Utopian ideas of the Renaissance in brief. Social utopias of the Renaissance

revival feudalism utopianism renaissance

One of the forms of socio-political modification of the Renaissance was utopianism. Utopianism was not as striking a phenomenon as Machiavelli's doctrine. However, the features of Renaissance self-denial are quite noticeable here. The mere fact that the creation of an ideal society was attributed to very distant and completely uncertain times clearly testified to the disbelief of the authors of such a utopia in the possibility of creating an ideal person immediately and as a result of quite elementary efforts of people of the current time. Here almost nothing remained of the Renaissance spontaneous human artistry, which brought such incredible joy to the Renaissance man and forced him to find ideal features already in the state of the society of that time. The most that has existed in this area so far is confidence in the liberal reforms of the current and immediate present, which inspired the illusion of spontaneous self-assertion of the real person of that time. The Utopians pushed all this into an indefinite future and thereby revealed their complete disbelief in the ideal artistry of contemporary man Radugin, A.A. Philosophy. Course of lectures/A.A. Radugin. - M.: Education, 2001.-244 p..

• a) The first utopian of the Renaissance is Thomas More (1478-1535), a very liberal-minded English statesman, a supporter of the sciences and arts, a promoter of religious tolerance and a bright critic of the then feudal and emerging capitalist orders. But he remained a faithful Catholic, opposed Protestantism, and after Henry VIII's defection from the Catholic Church, he was mercilessly executed for his Catholic beliefs. In general, his activities relate to either civil history or literary history. We may be interested here in only one of his works, which was published in 1516. entitled “The Golden Book, as useful as it is funny, on the best structure of the state and on the new island of Utopia,” since the entire aesthetics of the Renaissance is based on the spontaneous self-affirmation of the human personality in the state that More himself considered ideal. In fact, More's image of the utopian man is a bizarre mixture of all kinds of old and new views, often liberal, often quite reactionary, but, apparently, with one main difference: from the bright Renaissance artistry in More's utopian state, one might say, exactly nothing left. A person is depicted as a rather gray type, apparently governed by a state that is still quite absolutist. Everyone must engage in physical labor according to state distribution, although the sciences and arts are not at all denied, but are even extolled by More, especially music. Society is divided into families, but seven and these are understood rather industrially, due to which belonging to one or another family is determined not only by the natural origin of family members, but primarily also by state decrees, by virtue of which family members can be transferred from one family to another for production or other government purposes. More's state also intervenes in marriage matters in the most significant way, and much of it is determined simply by state decree. Generally speaking, any religion is allowed, including pagan worship of heavenly bodies. Complete religious tolerance is required Radugin, A.A. Philosophy. Course of lectures/A.A. Radugin. - M.: Enlightenment, 2001.-246 p.. Priests must be elected by the people. The activities of atheists are very limited, since the lack religious faith interferes with the moral state of society. In any case, open speeches by atheists are prohibited. In addition, Christianity or monotheism in general is still recognized as the highest religion. Families are recommended to eat not separately, but in common dining rooms. Except for some isolated cases, everyone should have the same clothes. In this ideal state, slaves also play an important role. Not only is the very institution of slavery affirmed, but it is even shown to be very beneficial both for the state, which receives cheap labor in the form of slaves, and for the entire population of the country, for which slaves turn out to be an example of what not to do. Material pleasures are recognized. However, in More we read: “The Utopians especially value spiritual pleasures, they consider them first and dominant, the predominant part of them comes, in their opinion, from the exercise of virtue and the consciousness of an immaculate life.” In other words, the bright and brilliant artistic aesthetics of the Renaissance are reduced here only to moralism, which is declared to be the highest “spiritual pleasure.” The glorification of production over consumption is striking. At the same time, More brings to the fore the equalization of work and responsibilities, as well as the primacy of the state over any social organizations and over the family. It is clear that all such features of More's utopianism were associated with the childhood state of the then bourgeois-capitalist society. But what is more important for us is that this is a modified Renaissance and that this modification is directed by More towards the elimination of the spontaneous-personal and artistic-subjective individualism of the classical Renaissance Radugin, A.A. Philosophy. Course of lectures/A.A. Radugin. - M.: Education, 2001.-246 p..
• b) Another representative of Renaissance utopianism is Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639). This is a major writer and public figure of his time, who suffered for preparing an anti-Spanish conspiracy in Naples and spent 27 years in prison, a monk and a convinced communist of the early utopian type. The features of early utopian communism appear much more clearly in Campanella than in More. In his treatise of 1602. under the title "City of the Sun" Campanella highlights the doctrine of labor, the abolition of private property and the community of wives and children, i.e. on the elimination of the family as the original social unit. More had none of this in vivid form. They talked about the influence of the ideas of early Christianity on Campanella. However, a careful study of Campanella's ideas suggests that this influence is almost zero. And what undoubtedly influenced Campanella was, of course, the teaching of Plato in his Republic. In Campanella’s ideal State of the Sun, like Plato’s, the leaders are philosophers and sages, contemplatives of eternal ideas and, on this basis, who govern the entire state are not so much secular rulers as real priests and clergy. They are the absolute rulers of the entire state and society, down to the smallest everyday regulation. Marriages are carried out only by state decrees, and children, after breastfeeding, are immediately taken away from their mother by the state and raised in special institutions not only without any communication with their parents, but even without any acquaintance with them. Husbands and wives do not exist as such. They are such only in moments of decreed cohabitation. They shouldn't even know each other, just as they shouldn't know their own children. In antiquity, this weakened sense of personality was generally a natural phenomenon, and Plato only took it to its limit. As for the Renaissance, the human personality was already, in any case, in the first place. And therefore, what we find in Campanella is, of course, a rejection of the ideas of the Renaissance. Radugin, A.A. Philosophy. Course of lectures/A.A. Radugin. - M.: Enlightenment, 2001.-247 pp. However, it is also impossible to say that Campanella has nothing to do with the Renaissance at all. He is not only a preacher of positively understood work; his entire utopia undoubtedly bears traces of revivalist views. Therefore, it would be more accurate to say that what we have here is precisely a modified Renaissance and precisely a Renaissance that criticizes itself in socio-political terms. As for individual details, Campanella’s utopians mock those rulers who, when breeding horses and dogs, are very careful about their breed, but when breeding people, they do not pay any attention to this breed. In other words, from Campanella's point of view, human society should be transformed into an ideal stud farm. The “chief of childbirth,” subordinate to the ruler of Love, is obliged to enter into such intimacies of sexual life, which we do not consider necessary to talk about here, and astrology is used in sexual matters in the first place. It is pure naivety to indicate that people should wear white clothes during the day, and red ones, woolen or silk, at night and outside the city, and the color black is completely prohibited. The same kind of advice about work, trade, swimming, games, treatment, about getting up in the morning, about astrological techniques for founding cities and many others. When carrying out the death penalty, there are no executioners, so as not to desecrate the state, but the people themselves, and first of all the accuser and witnesses, stone the criminal. The sun is revered in an almost pagan manner, although the true deity is still considered higher. Copernicanism is rejected and heaven is accepted in the medieval sense. Campanella is striking in his mixture of pagan, Christian, Renaissance, scientific, mythological and entirely superstitious views. Thus, the aesthetically modified Renaissance is depicted in this utopia with its most striking features. The main thing is to ignore that spontaneously human and artistic individualism that distinguished the aesthetics of the Renaissance from the very beginning. If we say that here we find self-criticism and even self-denial of the Renaissance, then we would hardly be mistaken. As noted earlier, starting from the middle of the 18th century. In European philosophy, the rationalist direction occupies a dominant position. The principles of rationalism continue to influence the development of the philosophical process in the 20th century. A striking example of such influence are the various schools of “philosophy of science” Hegel, G.V.F. Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences / G.V.F. Hegel. - M.: Art, 1974. - 145 pp. However, by the middle of the 19th century. In the development of Western European philosophy, a serious shift is taking place - irrationalistic concepts come to the fore. It would be a significant simplification of the historical and philosophical process to associate the emergence of irrationalism in Western European philosophy only with the second half of the 19th - mid-20th centuries. Just like rationalism, irrationalism, as a philosophical trend, began to take shape in ancient times. The premises of irrationalism can be fixed in some important aspects of the teachings of Orphico-Pythagoras, Platonism and Neoplatonism, late Stoicism, etc. In the Christian philosophy of the Middle Ages, irrationalistic elements received the widest development. The French skepticism of C. Montaigne, the religious and philosophical quests of B. Pascal, S. Kierkegaard and other thinkers close to them in spirit make a significant contribution to the formation of the irrationalist trend. And even during the heyday of the influence of rationalism, German romanticism and, above all, philosophical ideas late F. Schelling, significantly deepen the irrationalistic perception of reality. However, one can agree with those historians of philosophy who argue that irrationalism, as a philosophical trend, received its most complete and comprehensive development in secular Western European philosophy starting from the second half of the 19th century. And its decisive influence on the historical and philosophical process is felt throughout the 20th century. From our point of view, we should abandon the simplified sociologizing approach that characterizes irrationalism as the philosophy of the era of imperialism,” reflecting the mentality of “the end of the ascending stage of development of capitalism” Hegel, G.V.F. Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences / G.V.F. Hegel.- M.: Art, 1974. - 146 p.. Irrationalism, as a philosophical trend, cannot be directly associated with any specific historical processes, since its concepts, schools and movements reflect such aspects of human existence and worldview, which are not expressed within the framework of rationalism due to its one-sidedness. However, the fact that irrationalism replaces rationalism and occupies a dominant position in Western European philosophy in a specific historical period undoubtedly indicates that there were certain ideological and social reasons. We can say with complete confidence that the establishment of philosophical irrationalism occurs as the broad masses of people become disillusioned with the ideals with which philosophical rationalism operated. By the middle of the 19th century. people have become convinced that the progress of science and technology in itself does not lead to the realization of the age-old ideas of mankind. People have ceased to see in the world historical process the manifestation and implementation of a higher mind. Because of this, the idea of ​​the priority of human socio-historical activity has lost its attractive power. In philosophy, literature, and art of this time, the idea is affirmed of the groundlessness and futility of all human hopes that the objective movement of the world process guarantees the fulfillment of human goals, that knowledge of its laws can give a person a reliable orientation in reality. Disbelief in the constructive and creative forces of man, historical and social pessimism, skepticism - these are the main features of the mentality of the second half of the 19th-20th centuries, which formed the basis of irrationalism as a philosophical trend in modern Western European philosophy. Under the influence of this mindset, there is a rethinking of the rationalistic concept of a person’s relationship to the surrounding reality, a change in the idea of ​​the meaning, purpose and purpose of human activity and cognition, a revision of the very way of interpreting human thinking and consciousness Hegel, G.V.F. Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences / G.V.F. Hegel.- M.: Art, 1974. - 148 pp. If rationalism mystifies rationally expedient forms of human activity, then in irrationalism it is spiritually identified with spontaneous, unconscious impulses, emotional-volitional and moral-practical structures of the subject. All forms of a rational, expedient attitude towards the world are declared in irrationalism to be derived from an original, pre-conscious basis. Depending on what specific principle you declare to be the essential characteristic of the subject, and what interpretation is given to this principle, different systems and schools of irrationalism arise in the philosophical literature: “philosophy of will” by A. Schopenhauer and others, “philosophy of life” by F. Nietzsche, V. Dilthey, A. Bergson and others, existentialism of M. Heidegger, J.-P. Sartre and others. In philosophical theory, irrationalism stands, first of all, against the attitude of rationalism, which the world is, in principle, akin to man, that nature and various spheres public life are rational in their core and, therefore, accessible to a thinking substance, and knowledge can provide purposeful instructions and guidelines for human activity. The instability of an individual's social existence turns into irrationalism into an ontological imbalance of the entire universe. Irrationalism denies the orderly, law-like structure of the world. From the point of view of its representatives, the basis of being is unreasonable. “The unreasonable,” as T.Y. Oizerman correctly noted, “in irrationalism is not just indifferent to reason, but counter-reasonable, counteracting reason. Being is irrational because it is meaningless, disharmonious, absurd.” W. A. ​​Schopenhauer, for example, the fundamental principle of the universe is the spontaneous, unlimited, unpredetermined World Will. Will is understood in his system as an endless striving. “It is groundless,” “beyond causality, time and space” Hegel, G.V.F. Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences / G.V.F. Hegel.- M.: Art, 1974. - 148 p.. In A. Bergson, such functions are performed by the “vital impulse” - an unbridled, overflowing chaotic flow of instincts, which is given either a naturalistic or social interpretation. Existentialism declares the pulsating process of individual experience - existence - to be an essential characteristic of being. In objective-idealistic varieties of irrationalism, the ontologization of the emotional-volitional structures of human existence is carried out. Thus, A. Schopenhauer endowed the Will with universal cosmic functions. “Will is the inner, essence of the world.” All that exists: nature, man, social institutions and objective forms of culture represent stages of objectification of the Will. For A. Bergson, the “life impulse” passes through various material formations, undergoes various metamorphoses and completes its movement, embodied in man. In the subjective-idealistic variety of irrationalism, human subjectivity, individual consciousness is considered as a special type of being. Thus, in V. Dilthey’s system, “life”, considered as the basis of the world, is interpreted as the internal experience of a person’s experience of his existence in the world, which gives the world semantic characteristics. Closely related to the denial of lawfulness and causality in irrationalist teachings is the denial of both cognitive and active-transformative activity of the subject. Representatives of irrationalism solve the problem of the subject without regard to the process in which a person cognizes and transforms the world and in which the forces and capabilities of nature become the forces and capabilities of man himself. Therefore, they see the main task of philosophy not in the knowledge of the laws of the objectivity of the world, but in determining the forms and norms for constructing the subjective world of the individual, affirming his inner spiritual and moral life. The theoretical-cognitive and real-transformative attitude towards the world, expressed in systems of rationalism, is opposed by irrationalism to the moral-practical Hegel, G.V.F. Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences / G.V.F. Hegel.- M.: Art, 1974. - 149 p.. Irrationalists direct their efforts, first of all, to the development of emotional and moral attitudes that serve to orient a person in interpersonal situations. In place of the subject-object relations characteristic of rationalism, irrationalism puts forward subject-subject relations. A person is considered mainly as a subject of communication. In philosophical theory, irrationalism contrasts the epistemological approach of rationalism with the axiological one. Since the activity of the subject, from the point of view of irrationalism, is manifested not in cognitive and not in real-transformative, but in moral-evaluative activity, since the problem of the objectivity of knowledge is removed and replaced by the problem of assessing the world from the point of view of the conditions of existence of the individual in it. Irrationalists argue that only a person can understand the true value of this or that phenomenon. What distinguishes a person from an animal is not reason, not the ability for conceptual thinking, but, above all, the ability for moral assessment. A person is not a dispassionate theoretical being, but is subjectively interested in the goals and objectives of his activity, therefore the most important for him are the answers to the questions not “what is this?”, but “what does this thing mean?”, “What is its purpose?” Serves? Thus, man becomes the measure of all existence, and the epistemological approach gives way to the axiological one, which is based on the principles of anthropology. When solving epistemological problems, irrationalism attaches decisive importance to the subjective psychological subconscious factors of human cognition. From here follows the main feature of irrationalistic epistemology, which consists in denying the ability of conceptual thinking to adequately reflect reality and opposing it as the most adequate means of comprehending the essence of reality: intuition, faith, etc. Lyubimov, L. Art of the Ancient World / L. Lyubimov.- M .: Enlightenment, 1971.- 331 p.. As a result of this approach, in the most extreme forms of irrationalism, traditional ontological and epistemological concepts are replaced by others or receive a new interpretation. Concepts come to the fore that, by their very nature, cannot provide images of the external world, but only reflect the subjective experiences of the individual: fear, despair, melancholy, care, love, involvement, etc. When constructing a philosophical system, rationalism, as As already noted above, there is a tendency to “remove all irrational remnants”, to put all knowledge into strictly defined logical forms, and to discard everything that does not fit into them as ignorance. Irrationalism is not characterized by a negative reaction to rationalistically systematic methods of philosophizing: conceptuality, discursivity, evidence and other scientific theoretical forms of expression of knowledge. In its epistemology, irrationalism focuses specifically on “irrational residues,” declaring that only they are genuine knowledge, and therefore require other non-rational forms of expression: images, symbols, allegories, metaphors, etc. Starting with S. Kierkegaard, F Nietzsche, irrationalism brings the form of presentation into line with the content and begins to communicate with the world in the language of prophecies Lyubimov, L. The Art of the Ancient World / L. Lyubimov. - M.: Education, 1971. - 331 pp..

