment the concept of prejudice receives its usual negative connotation. The word “prejudice” (Vorurteil) itself means a prejudgment, that is, a judgment (Urteil) made before the final verification of all factually determining points” [7].

2. A NEW LOOK AT “HISTORICISM”
   Domestic science has not remained aloof from the process of remythologizing culture. In 1980, the publishing house “Soviet Encyclopedia” published a fundamental two-volume book “Myths of the Peoples of the World”, in the preface to which we read: “Mythology acts as the earliest form of worldview corresponding to ancient and especially primitive society”, “as the original form of spiritual culture of mankind” [8]. “The scientific approach to the study of world religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism) has shown that they are also filled with myths” [9]. “Being a system of primitive worldview, mythology included, as an undivided, synthetic unity, the beginnings of not only religion, but also philosophy, political theories, pre-scientific ideas about the world and man, as well as … various forms of art, primarily verbal” [10]. Moreover: it turned out that not only the beginnings of science, but also science itself still displays the properties of “scientific mythology.” “Science, as such, cannot destroy the myth in any way. She only realizes him and removes from him a certain rational, for example, logical or numerical plane” [11] . And the general conclusion: “Every thought is consciously or unconsciously guided by myth”, “Myth is, as it were, an ideal structure of life, a semantic skeleton of action” [12].

“A specific picture of how early versions of mathematical science arose from the practice of ritual measurements and numerical “bricolage”, from mythopoetic theriomorphic-vegetative classifications zoology and botany arose, from the doctrine of cosmic elements and body composition – medicine, from the opening of the last stage in texts about the act of creation – history, and from speculation over the schemes of mythopoetic operations and linguistic “bricolage” – the beginnings of logic, the language of science and linguistics – is well known and described many times. In any case, ancient Greek natural philosophy in the person of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, history in the person of Herodotus, logic and mathematics in the person of Aristotle and Euclid (and the same Pythagoras) retain living connections with the heritage of the mythopoetic era.” And “to an even greater extent, the same can be said about what is called the beginnings of science in Ancient India or China” [13].

What deserves primary attention here is the fact of the mythological roots of historical science: it turns into the realization that the modern scientific concept of “historicism” is nothing more than a superficially scientific mythological presumption of “origin”, inherited by later philosophy and science. The pioneers in this understanding of “historicism” were E. Cassirer in the West, and V. I. Vernadsky in Russia. The first in his main work “Philosophy of Symbolic Forms” wrote: “The problem of genesis is the common property of science and myth, however, the method and nature, the modality of considering this problem changes when moving from one sphere to another: instead of meaning by “origin” a mythological potency, we begin to see in it a scientific principle and it is as such that we learn to understand it” [14]. And V.I. Vernadsky clearly explained that the mythological presumption of “origin”—in his terminology, the idea of ​​the “Beginning of the World”—took in European-American science, not without the influence of I. Kant, the form of the idea of ​​a “natural process” only towards the end of the 18th century. – early 19th century [15].

3. CULTURE SOFTWARE
   The new – empirical – view of myths no longer as “noise” (prejudicial) accompaniment of the general rational comprehension of reality, but as the original form of spiritual culture, remains today the property of a narrow circle of specialists; he is practically unknown to the mass consciousness. This is evident from the fact that in modern speech practice there is a widespread habit of calling “myth” everything that is considered false and/or non-existent. There is nothing to be surprised here: the consequences arising from the new scientific view of the essence of myths are so unusual that they still do not fit not only into the mass, but – often – also into professional scientific consciousness.

What is meant is the following: these consequences turn into the need for a radical revision of those methodological premises that retain the appearance of “general science” on which the modern idea of ​​cultural genesis is based. The fact is that with the awareness of “prejudice” as “pre-reasoning”, the inconsistency of the “progressive-Enlightenment” view of the historical dynamics of culture becomes completely clear. The reliably established “connection of the historical principle with the mythological” [16] extremely exposed the tautology of the statement according to which “the reasons why myths should have arisen in general… should apparently be sought in the peculiarities of thinking common to that level of cultural and historical development “[17], that is, in the myths themselves! But “scientific proof cannot already have as a prerequisite something to substantiate what its task is,” otherwise we get a situation of “circle in evidence.” And in this situation, “the occupation of historiographic interpretation turns out to be a priori expelled from the sphere of strict knowledge” [18].

At the level of ordinary consciousness, the essence of the “circle” is easily explained by an anecdote about a prosecutor and a bribe-taker: “Where does the money come from?” – “From the nightstand.” – “Where is it in the nightstand?” – “The wife puts it in.” – “Where did your wife get it from?” – “I am giving”. – “Where did you get it from?” – “From the nightstand.” At the level of scientific consciousness, everything is much more complicated. For example, the theory of natural selection from a purely logical point of view is a meaningless tautology, because, as K. Popper rightly noted, the statement “the fittest survive” is equivalent to the statement “the survivors survive.” Nevertheless, the theory of natural selection still continues to be considered an essential element of the school curriculum for shaping the worldview of students, which inevitably leads to either sad or conspiracy-theological (that is, even sadder) thoughts.

The difficulty of understanding the methodological problem of the “circle” lies in the fact that its true general scientific scale cannot reach in its true scope the mass scientific consciousness “bruised by progressivism.” This can be seen from two points: 1 – the “circle” is perceived as a consequence of the imperfection of the evidentiary procedure; it is believed that if this procedure is improved, then the “circle” will disappear; 2 – “circle” is perceived in the spirit of postmodernism that is fashionable today: as another simulacrum derived from “play on words” (J. Baudrillard and others).

In fact, the “circle” means that it is impossible in principle to penetrate into the study of the roots of human culture deeper than myths, and that the beginning of culture should therefore not be derived from the “zero reference point” invented by materialistically-minded philosophers, in which everything supposedly arises and then becomes self-complicated that which distinguishes people from animals, but from the most ancient, initially complex phase of culture in the mythological form of its semantic organization. This is why we have to think that the idea of ​​a hypothetical “zero”, albeit greatly extended in historical time, starting point, from which the process of complicating spiritual culture supposedly gains momentum, is nothing more than a speculative product of a “progressive” style of thinking. And as a scientific alternative to the “zero reference point”, the idea of ​​a “prerequisite information fund of culture”, which takes the form of a system of mythological ideas about the world, is gradually beginning to take shape. Moreover, the situation looks as if this prerequisite information fund in the history of culture performed the function of its “software” [19].

Accordingly, we come to understand that the view of ourselves as creators and masters of our own culture, imposed on us by the “progressive-Enlightenment” understanding of historicism, has finally become obsolete. In the light of empirical data, we appear to be like children programmed by culture and playing at it. Moreover, they play not according to their own arbitrariness and desire, as the overwhelming majority of representatives of the scientific community “bruised by progressivism” are still convinced of, but according to the rules set by the culture itself (its structure, dynamics and functions).

