"Treat people the way you want them to treat you." The overwhelming majority agree with this fundamental rule of morality. And it’s hard to disagree with what lies at the heart of the world's major religions and is the main ethical principle. But more and more often this principle has been violated lately. Hottentot morality or double standards prevail.
Savages and Europeans
To begin with, let us explain the term "Hottentot". Let's say right away that he has not the slightest relation to the Goths (the ancient Germanic tribal union of the first centuries AD and the youth subculture) and the Huguenots (French Protestants of the 16th century). Hottentots are an ethnic community in southern Africa. They are interesting, first of all, because, like the Bushmen, they belong to a special race - the capoid. Modern anthropologists consider the Hottentots and Bushmen to be the remnants of the most ancient race of people, driven to the south of Africa, in fact, by the Negroids. But back to morality. The European colonialists, who faced the Hottentots, very quickly endowed them with the most negative traits, since only in this way could they morally justify the lawlessness that they perpetrated on foreign lands. So it arose and quickly spread among the peoples of Europe,and then the North American legend of the white missionary who asked the Hottentot what good and evil were. “Good,” he allegedly replied, “this is when I take away his wife and cattle from a neighbor. And evil is when a neighbor takes my wife and cattle away from me. " It is this morality that the enlightened Europeans called "Hottentot". That is, one that is adhered to only by primitive savages who can neither write nor read and are not familiar with Christianity and the cultural achievements of the great European civilization. At the same time, the same mentioned Europeans with such fervor carried their humane culture to the Hottentots that they took away almost all the lands from them, and at the beginning of the 20th century they staged (this was, by the way, Germany) a real genocide, physically destroying the territory north of the Orange River is half of the Hottentots living there. This is the Hottentot morality. She's a double standard or just double standards.
THE LAW OF DEMOCRACY
You can talk as much as you like about the "cave" right of the strong, from which, in fact, a double morality was born. But the fact remains - from the prehistoric times of the tribal disunity of primitive paganism, double standards happily penetrated into a more highly organized society - first into the state, and then into the empire. This was especially noticeable in the politics of the ancient Greek city-states, and then the greatest empire of all times and peoples - the Roman. The city-states of Ancient Greece were, on the one hand, the founders of the democracy that we know today, but on the other hand, they were an example of the most ardent policy of double standards, when, for example, the inhabitants of Sparta quite sincerely believed,that their understanding of goodness and justice applies only to the citizens of Sparta and should not apply to the citizens of Athens. And there is no talk about any Persians at all - it is difficult to call them people. During the heyday of the Roman Empire, the trend only intensified. Legal, fair, and morally justified was considered only that which benefited the Roman citizen in particular and the Roman Empire in general. Any moral and moral concepts, beliefs, as well as the laws of the peoples who fell into the zone of influence of Rome were considered insignificant. At least, until, due to certain circumstances, they themselves did not force them to reckon with themselves (this happened with Christianity). Isn't that a familiar picture?Legal, fair, and morally justified was considered only that which benefited the Roman citizen in particular and the Roman Empire in general. Any moral and moral concepts, beliefs, as well as the laws of the peoples who fell into the zone of influence of Rome were considered insignificant. At least, until, due to certain circumstances, they themselves did not force them to reckon with themselves (this happened with Christianity). Isn't that a familiar picture?Legal, fair, and morally justified was considered only that which benefited the Roman citizen in particular and the Roman Empire in general. Any moral and moral concepts, beliefs, as well as the laws of the peoples who fell into the zone of influence of Rome were considered insignificant. At least, until, due to certain circumstances, they themselves did not force them to reckon with themselves (this happened with Christianity). Isn't that a familiar picture?Isn't that a familiar picture?Isn't that a familiar picture?
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MORALITY AND CLASS INTERESTS
Swam away into the abyss of time of the century. New civilizations, states, empires and socio-political formations were born and died. Christianity, with its two main commandments that one must first love the Lord God with all his heart, and then, as himself, his neighbor, spread to half the world and became the state religion in countries considered the most civilized. But, of course, the double morality has not gone away and very clearly manifested itself in such "achievements" of white civilized Christians as the conquest and colonization of South and North America, Africa and Australia. Russia is not far behind in rejecting the morality of double standards. We will not talk about the Russian Empire - it is too long a conversation, but the founder of the USSR V. I. Lenin stated unequivocally: “We saythat our morality is completely subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat. Our morality is derived from the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat. " If the bourgeois double morality, at least for the sake of appearance, could hide behind Christian moral commandments, then the Bolsheviks rejected any religion as such and openly put the interests of the proletariat, as they understood them, above any others. Everything that contributes to the victory of the proletarian revolution throughout the world and the building of a communist society is just, honest and moral. Conversely, everything else is immoral. Including any "fairy tales of God." How it all ended is well known. It is difficult to imagine a greater triumph of double morality, when one thing was said at the state level, but in reality something completely different was done than in the late USSR. As a result, he was gone.
DIFFICULT TASK
Some of the world's leading sociologists, political scientists and philosophers argue that our world is getting better and more moral. Like, never before in the history of mankind has the level of domestic violence been so low, and tolerance is so widespread. A little more and the advanced society of the West will finally defeat racism, sexism and all conceivable types of xenophobia. And then he will spread this victory to the whole world. At the same time, they “forget” to mention that, perhaps, the triumph of the policy of double standards has never been so comprehensive in countries that call themselves advanced (Russia, unfortunately, is no exception). This is noticeable with the naked eye at any level - from household to state. We proclaim tolerance, but we cannot show elementary tolerance for the opinions of others, and we consider the owners of such to be almost blood enemies. We owe everything, and we ourselves owe nobody. Those who think otherwise are ordinary fools, if not worse. Good is only what benefits me, my beloved, and my loved ones. Everything else is bad. Compromises? Arrangements? Live yourself and let others live? Respect for the opinions of others? Leave these tales to the children (when they grow up, they will understand that they are fairy tales). And, if earlier it was customary to ascribe such intolerance and the resulting double morality to the so-called “common people” with an insufficiently high level of education and culture, now it is openly demonstrated by those who call themselves intellectuals and creators. Compromises? Arrangements? Live yourself and let others live? Respect for the opinions of others? Leave these tales to the children (when they grow up, they will understand that they are fairy tales). And, if earlier it was customary to ascribe such intolerance and the resulting double morality to the so-called “common people” with an insufficiently high level of education and culture, now it is openly demonstrated by those who call themselves intellectuals and creators. Compromises? Arrangements? Live yourself and let others live? Respect for the opinions of others? Leave these tales to the children (when they grow up, they will understand that they are fairy tales) And, if earlier it was customary to ascribe such intolerance and the resulting double morality to the so-called “common people” with an insufficiently high level of education and culture, now it is openly demonstrated by those who call themselves intellectuals and creators.
So what should you do?
It seems that there can be only one answer. Our ball, on which we all live, has become too small to allow ourselves to disregard the main ethical principle. Treating others the way you want to be treated is no longer even a moral issue. It is a matter of our shared survival on Earth. The same applies to the Christian (and not only) commandment "Love your neighbor as yourself." No matter how boring and didactic it may sound. As for double morality, you shouldn't even dream of getting rid of it completely, that's not how we are arranged. But to make its manifestations in all spheres as rare as possible is a difficult task, but quite real. It's time to solve it.
Akim Bukhtatov