Know your worth – Kommersant

A round table “Value Approach for Science, Education and Society” was held at the Russian State University for the Humanities. Its participants discussed the contradiction between the value pictures of the world of Russia and the West and discussed the presidential decree on the 17 main Russian spiritual and moral values. Professor of the Faculty of Political Science of Moscow State University Vardan Baghdasaryan said that Russian society until recently was in a state of “social schizophrenia”, and called for the creation of a council of guardians of traditional values, following the example of Iran. Taras Varkhotov, a teacher at the Faculty of Philosophy at Moscow State University, warned that an attempt to “formally fix a normative set of values” carries danger, and recalled that the official value of a “strong family” does not correspond to divorce statistics.

The moderator of the discussion was the head of the Presidential Council for Human Rights, Valery Fadeev. He recalled that in last year’s decree of Vladimir Putin “On approval of the foundations of state policy for the preservation and strengthening of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values” 17 main values ​​were mentioned. According to him, these are “not the tablets of Moses” and the list may change, and therefore they should be discussed with students. Mr. Fadeev also reminded about the new university course “Fundamentals of Russian Statehood”. “Some say this course and list of values ​​is propaganda. This is not propaganda, this is much more,” he said. “This is an attempt to start speaking in a language that will allow us to understand the situation of the crisis that began in the West and is affecting almost the entire world.”

Director of the Russian Research Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage named after D. S. Likhachev Vladimir Aristarkhov said that the list of values ​​​​set out in the National Security Strategy is “certainly imperfect.” But it is necessary to “educate” Russians, Mr. Aristarkhov is sure: “I don’t know the exact number of those who left Russia at the time the SVO began. But the very fact that this is a noticeable number of people is a failure of our system of upbringing and education in the form in which it has been for the last 30 years.”

Professor of the Department of State Policy, Faculty of Political Science, Moscow State University Vardan Bagdasaryan said that Russian society until recently was in a state of “social schizophrenia”: “It was possible to be both a patriot and a cosmopolitan at the same time. Talk about information warfare and defend the principle of tolerance. But you can’t sit on two chairs.” The professor is confident that Russians are faced with a choice: freedom of expression or spiritual bonds, international integration or sovereignty, entertainment or comprehension of meaning, and so on. In his reasoning, Mr. Baghdasaryan came to the conclusion that Western values ​​transformed Russia into “Anti-Russia”, as a result of which historical Russian values ​​were replaced by the values ​​of the Western world. Thus, the citizen has turned from a social personality into an individual personality, the political scientist complained. And he proposed a solution – “cut off the three heads of the dragon” – cosmopolitanism, consumerism and bureaucracy. “There is the experience of Iran, where there is a Council of Guardians of the Constitution. It is necessary to raise the question of creating a council for the protection of traditional values,” suggested Mr. Baghdasaryan. Unable to bear it, Valery Fadeev tried to reduce the intensity: “In one of your speeches, you said that human rights are superfluous in the list of 17 values. Should I look for a new job?

And about. Taras Varkhotov, head of the department of philosophy and methodology of science at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University, tried to return the discussion to the stated topic: “The question of national and cultural values ​​turns out to be an equally prescriptive question, since it answers the question “where are we going?”, and descriptive, since values ​​are not chosen. Historically, they are always already chosen and implemented by a given culture. We do not choose values, but only follow them, implement them practically. Or we don’t implement it, turning away and, accordingly, losing our value guidelines.”

Mr. Varkhotov agreed that clarifying and strengthening the “value core of civilization” is a matter of its survival. But he emphasized: the one who defends some of his “own” values ​​inevitably loses – after all, he initially admitted that he does not possess something universally valuable and significant. “Therefore, we fight not for “our” or “traditional” values, but for values ​​as such. For their implementation and their historical destiny associated with them. No less dangerous is the attempt to formally fix a normative set of values,” the philosopher warned. He also noted the presence of a gap between the declared values ​​and the unconscious behavioral attitudes of Russians revealed at a lower level: “A strong family appears in 17 traditional spiritual and moral values. How does this currently compare with the statistics that in the 2020s, 68% of marriages end in divorce?”

The chairman of the synodal department for relations between the church and society and the media, Vladimir Legoida, decided to answer him. He called the repeatedly mentioned presidential decree “a most important decree” that opened up “huge, wonderful, most interesting horizons for serious changes.” And he asked to avoid their public criticism: “I understand what Taras Alexandrovich was talking about, and I see some dangers here. Let us localize the discussion about these dangers in the academic classroom. Because as soon as some discussions leave the academic audience for the general public, they begin to act destructively.” “She (discussion.— “Kommersant”) on the Internet, it is in society, we cannot localize it,” objected Valery Fadeev. “There is a very ambiguous attitude towards these 17 values. Very controversial, to put it mildly.”

One of the last to speak was… O. Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University Alexey Kozyrev. He supported Taras Varkhotov, saying that the rhetoric about values ​​should be softened: ““Here we are, here they are,” “when the world was divided,” “when Russia and the West were divided.” Well, there is still no such sharp duality and opposition.” The philosopher also criticized Vardan Baghdasaryan’s statement that a Russian is essentially not an individual, but a social being. “If we are not an individual, then let’s deprive a person of freedom, let him do what the state or some authorities tell him. And then there is no need for values. Because if a person is not a free being, and a personality is not an individual—and it is personality that is distinguished by the presence of free will—then values ​​are not needed,” Mr. Kozyrev emphasized.

Emilia Gabdullina