W. von Humboldt already guessed that this was the case: “No matter how natural the assumption of the gradual formation of languages ​​may seem,” we read from him, “they could only arise immediately. Man is man only through language; to create a language, he must already be a person” [20]. And today the same idea is consonant with the “prestructure of understanding” by M. Heidegger [21], and the “domain premises” of A. Gouldner [22], and the “prerequisite knowledge” of N. I. Gribanov [23], and the “pre-reflective infrastructure of implicit assumptions” “A.P. Ogurtsov [24], and “unpacked semantic continuum” by V.V. Nalimov [25]. – All these newest concepts indicate that “the meaning of the World is the manifestation of everything potentially inherent in it,” and “the role of man is participation in this cosmogonic process. We are not given more to know (yet – S.G.)” [26].

4. THE PRINCIPLE OF “INITIAL COMPLEXITY”
   Postulating an “initially complex phase of culture” as a scientific fact is a classic empirical generalization. This term was introduced into scientific use by V.I. Vernadsky, who pointed out “the desire, more and more prevalent in scientific research… to approach the study of life phenomena purely empirically, to take into account the impossibility of giving it an “explanation,” that is, to give it a place in our abstract cosmos, scientifically constructed from models-hypotheses” [27]. “An empirical generalization,” he wrote, “once it is accurately derived from the facts, does not require verification. It can exist and be used as the basis for scientific work, even if it is incomprehensible and contradicts prevailing theories and hypotheses” [28]. “Empirical generalization is based on facts collected inductively, without going beyond their limits and without caring about the agreement or disagreement of the resulting conclusion with other existing ideas about nature. In this respect, empirical generalizations do not differ from scientifically established facts: their coincidence with our scientific ideas about nature does not interest us; their contradiction with them constitutes a scientific discovery” [29].

From the above statements it does not at all follow that Vernadsky was not interested in the problem of holistic and coherent knowledge. “Empirical generalization,” we read in his work “Biosphere,” “for all its incomprehensibility, is still capable of exerting a huge beneficial influence on the study of natural phenomena, because one day “the moment comes when it suddenly begins to be illuminated with new light, becomes an area of ​​creation hypotheses, begins to change our patterns of the universe and change itself. Very often it then turns out that in empirical generalization we did not have what we thought, or in reality we had much more than we thought” [30].

In turn, the phenomenon of the “initially complex phase of culture” forces us to take a fresh look not only at the initial stage of culture, but also at the interpretation of the entire subsequent historical process. Namely: contrary to the vulgar-mechanistic scheme “from simple to complex, from lower to higher”, with its speculative hypotheses of the “Big Bang”, “abiogenesis”, “natural selection”, “anthropogenesis”, “cultural genesis” and “social progress” , we in reality are faced with “development” as “development” (unfolding, unwinding, unwinding), which presupposes an initially complex “twisting” (folding, twisting, intertwining) of what is developing.

Indeed, the understanding of “development” as an initially complex process explains today almost all phenomena observed both in nature and in society. It is known, for example, that the entire premise of V.I. Vernadsky’s works comes down to the idea of ​​eternity and beginninglessness of life. The evolutionary process, we read from him, “always takes place within the biosphere, that is, in living, ready-made nature” [31]. And the same train of thought was picked up and developed by representatives of the direction known in Soviet science as “nomogenetic” (L.S. Berg, D.N. Sobolev, A.A. Lyubishchev, etc.). In this direction, the importance of chance in evolution (i.e., natural selection) was denied and the ideas of phylogenetic preformationism were affirmed, according to which “evolution is the unfolding of pre-existing rudiments…” [32].

Consonance with Vernadsky’s ideas was also found in the General Theory of Systems – with those of its ideas of primordial order, organization, integrity, teleology, etc., which, according to the remark of the author of GTS L. von Bertalanffy, “were pointedly excluded from consideration in mechanistic science” [33]. And modern humanities turned out to be represented by a whole range of thinking models that have nothing to do with “complication.” This includes the translation of unconscious-mythological forms of collective thinking into their conscious-reflexive forms (G. Jung), and the transformation of symbolic images into symbol-concepts (O.M. Freidenberg), and dialogical models (M.M. Bakhtin, A. Toynbee) , and enumeration of invariant variants (V.V. Ivanov, V.N. Toporov). Not to mention the probabilistic theory of meanings of V.V. Nalimov, according to which “the drama taking place in eternity now appears before us as a kind of gigantic experiment aimed at unpacking the originally existing meanings of the World” [34].

All this, I repeat, is practically unknown to the mass consciousness, because today a new look at myths looks like a set of disparate empirical generalizations that do not fit into the evolutionary-historical picture of the world and therefore seem to be something random and incomprehensible. But a picture of the world adequate to the accumulated array of empirical facts has not yet been created; in the mass scientific consciousness, its Isthmatian – evolutionary-historical – version continues to prevail. This is what V.I. Vernadsky wrote about as the main problem of general scientific methodology: “It sounds like a paradox, but it is true: the spread of a scientific worldview can sometimes even interfere with scientific work and scientific creativity, since it inevitably perpetuates the scientific errors of a given time, gives temporary scientific propositions have greater reliability than they actually have. It is always imbued with constructs of philosophy, religion, social life, and artistic creativity that are external to science. This spread of a temporary – and often erroneous – scientific worldview was one of the reasons for the local or worldwide periods of decline observed more than once in the history of science” [35].

5. “PROGRESSIST” ILLUSIONS
   One of the typical manifestations of such “decline” can be considered the fact that in modern philosophical and scientific minds the thoughtless inertia of the once authoritative statement of the classics of historical materialism continues to prevail, according to which “neither thoughts nor language form a special kingdom in themselves, … they are only manifestations of real life… they have no history, no development…” [36].

This statement, which has absolutely no justification in the history of science, still lives in the scientific and mass consciousness in the form of zombie mantras “being determines consciousness” and “matter is primary, consciousness is secondary.” The same V.I. Vernadsky spoke sharply critically, but quite rightly, about them in his diary entries: “…The mediocrity of new philosophical quests is depressing despite the talent of the people.” “The “philosophical” works of trustworthy “thinkers” are amazingly ignorant and mediocre.” “You can’t read: it’s sick, ignorant. For a psychiatrist. A picture of moral decay.” “Psychoses are clearly manifesting themselves now. Some Diamatists and Dialecticians are apparently mentally ill. I often picture vividly: Russian scientists must work while bearing the burden of ignorant and sick idiots and so-called public workers, interfering as much as possible with scientific work.” “False scholarship and conclusions dangerous to reality. The process makes us look to the future with anxiety” [37].

