“Kant is to blame for everything”: why Governor Alikhanov called the philosopher the cause of world troubles

“Kant, who was born here, has almost a direct relation to the global chaos, the global reorganization that we are now facing. Moreover, it is directly related to the military conflict in Ukraine,” Alikhanov is quoted as saying at a congress of political scientists in Svetlogorsk.

How was it with the poet Ivan Bezdomny?

“We should take this Kant to the camps for three years.” Exactly. Exactly. That’s where he belongs, Anton Andreevich.

It’s a pity that old man Immanuel has been in places so remote for two centuries that he is absolutely indifferent to criticism of any of our officials.

Alikhanov is outraged that it was Kant’s philosophy that influenced the foundations of ethics in Western culture, which is why the West “has been violating all the agreements that were reached since ancient times.”

Well, as if humanity didn’t live particularly peacefully even before Kant, why hang all the dogs on it?

It remains to be understood, what did the philosopher say in his fundamental “Critique of Pure Reason”, “Critique of Practical Reason” and “Critique of the Power of Judgment”, which the governor of the Kaliningrad region does not like so much?

Since Mr. Alikhanov rules the Russian region where the famous German was born and died (Anton Andreevich himself was born in Abkhazia), then, in theory, he should know by heart the basic tenets of his teaching.

It turns out that he categorically denies Kant’s “categorical imperative,” which he considered the main moral law?

“Act in such a way that the Maxim of your action can be the principle of universal legislation.” To put it simply, every person in life should behave the same way, both for himself and for others.

You cannot view other people as a means for your personal gain. You cannot break laws, even if you really want to.

The “golden law” of morality, which forms the basis of our civilization, speaks about the same thing. Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you. Some people believe that Christianity gave this principle, but in fact the tablets of Moses are about the same thing.

“Thou shalt not kill”, “Thou shalt not steal” – few people want this to happen to them, and therefore they must behave accordingly in relation to society.

In principle, Kant did not say anything new, except that he formulated it in German in an extremely practical way.

Kant’s postulates are only three: free will, immortality of the soul and the existence of God. According to the philosopher, it is necessary to believe in them, otherwise any moral experience loses its meaning.

To put it simply and more clearly: God and freedom cannot be proven, but one must live and act as if they exist.

What of all this does Mr. Alikhanov not like and what exactly does he consider to be the cause of all the world’s troubles?

In general, it is interesting to observe how recently it has become a trend to turn inside out the fundamental ethical and moral constructs that humanity has been polishing for centuries. Through trial, error, blood… And it didn’t always comply, that’s true.

Moreover, each time non-compliance with these “laws according to Kant” ended very badly.

So, a child, not knowing that he shouldn’t touch something hot, burns his finger and doesn’t do that again next time. I feel sorry for myself.

Collective memory is more selective and weaker. And time after time, getting burned, he again reaches for the boiling kettle of wars and strife…

I am not saying that these laws have never been circumvented.

The same Inquisition executed witches beautifully. Surely not wanting such a fate for yourself. By the way, in the former Königsberg too. And not only in the dark Middle Ages. The last witch of Kaliningrad was sentenced in 1808.

But at the same time, those who did this believed that they were acting exactly according to divine guidelines, which, on the contrary, were violated by these devilish offspring. And therefore, the judges and executioners are right.

Now attempts are being made to abandon generally accepted ethics, ethics and morality. Turn everything upside down. And say that this is how it should be. Everything that has always been considered evil is presented as good, and vice versa.

And I’m not even saying that this is impossible. In some wild tribes that practice cannibalism, roasting and eating a neighbor is probably not a crime, but valor. And children grow up absorbing this with their mother’s milk.

But gradually they understand: the neighbor is certainly tasty, but you yourself can be just as tasty in the neighbor’s eyes.

And now they no longer eat their close neighbors, but only those from other tribes. But if they are stronger, then it is better to come to an agreement with them too. To avoid, so to speak, sad consequences for yourself.

In general, this is approximately how human morality was created and works. Purely practically.

True, whoever believes in God can believe that people themselves did not come to this for the sake of their own benefit and the instinct of self-preservation, but this was some kind of primordial moral law given to them from above.

“Two things always fill the soul with new and ever stronger wonder and awe, the more often and longer we reflect on them: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me,” said Immanuel Kant.

Sounds like poetry. Simple, clear and absolutely beautiful. If our officials spoke like this, then their words would not turn into memes and jokes.

By the way, the people of Kaliningrad were also a little shocked by what their leader said. Because governors come and go, but Kant lies in the Koenigsberg Cathedral, attracting tourists to the city, and the townspeople are very proud of him.

“We used to have a city mayor who had a favorite saying that beavers were to blame for everything. Where the pipe burst, what other emergency happened – he always shifted the responsibility onto the unfortunate beavers. Now we will know that it turns out that Kant is to blame for everything,” the residents grin.

Alikhanov himself closed comments in his TG channel, just in case. Although I used to be more open to communication.

But in vain. Otherwise, he would have learned a lot of new things about the region he leads, and certainly, it seems to us, not according to Kant.

For example, in houses of old German pre-war construction, people are forced to pay for the lack of heating in the entrances. There are simply no batteries. There are hundreds of such houses here. Komsomolskaya, 59, is a long house with seven entrances that has never been connected to central heating. Because it’s too ancient. Previously, it was generally heated with coal.

There are no radiators in the house, but the bills for general heating are available.

People complain, provide evidence, take videos – there are no batteries, what and why are we paying for? It costs about 5,000 rubles per year for an apartment. And pensioners live there. And money is taken from their pension. They sued, carried out examinations – to no avail!

Would Mr. Governor himself like to live in such a house and pay for air? Surely not. So why such a consumerist attitude towards people? And is Kant to blame for this too?

By the way, today marks 220 years since the philosopher died and does not see all this uniform disgrace. And maybe, up there, there really is something like the immortality of the soul, since Kant decided to remind himself on the anniversary of his death in such an unexpected way – through Governor Alikhanov, criticizing the “categorical imperative” of the philosopher.