Niccolo Machiavelli - the founder of political ideas of the Renaissance

The first steps towards transforming political knowledge into scientific ones were taken by Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), a great Italian humanist, an outstanding figure of the Renaissance, who outlined his political views in the works “The State”, “History of Florence”, etc.

It was Machiavelli who first tried to define the subject of political science, its method and, to a certain extent, laws. In his opinion, the main subject of political science is the state and law. "The Prince" is a study of power: its conquest, retention, expansion and loss. The Italian humanist was the first to introduce the term “stato” (state) into political thought, not in the sense of an ancient polis, country, society, but in the sense of a specifically political organization. Having decisively freed himself from theology and discarded the medieval doctrine of state and law, he comes to the conclusion that the core of human political behavior is not Christian morality, but benefit, interest, and power. “Fate,” wrote Machiavelli, “is always on the side where the best army is.”

Machiavelli replaced the medieval concept of divine omnipotence with the idea of ​​objective historical necessity, which he called fate. In the historical process, he assigns a large place to the free will of the individual and aims people at active creative participation in politics. Thus, in his opinion, history depends on two factors. He called the first “fortune”, meaning not the blind force of fate, but the natural course of events, their causation, the required sequence, etc. He called the second “virtu” (will, talent, energy). Thus, Machiavelli raised the question of the laws of the historical and political process and the need to take into account in politics both objective conditions and the role of the human factor, participants in political activity.

In developing the theory of politics, N. Machiavelli took a pragmatic position, clearly limiting politics and morality, and advocated combining the traits of a “lion and a fox” in politics: “one must be a fox to see the trap, and a lion to crush the wolves.” These and other similar statements in the spirit of “the end justifies the means” were one-sidedly interpreted as alleged manifestations of immoralism, treachery and even criminality of politics, in connection with which the term “Machiavellianism” appeared - a policy based on the cult of brute force and disregard for moral norms.

But the interpretation of this term only in a negative, anti-humanistic sense distorts the actual position of Machiavelli, who, although he was a supporter of the decisive and bold achievement of his political goals, did not take the position of unconditionally recognizing that any goal always and everywhere justifies any means of achieving it.

In his main work "The Prince" Machiavelli, indeed, allows for the possibility of violating religious and moral norms, but not in principle and not in any situation, but solely for the sake of creating and preserving the state. (In particular, for the sake of uniting his then fragmented Motherland - Italy, which he dearly loved). Unfortunately, this position, but with other goals, was guided by the leaders of the French Revolution of 1789, the Nazis, and the Bolsheviks.

The use of a method based on a realistic, pragmatic approach to politics, the formulation of a number of theoretical problems (about the state, about the interaction of the subjective and objective in politics, etc.) allows us to consider P. Machiavelli, following Aristotle, the founder of political science at a new stage of its development.

Utopian ideas of the Renaissance

Almost simultaneously with N. Machiavelli, who laid one of the first “stones” in the theoretical foundation of the new bourgeois system, people lived and worked who rejected this system and offered an alternative to it. This is the doctrine of utopian socialism, presented by the great humanists T. More and T. Campanella, which expressed and defended the interests of the oppressed and disadvantaged during the transition to a new society. In conditions when private property, suppression and oppression of the masses, inequality and lawlessness were considered as the unshakable basis of any social system, the early utopian socialists depicted, in abstract form, a socio-political system in which public property, the principles of humanism, democracy, freedom, equality, social justice.

Similar views were expressed a century later in Italy by Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639). In his book “City of the Sun,” he depicts an ideal state in which private property is abolished, there are no rich and poor, universal labor has been introduced, thanks to which the working day is sharply reduced and there is an opportunity for diversified personal development. The ideal city-state does not come from God, but is a direct result of the activity of reason. In the State of the Sun there is a division of labor. Its main component is the separation of mental labor from physical labor. Like More, Campanella opposes the opposition between politics and morality that Machiavelli allowed.

The political ideas of early utopian socialism were further developed in the teachings of the utopian socialists of the 18th century. (J. Millier, Morelli, Babeuf) and especially among the classics of utopian socialism of the first half of the 19th century. (Saint-Simon, Owen, Fourier).

9.Political ideas of the modern era.

New time(or new story) (XVI-XIX centuries) - a period in the history of mankind, located between the Middle Ages and Modern times.

Historians of different schools differ sharply in periodization new history. In Soviet historiography, within the framework of formation theory, its beginning was associated with the English revolution of the mid-17th century, which began in 1640. Among other events that are accepted as the starting point of the New Age are the events associated with the Reformation (1517), the discovery of the New World by the Spaniards in 1492, the fall of Constantinople (1453) or even the beginning of the Great French Revolution (1789), etc.

New times have significantly changed the forms and pace of formation of political theory. The increasing complexity of the political sphere, which gradually revealed the dependence of state power on the area of ​​a person’s private life, contributed to the understanding of it as a certain social sphere with its own specific foundations and mechanisms.

The Italian thinker N. Machiavelli was the first to make this breakthrough, dividing ideas about politics and society. Having introduced the term stato into the scientific lexicon, he interpreted it not as a reflection of a specific state, but as a specially organized form of power. In the spirit of this approach, J. Bodin raised the question of developing methodological foundations for a special political science. An enormous contribution to the development of this branch of knowledge was made by T. Hobbes, J. Locke, J.-J. Rousseau, C. Montesquieu, D. Mill, I. Bentham, A. Tocqueville, K. Marx and a number of other outstanding thinkers who developed the ideas of rationalism, freedom, and equality of citizens.

This era gave the world the names of A. Bentley, G. Mosca, V. Pareto, R. Michels, M. Weber, W. Wilson, C. Merriam and other outstanding theorists. Of course, in different countries The development of scientific knowledge about politics was uneven. However, in Russia, the works of B. N. Chicherin, P. A. Novgorodtsev, A. I. Strogin, M. M. Kovalevsky, M. Ya. Ostrogorsky, G. V. Plekhanov and other scientists were a worthy contribution to the process of formation of political Sciences.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. Many specialized theories have appeared devoted to the study of democracy, systems of political representation of interests, elites, parties, informal, psychological processes. In modern times, the foundations of such political ideologies were formulated: statism, liberalism, democracy, conservatism, socialism. During this period, European thinkers developed such political science ideas and doctrines as: “contractual theory of the origin of the state”, the concept of “natural and inalienable human rights”, the theory of “popular sovereignty”, “separation of powers”, “civil society”, “rule of law” , the concept of “social-class nature of the state”, etc.

A powerful theoretical upsurge at the turn of the century led to the establishment of political science as an independent discipline in educational institutions in the USA (1857), and subsequently in Germany and France. In 1903, the first American Political Science Association was created, bringing together scientists who professionally studied the field of politics. All this made it possible to talk about the emergence of political science as a special branch of knowledge that took its place in the structure of humanities.

Thomas Hobbes(1588-1679) - English philosopher and political thinker. In his works “On the Citizen”, “Leviathan...” and others, he developed the ideas of the natural (pre-state) and state or civil state of society. The pre-state stage is characterized by a “war of all against all,” which contradicts the natural desire of people for self-preservation and forces them to seek peace and harmony. This form of consent is found in the creation of a state, through which private wills are subordinated to a single will for the sake of ensuring peace and security. In developing his concept of the state

T. Hobbes is a theorist of absolute power, not controlled by anyone. However, it must be borne in mind that Hobbes' statist concept was a theoretical reaction to the revolutionary events in England in 1641-1649. This period clearly indicated that in societies during periods of chaos, the regulatory role of traditions, decrees and laws is reduced or lost. It is in this regard that the only hope for restoring order and preventing future civil war and revolutions Hobbes places on a strong state.

John Locke(1632-1704) - English philosopher and political thinker, founder of classical liberalism. His main work in the field of politics is Two Treatises on Government.

D. Locke developed ideas natural law and contractual origin state, separation of powers and popular sovereignty, inalienable human rights. The state, according to Locke, is created so that through joint efforts people more reliably protect the right to life, liberty and property. For the first time in political thought, the idea of ​​inalienable human rights was clearly formulated, an idea that since the end of the 18th century. began to be enshrined in political and legal documents of the United States and European countries, and from the 20th century. in international documents : Declaration of Independence (USA, July 4th1776), Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (France,1789), Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved and proclaimed General Assembly UN (December 10, 1948).

This idea was reflected in the legal documents of our country only towards the end of the 20th century. - in Article 17 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation (December 12, 1993).

Next, J. Locke puts forward and defends the idea of ​​the rule of law in the state. In the state no one can be excluded from subjection to the law. The liberal ideas of J. Locke were further developed in the concepts of thinkers of the 18th-20th centuries.

Charles Louis Montesquieu(1689-1755) - French political thinker. Works: “Reflections on the reasons for the greatness and fall of the Romans”, “On the spirit of the laws”, etc.

When considering politics and power introduced multifactorial approach, showing the conditionality of political and power phenomena by a variety of natural, socio-economic, cultural processes and emphasizing the need for their comprehensive analysis to understand the essence of political processes. Montesquieu attached a special role to geographical factors (the size of the territory of the state, the location of the country, etc.), therefore he is considered to be the founder of “geographical determinism”.

S.L. Montesquieu is known in political science as a classic theories of separation of powers. The author associated the need for division of power with the conditions for ensuring political freedom in society. Political freedom occurs only where power is not abused. “To prevent the possibility of abuse of power, an order of things is necessary in which the various powers could mutually restrain each other.” One of the most important conditions political freedom is, according to Montesquieu, the division of power into legislative, executive and judicial.

For political freedom, as Montesquieu shows, a special state of society is also necessary, i.e. the presence in it of such social forces and institutions that would be interested in freedom and could protect it from the encroachments of power.

Jean Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778) - French philosopher and political thinker, born in Switzerland and called himself a citizen of Geneva. Since 1742, he connected his life with Paris, and his works appeared here and became widely known. For political science, the following are important: “Discourse on the origin and foundations of inequality between people”, “On political economy”, “On the social contract, or principles of political law”. Rousseau lived during a period of rapid development of science and industry in Europe. Power clearly acted as a brake on social progress and a source of growing problems and conflicts. Analyzing these realities, Rousseau puts forward the idea of ​​the general will as the basis government controlled. The people, represented by the will of the majority, rule, the official, relying on the laws adopted by the will of the majority, governs - this is the formula for governing the state in Rousseau's theory. And this is where the democracy of Rousseau’s political theory is manifested. He proves the ineffectiveness of representative forms of organization of power and brings to its logical conclusion the English idea of ​​the sovereignty of the people: if Locke turns to the will of the people in extreme cases (conflict between authorities), then in Rousseau the supremacy of the will of the people is a constant of the political process , the fundamental regulatory principle of the state. Just as in the theories of the Middle Ages the state ruled in the name of God, so in Rousseau it rules in the name of the general will. “A new God is born” - this is how a French writer of the 20th century assessed Rousseau’s idea. Albert Camus. Apparently Camus wanted to emphasize that the idea of ​​popular sovereignty is as irrational as belief in God.