Vernadsky’s thoughts about the quality of contemporary Russian philosophical thought directly resonate with today’s increasingly frequent criticism of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. They overlap because the worldview positions of the majority of the members of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences reveal their diametric opposite to the position that rehabilitates the Great Tradition, which is formulated in Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 809 – on the preservation and strengthening of traditional spiritual and moral values ​​(in this regard, the comments overflowing the Internet are very indicative to the latest scandal at the Institute of Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences [38]). Despite the fact that the fact of opposing ideological positions in itself does not need proof, – after all, the essence of modern intercivilizational confrontation comes down to two mutually exclusive trends: the one that is focused on preserving traditional values, and the one that fundamentally rejects [39]. And the complete expression of the second tendency, as we know, is Isthmatism’s “withering away of the old and the birth of the new,” which, like a familiar “scientific float,” continues to be held by the majority of members of the Institute of Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Meanwhile, it has long been no secret to independent-minded researchers that the basis of the “float” is a vulgar-mechanistic and absolutely unscientific development scheme “from simple to complex, from lower to higher.” After all, even Charles Darwin himself, in whose works this scheme first acquired the reputation of “scientific,” wrote self-critically about it: “I know that it is hardly possible to clearly define what is meant by a higher or lower organization”; “This is a very confusing area” [40]. And Darwin’s professional opponents from among his contemporaries also understood that Darwinism is not so much a biological as a philosophical doctrine, the pinnacle manifestation of mechanistic materialism. So, for example, N. Ya. Danilevsky believed [41]. A. Florensky called Darwinism “a sham palace of a scientific worldview” [42].

Nevertheless, it was Darwinism that formed the basis for the further development of historical-materialist thought and, with the help of various kinds of “dialectical” stretches that distracted attention from the primitive scheme of development, was presented to the public as a natural scientific prerequisite for creating a model of historical dynamics of a “progressive” kind. In a letter from K. Marx to F. Engels dated December 19, 1860, we read: “… this (Darwin’s – S. G.) book provides a natural historical basis for our views” [43]. Similarly, in F. Engels’ letter to P. L. Lavrov: “In Darwin’s teachings, I accept the theory of development…” [44]. And in the 20th century, the Isthmatic theory completely acquired the status of a general scientific evolutionary-historical worldview – the pinnacle of that direction of materialist thought, the foundations of which were laid by figures of the Enlightenment.

According to the basic provisions of this worldview, man is the final product of the development of nature, and, therefore, “its king,” not limited in the manifestations of his will by anything other than the wills of others (which he, as the bearer of progress, has the right to suppress if they are not progressive enough). And he is an independent and self-sufficient subject, endowed with a cognitive and transformative function in relation to the object. Hence the key attitudes of the “progressive” style of thinking: the cult of “I”, the absolutization of “freedom” and hatred of the restrictive demands of tradition. And from here comes the power over the minds of a phenomenon that in the works of some philosophers was called “progressive utopias” (communist or liberal-democratic – it doesn’t matter) [45].

Progressive utopias are pseudoscientific programs of social development that explain, in the spirit of the vulgar-mechanistic scheme “from simple to complex, from lower to higher,” the historical process as a movement from a dark past to a bright future. Such utopias, materialistic in their premise, being a source of social illusions, become the most powerful disculturating technologies in the hands of political manipulators. Their attitude to traditions as errors and prejudices reduces public consciousness to the level of animal reflexes, and their interpretation of the ideals of conscience and justice as “relative” (conditional, not really existing) latently stimulates social disunity and nihilism.

The only encouraging thing is that disagreement with the principle of development “from simple to complex, from lower to higher” is beginning today to be recognized as something more than “just an alternative opinion . ” There is an emerging understanding that “the impression of complexity or simplicity depends… on what “resolution power” of the mind is intuitively accepted as sufficient to solve the problem” [46]. “The complexity or simplicity of any object or phenomenon depends only on our approach to them, arbitrary or forced, on what tasks we set” [47]. In nature itself, “there is nothing complex and nothing simple, just as everything is complex and everything is simple. A stone is simple if we need to pick it up and throw it, and complex if we want to comprehend its crystalline structure… A person as a cause-and-effect system is infinitely complex for a psychologist and like twice two (in ordinary logic) is simple for a bureaucrat who looks at the visitor through minimizing glass. Microscopists know what the “resolving power” of an instrument is. There is a speck of dust under the magnifying glass. Give it a stronger magnification, and now it turns out that it is a living organism, some kind of ciliate. Even stronger – and this is an immensely huge aggregate of organic molecules…” [48].

6. CRISIS OF ISTMAT METHODOLOGY
   The question arises: why is historical materialism, with all its vulgar mechanicalness, fundamental tautology and general hopeless obsolescence, still “afloat”?

Firstly, it is “afloat” because it is common to both communists and liberals. This is what A. S. Panarin noted in his analytical review “A People Without an Elite”: “Historical materialism (as well as its lightweight political science version – scientific communism) was based on the same presumptions as classical liberalism: about the objective interests of various social groups, that these interests are adequately reflected in the political consciousness, which forms its social orders and political projects, about social evolution as a natural-historical process subject to strict laws, etc. The difference with liberalism concerned not so much ideological and methodological presumptions, relating to the surrounding social reality, how many class sympathies and antipathies there are” [49].

Secondly, historical materialism is still “afloat” because its critical discussion affects the interests of not only scientists with their personal and professional ambitions, corporate guidelines and political-ideological orientations. It also affects the interests of those more cynical “conductors” of world (including scientific) politics who understand that the materialist worldview with all its claims to “dialectics” is just a step on the path to complete economiccentrism. That is: first – the compromise of spirituality by declaring it “non-basic”, “superstructural”, and then – the creation of an “economic man”, who is indifferent to everything that does not have a commodity status and exchange value [50]. The “economic man” is attractive to the authorities precisely because it is much easier to manage him than independently thinking people.

But it is also impossible to say that no one understands the cynicism of such management practices. Hence the increasing distancing of many philosophers and scientists from the methodology of historical materialism. “Unfortunately, there are a number of problems that objectively weaken history as a discipline, making it not very scientific <…˃. Firstly, our history as a science in the last twenty-five years is an acephalous history, headless. In Soviet times, it was good for a historian in the sense that, in general, he was not required to study theory. <…˃ But it all ended. <…˃ Together with Marxism, theory went away altogether, that is, they threw the baby out with the bathwater, and the last 20-25 years have been, in general, atheoretical studies, descriptions of case-studies. And if these are descriptions of events, then a problem arises: if you don’t have a theory, then in what language will you describe? And then it turns out that everything crumbles into events. And as Braudel said: “An event is dust,” meaning that an event can only be understood within the framework of a conjuncture, and to understand a conjuncture, a theory is needed. The fact that we have had theory in the paddock for the last 25 years, that we have been repeating the backsides of Western theory and the waste materials of the 50-70s, is a very serious thing. Therefore, here the historian is immediately deprived of a number of advantages that distinguish a scientist from a non-scientist” (A.I. Fursov [51]).

