The Ineradicable Rationality of Modernity

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This article is the republished version of:

The Ineradicable Rationality of Modernity

Notes

1. See, e.g., T. Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2018). According to this view, today’s Russia is essentially already a totalitarian, fascist state.

2. The adjective russkii refers to Russians as an ethnic group; the adjective rossiiskii covers any and all citizens of the Russian state.—Trans.

3. See P. Skorobogatyi, “Uchest’ kul’turnyi kod [Interv’iu s sekretarem Obshchestvennoi palaty V. Fadeevym],” Ekspert, no. 17–19 (1073), 2018, 23 aprelia–13 maia. URL: http://expert.ru/expert/2018/17/uchest-kulturnij-kod (accessed 5/7/2018).

4. See in the recent report of the Free Historical Society: “The phrase ‘cultural codes’ is borrowed from liberal public discourse and is used to serve the idea of Russian uniqueness. A distinctive spirituality as part of the Russian Sonderweg has mythologized for decades the imaginary inimitable characteristics of Russians and serves as a way of contrasting Russia with the unspiritual West.” “Kakoe proshloe nuzhno budushchemu Rossii. Doklad Vol’nogo istoricheskogo obshchestva.” In Komitet grazhdanskikh initsiativ, 2017, p. 8. URL https://komitetgi.ru/service/%D0%A1D0%B1%D0%BE%D180%D0%BA%D0%B0.pdf (accessed 5/7/2018)).

5. The explanation of this nature merits attention and a separate investigation. In addition to discussions of the “cultural matrix” and the “cultural code,” one can also find more exotic ones. For an extended period the argument “from biology” remained one of the usual formulas of national identity, although it was rarely formulated with complete candor. A reader accustomed to searches for, and the discovery of, Russian (and non-Russian—primarily Jewish) genes could have missed the amusing change in rhetoric. On one hand, what was taking shape was a “civic Russian nationalism” that was conspicuously refusing to rely on vulgarly defined “biology”; on the other hand, a discussion of “good genes” suddenly became equally routine, although not fully authorized as mainstream, among a segment of the “liberal camp.” Of course, one must be careful here. For example, in the same year Putin says that “Russians on a genetic level will not accept pressure from outside” (“Rossiiane na geneticheskom urovne ne priemliut davlenie izvne, zaiavil Putin,” RIA “Novosti,” 2017, 4 noiabria. URL: https://ria.ru.society/20171104/1058210542.html (accessed 5/7/2018)), while Kseniia Sobchak clarifies her 2010 assertion that “Russia has become a country of genetic rabble” (K. Sobchak, “Rossiia stala stranoi geneticheskogo otreb’ia,” Ekho Moskvy, 2010, 10 sentiabria. URL: https://echo.msk.ru/blog/statya/709632-echo (accessed 5/7/2018)) as follows: “Our country has seen an enormous number of human purges, when the best of the best were destroyed” (“Verdikt Sobchak. Iavliaetsia li Rossiia stranoi ‘geneticheskogo otreb’ia’?,” Argumenty i fakty, 2017, 25 oktiabria. URL: http://www.aif.ru/politics/russia/verdikt_sobchak_yavlyaetsya_li_rossiya_stranoy_geneticheskogo_otrebya (accessed 5/7/2018)). L. Ulitskaia explains the phenomenon of embitterment by citing population genetics: “Certain groups of people suffered during the period of Soviet rule. Their offspring also suffered. Moreover, many children of people killed by the government did not survive, either, and a certain number of children of those people with a specific genotype were not born. This is a genetic explanation” (V. Kataeva, “Rossiia—prekrasnaia strana, a zhit’ v nei plokho [Interv’iu s L. Ulitskoi],” Sobesednik, 2016, 14 iiunia. URL: https://sobesednik.ru/obshchestvo/20160614-lyudmila-ulickaya-rossiya-prekrasnaya-strana-a-zhit-v-ney (accessed 5/7/2018)). This leads at times to rather dubious situations in which “rightists” and “nationalists” accuse “liberals” of racism bordering on Nazism. In any case, the mention of “genes” and heredity no longer plays the role of differentiator in discourse. It is used on both sides.

6. Compare, however, the recent news on the forum “Moral and Cultural-Historical Values as a Foundation of National Identity” in Novosibirsk (“Integral’nyi indeks dukhovnosti: novosibirskim uchenym ob”iasnili prioritet vospitaniia nad znaniem,” Taiga.info, 2018, 26 aprelia. URL: http://tayga.info/140182 (accessed 5/7/2018)). Here we find the same curious mix of rational arguments and conservative precepts: It is now good form not to deny rationality and science but to argue, citing evidence that is rational on the surface, that they are limited and that traditional scientism is backward.

7. This was Carl Schmitt’s argument that he put forth back in the late 1920s. See K. Shmitt [C. Schmitt], “Epokha depolitizatsii i neitralizatsii.” In Poniatie politicheskogo (St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2016).

8. On this subject see J. Milbank, The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2008, Kindle Ed., Loc. 6773).

9. See, in Russian translation, P. Rozanvallon [Rosanvallon], Demokraticheskaia legitimnost’. Bespristrastnost’, refleksivnost’, blizost’ (Moscow: Moskovskaia shkola grazhdanskogo prosveshcheniia, 2015). I am referring above all to the concept of the “electoral people,” i.e., the visible multitude of voters, with the majority prevailing over the minority.

10. There is a fairly persistent, often stated notion to the effect that no two traditions are alike and that the paramount factor here is Eastern Orthodoxy. A reliance on tradition and community was very convenient for the communist regimes and was retained. This is an overly simple and dogmatic view, at any rate in the part regarding tradition. See S. Djankov and E. Nikolova, Communism as the Unhappy Coming (World Bank Group. Development Economics. Office of the Chief Economist. WPS8399).

11. H. Schelsky, “Ist die Dauerreflektion institutionalisierbar? Zum Thema einer modernen Religionssoziologie,” Zeitschrift für evangelische Ethik, 1957, Bd. 1, pp. 153–174.

12. Shortly before this, one of Gehlen’s most important books on sociology and social philosophy, Primitive Man and Late Culture, was published. Schelsky’s article in large part was inspired by it.

13. H. Schelsky, op. cit., p. 154.

14. Ibid., p. 162.

15. Ibid., p. 160.

16. Ibid., p. 167.

17. Ibid., p. 169.

18. During those years many regarded Schmitt as the “chief jurist” of Nazi Germany; this is not altogether fair, but it was to be a while before he received balanced assessments. At the end of the 1950s any mention of his ideas and writings, even those that were written from a completely different position, could provoke debates of a totally different kind than what Schelsky would have liked to hear.