Sad Reflections

The ancients, Greeks in particular, found it rather easy to live: they believed in fate which shaped the future of an individual or a nation in every detail. Whatever happened, it was “not because of us, but by the will of the gods.” We have long liberated ourselves from this convenient philosophy, we profess free will and have been taught that “man himself forges his happiness.” However, this happiness of ours, for some reason, has not been hammered out: what we see is only instant fleeting sparkles, smoke, and noise. Why? Perhaps we are unable to heat the metal, or our hands are weak and clumsy? Or perhaps the point is that we, after taking the hammer in our hands, still don’t know what to forge out of the hot piece of iron lying on the anvil?

Every nation and individual has its own abilities and life story. Scientists try to prove in earnest, however, that there are no incapable children. Why then are the destinies of the children of history so different? Some play on the world stage the roles of commanders-in-chief, lawmakers, and creators, while others stay in the shadows for long epochs and centuries. Is it because each child is born and raised in his own time: one child has already reached maturity, while another has not yet come out of his cocoon? Let us recall that, for instance, when Greek ancient culture was in full bloom, all the rest of Europe, including the future Rome, lay outside the Oikumene and was a wild steppe inhabited by nomadic Barbarians. And even after ancient Greek sculptors had already strewn the world with still unmatched Athenas and Aphrodites, the Scythians, like children, were still hewing out their stone idols. But where is the erstwhile glory of Greeks today, where are their masters and philosophers who once created the wonders of the ancient world and laid the groundwork for European civilization? In contrast, let us take Germany, which France, Spain, and other “civilized” Europeans did not consider a full-fledged member of their cultural community only a few centuries ago.

It is a consolation to hope that time has not yet come for us to show in the bright footlights, that everything is in the future, while the past and especially the present is only childhood or a dangerous transitional age. What is alarming, however, is the fact that in the course of documented human history countless peoples and even states have arisen on the world stage, only to vanish without saying a single audible word, as if they were only extras. Leading roles by no means go to all. A similar lot might have been destined even for Russia, had it not been for Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, the two nineteenth century geniuses. They took a high and honored place in European civilization, and so did Russia after them.

If you look closely at the life of other peoples and compare it with ours, it occurs to you that the place of a state in modern history is almost always determined by three circumstances: the organic inclination of its citizens to labor, educational level (also the product of labor), and the involvement of a considerable part of society in common affairs. This involvement often justifies even sacrifices and hardships. Do we have or develop in ourselves such integral traits of character as involvement and workaholism? If not, then what is there in Western civilization we could hope for? Shall we only make references to the Trypillian culture and “all things past,” as some ultra-patriots like to do?

But maybe the path of Western civilization is only one accidentally chosen (not by us) from many other possible paths of human development, and not the best at that? It is a question in particular of the cult of labor for the sake of ever-increasing material good and benefits, for the sake of an artificial, but ever so comfortable, medium of existence. For are, say, the multicolored wrappings or toilets sparkling like thrones worth at least one minute of sweet idleness, when so many ideas and so much beauty comes over you? Or is that proverbial Cossack, who liked lying in the hemp field, looking up the sky, day-dreaming and composing thought-provoking songs, the real sage and philosopher? Then why do we fall so hard for all that the thoroughly materialistic West produces? Most of us seem to want to combine the advantages of Western and Eastern-Soviet civilizations, i.e., to take material well-being from one and the proverbial hemp from the other.