The final thought of A.I. Fursov: “There are many strong and intelligent scientists in the academic community, but I don’t think you should count on the academic community as a holistic form. This is a corpse that they forgot to bury. And in this regard, there is no need to experience any illusions” [52] .

The same, but more “flexible” assessment of historical materialism is given in the reference book “Theory and Methodology of Historical Science” (ed. – Academician A. O. Chubaryan). In the preface to the reference book we read: “The processes of reducing the status of historical science, the devaluation of the craft and, accordingly, the professional language of the historian, common to the world scientific community, for domestic historiography have been burdened by the very conditions of its existence in the last three decades” [53].

The significance of such statements is that their essence is already becoming the subject of attention not only in the academic environment. Here, for example, are the thoughts of monk Savvaty Titkov, a resident of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and at the same time a master’s student at the Institute of History and Politics at Moscow State Pedagogical University. Particularly interesting is his understanding that any religious tradition is, in its historical roots, always a mythological tradition – the primary source of the idea of ​​​​the “meaning of life”, subject to scientific study. I quote: “… One of the main principles of historical science – the principle of historicism, which until recently in historical science tried to explain all historical processes occurring in the world, according to a number of modern scientists, is currently experiencing a serious crisis. The crisis of historicism is primarily marked by the fact of the hidden and obvious departure of many scientists from the methodology of historical materialism. Within the framework of the evolutionary-historical (“progressive”) paradigm that is still dominant today, the position of the methodological vicious circle within the very concept of historicism is especially noticeable. As a result, it turned out that the “progressive” model of thinking narrowed science’s understanding of reality and the reality of the surrounding world, and made the very meaning of its existence meaningless. An attempt to reject the mythological tradition, to “disenchant the world,” to rationally explain it, as a result of such “disenchantment” led to the fact that man lost the meaning of his existence in this world” [54].

Not to mention the openly mocking assessments of the situation with historicism: “And the historical community in the country has been destroyed, and history has turned from a science into a laughing stock” (A. I. Kolpakidi). What the satirists themselves immediately picked up: “As soon as power changes, history is rewritten exactly the opposite” (M. N. Zadornov).

In such a mental atmosphere, the distancing of serious specialists from the methodology of historical materialism is no longer surprising. Moreover: it is indicated by the appearance of philosophical dictionaries in which there is neither an article “Historicism” [55] nor an article “Historical materialism” [56]. And where the second concept still persists, it is sometimes given a destructive definition:

“The ambitions of theorists and apologists of historical materialism to give it the status of a universal paradigm of social philosophy and sociology, based on positivist methodologies, naturalism in the interpretation of society and the causal-mechanical model of world explanation, were refuted by the achievements of general scientific and humanitarian disciplines of the twentieth century – the latest macroeconomic models, general theory systems, ideas about nonlinear processes, data from the sciences of mass communications. At the same time, the collapse of socialism in Europe, the most general sanction of which at the theoretical level was historical materialism, clearly demonstrated the real advantages of modern unorthodox sociological, political science, psychohistorical and other methods of adequately reflecting and promising reconstruction of the course of the historical process. Serious doubts… about the legitimacy of the concept of unlimited social progress (the core and “soul” of historical materialism) also contributed to the decline of this once fashionable ideological doctrine of a socio-philosophical sense” [57].

7. METALINGUUSAL CONTENT OF CULTURE
   Another unexpected (from the point of view of the usual “historicism”) aspect of methodological problems is associated with the fact that the consequences arising from an empirical view of the history of mankind force us to look at culture as the bearer of certain potential meanings that are subject to identification in the future . Specifically, we are talking about those meanings that are implied by both the Gospel formula “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (II Cor., 3: 6), and purely scientific models such as “text variants – invariant” or “languages-objects – metalanguage”. That is why – I repeat once again – we read from Nalimov: “The drama taking place in eternity now appears before us as some kind of gigantic experiment aimed at unpacking the originally existing meanings of the World” [58].

By “unpacking the originally existing meanings of the World” we mean access to the metalinguistic content of the semantic organization of culture. But a preliminary clarification is necessary here.

From the point of view of the traditional view of language as an objective reflection of reality, the metalinguistic content of spiritual culture is nothing more than its surface layer [59], the final stage of linguistic analysis [60]. From an empirical point of view on the history of the linguistic aspect of culture, the potential (metalinguistic) content of its oldest form promises to turn out to be something completely new and extremely unusual. In particular, from V.N. Toporov, a leading specialist in the field of studying myths, we read: “It is highly characteristic that modern science comes to an exceptionally high assessment of the operational value and cognitive power of primitive knowledge precisely in the very last years” [61].

About the same thing – in H.-G. Gadamer: “If you open the historical and scientific collection of de Vries “History of the Study of Mythology”, you will get the same impression as from “The Crisis of Historicism” – it affected a new revival of interest in mythology. <…> It is worthy of special attention that Walter F. Otto and Karl Kerenyi are emphatically recognized as the pioneers of a new research direction that takes myths seriously” [62]. V.V. Nalimov talks about the same thing: “It’s strange, but now we have to think about the concepts of the distant past” [63]. And about the same thing, but in a more abstract, theorized form – in M. Heidegger: “…The ontological prerequisites of historiographic knowledge fundamentally surpass the idea of ​​rigor of the most exact sciences. Mathematics is not stricter than historiography, but simply narrower in relation to the range of existential foundations relevant to it” [64].

In the light of such forecasts, mastering the metalinguistic content of spiritual culture means understanding what is potentially common in the “killing literalism” of its various manifestations. But such mastery still remains at the level of dreams of “interdisciplinary specialists,” because the current state of the semantic organization of culture is a violation of its original orderliness: the disintegration of the mythological system of ideas into folklore, religion, science, literature, art, etc. derived from it. The most ancient orderliness of the semantic organization of culture is preserved only at its initial, mythological stage and reveals itself in the so-called “repetition of mythological motifs.” And in a “circle” situation, mythological repetitions should no longer be understood historically (as a consequence of kinship by origin, or as a result of similar conditions of social development, or as a product of mutual influences and borrowings), but typologically: as a manifestation of an invariant that is preserved during any transformations [65] . This creates a real prospect of accessing the metalinguistic content of culture.

The author of this article has already written a lot about methods for such an exit, starting in 1985 [66]; therefore there is no point in dwelling on this topic. Here it is enough to say that the problem of accessing the metalinguistic content of culture focuses research attention on the awareness of the fact that we are not at all the “masters” of our words and that our power over them is illusory [67]. Moreover, V.I. Vernadsky was one of the first to draw attention to this fact (“It happens when you understand, but cannot convey, say, tell others…” [68]).

