from the desk in Moscow.,

here's a peice that was sent in a while back but now sees the light of day., or the pale glow of the internet, so apologies for the delays.,

modern russian philosophy.,


What is currently going on in Russia is a hot topic. A hotter topic in the west than in Russia itself, where the discussion of what is going on is strained by what natives often refer to as ‘the difficult political environment’, and everybody knows what that means. Those who are fighting against the difficulty of the environment are being made examples of brutally, unmercifully, in a way that the west sees as uncivilised and absolutely undemocratic. But the Russians who are familiar with the difficulties of the environment look on, and their courage wanes, because it is one thing to be a critic and mark how things are failing to live up to a certain standard, and another when you realise that your childrens’ life is endangered by what you say.
I have recently attended a large, by Russian standards, philosophy conference held in Moscow, where there were also speakers from France, from the US, from other European countries, as well as Russian philosophers. The theme of the conference was interesting, namely how the discipline of philosophy is present and intersects with various ‘worlds’, in a variety of senses. It intersects with the political, the sociological, the ideological, the official, the theoretical, with art and with science. And all of these intersections were attempted by various speakers to be addressed, with the aim I think of trying to clarify how philosophy can be put to use, and also how the philosopher can be useful to society and to these different worlds. The problem was, the speakers, and especially the ones that were western, turned out to be incompetent as they often failed to answer the questions they were asked and went off on hypothetical tangents that are common to philosophers and theoreticians.
There was, I feel, however a very important subtext to this conference, and that was that the indirect posing of the question: What should Russian philosophers do? How should they proceed, given that public speech is now limited by a political framework? This question was also, indirectly, answered. It appeared that the ‘official’ philosophers, those, in other words, who held the positions of fame and to some degree power, because their work was published and praised, did not speak. Or they did not inform with the information that they gave. One of the philosophers, when answering a question about modern Russian philosophy started speaking about literature of the past, that this was a way of making thought and hiding it between the lines of fictions. That’s fine, but, we already know this. And that was then, so what about now? Well it takes more guts to speak of the present, that much is clear.
And yet there are still those who will speak and who will remind us of what is going on, and what we, if we still think about it, may have the possibility of taking part of, of changing. There was someone who stood up and reminded the audience that Russian philosophy does have its modern movement, but that no one heads it because it doesn’t necessarily concur with the ‘political climate’. This speaker also said that no one ought to forget that all the philosophy that the west grew up with, Sartre, Camus, Adorno etc. has only recently been allowed to circulate in Russia. But, he said, unlike the west, Russians have actually got the real experience of a total collapse of ideology, of government, of values, a whole universe in other words. ‘So we, Russians have all the more right, all the more insight to speak and to write about this in philosophy, because it is something we have encountered.’ And I want to agree with him. And I want to also add that it is important for Russian philosophers to keep writing to keep asking questions, because they are the thinkers and they represent at least some of the intelligentsia class that Russia is desperately losing to the West, to money, to disillusionment, to fear and to surrender.
But it is difficult to say anything in Russia, publicly, because all the social spheres are tied one way or another, and someone who you don’t want to hear, will. But life is not without hope. There are other ways of speaking, and one such way is through art. Not just literature, but film and theatre present new possibilities of presenting philosophical positions. And if doesn’t well, this is even more effective, because it takes you to the core of the problem and exposes it and shows you its naked truth. The recent film ‘4’ is a good example. Unsurprisingly it has been banned in Russia. But nevertheless it was made and that, to me is a strong light amidst all the darkness. We have something to fight for, and it seems, there are still ways, just more masked, of fighting for what the climate does not agree with.

Albina Kaseltzer, Moscow.,