However, the name of Rousseau is associated with the development ideas of popular sovereignty, recognition of the people as the source of all political power legal documents of many states, the idea of ​​​​the shortcomings of the representative power of the people, the interpretation of the people as a natural “counterparty” of the state.

Theoretical thought of Europe in the 17th - early 18th centuries. I was just beginning to build models of the limits of government intervention in worldly affairs and in private life. Rousseau finally removes the divine veils from the state, turning it into an ordinary work of human hands and minds. This process began with the development of theories of the contractual origin of the state (G. Grotius. T. Hobbes. J. Locke and others).

From this moment on, the state can not only be given limits, it can be remade. But from here it was one step away from the idea that there are skilled craftsmen in remaking the state. Power (the state) itself has become a political problem. In Europe, symbolic images of power (ideologies) began to be actively developed, which structured and integrated various layers of the people around one or another image of the structure and reorganization of society and the state.

Edmund Burke(1729-1797) - politician and thinker, theorist conservatism. The most famous work is “Reflections on the Revolution in France...” (1790) In it Burke critically analyzes theoretical basis French Revolution (Rousseau's ideas), showing that theory cannot be a reliable basis for stable politics, much less the Rousseauian will of the majority cannot be a reliable guideline for politics.

Order in the state, according to Burke, is the result of history and customs. “True political wisdom consists in correcting, not destroying, old institutions.” These provisions of the English thinker were further developed by the Frenchman J. De Maistrom, who emphasized that the state is a living organism, it lives by forces rooted in the distant past, which it itself does not know well. Thus, in modern times, a whole direction is emerging in political theory - conservatism, which clearly promotes the idea that politics should be based on tradition, and tradition itself plays a regulatory and guiding role in relation to power.

Tradition in Burke's thinking is a product of history, the result of historical experience. History selects everything that is valuable and best, turning this best into the basis for further development, into the support of wise government.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. based on the study of civilizational determinants of the political process in social thought, a cultural direction in the analysis of politics and power, within the framework of which the thesis about the essential conditionality of the political-power and state-administrative process by the state and characteristics of the political culture and mentality of a given society is further substantiated.

I. Kant(1724-1804) drew attention to the close connection and significant differences between state, law and ethics. He tried to reveal the content of the connection through the concept of “categorical imperative”. The categorical imperative is a universal mandatory rule that must guide all people. In the theory of I. Kant, an important place belongs to the understanding of the state as a legal institution. Kant points out that “the state is an association of many people subject to legal laws.” Rules of law govern external relations between people, morality concerns intrinsic motivation.

Political concept G.V.F. Hegel(1770-1831) draws attention to the connection between the state, law and human free will.

Hegel clearly distinguishes civil society and the political state. Characterizing civil society, the German thinker shows that this is the sphere of manifestation of human freedom, but here true freedom has not yet been achieved, here everyone is his own goal, and only the state represents the procession of reason, true freedom and law.

Karl Marx(1818-1883) - the most famous German philosopher, economist, also made a significant contribution to the development of sociology and political science. Works: “Manifesto communist party"(together with F. Engels), "German Ideology", "Capital" and many others.

At the basis of his theoretical constructions, Marx lays the idea of ​​socio-economic, class conditionality of political phenomena, class origin and class nature of the state. The totality of production relations, according to Marx, constitutes the economic structure of society, the real basis on which the legal and political superstructure rises and to which certain forms of social consciousness correspond. “Political power is only a product of economic power,” and the state is an institution of “the economically dominant class, which, with the help of the state, also becomes the politically dominant class and thus acquires new means for the suppression and exploitation of the oppressed class.”

Based on materialist ideas, Marx develops a theory of class struggle as the main driving force of the historical political process.

Describing democracy, Marx noted that here “it is not man who exists for the law, but the law that exists for man. This is the hallmark of democracy."

Political science in Recent period

From the first quarter of the 20th century. begins modern, which continues to this day, is a stage in the development of political science. Now its development is based on increasingly complex political connections, further politicization of social life as a whole, against the backdrop of the development of all social science, which contributes to the constant enrichment of methods of political research. The steady increase in complexity of the social world has led some theorists to the idea that “a political theory of modernity must<.,.>focus on the fragmentation of society.” The world has become even more politicized, and the number of subdisciplines studying the facets of the political has begun to grow steadily, demonstrating an enormous diversity of specialized studies, methods and techniques of policy analysis. The expansion of areas subject to specialized and systematic research led G. Lasswell in 1951 to the idea of ​​​​the need to introduce the term “political science”.

The main contribution to the development of modern political science was made by Western theorists: T. Parsons, D. Easton, R. Dahrendorf, M. Duverger, R. Dahl, B. Moore, E. Daune, C. Lindblom, G. Almond, S. Verba , E. Campbell and others. Modern political science is the most authoritative academic discipline; Corresponding courses are taught in all major universities in the world. The International Association of Political Scientists (IPSA) operates around the world and systematically conducts scientific conferences, symposia. The opinion of professional political analysts is a constant component of the development and adoption of major decisions in nation states and in international organizations.

In the second half of the 20th century. In Western socio-political thought, postmodernism began to spread, whose representatives (J. Derrida, M. Foucault, J.-F. Lyotard, J. Baudrillard, etc.) questioned the possibility of developing criteria for the truth of scientific knowledge and denied modern methodology scientific knowledge the ability to obtain any significant scientific results or generally accepted provisions. The methodology of the modern period, associated with the ideas of the New Age and the Enlightenment, that is, faith in science and human reason, rationalism and progress - all this is questioned and criticized. Postmodernist concepts are, on the one hand, evidence of the crisis of the Western cultural tradition, which for the last two centuries has been based on the universalist project of the Age of Enlightenment. In political science, this crisis is manifested in unsuccessful attempts to rationally substantiate policies, the inability of traditional political science methodologies to provide a convincing explanation of modern challenges to humanity: globalism, fundamentalism, political and state terrorism, the growth of ethnic and religious conflicts. On the other hand, postmodernism is one of the directions in the search for new cultural projects and new methods for theoretical understanding of the modern social and political world.

10. Concept, structure, functions and typology of the political system of society.

Political system of society or political organization society- a set of interactions (relations) of political subjects, organized on a single normative and value basis, related to the exercise of power (government) and the management of society.

The structure of the political system of society

The structure of a political system means what elements it consists of and how they are interconnected. The following components of the political system are distinguished:

· organizational (institutional) component - the political organization of society, including the state, political parties and movements, public organizations and associations, labor collectives, pressure groups, trade unions, churches, and the media.

· cultural component - political consciousness, characterizing the psychological and ideological aspects of political power and the political system (political culture, political ideas/ideologies).

· normative component - socio-political and legal norms regulating the political life of society and the process of exercising political power, traditions and customs, moral norms.

· communicative component- information connections and political relations that develop between elements of the system regarding political power, as well as between the political system and society.

· functional component - political practice, consisting of forms and directions of political activity; methods of exercising power.

Structure is the most important property of a system, since it indicates the method of organization and the relationship of its elements.

Functions of the political system[edit | edit wiki text]

The essence of the political system of society is most clearly manifested in its functions. The following functions of the political system are distinguished:

· Providing political power for a certain social group or for the majority of members of a given society (the political system establishes and implements specific forms and methods of power - democratic and anti-democratic, violent and non-violent, etc.).

· Management of various spheres of people’s life in the interests of individual social groups or the majority of the population (the action of the political system as a manager includes the setting of goals, objectives, ways of developing society, and specific programs in the activities of political institutions).

· Mobilization of the funds and resources necessary to achieve these goals and objectives (without enormous organizational work, human, material and spiritual resources, many set goals and objectives are doomed to deliberate failure).

· Identification and representation of the interests of various subjects of political relations (without selection, clear definition and expression of these interests at the political level, no policy is possible).

· Satisfying the interests of various subjects of political relations through the distribution of material and spiritual values ​​in accordance with certain ideals of a particular society (it is in the sphere of distribution that the interests of various communities of people collide).

· Integration of society, creating the necessary conditions for the interaction of various elements of its structure (by uniting different political forces, the political system tries to smooth out, remove the contradictions that inevitably arise in society, overcome conflicts, eliminate collisions).

· Political socialization (through which the political consciousness of the individual is formed and he is included in the work of specific political mechanisms, due to which the political system is reproduced by training more and more new members of society and introducing them to political participation and activity).

· Legitimation of political power (that is, achieving a certain degree of compliance with real political life with official political and legal norms).

Political systems can be classified using a certain typology.

1. Depending on political regime The following political systems are distinguished:

• totalitarian;
• authoritarian;
• democratic.

2. For the nature of interaction with the external environment highlight:

• open systems;
• closed systems.

Examples of a closed political system are the Soviet type, which developed in the USSR, which was characterized by the absence of broad international economic, cultural and information contacts. A symbol of this closeness was the expression about the existence of an “iron curtain” in relations between the USSR and Western countries. K. Popper, for the first time when describing cultural, historical and political systems using the concepts of “open” and “closed” society, the first meant democratic systems that easily adapt to changes in the external environment, imbued with the spirit of criticism and a rational understanding of the world “VeloPenza” - the site of the Penza cycling movement, the second - totalitarian systems, which are characterized by dogmatism , magical thinking.

3. B historical analysis the characteristics of systems are used from the standpoint of the formational approach.

Accordingly, the following systems are distinguished:

• slaveholding;
• feudal;
• capitalist;
• command and administrative.

Quite common discharge traditional(before industrial) and modernized political systems. The former are characterized by an undeveloped civil society, a subservient or patriarchal political culture, and power in the form of a dictatorship (an example is most developing countries). In other systems, there is a developed civil society, a rational way of justifying power, and differentiation of political roles.

5. Political systems are distinguished transitional type, which include elements of the modernized system that is being born, and elements of the old system. The political system of modern Ukraine bears the features of a similar transition, which is manifested in the combination of liberalism with authoritarianism, in the absence of a rational, that is, responsible and competent bureaucracy, in the weakness of the institutions of civil society.

6. There are various typologies of political systems, distinguished by type political culture, dominant in society, and the state of the political structure. One of them was developed by D. Almond and D. Powell. Depending on the degree of structural differentiation and secularity, primitive, traditional and modern systems are distinguished.

IN primitive system“parish culture” predominates, and a minimum of structural differentiation is observed.

Traditional systems characterized by weak differentiation of political structures and a “culture of subordination.” Submitting to power, a person expects benefits and guarantees from it.

Modern systems There are even more differentiated in structural terms; they have a culture of participation, when a person is focused on active participation in politics. Such systems can be democratic, in which autonomous subsystems and a “culture of participation” dominate, and authoritarian, in which subsystems are controlled and a “culture of subordination of participation” takes place. In turn, authoritarian systems can be radical totalitarian, conservative totalitarian, conservative authoritarian and authoritarian modernized.

Political scientists have drawn attention to the fact that the political culture of the United States differs in the nature of its values ​​from the culture that has developed in Europe.

This allowed D. Almond and S. Weber to identify the following types of political systems:

• Anglo-American with a secular, pluralistic and homogeneous culture, which means: the majority of citizens share common basic values ​​and norms;
• continental european, which is characterized by a fragmented political culture;
• to industrial and partially industrial with a differentiated political culture;
• totalitarian with a homogeneous political culture, and homogeneity itself is determined by the lack of pluralism and the possibility of realizing one’s own interests.

Essay

The most that has existed in this area so far is confidence in the liberal reforms of the current and immediate present, which inspired the illusion of spontaneous self-assertion of the real person of that time. The Utopians, on the other hand, pushed all this into an indefinite future and thereby revealed their complete disbelief in the ideal artistry of contemporary man. a) The first utopian of the era...

Social utopias of the Renaissance (essay, coursework, diploma, test)

Ministry of Agriculture and Food of the Republic of Belarus Belarusian State Agrarian Technical University Department of Philosophy and History

Abstract On the topic: Social utopias of the era INrevival

Completed by 1st year student Group 83 I M Zimovskaya M.

1. The main features of the worldview of Renaissance man

2. Philosophical teachings, utopia of the Renaissance Literature

1. Main featuress worldview of a person of the era INrevival

The most important distinctive feature The worldview of the Renaissance is its focus on man. If the focus of the philosophy of antiquity was natural-cosmic life, and in the Middle Ages - religious life - the problem of “salvation”, then in the Renaissance it came to the fore Savor, human activity in this world, for the sake of this world, to achieve human happiness in this life, on Earth. Philosophy is understood as a science that is obliged to help a person find his place in life.

The philosophical thinking of this period can be characterized as anthropocentric. The central figure is not God, but man. God is the beginning of all things, and man is the center of the whole world. Society is not a product of God's will, but the result of human activity. A person in his activities and plans cannot be limited by anything. He can do everything, he can do everything. The Renaissance is characterized by a new level of human self-awareness: pride and self-affirmation, awareness of one's own strength and talent, cheerfulness and free-thinking become the distinctive qualities of the progressive person of that time. Therefore, it was the Renaissance that gave the world a number of outstanding individuals with a bright temperament, comprehensive education, who stood out among people for their will, determination, and enormous energy.

The worldview of the people of the Renaissance is of a clearly humanistic nature. Man in this worldview is interpreted as a free being, the creator of himself and the world around him. Renaissance thinkers, naturally, could not be atheists or materialists. They believed in God and recognized him as the first creator of the world and man. Having created the world and man, God, in their opinion, gave man free will, and now man must act on his own, determine his entire destiny and win his place in the world. In the philosophy of this era, the motives of the sinful essence of man, the “depravity of his nature” are significantly weakened. The main emphasis is not on God’s help - “grace”, but on man’s own strengths. Optimism, faith and the limitless possibilities of man are inherent in the philosophy of this era.