As a result, we begin to guess that our consciousness is under the “hood” of a linguistic thesaurus – an interconnected system of semantic structures of an orienting nature. We discover that language is not an activity or a function, but something comparable to a restrictive “network of signs, as if thrown over our field of perception, activity, life” (P. Ricoeur [69]). We begin to realize that we are “built into language and will never be able to get out of it,” that “we speak not only in language, but also from it” (M. Heidegger [70]). H-G talks about the same thing. Gadamer: “Language is a way of interpreting the world, preconditioned by any act of reflection”; “Thinking always moves in a track laid out by language… language defines both the possibilities of thinking and its boundaries” [71]. “We are always inside (linguistic – S.G.) tradition,” with the help of which we realize ourselves in the world [72].

Similarly, in M. Eliade: “… the world reveals itself as a language” [73]. V.V. Kolesov talks about the same thing: “whether we like it or not, we see the world through the “glasses” of language” [74]. According to M. M. Bakhtin, man is “thrown into the world of infinitely demanding meaning” [75]; according to V.V. Nalimov, he “exists only to the extent that he is immersed in the world of meanings” [76]. According to M. Polanyi, “the final basis of our beliefs is our conviction itself, the entire system of premises that logically precede any specific knowledge” [77].

All this ultimately means that the claim of modern science to an objective perception of reality, especially historical reality, is just “naive methodologism”, “naive historicism” and “naive historical objectivism”. “The naivety of so-called historicism lies in the fact that, relying on the methodological nature of its approach, it forgets about its own historicity. Truly historical thinking must also think about its own historicity. Only in this case will it stop chasing the ghost of a historical object…” [78].

8. CHANGE OF WORLD VIEW PARADIGM
   “Today the task of any thinking person is to demystify models and analyze their origins. We must go to the very foundations of the statements on which they are based and to which we become accustomed due to indoctrination in school and in the media” [79].

In general theoretical terms, we are talking about a phenomenon that is called differently in different directions of search thought. For example, in the direction that is genetically connected with classical German (mainly Kantian) philosophy and is called the “universal religion of reason” [80]. And this same phenomenon, according to tradition, dating back to the scientific heritage of V.I. Vernadsky, is usually called a “change of ideological paradigm.”

Let me remind you what Vernadsky himself said about it: “What seemed logically and scientifically inevitable, in the end turned out to be an illusion, and the phenomenon appears to us in forms that no one expected” [81]; “We are approaching a very responsible time, a radical change in our scientific worldview”; “It is clear that life is inseparable from the cosmos, and its study should affect, perhaps very strongly, its scientific appearance” [82]. “The idea of ​​eternity and beginninglessness of life – in addition to its cosmic ideas – has long penetrated the scientific worldview of individual naturalists… But now this idea is acquiring special significance in science, since there comes a moment in the history of thought when it comes forward as an important and deep basis for the emerging new scientific worldview of the future “[83].

These anticipations echo Vernadsky’s considerations regarding the role of the human factor in the new picture of the world: “The course of development of human thought is quite similar to natural processes, that is, it occurs not according to the laws of human logic, but along its own unknown and unforeseen paths” [84]. “Perhaps thought, the basis of personality, is immortal” [85]. And we see a similar line of thought among other specialists. In particular, we read from A. A. Lyubishchev: “Now a synthesis is emerging: the Universe is not chaos, but Cosmos; evolution is based not on the struggle of chaotically emerging changes, but on… the presence of a creative principle similar to consciousness. Steps in this direction were taken by K. E. von Baer, ​​S. Mivart, A. Kölliker, S. I. Korzhinsky, E. Kop, K. K. Schneider, A. Bergson, L. S. Berg, P. Teilhard de Chardin, O. Schinderwolf and many others. etc.” [86].

About the same thing – from V.V. Nalimov (mathematics, cybernetics, specialist in the field of studying language and thinking): “The origin or evolution of the Universe may largely depend on its compatibility with intelligence. It is paradoxical that while physicists find it impossible to discuss the dynamics of the Universe without referring to human consciousness, which is directly involved in it, materialist philosophers still argue that consciousness is just a “mechanical appendage” of a machine.” And then – about the most important thing: “All failures in attempts to build a meaningful model of consciousness lie in the fear of being branded an idealist. It is impossible to say anything serious about consciousness without postulating the primordial existence of unmanifest semantics. This, perhaps, is the main conclusion of our many years of reflection on the problem of consciousness” [87].

But the initial existence of unmanifested semantics presupposes its subsequent manifestation – the historical variability of the semantic organization of culture. What, oddly enough, was already known to the 16th-century Russian theologian Joseph Volotsky: “…What is said by different people at different times about the same subject has different meanings” [88]. And the same historical variability of the semantic organization of cultural language is increasingly spoken of today: “At different stages and in different historical conditions, the same concepts could change their content” [89].

It is for this reason that “modern humanities are hermeneutics – the science of text interpretation” [90]. For the same reason, “Russia is currently in a deep systemic crisis and faces a serious challenge that modern globalization processes have thrown at it: either overcoming the systemic crisis through a conservative revolution, or the complete destruction of the country and turning it into a colony… Therefore, in the near future from a scientific perspective in historiography, a change in ideological paradigm is necessary” [91].

9. LIVING UNIVERSE
   The essence of a change in the worldview paradigm is a radical revision of the view of spiritual culture: in the light of empirical facts, it begins to look no longer as a minor “superstructure over the base”, but as a “semantic reality” with its own ontology and its own functional specificity in its interaction with material reality. It is precisely this understanding of spiritual culture that psychologists are increasingly beginning to talk about: “It is necessary, first of all, to try to meaningfully understand the specific nature and ontology of semantic reality as a reality of a special kind”; “Behind the concept of meaning lies… a complex and multifaceted semantic reality” [92].

And not only among psychologists this reality becomes the object of close attention. In the broadest sense, we have to say that the reality that surrounds us and includes us is not the dead space-time of materialistically-minded physicists, supplemented by “interspersed” with evolutionarily emerged biological (including intelligent) formations, but some inextricable, analogous to quantum, unity of the observed and observing parts of reality, that is, a living organization. Moreover, this refers not only to the scientific heritage of V.I. Vernadsky [93], but also to the “Anthropic principle in cosmology,” according to which the parameters of the Universe turn out to be exactly those that are necessary for the initial existence of intelligent life in it” [94].

All this makes us think that we are standing on the very threshold of breaking the “trap of a pseudo-choice between faith and knowledge” – a trap created both by faith in the “killing literalism” of religious texts (II Cor. 3: 6), and by the materialistic understanding of the world order as the pinnacle of science . Beyond the threshold of breaking the “trap” is access to an understanding of the Universe as a living organization.

