Alexander Asmolov, Director of the School of Anthropology of the Future, RANEPA: When the coronavirus pandemic is over, we will find ourselves in the situation of Noah's Ark.
RANEPA experts, headed by the director of the School of Anthropology of the Future of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Alexander Asmolov, conducted a study in which they tried to analyze what social and cultural changes in the life of society will result from the coronavirus pandemic. “Komsomolskaya Pravda” talked with Alexander Asmolov about the future that awaits us.
After the pandemic, we will find ourselves in the situation of Noah's ark
- Alexander Grigorievich, you write that the coronavirus acts as a bone of contention: observing the socially important rule of social distancing for religious people means giving up rituals, for entrepreneurs - the prospect of ruin, for workers - a drop in living standards, etc. Will this situation of personal and social struggle lead to the consolidation of society? Or will centrifugal forces increase: will people feel that it is their interests that have suffered in the first place?
“I've always been wary of triggering what the social sciences call the principle of self-fulfilling prophecy. At the same time, not wanting to work as Cassandra even part-time, I cannot but note how the boat in which mankind is rocked today is swinging. In the Bible, this boat was called Noah's ark. Noah's Ark nevertheless brought humanity out of the flood situation, and the pandemic is another flood. And we will certainly come out of this flood. In this I agree with my colleagues at the School of Anthropology of the Future Galina Soldatova and Sofya Sorokina, with whom we prepared an overview of the anthropological consequences of the pandemic. With all the conflicts that are tearing both the state and society, and each individual, it is necessary to clearly understand that the harsh curtailment of prospects is a key sign of any crisis. As soon as perspectives wind downas soon as we feel that there is a wall ahead, various forms of fear immediately arise - from depression to social hysteria. Fears start looking for exit points and different targets. The construct "channeling emotions" is well known in psychology. Where will the discharge of our emotions go, which of us will be in the role of a lightning rod for social, economic and infectious lightning? One cannot but think about these points. To talk about stability means to engage in eternal "manilovism". To talk about stability means to engage in eternal "manilovism". To talk about stability means to engage in eternal "manilovism".
Lumpen can pounce on the middle class
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- So it's a crisis after all?
- We will pass it. Thinking people will have a common understanding that one can get out of it only by joint efforts. But at the same time, it is obvious that today there is a sharp change and splitting of various destinies, social groups, ethnic groups and the behavior of political players. I predict (although I have sworn to do this many times) that there is a high probability of a special crisis for our country, or rather a special fight. Considering the socio-psychological portrait of Russian society, this will be a conflict between the Vulnerable and the Vulnerable. Lumpenization did not leave the mass consciousness, and the lumpen are always looking for those who are to blame. Today they can attack both the unrequited and the middle class, which is under economic blow today, and is already quite fragile.
Politicians found themselves in the role of kamikaze
- But what about the authorities, which should prevent this?
- Today the leaders of many countries find themselves in an unenviable situation. They faced a difficult choice between Visible and Social victims. Between the real death of people (no matter how heroically the doctors act), which the curves of the impersonal mortality statistics show us, and between the ruined fates of various people, including entrepreneurs, mortgage holders who have lost their jobs … between saving the economy and fighting the pandemic. I want to answer those who put the question like this as a psychologist: this kind of rhetoric, wrapped in impersonal characteristics, is a monstrous political, social and psychological mistake. This is not only about the economy: it is natural that it will survive the crisis, whatever you call it - depression or recession. It's aboutto see the fate of every person behind the economy. Our leaders were in the role of potential political kamikaze.
- Why?
- In the East, there is such a form of execution when the victim is tied to two horses running in different directions. Both politicians and managers of different levels find themselves in this situation today. If they begin to do everything to, one way or another, stop the pandemic, their attention, as a rule, falls out of social victims - people with broken lives. If they do everything to save people who are losing their jobs, prospects, the meaning of life, they will have to focus less on the measures they are taking against the pandemic. Such is the situation of risks for any mayor, prime minister, president - for any person who faces this moral dilemma when making political decisions in a situation of a new Flood.
Will science or religion win?
- Whose positions will strengthen more after the pandemic - science or religion? Will faith in the power of scientific knowledge increase, or will testing push people to faith?
- Today there is a unique mixture of science and religion. No matter how we tried to break them, many great scientists have adhered to religious views, making faith their fulcrum. Therefore, for me, the question is not about the competition between science and religion. Such competition is meaningless, impossible and historically losing. No matter how much we take off into space, never words about whether the astronauts saw the Creator there or not will shake the feelings of believers. Likewise, any rational facts will never undermine faith, if it exists. The great books of mankind - the Bible, the Torah, the Koran - are, first of all, historically packed ethics, the postulates of morality. In this sense, the problem today is different. Today, both scientific and religious worldviews are faced with the question of how much this or that picture of the world professes,in the language of Albert Schweitzer, reverence for life. And those political, scientific and spiritual leaders who put the value of personality and life itself at the forefront are saving humanity from a new flood. When calls are heard today “Do not gather in crowds, do not be guided by external rituals, do everything so that rituals do not lead to a threat to human life,” this is a value path that shows whether the value of an individual, the value of each person is important to your faith.is a value path that shows whether the value of a person, the value of each person, is important for your faith.is a value path that shows whether the value of a person, the value of each person, is important for your faith.
How to Replace Big Brother
- How will the coronavirus affect the situation with civil liberties? On the one hand, the authorities, thanks to the coronavirus, have worked out the ability to control and monitor citizens. And there is a temptation to apply these technologies to fight crime and control public life. On the other hand, it is obvious that people are annoyed that Big Brother is watching them.
- The main thing is that the situation of the crisis does not lead to the strengthening of control over everyone. So that we do not have a country about which a song sounded in one of the Soviet children's films: "And our king loves one thing - denunciation, denunciation, denunciation." And such a risk of a complete invasion of personal space, violation of a person's personal safety, really arises all the time. I believe that the country of total control, by its psychological essence, is a country of total striptease. Think, before everyone wants to undress?
Today we must clearly understand that limiting borders should only be a temporary measure, a means to ensure the value of human life, and not a motive for any state policy.
- The rapid spread of the coronavirus became possible thanks to the phenomenon of globalism and openness in the modern world: the infection was spread by millions of tourists - passengers on tens of thousands of flights. To stop the pandemic, the countries went to the closure of borders, the termination of flights, refusal to take their citizens from abroad. Will the times of openness return after the end of the pandemic? Or will the pendulum swing in the opposite direction - national priority, self-reliance, border control?
- Today, I think, the leaders of states clearly understand that in a situation where we can say “In the beginning was the Network”, any blood clots in the arteries of human communication will lead to a universal heart attack. Therefore, today we must clearly understand that limiting borders should only be a temporary measure, a means to ensure the value of human life, and not a motive for any state policy. God forbid that these restrictions turn into general separatist self-isolation. And the world would again be fenced off by various kinds of "iron walls", walls between individuals, families and countries. Such sentiments exist in the modern world; they grow on the basis of fundamentalism and xenophobia. It must be understood that in closed ecological niches, in "closed societies", development stops,and culture begins to move along the dead-end path of archaism, barbarism and destruction of diversity.
YAROSLAV KOROBATOV