An important element of the worldview is also the culture creative activity. During the Renaissance, all activities were perceived differently than in antiquity or the Middle Ages. The ancient Greeks did not value physical labor and even art very highly. An elitist approach to human activity dominated, the highest form of which was declared to be theoretical quests - reflection and contemplation, because it was they that introduced a person to what is eternal, to the very essence of the Cosmos, while material activity immerses him in the transitory world of opinions. Christianity considered the highest form of activity to be that which leads to the “salvation” of the soul - prayer, performing liturgical rituals, reading the Holy Scriptures. In general, all these types of activities were passive in nature, the nature of contemplation. In the Renaissance, material and sensory activity, including creative activity, acquired a kind of sacred character. In the course of it, a person not only satisfies his earthly needs: he creates a new world, beauty, and creates the highest thing that exists in the world - himself. It was then that the idea of ​​Prometheism appeared in philosophy - man as the co-creator of the world, a collaborator with God. In the worldview of the Renaissance, there is a rehabilitation of human flesh. In a person, not only his spiritual life matters. Man is a corporeal being. And the body is not “oh you souls” that pull it down and determine sinful thoughts and impulses. Bodily life in itself is valuable. The cult of Beauty, widespread during the Renaissance, is connected with this. Painting depicts, first of all, the human face and the human body. These are the general characteristics of the worldview of Renaissance man. Now let's move on to considering the philosophical teachings themselves.

2. Philosophical teachings, Utopia INrevival

revival anthropocentric utopianism renaissance One of the forms of socio-political modification of the Renaissance was utopianism. Utopianism was not as striking a phenomenon as Machiavelli's doctrine. However, the features of Renaissance self-denial are quite noticeable here. The mere fact that the creation of an ideal society was attributed to very distant and completely uncertain times clearly testified to the disbelief of the authors of such a utopia in the possibility of creating an ideal person immediately and as a result of quite elementary efforts of people of the current time. Here almost nothing remained of the Renaissance spontaneous human artistry, which brought such incredible joy to the Renaissance man and forced him to find ideal features already in the state of the society of that time.

The most that has existed in this area so far is confidence in the liberal reforms of the current and immediate present, which inspired the illusion of spontaneous self-assertion of the real person of that time. The Utopians, on the other hand, pushed all this into an indefinite future and thereby revealed their complete disbelief in the ideal artistry of contemporary man.

a) The first utopian of the Renaissance is Thomas More (1478−1535), a very liberal-minded English statesman, a supporter of the sciences and arts, a promoter of religious tolerance and a prominent critic of the then feudal and emerging capitalist orders. But he remained a faithful Catholic, opposed Protestantism, and after Henry VIII's defection from the Catholic Church, he was mercilessly executed for his Catholic beliefs. In general, his activities relate to either civil history or literary history. We may be interested here in only one of his works, which was published in 1516 under the title “The Golden Book, as useful as amusing, on the best structure of the state and on the new island of Utopia,” since the entire aesthetics of the Renaissance is based on the spontaneous self-affirmation of the human personality in that state which More himself considered ideal.

In fact, More's image of the utopian man is a bizarre mixture of all kinds of old and new views, often liberal, often quite reactionary, but, apparently, with one main difference: from the bright Renaissance artistry in More's utopian state, one might say, exactly nothing left. A person is depicted as a rather gray type, apparently governed by a state that is still quite absolutist. Everyone must engage in physical labor according to state distribution, although the sciences and arts are not at all denied, but are even extolled by More, especially music.

Society is divided into families, but seven and these are understood rather industrially, due to which belonging to one or another family is determined not only by the natural origin of family members, but primarily also by state decrees, by virtue of which family members can be transferred from one family to another for production or other government purposes. More's state also intervenes in marriage matters in the most significant way, and much of it is determined simply by state decree. Generally speaking, any religion is allowed, including pagan worship of heavenly bodies. Total religious tolerance is required. Priests must be elected by the people. The activities of atheists are very limited, since the lack of religious faith interferes with the moral state of society. In any case, open speeches by atheists are prohibited. In addition, Christianity or monotheism in general is still recognized as the highest religion.

Families are recommended to eat not separately, but in common dining rooms. Except for some isolated cases, everyone should have the same clothes. In this ideal state, slaves also play an important role. Not only is the very institution of slavery affirmed, but it is even shown to be very beneficial both for the state, which receives cheap labor in the form of slaves, and for the entire population of the country, for which slaves turn out to be an example of what not to do. Material pleasures are recognized. However, in More we read: “The Utopians especially value spiritual pleasures, they consider them first and dominant, the predominant part of them comes, in their opinion, from the exercise of virtue and the consciousness of an immaculate life.” In other words, the bright and brilliant artistic aesthetics of the Renaissance are reduced here only to moralism, which is declared to be the highest “spiritual pleasure.”

The glorification of production over consumption is striking. At the same time, More brings to the fore the equalization of work and responsibilities, as well as the primacy of the state over any social organizations and over the family. It is clear that all such features of More's utopianism were associated with the childhood state of the then bourgeois-capitalist society. But what is more important for us is that this is a modified Renaissance and that this modification is directed by More towards the elimination of the spontaneous-personal and artistic-subjective individualism of the classical Renaissance.

b) Another representative of Renaissance utopianism is Tommaso Campanella (1568−1639). This is a major writer and public figure of his time, who suffered for preparing an anti-Spanish conspiracy in Naples and spent 27 years in prison, a monk and a convinced communist of the early utopian type. The features of early utopian communism appear much more clearly in Campanella than in More. In his 1602 treatise entitled “The City of the Sun,” Campanella highlights the doctrine of labor, the abolition of private property and the community of wives and children, that is, the elimination of the family as the original social unit. More had none of this in vivid form. They talked about the influence of the ideas of early Christianity on Campanella. However, a careful study of Campanella's ideas indicates that this influence is almost zero.

In Campanella’s ideal State of the Sun, like Plato’s, the leaders are philosophers and sages, contemplatives of eternal ideas and, on this basis, who govern the entire state are not so much secular rulers as real priests and clergy. They are the absolute rulers of the entire state and society, down to the smallest everyday regulation. Marriages are carried out only by state decrees, and children, after breastfeeding, are immediately taken away from their mother by the state and raised in special institutions not only without any communication with their parents, but even without any acquaintance with them. Husbands and wives do not exist as such. They are such only in moments of decreed cohabitation. They shouldn't even know each other, just as they shouldn't know their own children. In antiquity, this weakened sense of personality was generally a natural phenomenon, and Plato only took it to its limit. As for the Renaissance, the human personality was already in first place here. And therefore, what we find in Campanella is, of course, a rejection of the ideas of the Renaissance.

However, it is also impossible to say that Campanella has nothing to do with the Renaissance. He is not only a preacher of positively understood work; his entire utopia undoubtedly bears traces of revivalist views. Therefore, it would be more accurate to say that what we have here is precisely a modified Renaissance and precisely a Renaissance that criticizes itself in socio-political terms.

As for individual details, Campanella’s utopians mock those rulers who, when mating horses and dogs, are very careful about their breed, but when mating people do not pay any attention to this breed. In other words, from Campanella's point of view, human society should be transformed into an ideal stud farm. The “chief of childbirth,” subordinate to the ruler of Love, is obliged to enter into such intimacies of sexual life, which we do not consider necessary to talk about here, and astrology is used in sexual matters in the first place. It is pure naivety to indicate that people should wear white clothes during the day, and red ones, woolen or silk, at night and outside the city, and the color black is completely prohibited. The same kind of advice about work, trade, swimming, games, treatment, about getting up in the morning, about astrological techniques for founding cities and many others. When carrying out the death penalty, there are no executioners, so as not to desecrate the state, but the people themselves, and first of all the accuser and witnesses, stone the criminal. The sun is revered in an almost pagan manner, although the true deity is still considered higher. Copernicanism is rejected and heaven is accepted in the medieval sense.

Campanella is striking in his mixture of pagan, Christian, Renaissance, scientific, mythological and entirely superstitious views. Thus, the aesthetically modified Renaissance is depicted in this utopia with its most striking features. The main thing is to ignore that spontaneously human and artistic individualism that distinguished the aesthetics of the Renaissance from the very beginning. If we say that here we find self-criticism and even self-denial of the Renaissance, then we would hardly be mistaken.

1. Radugin A. A. Philosophy. Lecture course. - M., 2001.

2. Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary. - M., 1983.

3. Philosophy (full course). - M., Rn/D., 2004.

4. Gorfunkel A. Philosophy of the Renaissance. - M., 1980.

5. Introduction to philosophy. In 2 volumes - M., 1989.

6. Gorbachev V. G. Fundamentals of Philosophy. - Bryansk, 2002.

7. Anthology of world philosophy. In 4 volumes - M., 1969−1972.

Topic 12

LITERARY UTOPIA OF THE RENAISSANCE

How interesting it would be
live in the world if
could have been discarded
caring about happiness.

O. Huxley.
"Brave New World"

PLAN

1. Background to Renaissance utopias.

2. “Utopia” by Thomas More.

a) composition “Utopia”;
b) the humanistic pathos of “Utopia”.
c) “Utopia” and “The Cloister of Thelema” by F. Rabelais

3. “City of the Sun” by T. Campanella.

4. “New Atlantis” by F. Bacon.

5. Utopias of the Renaissance and the crisis of humanistic thought

6. Utopia as a literary genre.

7. Utopias of the Renaissance and dystopias of the twentieth century.

PREPARATION MATERIALS

1. “Utopia” - literally translated - a place that does not exist (“u” in Greek is a prefix with the meaning of negation, “topos” is a place). As a political forecast and literary genre, utopia expresses a wish that cannot be realized, either at the present moment or in the future. Utopia is an ideal forecast of the future, which is not based on an analysis of the actual conditions that have developed in the present, on the development of the current situation, or on the actual balance of forces. Utopia is a social fantasy, a fiction. But not only humanists, but also reactionaries, tyrants, and conservatives can dream of an ideal state structure. There are known projects of the future, belonging to V. Shakespeare and F. Bulgarin. But in its original meaning, utopia is associated with the dream of a perfect, beautiful world, of the revival of the “golden age”. The real development of humanity showed that the future brings many disappointments, and progress can lead to the death of humanity, then the genre of negative utopia appeared, which opposed the traditional, positive utopia. Such a utopia began to be called dystopia (“bad place”) or dystopia.

The Renaissance does not discover utopia as a literary genre; the utopias of the Renaissance were preceded by the ancient utopias of Hesiod, who poeticized the time of Kronos, Plato’s “State” and “Laws”, the Christian utopias of Augustine the Blessed (“On the City of God”) and Joachim of Flores (“Eternal Gospel”).

Throughout the history of the functioning of the genre of utopia in culture and literature, the latter, as one of the unique forms of social consciousness, embodied such features as comprehension of the social ideal, social criticism, the desire to escape from the gloomy reality, as well as attempts to foresee the future of humanity. During the Renaissance, utopia primarily took the form of a description of perfect states or ideal cities, supposedly existing somewhere on separate islands, underground or in the mountains. Ancient experience was especially important for the humanistic utopias of the Renaissance. However, he was extremely contradictory: Hesiod poeticized the “golden age” when there was no stratification of property, but attributed this time to the distant past. Plato (427-347 BC) creates a rigid picture of a socially balanced, harmonious state that does not know acute social contradictions in The Republic (360 BC). Plato's State is born as an ideal project for such a structure of society, which is possible only in the distant future, and, perhaps, cannot be realized in reality at all. Plato shows six types of modern states, evaluating them from the point of view of justice and good:

Monarchy (fair rule of one person)

Aristocracy (fair rule of the few, the best citizens)

Timocracy (unfair rule of the majority - military leaders, respected citizens)

Oligarchy (unfair power of a minority, rich people)

Democracy (fair rule of the majority)

Tyranny (unfair rule by one person)

Their own project of a just state arises in the dialogue “State” among philosophers talking with Socrates during a discussion about justice and the good. In Plato's state there is no private property, even wives and children represent public property, and childbirth is regulated by the state by selecting the best (Chapter 8). Society is divided into three classes: the class of the wise, who are in power, and for 50 years hone and improve their talents in order to rule for the benefit of society; the military class, which protects the state and the breadwinner class (peasants, artisans, businessmen).

In Plato's state no one acquires anything; even the military is rewarded in the form of food supplies. Everyone has common housing, but in fact there is no property. In addition, the structure of society is conceived not even as class, but as caste: Plato is categorically against moving from one group to another, even against combining different types of occupations by one artisan. Plato, according to V. Asmus, “directly characterizes “justice” as a virtue that does not allow the possibility of such confusion. The least trouble would be a confusion of the functions of various professions within the class of productive workers: if, for example, a carpenter began to do the work of a shoemaker, and a shoemaker - the work of a carpenter, or if either of them wanted to do both together. But “doing a lot” would already, according to Plato, be directly disastrous for the state: if any artisan or person, by nature an industrialist, proud of his wealth, or courage, or power, wished to engage in military affairs, and a warrior who is not capable to be an adviser and leader of the state would encroach on the function of government, or if someone wanted to do all these things at the same time. Even with the first three types of valor, busy work and mutual exchange of activities cause the greatest harm to the state and therefore “can very correctly be called an atrocity.” , “the greatest injustice against your city” 57

However, it is in the treatise “The Republic” that in the dialogue between Glaucon and Socrates the famous myth of the cave is retold, serving as a metaphor for Plato’s teaching about ideas, which makes it possible to assume that in an ideal state the degree of participation of the ideal will be higher and greater. Although Plato’s later philosophical dialogues “Laws”, structured as a conversation between an Athenian, a Cretan and a Spartan, where public works for the common good, common housing and total surveillance are planned, leave little hope for the ideal structure of society as the triumph of ideas over matter.

In Augustine and Joachim, the ideal world is placed outside the brackets of earthly time and space and belongs to eternity and God, and not to people and history. However, it is significant that the origins of Western European literature were Augustine’s Christian utopia, which was of a transcendental nature and was accessible to every Christian.