But any forms of living, including intelligent, organization are forms with the cyclical dynamics of their existence (meaning the self-reproductive, also known as matrix, principle) [95]. And in the context of cyclical dynamics, the task of revising the view of the historical past of mankind inevitably arises – the task of returning to an understanding of this past as something similar to Plato’s memory. That is, we have to understand that the historical process is neither progress nor regression, but rather Gadamer’s “self-recognition perceived as an example or a warning.” This is the behest of P. Florensky: “To remember your pagan ancestors means to fulfill your Christian duty towards them.” This is M. M. Bakhtin’s parting words: “A new philosophical surprise in front of everything is necessary… We must remember the world, as we remember our childhood…” And this is a daring guess that the idea of ​​“Parents” is applicable not only to the ontogenetic level of the organization of life, but also to its phylogenetic level [96].

10. PHENOMENON OF “PHYLOGENETIC PARENTS”
    The last idea, due to its fundamental novelty, needs clarification.

The need to introduce into scientific circulation the idea of ​​“phylogenetic parents” logically follows from the consistent interpretation of the Haeckel–Müller biogenetic law – about the subordination of the processes of ontogenesis and phylogenesis to certain unified rules of their historical development. Despite the fact that there is no such sequence in the Haeckel-Müller law itself; in it, the beginning of ontogenesis implies by default the “intrauterine” phase, i.e., the phase of the potential existence of parents, and in phylogeny interpreted evolutionistically, such a phase is excluded. Although a consistent interpretation of the biogenetic law should presuppose it only because this law itself is a claim to express the principle of isomorphism of levels. (On this principle, common to all levels of organization of living matter, see the works of N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky, A.A. Lyapunov, V.N. Beklemishev and others [97]).

As for the empirical data on the “parental phase” in phylogeny, its presence was confirmed by the experience of solving the “circle” problem proposed by the author of this article. Specifically: the solution to this problem showed that the metalinguistic content of the mythological model of the world comes down to the description of the self-reproducing (matrix, from the root “mother”) principle – the basis and conditions for the existence of any living organization [98]. In the context of this experience, the function of “phylogenetic parents” turned out to be inherent in those characters of ancient texts who in the mythological and religious tradition are called “gods”, and in the science of myths – “first ancestors-demiurges”, “cultural heroes” and “people of the ancient people” (people of the previous life cycle) [99].

The mediated memory of “phylogenetic parents” still lives in those mysterious phenomena of cultural history, which are represented both by the ancient practice of “calling a leader from the outside” (a practice known not only from its Slavic version [100]), and described in the classical the work of D. D. Fraser “the institution of the sacred power of the priest-kings” [101]. And in the light of these and many other similar phenomena, the idea of ​​“phylogenetic parents” no longer becomes an exotic fantasy, but a sense-forming element of that theory, which – to use the famous aphorism of Niels Bohr – is crazy enough to be correct (satisfying the most stringent requirements of science) .

The reference to N. Bohr’s aphorism is all the more appropriate since only on the basis of the idea of ​​“phylogenetic parents” does it become possible to read the meta-linguistic content of myths in all its completeness. Let us ask, for example, the question: what does the concept of “another world”, widespread in the mythological memory of absolutely all peoples of the Earth, inhabited by mythical ancestors-demiurges, “people of the ancient people”, “gods” of secondary and tertiary religions, mean? – Isn’t it obvious that we are talking here specifically about the existence in the historical past of our biosphere of its “matrix” (parental in relation to it) version and “matrix” (parental in relation to present-day humanity) biocenosis?

Or: why in early historical cultural traditions was time considered divided into the so-called “mythological” and the subsequent “historical”? – Is it because precisely this division functionally corresponds, relatively speaking, to the “intrauterine” and subsequent “extrauterine” stages of human development in its phylogenesis?

Or: why does the so-called “world tree,” various modifications of which in myths serve as “a point of contact and a channel of communication” between another and the currently existing world, cease to exist by the end of mythological time? – Is it because in this case we are talking – again relatively speaking – about a phenomenon that is functionally identical to the “umbilical cord”?

Or: when did this symbolic “umbilical cord” break? – Isn’t the answer to this question hidden in the scientific tradition of associating some kind of cataclysm of a planetary nature with the end of the Pleistocene (meaning the term “diluvium” from the Latin “flood”, “flood”, comparable, by the way, with the “breaking of the waters” during pregnancy) ? Doesn’t archaeological data on the difference between Paleolithic and Neolithic cultures, which chronologically coincide with data on the difference between the Pleistocene and Holocene, answer the same question? And isn’t it possible that the universal mythopoetic symbol, known in the science of myths under the name “Omphalus” – “Navel of the Earth”, goes back to the memory of the “umbilical cord”?

Or: how can we explain that the actual historical stage of human development begins with the mythological support of culture that appeared out of nowhere and was very complex in its semantic organization, which then unfolds into what is commonly called culture itself? – Isn’t there a direct analogy here with a newborn child, who from the moment of his birth finds himself involved in the parental semantic field, which is still truly incomprehensible to him, but accessible to initial development through forms of communication that correspond to his infant abilities (jokes, fairy tales, etc. .)?

Or: how can we understand that at the “progressive-Enlightenment” stage of their historical development, people suddenly begin to abandon the memory of their mythological “parents”, branding this memory as “prejudices and “delusions of undeveloped consciousness”? – Isn’t there a direct analogy here with teenage rebellion against boring parental care, according to the “I Myself” scenario, well known in pedagogy? And isn’t it time, therefore, to begin to redirect this rebellion in a positive direction: to introduce “human teenagers” to the heritage of “phylogenetic parents” – to the metalinguistic content of culture with all the promises of the impossible as possible hidden in it?

By the way, joining this heritage also has a purely practical meaning: only it is capable of providing today’s Russia with the vital ideological sovereignty it needs – the only reliable means of protection against manipulative technologies, information sabotage and debilitating trends.

11. ACCOUNTING FOR ERRORS
    Why didn’t scientific materialism provide Russia with such sovereignty?

Let’s try to explain.

Firstly: being borrowed, as we know, from the West, scientific materialism forces Russia to “play” by the rules imposed by the West, that is, to believe that absolutely all the most important issues of human existence are resolved exclusively by the sphere of production forces and relations. Moreover, the no less materialistic, but more “cunning” West created in France during the Great Revolution the Institute “for studying people’s thoughts” [102], which is why it succeeded, unlike Russia, in developing manipulative technologies. And it is no coincidence, apparently, that Soviet philosophy never emphasized the statement of K. Marx, according to which the materialist understanding of history was based on the study of the history of England and is fully applicable only to it. Marx also wrote more than once that in Asian countries the situation was fundamentally different. – In any case, it is significant that those representatives of Western philosophy of history who sought to be based on understanding the experience of not only the West, but also the world as a whole, such as the well-known Englishman Arnold Toynbee, “were by no means inclined towards political-economic explaining the specifics of the historical development of Russia” [103].

