Аннотация: Prospects for literature and trends in social development. An essay.
Prospects for literature and trends in social development. An essay.
Universal attention has been drawn to the coronavirus pandemic.
Have large-scale forest fires, which were spanning the three continents of planet Earth in 2019, been less dangerous?
At first glance, a strange process is going on.
The more a potential is accumulated by a society, the larger and more dangerous the problems arise.
But in this thesis, in this idea there is an illusion.
In fact, the accumulation of potential is not so unambiguous.
Take the sphere of literature as an example.
More recently, in the second half of the 20th century, during the years of the prosperity of the Western World, a group of relatively independent people - writers who can live on royalties (on a part of the funds received from readers by a literary sphere) - was clearly visible in the field of literature.
A mass, financially secure, solvent reader was in the field of literature.
In the field of literature, there were numerous figures - publishers, sellers of books and others.
The sphere of literature was a space of collective thinking. All the actors of a literature sphere were interested in a development of social thinking, in a growth of financial resources that filled, were coming this sphere.
The more people collectively think on a variety of topics and the more the resources involved in the process of collective thinking, the higher the likelihood of an effective and conscious movement forward - that is, development.
However, we are observing another trend.
The field of literature, the national book market, is being intensively destroyed.
Traditional book trade is minimized. Reading traditions are supplanted by other activities. Writers are not able to live on royalties - funds received from readers.
Financial resources leave the realm of literature.
Independent people - writers - are becoming less or less. Or they disappear (as an independent noticeable social group).
The process of collective thinking is reduced.
The process of blocking public thinking using various kinds of taboos is becoming increasingly widespread.
Are under a question - not only the prospects of literature, public thinking, but also the fundamental postulates of the Western World - a freedom of thought, of word, of press ...
Do not think too broadly, do not touch a hot topics! Do not break the tradition of polit correctness!
One can positively perceive these calls for some time.
Let me assume, that it's necessary to think carefully not only before the construction of the building, or, for example, the railway.
It is useful to think a lot, intensively and effectively in general in the process of moving forward.
A public thinking, characteristic of the field of literature, is supplanted by media campaigns - the dominance of points of view. Journalists are financially dependent on the employer. And the journalist's employer is far from always financially dependent on the consumer (of content ). An independent journalist is becoming an increasingly difficult profession.
As it turns out in practice, the less intense and the less effective the process of social thinking, the more widespread and acute problems cover the world.
If we take the postulate of reducing the scale of collective social thinking as a true one, as a right one, then the effect of the emergence of major social problems, for example, the global forest fires of 2019 or the pandemic of the coronavirus 2019-2020, becomes quite understandable. Those phenomena that could be predicted, anticipated, neutralized, fall outside the sphere of social attention - in order to appear in a sudden and dangerous way.
I note that in the Russial press until 2019 there were very timid attempts to inform the public about the infectious diseases brought into Russia and about the corresponding risks. But for obvious reasons, these attempts remained weak, invisible to public attention. The emergence of risks has not become the subject of public attention, the topic of public thinking. Maybe it was necessary to "dig deeper" topic? To violate the requirements of polit-correctness? Start a public discussion, in something unpleasant one, exacerbating some contradictions?!
Hush! Hush! Do not aggravate!
Even now, after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, a broad and effective public discussion (the process of public thinking) on many issues (due to a number of circumstances) is not possible.
It remains to be listening of those who praise totalitarian regimes for their alleged successes in overcoming the pandemic. Well, that's understandable ... (And where did these regimes got knowledge, technology, culture to gain speed? To get out of adverse circumstances?...).
So, it's is less and less of the process of a social thinking. And the problems, in fact, are getting bigger ...
But has the process of social development moved along the right path? Isn't it too early for civilized humanity to abandon the traditional values of the Western World that have been formed over the previous 500 years and have given decades of well-being and prosperity, many centuries of decent, cultural life?
March 27, 2020 07:29
Translation from Russian into English: March 27, 2020 22:48.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Перспективы литературы и тенденции общественного развития. Очерк'.