2. The name “utopia” was assigned to this literary genre after the appearance in 1516 of “Utopia” by T. More (1478-1535). The full title of “Utopia” is as follows: “A golden little book, as useful as it is amusing, about the best structure of the state and about the new island of Utopia.” T. More strove for authenticity when talking about one of the newly discovered islands, on which the ideal state of Utopia was discovered. N.I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov points out that for reasons of authenticity, “the characters are the author himself, Cardinal Morton, the patron of More and Erasmus, the Dutch humanist Peter Egidius and, finally, the figure of the experienced traveler Raphael Hythloday, quite plausible for the age of great geographical discoveries, from whose name the story is told. For maximum persuasiveness, More frames the actual facts of his biography. So, Aegidius introduces him to Raphael Hythlodeus, a participant in the expeditions of Amerigo Vespucci. Indeed, in 1515 More was sent on a diplomatic mission to Bruges, where he became friends with Peter Aegidius and visited Antwerp” 58 .

Describing cruise Hythloday, who rounded the shores of the New World and went West to the island of Utopia, Mor anticipates Magellan's circumnavigation of the world, which will take place five years later in 1521. The effect of dotsoveremosti was so great that one English cleric asked Thomas More to help him obtain an episcopal see in Utopia. "Utopia" was written in humanistic revived Latin, the English translation was completed after the death of T. More in 1551.

Actually, with T. More’s “Utopia” and the activities of the Oxford humanists, which were of a closed, armchair nature, in contrast to More’s active social and political activities both in public office and even more so after his resignation, during the trial and imprisonment, the English Renaissance begins. Therefore, “Utopia” as a combination of humanistic philosophy with state creativity and the figure of Thomas More acquire special significance for understanding the new stage in the development of humanism. Thomas More did not support church reform in England, entered into polemics with Martin Luther, for which he gained the approval of the Pope, and after his execution he was canonized as a Catholic saint. More refused to support the reforms of Henry YIII, who, in vain seeking permission from the Pope for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, in 1533 declared himself, following the example of the German princes, the sole head of state and church and confiscated the colossal property of the monasteries. The frightened English bishops, all except one - John Fisher, hastened to swear allegiance to the king. Thomas More refused to swear allegiance to the king as both the first clergy and secular person.

In 1534, on trumped-up charges, More was imprisoned in the Tower, where he was subjected to painful interrogations, but remained adamant. In 1535 former minister it was decided to subject him to a painful execution: “To return him, with the assistance of Sheriff William Bingston, to the Tower, from there to drag him along the ground through the entire City of London to Tiburn, there to hang him so that he would be tortured half to death, take him out of the noose while still alive, cut off his genitals organs, rip open the stomach, pull out and burn the insides. Then quarter him and nail one quarter of his body over all four gates of the City, and put his head on London Bridge" 59 . But the king mercifully replaced this execution with beheading. The fate of Thomas More, who played a significant role in the history of England, contributing to the good and prosperity of his homeland, raised the problem of state justice in relation to the humanist who contributed to the public good, and justice as a state principle, to the problem with which the history of utopias in philosophy and literature began.

The composition of T. More’s “Utopia” is based on an antithesis; the opposing parts of the work appear framed by a philosophical dialogue, which gradually turns into a narrative. The social experiment was conceived by More using the “by contradiction” method: the first part depicts England at the beginning of the 19th century. More considers private property to be the source of misfortunes and numerous problems of modern England. More shows the extreme ruin of the English peasantry, characterizing his country as one “where the sheep ate the people”, shows that the brutal fight against vagrancy is a manifestation of state hypocrisy and irresponsibility of power, since tramps appeared on English roads as a result of the land enclosure policy pursued by the state.

The realistic narrative of the first part gives way to showing a fantastic picture of life on the island of Utopia. Private property has been abolished on the island, all Utopians are engaged in production work for six hours, and then study the sciences and arts. All administrative positions, except for King Utop, are elective. Elections occur frequently, and all administration periods are short, so that the manager does not get used to the position and begins to abuse his power. An administrative position does not bring any material benefits. The rights of all Utopians are equal, although there are slaves on the island - these are prisoners of war and convicted criminals who perform the most difficult work. In Utopia, the death penalty has been abolished, since, as Thomas More is convinced, there is no greater value in the universe than human life. The death penalty replaced by hard work for the common good. After the expiration of their sentence, criminals can, however, become equal members of society. In addition, atheists are the object of universal contempt, since on Utopia you can profess any religion, but it is not advisable to deny religion at all.

More argues: it is enough to see one city of Utopia to know what all the others are like. This thesis can be continued as follows: it is enough to get acquainted with one Utopian to know what everyone else is like. On Utopia there is no individual family, children are raised by the state, Utopians do not conduct individual households, all household needs are transferred to special services, Utopians are all dressed the same, lead the same way of life: spending part of the year on agricultural work, and part in the city. At the same time, on Utopia there is no antagonism between mental and physical labor: one can easily change one’s status by attending appropriate classes after a short six-hour work day. There is no standing army on Utopia, but all Utopians are ready to take arms and undergo military training. Universal equality on Utopia sometimes turns out to be deceptive: atheists are the object of universal contempt, even to the point of infringement of their rights. Children are not particularly loved either. This is how lunch is held in public canteens on Utopia: the tables are set for everyone at once, first nursing mothers and old people sit down to eat, having given everything for the good of society, then working Utopians, and then the leftovers are picked up by children who have not yet done anything for the state and must understand that bread is not given for free. The economic prosperity of Utopia is ensured by agriculture, and criminals and prisoners of war work in hard work that brings the necessary raw materials. The world created by Thomas More, where there is no poverty and everyone is equal before the law, could seem ideal to his contemporaries, witnesses and participants in the monstrous property stratification of the era of primitive accumulation, but later, when not being a beggar and a slave no longer meant living in a just society, a look at Thomas More's state, as ideal, could be significantly adjusted.

In 1532, the humanistic utopia acquired new contours in the novel by F. Rabelais. Rabelais initially called the country of giants Utopia, “that is, he borrowed its name,” as E. Auerbach points out, “from the book of Thomas More, published sixteen years earlier, to whom, of all his contemporaries, Rabelais was, perhaps, most indebted in his work...” 60

At the end of the first (and in fact the second) book of the novel, the brave monk Brother Jean, who courageously defended the monastery vineyard and did not completely lay down his arms, receives a gift of a monastery, which he calls Thelema, that is, desired. The charter of this monastery consists of one sentence, which reads: “Do what you want.” The inscription on the gates of the Thelema monastery significantly limited the circle of those who could enter it: “Go past, hypocrite, fool, fool, freak, holy monkey, lazy monk, ready, like a goth or Ostrogoth, not to wash for a whole year, all of you , who bows tirelessly You, intriguers, sellers of deception, Blockheads, zealously evil hypocrites - They will not tolerate you and your lies. Your lies would again begin to inflame Our souls with anger, And Your lies could interfere with Our tunes again. Go past, scoundrel lawyer, Clerk, Pharisee, executioner, quick-witted bribe-taker, Scribes, officials of all stripes, Synclite of judges, which is angrier than a wolf. It's tearing people's last wealth away."

Thus, only an honest, intelligent, educated person, a humanist could enter the monastery. The most educated, the most courageous, the most gifted people find themselves in the Thelema monastery, they all speak five or six languages, they all write poetry and prose, they are all bright individuals. But gradually life in the monastery makes them similar: at first the ladies begin to dress the same, then the following happens: “Thanks to freedom, the Thelemites had a commendable desire to do for everyone what, apparently, one wanted. If any of the men or women suggested: “Let’s have a drink!” - then everyone drank; if someone suggested: “Let’s play!” - then everyone played; if someone suggested: “Let’s go frolic in the field,” then everyone went. If anyone started talking about falconry or other hunting, the women immediately mounted good pacers, ceremonial riding horses and placed a sparrowhawk, peregrine falcon or merlin on their hand, which was tightly fitted with a glove; the men took other birds with them.” Gradually, the Thelemites turn into a panurgic herd, something happens to human individuality in ideal conditions, where one can indulge in work and reflection in an interesting society of their own kind, but at the same time do not come into contact with the imperfect outside world.

It turns out that the very individuality that the founder of the monastery, Brother Jean, was endowed with, needs, in order to take place, establish itself and develop, not only freedom of leisure, education, communication and economic independence. After all, ideal and identical living conditions make everyone similar friend on a friend. G.K. Kosikov comes to the conclusion: “This automatism of collective behavior turns the Thelemites into a real “panurgic herd”, and the abode of freedom into almost a voluntary barracks, so that as a result, the spirit of individual originality turns into complete uniformity and mutual subordination of people, a humanistic utopia is a scary chimera.” 61 But the Thelema monastery was created with specially obtained money, to which a separate chapter is devoted in Rabelais’s novel, and the author is concerned not with its economic structure, but with the ways of realizing the freedom of its well-behaved inhabitants. Moreover, it is known that many in the monastery found love, left the monastery and found untold happiness in marriage.

The idyll of the Thelema monastery seems to extend beyond its borders; the wise men who have visited it all find the same happiness in marriage. It is curious that none of the Thelemites are named, not a single love story is described, but on the contrary, the qualities that unite, and not distinguish, all Thelemites are listed. Thus, a frightening pattern is revealed: in an ideal society, people cease to be themselves, but become elements of this society. This result of the development of utopias was confirmed in the City of the Sun, an ideal state invented a century later by Tomazzo Campanella.

3. The Italian philosopher T. Campanella (1568-1639) in the utopia “City of the Sun, or an Ideal Republic” (1622) develops the ideas of Thomas More. Tomazzo belonged to the Dominican order, but soon reveals such free-thinking in religious matters that he is accused of heresy. Campanella is forced to flee. In 1598, Campanella returned to Naples and immediately found himself in prison on charges of heresy and conspiracy against the Spaniards. Tomazzo is subjected to severe torture, but does not achieve renunciation. Campanella spent 27 years in prison, where he wrote most of his works, including “City of the Sun.” In 1626, thanks to the intervention of Pope Urban YIII, Campanella was released and spent the last years of his life in France under the patronage of Richelieu, who awarded the philosopher a small pension. Campanella belonged to the late stage of the development of humanism in Italy. He studied alchemy and astrology intensively, but at the same time defended the merits of the rationalistic empirical method in science. Campanella regards the crisis of the ideas of humanism as a consequence of their distance from solving specific social problems. The way to solve such a problem, he believes, is the need to find and establish social justice.

In search of justice at the state level, Campanella comes to the creation of a utopia. For “City of the Sun,” the model of dialogue with the traveler was chosen, like that of Thomas More. A sailor from Genoa talks with a certain hotelier, to whom he tells about the city of the Sun, located on the top of a mountain. The City of the Sun is described as a city of universal happiness. The state is governed by the supreme high priest - the Metaphysician, who is elected as the wisest and most learned. The Metaphysician chooses a triumvirate to help himself: Love, Wisdom and Power. They decide all issues in the state.

A member of the community can be assigned to any work and combine several types of activities, which is honorable and beneficial for the public good, but the working day cannot exceed 4 hours, and it can be reduced due to technical advances. Power resolves issues of war and peace, Wisdom governs education and science, and Love governs social development, food and upbringing. In the City of the Sun, childbearing is given special importance: the priests themselves appoint the spouses so that the result is better, they unite opposites, for example, thin men with plump women. Infertile women face a terrible fate - they become common wives. In a most curious way, in ideal states there was first a labor camp for the use of free prison labor (in T. More’s Utopia), and Tomazzo Campanella found a place for prostitution, which was also socially justified. Somehow, the project of universal justice, applied to everyone equally, that is, equally, fairly, gave rise to despotism and cruelty.

However, Campanella sees precisely in individualism the cause of social ills. Campanella sees the source of social evil not only in private property, but also in the human egoism generated by it. The means to eradicate it, according to Campanella, is complete and universal equality, the renunciation of all forms of property, including wives and children. Couple love is more acceptable fun than a serious feeling; nothing can compare in strength and devotion “with love for the community.” The natural abilities of each person should be developed to the fullest in the interests of the community, but only a horoscope can determine them. Campanella does not know how to achieve the harmonious development of personality, how to avoid the fact that absolutely identical living conditions do not give rise to absolutely identical characters. Morality in the City of the Sun is based on the Christian religion, although the cult of the Sun and the Earth is practiced. But contrary to Christian morality, it is considered honorable to kill a tyrant, and humane to expel an absurd and insignificant monarch.

The City of the Sun itself arose like this: “First, everything is uprooted and eradicated, and then it is planted and created.” Campanella believed in the possible realization of his fantasy, in the creation of a “world state”, headed by the Spanish kings and the Pope. The idea of ​​individuality, which matured during the period of the Proto-Renaissance, against the background of the idea of ​​statehood, in the era of the Late Renaissance was absorbed by the latter: utopias offer models of ideal states, but there is no place in them for the ideal person affirmed in the humanism of the Quattrocento. The metathesis of state and personality that occurred in Tomazzo Campanella, who showed a person only as part of a community, as a cog in a state machine, found expression in the replacement of anthropocentrism with state centrism: in the center of the world stand the city of the Sun and its supreme ruler with his triumvirate, whose place is in the future must be occupied by the King and the Pope. This dissolution of the individual into the community, the individual into the state, the particular into the universal, most convincingly demonstrates the crisis of humanism as a crisis of individuality.