Secondly: historical materialism was not at all the only theoretical support for the Soviet government. She also used, as such a support for herself, the idea of ​​social justice, organically inherent in the previous – Orthodox – tradition. But in the conditions of the fundamental incompatibility of the religious worldview with the scientific-materialist one, the idea of ​​social justice began to be considered (and is still considered by inertia) an integral part of Marxist theory.

In fact, it is connected with this theory purely formally. And to be completely frank, the connection between the idea of ​​social justice and the theory of scientific materialism, which reduces social ideals to a secondary “superstructure,” cannot be called anything other than eclectic. On this score, the classics of scientific materialism spoke extremely clearly, calling for an answer to the question of justice “to turn not to the science of morality or law and not to sentimental feelings of humanity, justice or at least mercy… Social justice or injustice is determined only by science, but namely, a science that deals with the material facts of production and exchange – the science of political economy” [104] (see also K. Marx: “To talk… about “natural justice” is nonsense” [105]).

Let us think about the paradox of the situation: the theoretical support for the construction of a society of social justice in Russia was a theory whose creator considered justice to be nonsense! And isn’t it obvious that a society in which the demand for social justice not only did not have adequate scientific justification, but also came into irreconcilable contradiction with scientific materialism, was initially doomed to internal decay and eventual extinction?

The diversity of two ideological positions, forcibly combined into a single eclectic structure, ultimately ruined the Soviet project. At the same time, “personal, “purely human reservations” (of the classics – S.G.) did not change anything in the official historical monologue of Marxism, which turned out to be adamant in its dogmatic optimism” (A.S. Panarin). That is, everything happened in full accordance with the saying “we wanted the best, but it turned out as always.”

The fact that the “marriage” in the theoretical support of the Soviet project was not immediately discovered can be explained simply: for the time being, eclecticism was hardly noticeable. While illiterate people were straining themselves at construction sites and dying in wars, the leaders were taken at their word—there was no time for theories. And the difficult post-war situation was not conducive to them. But then calmer and more well-fed times came (the so-called “stagnation”), a new, more educated generation grew up, in whose consciousness the unnatural combination of heterogeneous ideological positions began to gradually fail. That is, the new generation, if it did not yet understand, then already intuitively felt that in its actually existing forms, the Soviet project is determined not so much by the officially declared ideal of social justice, but by its scientific justification – a materialistic worldview. This worldview, alien to the relative value concepts in its interpretation, latently oriented the mass consciousness towards behavioral attitudes that were fundamentally incompatible with high ideals: politics, economics, science – separately, morality – separately.

In such a situation, the leaders of the country were faced with the acute question of whether their ideals corresponded to their worldview. At this point, the party leadership and its philosophical servants had to seriously strain: to invent, on the one hand, “Marxist-Leninist ethics,” and on the other, to curb the growing youth cynicism with the help of another hastily put together lever of control – the “Moral Code of the Builder of Communism.” But, as we know, none of these measures justified themselves. The custom verbiage of Soviet philosophers was already frankly annoying, and plagiarism from New Testament texts only strengthened public nihilism.

It was this nihilism, which by the end of the twentieth century had completely permeated the consciousness of a huge part of Soviet society and completely of its upper crust, that crippled it. And he openly declared his right to exist in 1993, when all the hidden, latent tendencies of the previous political system were brought to their logical conclusion and legally legalized. Everything else – disappointment in ideals, betrayal of the elites, etc. – are natural consequences of the current situation. During the era of “perestroika” these consequences were brought to their logical conclusion and legally legalized.

To be convinced of the correctness of this explanation of the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is enough to ask the question: why the insignificant privileges of the country’s communist leaders, by today’s standards, aroused real anger among the people against them, and why the government that replaced the communists in the nineties, despite its undisguised criminal-oligarchic character, does not cause a similar (in terms of the strength of external manifestation) reaction among the people?

The answer is obvious: it was not the privileges themselves that caused popular anger, but only the fact that they were used by people who, without any moral grounds, claimed to be “bearers of the ideology of social justice.” The new government, in the form in which it emerged in the 90s, never pretended to be an ideologist of social justice, and no one (of sober-minded people) expected this from it. And now he’s not waiting. Everyone is aware of what is happening, everyone watches the same gangster series on TV, and everyone is familiar with the political technology formula that was heard in one of these series: “Young people should have ideals, and old people should have loot.”

“We will never correctly understand Marxist materialism if we do not figure out that behind the apparently neutral “matter” lies the demonic energy of belittling moral, spiritual, aesthetic and other motives – in a word, romantic irony that has reached demonic extremes. In the materialist sits… the spirit of nihilistic denial of shrines and devastation of pantheons. … nihilistic “materialists” are deluded and deceived enthusiasts. … Hence the methodicality with which the “short game” is played everywhere (where materialism reigns – S.G.), even in everyday everyday communication.” Figuratively speaking, “Satan himself is a completely materialist and even a Marxist, for he constantly seeks out base “basic” motives in the most sublime “superstructural” forms” [106].

In this sense, it would not be an exaggeration to say that scientific-materialist teaching turned out to be not only an ideal step in the transition from a socialist model of life to a liberal-democratic one, but also for the first time in the history of human thought it scientifically substantiated the right of man and society to dishonesty and immorality. As a creative theory, it turned out to be completely untenable. Therefore, “those who attribute traditionalist roots to Bolshevism, supposedly leading deep into the communal archetype, either do not understand anything about the Bolshevik “dialectics”, or are hiding some ends in the water. The post-Soviet political elite mastered the lessons of postmodernity with such ease because its previous experience as a party of augurs winking behind the backs of the people fully prepared it for this” [107].

Taking into account all that has been said, it is time to admit that the restoration of socialism in Russia on the previous scientific and materialist basis would be for it the biggest and irreparable mistake that can be imagined. But at the same time, one should not at all jump to the conclusion that any person who considers himself a materialist is a cynic and a nihilist. In real life, the divergence of ideals from a historically changing worldview always manifests itself belatedly; the consequences of this divergence do not reveal themselves immediately. A person who imagines himself to be a materialist may in fact be one not because he has suffered through this worldview through his own life experience, but because he thoughtlessly adopted it at school and in college (the vast majority of them, by the way). Personally, he can continue to follow the ideals inertially inherited from his parents, friends and environment for a very long time.

How realistic is the prospect of building an ideal social order using methods associated with the hope for another ideological extreme – thoughtless religiosity?

In the summer of 2007, ten academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences sent the President of the Russian Federation V.V. An open letter to Putin, reprinted at the same time by many media outlets [108]. As commentators wrote, the letter clearly demonstrates the state of mind of the luminaries of Russian science and, more broadly, of a whole class of technical scientists with a special view of life, worldview, and social processes [109]. At first glance it seems to be a demand to curb the “clericalization” of society, but in essence it is an expression of fear of attempts to shake the monopoly of the materialist explanation of nature and society [110].

One can agree with commentators that maintaining their monopoly on the explanation of nature and society worries academics much more than the quality of the explanation itself. For those who are well acquainted with the history of science, it is quite obvious that the materialistic worldview does not at all overcome or refute, as is commonly believed, religion, but simply ignores, under the pretext of “prejudice” and “obscurantism,” its real problems.

But it is no less obvious that religious issues themselves are not among those widely discussed. Moreover: today’s frankly euphoric atmosphere of the revival of Orthodox values ​​involuntarily contributes to the creation of the impression that this issue does not exist at all. Meanwhile, very much in this issue deserves the closest attention. It is enough to point out that the church has lost reliable ideological ground under its feet, which is what the main problem of the modern church boils down to (one cannot seriously continue to consider such a ground a “letter” secondary, according to modern scientific classification, to Old Testament mythology = Old Testament paganism). That is why the modern church is forced to eclectically combine in its teaching two tendencies that are incompatible with each other: the one that is expressed in the words “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6), and the one that makes it difficult to practically follow these words – makes you blindly believe in the letter of the Scriptures (we have already touched on this topic above).

However, it is generally accepted that only the Orthodox Church is able to effectively resist the materialistic way of thinking. But, as F. M. Dostoevsky noted, “the church has been in paralysis since the time of Peter the Great.” And its continuing influence on minds is explained more by historical inertia and unconscious mental attitudes inherited from previous generations than by genuine persuasive power. Moreover, throughout its thousand-year history, the church has never been able to raise the quality of mass consciousness into a stable trend from the level of faith in the “killing letter” of its teaching to the level of communion with its “life-giving Spirit”; it is still dominated by faith in the “letter of the sacred texts” and beautiful rituals.

As a result, the church today is an institution that performs the inertial function of preserving the spiritual and moral tradition – an extremely important function that protects society from its final transformation into a “viper”. But the very limitation of church activity by the inertial function of “preservation” relegates the church from the level of spiritual and moral leadership to the level of a “reserve for the letter of the sacred scriptures.” But the reserve can only be protected; It is impossible to live fully in it.

Why is it impossible? Yes, because the religious aspect of culture is that historical form, the development of which was temporarily inhibited due to the idea of ​​​​the “unknowability of God.” An idea that is not at all obligatory for real religious consciousness. “ Reverend Maximus the Confessor says that if we have Reason in the image of God, then we must become wise, just as God is wise” [111]. And if man is created in the image and likeness of God, then “in the likeness the features of the image of God must be revealed, developed and achieved their perfection” [112]. — Accordingly, the meaning of life should in this case be understood as the desire to achieve such perfection. Moreover, let me remind you that the semantic analogues of the religious antithesis “killing letter – life-giving Spirit” are strictly scientific antitheses “text variants – invariant” or “object languages ​​- metalanguage”.

“God” in the context of such semantic analogies is a religious concept, which in scientific language corresponds to the concept of the original complexity and rationality of the world. He is the personification of this complexity and rationality “in the form of a single mind conscious of itself – in the form of a beloved and loving Sophia, that is, philosophy” [113]. This explains the words of V. I. Vernadsky: “I consider myself a deeply religious person. Meanwhile, I don’t need church and I don’t need prayer. I don’t need words and images… God is a concept and an image, too full of human imperfection” [114]. “Religious revelations… seem to me insignificant compared to what is experienced during scientific work” [115]. And we see a similar example of “extra-church religiosity” in A.P. Chekhov: “I believe that nothing passes without a trace and that every slightest step matters for the present and future life.” – “My life (a provincial story).”

12. OUTLOOK
    The fact that Russia does not have the most important thing – ideological – sovereignty is evident, firstly, from the fact that Russia still does not understand itself, since it has not yet realized the fundamental incompatibility of two different concepts: socialism and its scientific-materialistic justification . Secondly, this is evident from the fact that, building its relations with the “civilized” world on the same ideological (materialistic) basis, the Russian government constantly demonstrates its mental complexes and inequality. Namely: she constantly complains that, taking advantage of her gullibility, Western partners always violate their agreements with her and always deceive her. This was the case in the early 90s of the last century, when the Russian government, wanting to get closer to the West, agreed to surrender all its political and economic resources and interests to it, and in return received NATO bases on its borders. The same dishonesty on the part of the West, as is known, manifested itself in the situation with the Minsk agreements, when for eight years Russia looked like a begging party, but ignored by the West. And the situation is exactly the same today, when the Western media are intensively forming the image of Russia as a symbol of “world evil”, and Russia itself is only justifying itself by saying that this is not true, instead of finally taking a close look at the problem of the “criterion of discrimination.” good” and “evil” [116].

From all that has been said, one conclusion emerges: Russia urgently needs to rely on its own ideological sovereignty. The very first and most necessary step in the process of acquiring it should be to stop keeping silent about the main methodological problem of modern science – the problem of the “circle”. And everything else will start into spiritual work on its own. You just don’t need to put an equal sign between the words “everything else” and “secondary”. The situation is rather the opposite: if the materialistic paradigm dominant in modern minds has classified all value problems as “superstructural”, i.e., as one that can be completely ignored, then in the new paradigm this problem is very likely to become the main one – capable of forming in the mass consciousness a fundamentally new mentality, not subject to corrupting nihilism.

After all, if the reality that surrounds us and includes us is not what it seemed to classical science, “then the image of a person must differ from his image in the world of physical particles, where random events act as the last and only “truth.” The world of symbols, values, social and cultural entities in this case seems much more “real”, and its integration into the cosmic order will turn out to be a suitable bridge between … science and the humanitarian worldview, technology and history, natural and social sciences, or any other aspect similarly formulated principle of antithesis” [117].

In other words: if the world initially exists in its initially complex forms of manifestation, then human history will have to reveal itself to us as something much more interesting and important than “self-complicating progress.” If culture is not reducible to the results of people’s struggle for survival, then our thoughts, goals and ideals may ultimately turn out to be something much more than a function of highly developed matter. If the place of the individual in the world is commensurate with the world itself, then we will have to radically reconsider our current understanding of “rationality.” If individual human existence is not an isolated period of time between birth and death, but a specially organized “quantum” in a structure of information and energy interactions that has no beginning or end, then everyone who makes their “I” in this world the highest life value will be fatally deceived. And if birth and death themselves are the gates through which indestructible information about ourselves is transferred from one of its potential stores to others, then it is possible that being conscientious in this life is beneficial for oneself. That is, it is possible that absolutely everything that is done in this life has an account, and that therefore the so common today opposition to each other of faith and knowledge, truth and law, ideals and interests is just an annoying, historically transient cost of our current scientific-materialistic half-knowledge.

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