However, the creators of the first utopias thought more about the economic than about the legal and political structure of society. The first step towards an ideal state was the abolition of private property. The logical thinker Camapanella connected the loss of economic personal wealth with the loss of individuality: where there is no private property, there is no egoism. Thomas More deprived the Utopians of property, family, homes (after ten years, the inhabitants of Utopia exchange houses), dedication to permanent occupations. Tomazzo Campanella, preserving the principle of depriving a citizen of an ideal state of all property, justified the need for such a measure by the requirements of universal justice. Everyone is equal because everyone has nothing except the right to live in community and work together for the common good. Thomas More points out that Utopia constantly wages wars to defend its independence - many people want to take possession of the prosperous island. But there is one important detail: utopias show a world isolated from the outside and developing for a long time in this isolation. Thomas More emphasizes that everyone wants to live on Utopia, but does not address the interesting question of the possibility of free choice for the Utopians themselves. Actually, the inhabitants of utopias have only one right - to submit to the demands of the common good, that is, to refuse freedom of choice and the development of individuality.

However, the first utopia of the Renaissance, created during the Trecento period, the “republic of poets” in Boccaccio’s Decameron, affirmed the triumph of individuality. Boccaccio sought to objectify the narrators, to give them individual features; in the novel there are hints of some kind of human relationship between them. But in the end, the society of Decameron narrators, endowed with conventionally poetic names and equal in origin and wealth, looks like an ideal model of a circle of humanists. Boccaccio, creating the images of the Lady Narrators, emphasizes that they are all rich, educated, well-mannered and come from good families. Young people have the same status. Therefore, the elected king leads only the poetic side of life on the estate (it is especially emphasized that each of the ladies owns several such villas), in addition, humanist poets are accompanied by their servants. Thus, the “republic of poets” is a conventionally poetic image, and not a model of a republic, the creation of which would inevitably have to raise questions of justice in the management and distribution of wealth. Thus, the first utopia of the Renaissance is of an abstract and symbolic nature. But the "republic of poets" is part of the frame of the Decameron. Utopia and its justification were not an independent artistic task of the author, although already in the “republic of poets” some features were revealed that were developed by T. More and F. Rabelais.

4. “New Atlantis” (c. 1623) by the materialist scientist F. Bacon (1561-1626) is deliberately opposed to the utopias of Campanella and More. Francis Bacon is the creator of the inductive method in philosophy. He points to the four idols of the mind that hinder freedom of knowledge. It was he who owned the aphorism: “Knowledge is power,” expressed in the philosopher’s main work, “New Organon” (1620). Bacon, as a rationalist and empiricist, believes in the power of the human mind, although he shows some interest in the mystical secrets of the Rosicrucians. The manuscript of The New Atlantis, unfinished and undated, was found among the philosopher's papers in 1627, after his death.

F. Bacon's utopia describes how sailors caught in a storm on their way to Peru ended up in the ideal state of Bensalem. The inhabitants of Bensalem - New Atlantis left humanity an infinitely long time ago, taking with them only evangelical piety, in order to be kind and brotherly love their neighbor, and carried out, in secret from humanity, an experiment to create a perfect state. Basis for improvement social relations and establishing state justice, they chose knowledge and science. In the Bensalem State, the basis of economic prosperity is private property. The social hierarchy is preserved here, there are rich and poor, but there are no beggars, humiliated or insulted. Justice is achieved by strict observance of all laws; all members of society are equal before the law. According to Bacon, complete social equality is impossible, since the natural abilities of people are different, just as their appearance is different. But it is possible through intensive economic development reduce the wealth gap to a minimum. Prosperity is ensured by the development of science and technology, the introduction of their achievements into production, this facilitates work and enriches the state. Bensalem is ruled by the College of Scientists - the House of Solomon, whose goal is “to understand the causes and hidden forces of all things, to expand man’s power over nature until everything becomes possible for him.” Material equality is impossible, but the eradication of poverty is possible if the omnipotence of knowledge is established in society, which alone can make human life and work easier.

F. Bacon shows the economic prosperity of the state, based on scientific and technological progress, but at the same time retains all the signs of his contemporary government system: there is a central government, there is a family, religion, private property, laws. Apparently, then those social problems that are characteristic of the modern state system should remain, only in a less acute and conflicting form. Thus, even the House of Solomon does not solve the problem of state justice.

F. Bacon was a contemporary of Shakespeare, he was considered as a contender for the authorship of what is attributed to Shakespeare. Of course, the search for a universal method of knowledge and faith in the power of reason brings Bacon closer to the new era - the Enlightenment. The utopia that Bacon creates fits into the context of the development of utopian thought of the Age of Reason, but at the same time continues the tradition of Renaissance utopias, in polemics with which it was created.

5. Bacon, by shifting the emphasis to the economic and technical foundations of the social structure, veiled the question of establishing justice, which stood at the origins of the development of utopian thought since antiquity. The idea of ​​an ideal state, as a just state, where there is equality between brothers in faith, is affirmed in Augustine's City of God, which emphasizes that the earthly city is based on selfishness and fratricide.

The problem of the state was conceptualized by early humanists in terms of order and prosperity, the establishment of peace and legality. Although my own humanistic experience of contact with the state turned out to be very deplorable in specific cases. At the origins of humanism is Dante, expelled from Florence and deprived of his public office, to which he treated with complete dedication; the highly successful government activity of Thomas More ended in conflict with the authorities, resignation and execution; Leonardo, offended by the Pope, ended his days in France under the patronage of Francis I, Michelangelo never realized his most ambitious plan - the tomb of Pope Julius II, being in a state of permanent conflict with Rome, even thought about accepting the offer of Sultan Bayazet II, hoping that he would appreciate him according to his dignity. Boccaccio remained in the service of the signoria for some time, but he could not even provide himself with a comfortable life. Lorenzo the Magnificent - the grandson of Cosimo de' Medici, showed himself more as a philanthropist and poet than as a successful ruler of Florence; his commercial enterprises were not successful.

A positive example was provided by Petrarch, who, having received a sinecure, did not strive for any public service or the patronage of any crowned person, jealously guarding his freedom, his solitude and his individuality. The humanistic ideal of an educated, harmonious person, which could seem like an abstract scheme, nevertheless found embodiment in the destinies and creations of the humanists themselves, but the humanist barely went beyond vicious circle his like-minded people, he found himself in confrontation with society and the state. It is not for nothing that Erasmus, on behalf of Stupidity, speaks of a wise man who is ridiculous at a feast or in the market. When humanistic thought during the Mature Renaissance moved from the concept of man to the area of ​​state creativity, then the incompatibility of humanistic individuality and creativity, free education and development of individuality with the social structure, with the state, even with those of its ideal models that were created by the humanists themselves, was revealed - T More and F. Rabelais. Therefore, utopia had no choice but to get away from the problem of personality, but to preserve the project of an ideal state structure, which is what F. Bacon actually accomplished in “New Atlantis.”

Utopian reflection is a typological feature of humanism throughout its development, starting from Boccaccio’s “Republic of Poets” and ending with F. Bacon’s “New Atlantis”. In the prosaic humanistic novels of the Late Renaissance, either a model of an ideal world is created (The Monastery of Thelema in the novel by F. Rabelais), or the desire and intention to create such a world is expressed (in Cervantes’s novel “Don Quixote” ((part I - 1605): The Knight of the Sorrowful Image, sharing with the goatherds their modest meal, speaks of his desire to “revive the golden age of the Iron Age.”) In Shakespeare’s late play-fairy tale “The Tempest” (1612), the sage Prospero creates this ideal world for himself and for Miranda, relying on his knowledge and books . Prospero is an exile who finds himself on a secluded island (a typologically ideal locus for a utopian experiment). However, on the island, in addition to Prospero’s good will and reason, there is initially a hostile and antagonistic force - the villain Caliban. After an attempt to change Caliban under the influence of studia humanitatis, Prospero realizes that evil is indestructible and unchangeable, and divides the island into its possessions and the world of Caliban:

Vile slave

Good cannot be imprinted in that,

Who is inclined to evil. Out of pity for you

I taught you to speak by interpreting

This and that. You didn't know, savage,

My own thoughts, just babbling

Pointless. I taught to clothe

In words of desire. But the wicked brood

Teach him like good natures,

Reason will not be given. Stopped trying

And I settled you on a cliff,

At least you deserve more than prison.

(translation by M. Kuzmin)

Prospero directs his magical power to return home. The next utopian project did not take place not even because of the depravity of human nature or its duality, but because of the action of the principle of dialectics in the structure of the universe, in which there is Prospero, but there is also Sycorax, who was once exiled to the same island, there is the beautiful Miranda - the daughter of Prospero, but there is also a son of Sycorax - Caliban (by the time Prospero appears on the island, Sycorax is no longer alive). There is one more circumstance: the treacherous, disgusting, evil Caliban, who once tried to seduce Miranda, now plotting the murder of Prospero, is necessary: ​​Prospero says:

We can't get by

We are without him. He makes a fire

He carries firewood and serves at the table.

All this is beneficial.

(translation by M. Kuzmin)

Miranda's words:

How many wonderful creatures have gathered,

How good people are! The world is beautiful

Where are the residents like this? -

uttered not at the sight of a secluded utopian island, but at a meeting with people from Milan, that is, precisely from an imperfect modern state. Aldous Huxley makes these words of Miranda the title of his dystopia “Brave New World,” in which there is a place for the disgusting but necessary Calibans, and the educated Fernando, and even the sage Prospero, unless he, with his sorcery, shakes the structure of the brave new world, where everyone is happy and the same within their caste.

6. Utopia is a syncretic literary genre in which, mutually complementing each other, philosophical, journalistic, scientific and aesthetic thought merge. At the same time, the dominant aesthetic quality in utopia is fantastic. Utopia is significantly different from a novel: it does not have individual human characters, the characters of a utopia are worldviews, forecasts and ideas. Instead of individual characters, utopia proposes a general concept of the man of the future. The plot side of utopia is an adventure of thought, not of a hero. Utopia played a significant role in the genesis of science fiction literature. In it, the fantastic grows on the basis of the modern, and the prognostic principle is determined by an analysis of the prospects for the development of science. Thus, the interaction of the realistic and the fantastic has its source in early European utopias. The emergence of the utopia genre contributed to the formation of a historical view of the development of society by comparing its present and possible future.

7. In “Anthology of Utopias” (1952), G. Nelly and M. Patrick first introduced the term “dystopia” in relation to a negative view of the future of humanity associated with the loss of hope for the implementation of social justice. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the experience of the Russian revolution forced philosophers and artists to reconsider the utopias of the Renaissance from the point of view of their positivity. In 1920, Evgeny Zamyatin created the dystopian novel “We,” based on the social model shown in T. More’s “Utopia.” The writer changes the point of view, focusing the narrative on the fate of the hero.

Thus, the static nature and descriptiveness inherent in utopia are replaced by plot and narrative in dystopia. The humanistic view of the Russian writer shows the complete dehumanization of the world, which claims to be an ideal state model. Universal equality turns out to be a despotic, and at the end of the novel, an operational-mechanical equation. Actually, the ideal world of universal equality is unacceptable for a person: when number D-503, a citizen of the United State, is deprived of everything human, turned into a kind of insensitive mechanism, he comes into complete and absolute harmony with this world.

In 1932, O. Huxley, having chosen the state structure of “New Atlantis” as a starting model, shows a world of ideal social harmony in the novel “Brave New World.” Harmony is built on the stratification of society, and stratification is also achieved through surgical intervention. Everyone is happy only when they stop striving for love, creativity, and knowledge. Those few who, oddly enough, have retained human daring, move to the islands. And now utopian states are again located on islands in the ocean, only they are fundamentally opposite to those Renaissance utopias that were localized there at the beginning. Probably, one of the darkest dystopias of the twentieth century can be considered “1984” by J. Orwell, who chose Tomazzo Campanella’s “City of the Sun” as the object of controversy.

The dystopia was written after the war, in 1948. Probably no dystopia has ever created a more humiliating way of life, a more inhumane social system. In this nightmare, you can remain human, but for the time being: having destroyed everything human in a person, forcing him to renounce love and commit treason, the state does not even care about destroying the person, he has ceased to be human, and therefore is no longer dangerous. The anti-utopies of the 20th century, created in polemics with the utopias of the Renaissance, convincingly proved the incompatibility of the Renaissance concept of man with any universal models of government, revealed the eternal opposition of humanistic thought in relation to any forms of unification and once again confirmed the importance of humanitarian knowledge, philological education (the heroes of dystopias or taken write a diary - D-503 by Zamyatin, Winston Smith by Orwell, or live according to great books - A Savage exploring the world according to Shakespeare by Huxley), love and creativity to reveal the humanity in a person.

TERMINOLOGICAL APPARATUS

DYSTOPIA (DYSTOPIA)- (from the Greek dis - bad, topos - place) - negative social forecast, utopia-warning. Dystopia is a typological variety of the novel, since it shows the characters’ characters in development, and the world of an ideal state in dynamics. Utopia is descriptive and static, dystopia is plot and narrative.

FANTASTIC- as an aesthetic category, it involves the creation of characters, images and plots that do not have direct correspondence in reality.

SCIENCE FICTION IN LITERATURE- is based on artistic addition and figurative interpretation of modern scientific discoveries.

RECOMMENDED READING

WORKS OF ART:

Basic:

1. Bacon F. New Atlantis. Experiences and instructions. - M., 1962. (LP)

2. More T. Utopia. - M., 1978.

3. Utopian novel of the 16th - 17th centuries. - M., 1971. (BVL)

Additional:

1. Russian literary utopia. - M., 1976.

EDUCATIONAL LITERATURE:

Main:

1. Batkin L. M. Renaissance and utopia // From the history of culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. - M., 1976. - P. 222-244.

2. Zverev A. When the last hour of nature strikes... (Dystopia, 20th century) - Questions of Literature, 1989, No. 1.

3. Osinovsky I. N. Thomas More. Utopian communism, humanism, reformation. - M., 1978.

4. Chalikova V. A. Utopia and culture. - M., 1992.

5. Shadursky M. Literary utopia from More to Huxley. - M., 2007.

6. Shestakov V. II. The concept of utopia. Modern concepts of utopia // Questions of Philosophy, 1972, No. 8.

7. Yuryeva L. M. Russian dystopia in the context of world literature. - M., 2005.

Additional:

1. Alekseev M. L. Slavic sources of “Utopia” by Thomas More. - M.. 1955.

2. Galtseva R. A. Essays on Russian utopian thought of the twentieth century. - M., 1992.

3. Geller R. Universe beyond dogma. - London, 1995.

4. Lanin B. A. Russian literary dystopia. - M., 1993.

5. Sventoslavsky V.V. Catalog of utopias. - Pg., 1923.

6. Świętochowski A. History of utopias. - M., 1910.

7. Chalikova V. A. Utopia is born from utopia. - London, 1992.

8. Chantsev A. Factory of dystopias. Dystopian discourse in Russian literature of the 2000s //NLO, 2007, No. 86.

9. Shestakov V.P. Social utopia of Aldous Huxley: myth and reality // On modern bourgeois aesthetics. Modern social utopia and art. - M., 1976. - Issue. 4. -S. 138-159.

WORKING WITH SOURCES:

Exercise 1.

Read an excerpt from the chapter “Semiotization of Space in Thomas More’s Utopia” from M. Shadursky’s monograph “Literary Utopia from More to Huxley” (Moscow, 2007) and answer the questions:

1. What other features, besides those given in the work of V. Bistefeld, constitute the semiotics of utopia?

2. How does the researcher determine the reason for T. More’s creation of “Utopia”? How is it different from the reason that prompted Plato to create the Laws?

3. Why does the space of the island of Utopia resemble modern T. Mora's England?

More's interlocutor Raphael Hythloday called private property the source of all misfortunes in England, in the existence of which there can be neither justice, nor economic well-being, nor universal happiness: “... wherever there is private property, where everything is measured by money, there is hardly ever “the correct and successful course of government affairs is possible.” The human being is subject to the greatest deformation under the influence of money - the most powerful form of private property, “... you, like a significant part of the people in the world, ... imitate bad teachers who beat students more willingly than teach them,” Hythloday did not understand the desire of the state to fight the results of social evil without affecting its root cause, because such actions towards citizens inevitably lead to the leveling of human value.

The system of poetic devices used in “In Praise of Folly” has a genetic connection with Menippean satire, a genre that took shape in the Hellenistic era in the work of Lucian. “So... take this journey with me and, putting yourself in my place, take in the entire earthly order,” Menippus addressed his interlocutor, intending to give a derogatory assessment of earthly reality. This call also reached the writers and thinkers of the Renaissance, who looked at the state of the existing world, which opened up to them in a new way.

The compiler of the bibliographic reference book “Literary Utopia,” V. Bisterfeld, summarized the centripetal semantic lines developed in the works of utopian writers. The “classical” structure of the genre semiosphere meant a combination of the following components: 1) geographical position, natural conditions(an isolated plane of artistic experiment with a low population density living in cities is proposed); 2) contact with the outside world (the general desire for alienation and self-defense is considered); 3) political structure (two dominant forms of state organization are distinguished: democracy and oligarchy); 4) family and morality (the principles of socialization of private life and eugenics are determined); 5) labor (there is a clear regulation of labor service and free time of citizens); 6) education (shows the importance of the institution of education for maintaining a stable world order); 7) education (the priority of natural science is established in the system of scientific interests of a perfect society); 8) everyday life and communication (a focus on harmonizing social interactions opens); 9) language, art, religion (a community is identified that uses a special language, is wary of art and practices solar religion) 16. This genre matrix is ​​based on the peculiarities of the poetic explication of semantic constructs that form the artistic model of the world in T. More’s “Utopia”.

More's novel reveals structural features literary utopia, which neither Plato (c. 429-347 BC) nor other predecessors had. In the dialogue “Laws,” Plato “molded in wax” an ideal state, distant from nearby lands, but with excellent harbors at its disposal. The isolation of a true republic was seen by the philosopher as necessarily concentric, centered around single center, which sums up the existentiality of the imaginary region: “Temples must be built around the entire shopping area. And the whole city should be arranged in circles, rising to elevated places, for the sake of good security and cleanliness. Rooms for rulers and courts of justice should be located next to the temples." 17. Perfect forms of organization of existence might have seemed unpromising to the Londoner More, who was looking, first of all, not for universal truth, but for happiness: "... this country was not once surrounded by the sea. But Utopus, whose victorious name the island bears (previously it was called Abraxa), immediately upon his first arrival after the victory, ordered to dig fifteen miles, over which the country was adjacent to the mainland, and drew a sea around the land; this same Utop brought the rude and savage people to such a degree of culture and education that now they almost surpass other mortals in this respect." 18. As R. Shepard traces, "the transformation of Utopia into an artificial island pursued both practical and symbolic goals" 19. The island was out of reach of enemies; in addition, the utopian society literally received the visible completeness of a self-sufficient unit. The most important attribute of the artistic model of the world revealed by More in Utopia was an island space, the geophysical parameters of which were reminiscent of England in the 16th century. (number of settlements, equidistance of cities, landscape of the capital). The constructed reality represented a detachment from the accessible world and marked the recreation of the happy state of humanity in the region where humanistic ideals were tested. The semiosphere of the novel “Utopia” organically includes the humanistic ideas of the Oxford reformers, among whom T. More belonged.

16 Biesterfeld W. Die literarische Utopie. Stuttgart, 1982. S. 16-22.

17 Plato. Laws / trans. from ancient Greek A. N. Egunova. M., 1999. P. 230.

18 More T. Utopia. P. 108.

19 Shephard K. Utopia, Utopia's Neighbors, Utopia, and Europe // Sixteenth Century Journal. 1995. Vol. 26, No. 4. P. 845.

Shadursky M. Literary utopia from More to Huxley. - M., 2007. P. 25-29. //Electronic version: Gumer Library http://www.gumer.info/

Task 2.

Read excerpts from the article by S. G. Shishikina “Literary dystopia: on the question of the boundaries of the genre” and answer the questions:

1. How is the genre of dystopia related to the genre of utopia? Why is dialogue between them necessary?

2. What definitions of dystopia as a genre are given in the article? Which one seems most accurate and correct to you?

3. What are the features of the utopian chronotope? How does it differ from the dystopian chronotope?

It is generally accepted that utopia as a way of social thinking appeared along with the formation of the state into a system of institutions. Utopian motives, dreams of a better possible future in a non-existent place (translated from Greek “u” - “topia” - a place that does not exist) in literary works can be traced long before the publication of Thomas More's work “The Golden Book, as useful as it is amusing, of the best structure of the state, and of the new island of Utopia,” better known as “Utopia” (1516). Dystopia, being genetically and thematically connected with utopia, accompanies it at all stages of human development. The tradition of dystopian thinking also dates back more than 2,500 years. Dystopian motifs, which have not yet formed into an independent genre, can already be found in Plato’s “Republic”, in the philosophy of the “Cynics”, in Aristophanes’ comedy “Women in the National Assembly”, etc. Along with the development of philosophy and natural science knowledge, the number of works also increases , in which utopian ideas are presented in an artistic manner, separating themselves from the genre of philosophical treatises. However, along with them, the number of literary works is increasing, which question the possibility of realizing positive ideals for various reasons. Analysis and criticism of individual negative aspects society and human existence in it gradually become more and more significant, intertwined with utopia, but at the same time gaining greater independence, operating with their own value characteristics, acquiring specific features of genre poetics, which allows us to talk about the formation of a special literary genre - dystopia.

If we agree that literary dystopia is anti-, but nevertheless an independent genre, we should probably admit that dystopia, while denying utopia, develops on the basis of genre principles characteristic of utopia. At the same time, in accordance with the laws of dialectics, dystopia, in turn, becomes the starting point for the development of utopia, followed by a new spiral change in its own essence, but on the basis of a new utopia. Thus, the statement “dystopia consists of utopia in a relationship of dialogue” is undoubtedly fair and fruitful for determining the specifics of the genre.

Therefore, it is considered logical to define dystopia using the “by contradiction” method in relation to the genre of utopia. For example, “Utopia is an ideally good society, dystopia is an ideally bad society, and dystopia is somewhere in the middle.” Dystopia is considered a “looking glass of utopia”, an “inverted utopia”, a genre that ironically rethinks the value orientations of literary utopia. According to the philosopher A. Batalov, “dystopia is the fundamental negation of utopia by utopian means, the arbitrary construction of images of another world, designed to discourage the reader from inventing, and most importantly, trying to implement utopian projects.” Asymmetrical principles of narration about the world, according to most researchers, and distinguish utopia from dystopia, which is true both in relation to the model of thinking and to genre characteristics. It is noted that literature refutes utopia not by logical reasoning, not by demonstrating the historical “it doesn’t work out that way,” but by its very way of being, the very possibility of narrating the world. Utopia neglects the boundaries between fantasy and reality; dystopia seeks to emphasize them. At the same time, the interweaving of science fiction and utopia gives rise to dystopia. However, dystopia differs from science fiction by its obvious bias towards the analysis of moral issues, even when considering the achievements of scientific and technical thought.

The polyphony of definitions of dystopia through the prism of utopia could be continued for quite a long time. In addition, the 20th century is rightly considered a time of dystopian social thinking, which could not but affect the development of the genre of literary dystopia. It is estimated that in just a quarter of a century after World War II, 39 works created within the framework of utopia and 199 genre varieties of dystopia appeared in Anglo-American literature alone. The reasons for this genre boom lie in the social, scientific and technical experience of mankind and the associated danger of losing the human in man himself and the society created by him. “The hope for individual and social perfection of man, which was clearly expressed philosophically and anthropologically in the writings of the Enlightenment philosophers and socialist thinkers of the 19th century,” wrote Erich Fromm in the “Afterword” to Orwell’s novel “1984,” remained unchanged until the end of the first century. World War... The war marked the beginning of a process that was to lead, in a relatively short time, to the destruction of the two thousand-year-old Western tradition of hope and transform it into a state of despair.”

This statement already outlines the line between utopia and dystopia. Let us use the definition of L. Sargent, who believes that “utopia is a detailed and consistent description of a depicted, but localized in time and space, society, built on the basis of an alternative socio-historical hypothesis and organized both at the level of institutions and human relations - more perfectly than the society in which the author lives." Let us add that the basis of utopian constructions is a thought that creates a certain utopian chronotope, taken out of the framework of the present, the real historical one. Let us note that classical utopias were born on the basis of artistic modeling of socio-philosophical theories; dystopias were based on already realized theoretical postulates. This, it seems to us, explains some of the declarative style of the genre, which is indirectly confirmed in the following statement: “Utopianism is a constant and inescapable temptation of human thought, its negative pole, charged with the greatest, albeit poisonous, energy.”

1. Batalov A. Ya. In the world of utopia. Five dialogues on utopia, utopian consciousness and utopian experiments. M., 1989.

3. Gevorkyan E. What is the road to hell paved with? Anti-preface // Dystopias of the twentieth century. M. 1989.

6. Latynina Yu. L. Literary origins of the dystopian genre. Author. diss. …To. Philol. n. M., 1992.

8. Morson G. Boundaries of the genre // Utopia and utopian thinking. M., 1991.

10. Novikova G. Extraordinary adventures of science in utopia and dystopia (H. Wells, O. Huxley, A. Platonov) // Questions of literature, 1998, No. 4.

11. Ortega y Gasset H. Revolt of the masses // Questions of Philosophy. 1989, no. 3.

15. Florovsky G.V. Metaphysical prerequisites of utopianism // Questions of philosophy. 1990, no. 10.

16. Chalikova V. Utopia and freedom. M., 1994.

17. Shestakov V. Evolution of Russian literary utopia // Evening in 2217. Russian literary utopia. M., 1990.

19. Yakusheva N. B. Transformation of utopia into dystopia in the culture of the twentieth century. St. Petersburg, 2001.

20. M. Young. The Rise of Meritocracy // Utopia and Utopian Thinking. M., 1991.

22. Fromm E. Afterword to George Orwell’s “1984”. N.Y., 1962.

25. Sargent L. Introduction // British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1978. Boston, 1979.

26. Sargent L. Eutopias and Dystopias in Science Fiction: 1950-1975. // America as Utopia. N. Y., 1981

S. G. Shishikina. Literary dystopia: on the question of the boundaries of the genre // Bulletin of the Faculty of Humanities of ISUTU, 2007, No. 2. // Electronic version: http://main.isut.ru/

Task 3.

Read an excerpt from I. O. Shaitanov’s article “Between Victorianism and Dystopia. English literature of the first third of the twentieth century" and answer the questions:

1. How does I. O. Shaitanov define the differences between utopia and dystopia?

2. Look at the epigraph to the topic, taken from Aldous Huxley’s novel, and determine how the dream of happiness interacts with the structure of society?

3. What, according to Zamyatin and Huxley, is the fallacy of the utopians? What is the danger of this misconception?

4. How does a break with the past as a principle of creating a state in which everyone is happy in the dystopia of the twentieth century interact with the principle of spatial isolation in the utopias of the Renaissance? How does dystopia develop the chronotope of utopia?

However, social projects for the revolutionary transformation of reality turned out to be even more dangerous than scientific experiments. Writers were given the opportunity to reproduce from life the features of the future totalitarian state. In the winter of 1920, in frozen and hungry post-revolutionary Petrograd, Yevgeny Zamyatin created the most famous dystopia - the novel “We”.

Dystopia is a dream that began to come true and unexpectedly discovered a mass side effects. The question of the utopian genre is: what should the future be like? The question of dystopia is whether it is possible to force a person to be happy? Dystopia is not so much a dream as a warning.

Zamyatin very accurately defined the human pathos of all dystopias: in them, instead of “I,” “we” reigns. The individual is sacrificed to the collective. In Zamyatin’s novel, born of Russian reality, the state structure presupposes maximum suppression and a minimum of material well-being. In O. Huxley’s novel “Brave New World” (1932), violence is replaced by psychological engineering - people are created according to their future place in society even before birth, and material well-being is provided to everyone in abundance. Among the main social responsibilities of each member of society in Huxley’s novel is to spend and thereby encourage production: “Better to repair the old, it is better to wear the new,” is one of the truths that is drummed into everyone in the cradle.

Aldous Huxley(1894-1963) continued the tradition of the English satirical novel in the 20th century.

Huxley and Zamyatin

Huxley denied the influence of the Russian writer on him. However, the very epigraph to the novel from the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev confirmed the significance of the Russian historical experience for him: “Utopias turned out to be much more feasible than it seemed before. And now there is another painful question: how to avoid their final implementation ... "

Huxley imagines a utopian society in the year 632 of the era of Ford, or the era of Freud: two names, one of which represents technical perfection, the other the idea of ​​a person driven by sexual instinct. Perfection has been achieved and instincts have been satisfied.

From the first pages of the novel, a comprehensive picture of the social structure unfolds before the reader, as the Director of the Central London Hatchery and Educational Center himself leads students on a tour of its halls. On the doors of the hatchery is the motto of the World State: “Community. Sameness. Stability".

The words "father" and "mother" are used either as expletives or as historical terms describing a distant past when humans were viviparous. Now people are produced on an assembly line in test tubes. The main achievement is the ability to produce dozens of identical twins in accordance with the requirement of identicalness. However, sameness is not the same as the old prejudice called “democracy.” The equality of people, as the Director teaches, does not extend beyond the physical and chemical level. Complete sameness exists only within the lower castes, each of which is designated by the letters of the Greek alphabet: the highest are alphas (plus and minus), then betas, gammas, deltas, and at the lowest level - epsilons. These latter are humanoid creatures necessary to perform the menial work for which they were intended in vitro, and therefore are completely satisfied with their place in society.

When a person is “uncorked” (no one is given birth anymore), then in the infant and childhood state he undergoes a course of hypnopaedia - learning in a dream. Through thousands of repetitions through speakers, the basic truths and rules of future behavior are hammered into the consciousness. Everyone is satisfied and happy, and if someone suddenly experiences psychological shock or inconvenience, then there is a remedy and a behavioral rule: “So many grams - and no dramas”

Soma- this is, as they would say now, a relaxant, that is, a relaxing agent. The name for it in a society of general consumption is borrowed from ancient Indian mythology: this was the name of the drink of the gods. Huxley often takes the names of people and things from cultural history, but not as a sign of memory. On the contrary, it is a sign of unconsciousness, since no one is aware of the connection with the past.

I. O. Shaitanov. Between Victorianism and dystopia. English literature of the first third of the twentieth century // New in the school curriculum //http://lit/iseptember.ru

Task 4.

Read a fragment from Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel “We” (From “Entry 2”) and answer the questions and complete the tasks:

1. Find in Zamyatin reminiscences from “Utopia” by Thomas More. What is their semantic function?

2. How is the thesis of universal equality, mandatory for utopias, refuted?

3. Why does a resident of the United State feel like the center of the world, God? To what extent does this feeling correspond to the world of utopia and how is it refuted in the world of dystopia?

4. Are there any fundamental differences between the world of dystopia and the world of utopia? Why is one world shown as positive and the other as negative? What changes in dystopia in the way of artistic organization and presentation of the utopian world?

"…At the bottom. The avenue is full: in this weather, we usually spend our afternoon private hour on an extra walk. As always. The Music Factory sang the March of the United State with all its trumpets. In measured rows, four at a time, enthusiastically beating time, there were numbers - hundreds, thousands of numbers, in bluish unifs 62, with gold plaques on the chest - the state number of each and every one. And I - we four - are one of the countless waves in this mighty stream. To my left is O 90 (if one of my hairy ancestors had written this a thousand years ago, he would probably have called it that funny word “mine”); on the right are two unfamiliar numbers, female and male.

Blissfully blue sky, tiny children's suns in each of the plaques, faces not overshadowed by the madness of thoughts... The rays - you understand: everything is from some kind of single, radiant, smiling matter. And the brass bars: “Tra ta ta there. Tra ta ta there,” these copper steps sparkling in the sun, and with each step you rise higher, into the dizzying blue...

And so, just as it was in the morning, on the boathouse, I saw again, as if only now for the first time in my life, I saw everything: the immutable straight streets, the glass of the pavements splashing with rays, the divine parallelepipeds of transparent dwellings, the square harmony of gray-blue ranks. And so: as if not whole generations, but I - it was I - who defeated the old God and old life, it was I who created all this, and I’m like a tower, I’m afraid to move my elbow so that fragments of walls, domes, cars don’t fall down...

And then a moment - a leap through centuries, from + to -. I remembered (obviously an association by contrast) - I suddenly remembered a picture in a museum: their then twentieth-century avenue, a deafeningly colorful, confused crowd of people, wheels, animals, posters, trees, paints, birds... And they say that this in fact it was - it could have been. It seemed so implausible to me, so ridiculous, that I couldn’t stand it and suddenly burst out laughing.

And immediately an echo - laughter - on the right. He turned around: into my eyes - white - unusually white and sharp teeth, an unfamiliar female face.

Forgive me,” she said, “but you looked at everything with such inspiration, like some mythical god on the seventh day of creation.” It seems to me that you are sure that you created me, and not anyone else. I'm very flattered...

All this without a smile, I would even say, with some respect (maybe she knows that I am the builder of [Integral]). But I don’t know - there is some strange annoying X in the eyes or eyebrows, and I just can’t catch it, give it a digital expression.

For some reason I was embarrassed and, slightly confused, began to logically motivate my laughter. It is absolutely clear that this contrast, this impassable gap between today and then...

But why is it impassable? (What white teeth!) You can build a bridge over the abyss. Just imagine: a drum, battalions, ranks - after all, this also happened - and therefore...

Well yes: clear! - she shouted (it was an amazing intersection of thoughts: she - almost in my own words - was what I wrote down before the walk). - You see: even thoughts. This is because no one is “one,” but “one of.” We are so alike...

Are you sure?

I saw eyebrows raised at a sharp angle to the temples - like the sharp horns of an X, again for some reason I got lost; looked to the right, to the left - and...

To my right is she, thin, sharp, stubbornly flexible, like a whip, I 330 (I see her number now); to the left - Oh, completely different, all made of circles, with a childish fold on the hand, and on the edge of our four - an unknown male number - some kind of double curved like the letter S. We were all different...

This one, on the right, I 330, apparently caught my confused glance - and with a sigh:

Yes... Alas!

In fact, this “alas” was completely appropriate. But again there’s something on her face or in her voice...

I said with unusual sharpness:

Nothing, alas. Science is growing, and it is clear - if not now, then in fifty, a hundred years...

Even everyone’s noses...

Yes, noses,” I almost shouted. - Since there is, it doesn’t matter what reason for envy... Since I have a nose like a button, and the other one...

Well, your nose is perhaps even “classical”, as they used to say in the old days. But the hands... No, show me, show me your hands!

I can’t stand it when they look at my hands: they’re all covered in hair, shaggy—some kind of ridiculous atavism. I extended my hand and - in a stranger's voice if possible - said:

Monkeys."

QUESTIONS FOR SELF-CONTROL

1. What, in your opinion, is the reason for the statement of the English scientist Chad Walsh in the book “From Utopia to Nightmare”: “An ever-decreasing percentage of the imaginary world is utopia, an ever-increasing percentage is nightmares. Dystopia, or inverted utopia, was an insignificant frame for utopian production in the 19th century. Today it has become the dominant type, if it has not already become statistically dominant” (Walsh Ch. From Utopia to Nightmare. London, 1962. P. 14.)? Which of the Renaissance utopias can be read as nightmares?

2. What are the differences between a utopia and a novel? Who is the main character of utopia?

Notes

57. V. F. Asmus. The life and works of Plato. // V. F. Asmus. Ancient philosophy. - M., 1998. P. 245

58. N. I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov. Thomas More // History of world literature: In 8 volumes / USSR Academy of Sciences; Institute of World Lit. them. A. M. Gorky. - M.: Nauka, 1983-1994. T. 3. - 1985. - P. 292-297.

59. A. A. Anikst Thomas More. History of English Literature. Textbook. - M., 1943. // Material posted on the website: “The Middle Ages and the Renaissance”: http://svr-lit.niv.ru/

60. E. Auerbach. The world in the mouth of Pantagruel // E. Auerbach Mimesis. - M., 1976. P. 272.

61. G. K. Kosikov. Medieval literature and the literature of the Renaissance in France. Francois Rabelais // The work is posted on the website: “The Middle Ages and the Renaissance”: http://svr-lit.niv.ru/

62. Probably from the ancient "Uniforme".

Speaking about the philosophy of freedom of the Renaissance, one cannot fail to mention the social utopias that arose at that time.

Henry VIII not to recognize any authority, neither secular nor ecclesiastical, except the authority of kings from the Tudor dynasty. After the death of T. More, he was canonized by the Catholic Church.

The social utopia of T. More is set out in the work “The Golden Book, as useful as it is funny about the best structure of the state and about the new island of Utopia” (1516).

In the first part of the work, the philosopher criticizes the existing socio-political order: royal despotism, parasitism and greed of the aristocracy and clergy, the policy of ruining the peasantry, the unreasonableness of the structure, the desire for war.

In the second part, More describes his model of an ideal state - Utopia (from the Greek. u– no + topos– place, i.e. a place that does not exist; according to another version, from the Greek. eu– good + topos– place, i.e. blessed country). Utopia must be headed by a wise monarch, all other positions are elective. Economically, Utopia is a communist state with collective ownership of the means of production. Six hours of daily manual labor, including agricultural work, is mandatory for everyone. Parasitism will be destroyed with the destruction of private property. Slavery was not abolished; slaves (prisoners of war, criminals, convicts) do the hardest work. Distribution is made according to needs. Here luxury is despised and there is no poverty. Society is based on morality. In Utopia, atheism is prohibited under threat of deprivation of citizenship. People must believe in reward after death. Utopians are supporters of family life. Divorces are recognized there extremely rarely and only for very good reasons. All children study, adults study science in their free time.

before other theologians, he was forced to leave his homeland. In 1598, Campanella was accused of witchcraft and political conspiracy and sentenced to life imprisonment. While in prison, Campanella wrote most of his works, including his main work, The City of the Sun (1602). In 1626, thanks to the intervention of Pope Urban VIII, he was released. Campanella spent the end of his life in France, where he received a pension from Cardinal Resilier.

Ontology. Campanella is a supporter of organicism. “Everything that moves naturally receives its movement from itself, and not from a special engine.” “The world is a huge living being, and we live in its belly.” "All things feel."

Social philosophy. Campanella proposed his own model of an ideal government system - communism, where “everything is common,” including wives and children. If there is no private property, then there are neither poor nor rich. Campanella believes that “property is formed among us and is maintained by the fact that we each have our own separate home and our own wives and children.” This means that in the city of the Sun, wives and children should be common. After breastfeeding, the children are handed over to government caregivers. They are then trained in various sciences and trades and given jobs in accordance with their achievements. Technological progress makes it possible to reduce the working day to four hours. The rest of the time is devoted to solariums personal development. At the head of the state is the supreme ruler "Metaphysician", called the "Sun", with three co-rulers: "Power", in charge of issues of war and peace; “Wisdom”, in charge of the liberal arts, sciences, education; and “Love”, dealing with issues of childbirth, education, medicine, agriculture, cattle breeding, nutrition, clothing, etc. The Big Four are elected for life. But if people appear who are superior to them in their abilities and knowledge, then they must give up their place to them. Tanning salons should be guided by the ethical principle: what you don’t want for yourself, don’t do it to others, and what you want people to do to you, you do to them.

So, the Renaissance is the era of the flourishing of the arts, sciences, the emergence of the humanistic teachings of F. Petrarch, M. Montaigne, the reformation of Christianity, and new ideas about politics and the state.

The humanists of the era moved away from the dogmatic medieval type of philosophizing and placed man at the center of their worldview. They called on a person to be the creator of himself and the world around him, i.e. to be free.

The emergence of Protestantism means the end of the medieval Catholic monoideology, christian world becomes more diverse and free. Protestantism proposed the voluntary communal nature of the Christian organization and allowed ordinary people to independently learn biblical truths.

The natural philosophical teachings of N. Copernicus and G. Bruno refuted Aristotelian and church dogmas about the central position of the Earth in solar system and in space, formed the first scientific picture of the world, laid the preconditions for the emergence of a real scientific discipline - mechanics.

N. Machiavelli created the first secular doctrine of the state since antiquity, which instructs the sovereign not to be too moral in political matters. T. More and T. Campanella created utopian concepts of states.

In general, we can say that the Renaissance is the era of the beginning of the transition from the dominance of faith to the dominance of reason.

Control questions

1. What does the expression mean? Renaissance humanism?

2. What ideas about freedom are heard in the teachings of F. Petrarch and P. Mirandola?

3. Expand the ethical teaching of M. Montaigne.

4. What are the main differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, which emerged during the Renaissance?

5. List the basic principles of the teachings of M. Luther.

6. What is the uniqueness of the teachings of J. Calvin.

7. What is the significance of the concept of predestination in Protestantism?

9. Formulate the main provisions of the political philosophy of N. Machiavelli, set out in the work “The Prince”.

10. What arguments in favor of the republican type of government were put forward by N. Machiavelli in his work “Reflections on the first decade of Titus Livius”?

11. What is the purpose of politics, according to Machiavelli?

12. What natural philosophical views were characteristic of the Renaissance?

13. What is the root of knowing ignorance, according to N. Kuzansky?

14. What is pantheism?

15. Reveal the main content of the social utopias of T. More and T. Campanella.