In Plato’s dialogue “Sophist” the central the main character of narration who tells the most important things is called a “STRANGER”. Plato explains that Gods often come to people as strangers. For the strangers see the vices and virtues of the society they are in best of all. The stranger is like litmus paper; he reveals the shades of different problems of the society. This remoteness and unengaged state of the stranger allegedly gives him the possibility to evaluate an object, its strength and weaknesses impartially. In other words the stranger, the alien is a mirror that reflects the strength and weaknesses of that one who contacted with a stranger. The talks about a stranger are logical for Plato who was Greek and received his wisdom from Egyptian priests.
From this position everyone should treat strangers with special attention for their point of view can appear to be extremely constructive for building one’s own models of society, view on the being. In his time educated like this Alexander Macedonian, Aristotle’s disciple, who was a disciple of Plato’s disciple entered to Persia with war. That was a strange war. Alexander as is known won a perfect victory. However at this he became and named son of Sisigambis, mother of died Persian tsar. In her turn she accepted the stranger as her own son. And there is much more: Alexander changed the clothes and wore a Persian dress; he made his soldiers do the same. And this is not everything: Alexander the Great enjoined their soldiers to get married the Irani girls and he got married to a Sogdian girl.
In Alexander’s steps we can see the actions of the very wise ruler to consolidate his position in the conquered country. For good reason we view in the tsar actions demonstration of those commandments that were implanted in his culture and the ones that Aristotle had taught him. The main of them is “love strange as you love your own”, the necessity to understand “the self” through accepting “strange”. Alexander loved everything alien. He measured his own deeds through accepting alien. I emphasize: it is a position of one of the greatest philosophers, a position of a loving wisdom and, accordingly, loving alien person.
As a result he created so mighty and dynamic power that became the basis of the modern amp of the world. The ancient sagas and legends fairly show in Alexander a unitor of all the lands and peoples. Alexander the Great founded the Ancient Bulgar according to one of the legends. This means that the world created by Alexander the Great became extremely expansion in breadth and this world became extremely extensive seizing more and more territories. For example, “Alexandrias” were famous in the entire Slavic world and in Western Europe. Alexander’s world so alien for the Slavs appeared to be home in some sense.
Hence we must not forget that Alien can add some other measure in understanding Own. Perception of another criterion, another measure is an ability of a human being to measure his own by alien, not to become alien but to be himself, to open new distinctions of the attitude to the world in him own self, in the inmost recesses of his heart.
Thus, as a password for this lecture I choose the Russian word of Greek origin that can often be met in Russian poetry. This is Alien-love or XENOPHILIA (aγaπη πρoς ετερoς). Xenophilia is the Alien-love (love to alien) though understanding the self, this is a sacrifice and this is difficult but gratifying work. To learn and love Other and especially Alien we have to make efforts and may be excessive ones. The easiest thing is to humiliate alien, to expel him. It is more difficult to accept him and ask him what he thinks about you. It is not possible to get to know alien without an objective appraisal of your own values. And it is not possible to get to know yourself without knowing alien.
Greek philia appeared to be in the center of attention of the modern philosophy (Maurice Blanchot, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari), and not only because friendship is power and procedure of inner communication of people. Friendship lies in the basis of Greek culture. It is important to remember the precepts of Greek culture for the modern world as never before: it is much more constructive not to fight but to be friends sealing even fundamental differences in views on politics, religious affiliation, race and national distinction with ties of friendship. Philia is a real power that can awake a sleeping person, grant recovery of sight to an eyeless and grant ability to understand alien speech. Apostles in the Gospel got the ability to understand alien speech and speak it in such a way. There is no need to cite other instances; Greek analogues of philia are present in many ancient cultures; that is of the essence. They love alien as their own for there is that power in it through which people, nations, religions find a common language, common topics for discussion.
Here it is necessary to make one stipulation: don’t think that Alien is accepted entirely and unconditionally. Alien is peered with not just interest but it is necessary to peer in it axiologically, with value.
axiology (from Greek axia – value, logos – teaching) is a teaching about the forms and ways of value planning of a person his own life aspirations to the future, choosing the guiding lines for the present life and justification and blame of the past, “other” and generally valid
Hence, accepting of Alien should be reasonable, being aware of the value nature of an adoption. Own should be enriched meeting with Alien. Different measuring must introduce new view on already familiar things, on mode of life and even changing the measure of attitude to the world and to God.
Here is an example from the history of religious and cultural formation of Russia. I want to tell in what way alien becomes so close that it is interpreted as own. It is known to everybody in what way the Christianity upheld the rights on Russian land, what spiritual feats stand behind the beginning of religion in Russia. It is all started from accepting Alien.
Academician D. Likhachev refuted the theory of influence of Byzantium to Russia and proved another theory, the theory of transplantation of Byzantine values to Russia. Transplantation is a transferal, a mechanic transfer of values. Byzantine culture made a transgression that is a capture of other culture. Appearance of the biggest stronghold of Christianity in the world became the result of the transfer, the transplantation of Byzantine values into another ethnic and state environment. But loving of Alien was in the basis of this process, perception of Alien as own and also the most difficult, centuries-old process of Byzantine values selection. Russia remembered about Byzantium all the time and from time to time there were appeals to return to the spiritual homeland (for example, during the time of Ekaterina). This process continues even now but otherwise.
Loving of alien is often a deterritorization. Transplantation about which D. Likhachev talked is a deterritorization in the first turn, changing of the territory but it is not its complete loss. Force field of the basic territory continues to function after coming across the values of another territory, of another ethnos culture. Culture that came over its borders will be inevitably enriched if this culture is strong spiritually and has strong inner ties.
I come over to one more border of loving of alien brought up cherishingly in the past Russia and I will point to the works of Russian philosophers A. Khomyakov and N. Fedorov. They brought out significance of the value characteristics of on the first sight strange countries and religions very clearly that is very important for modern Russia. Alien first appeared to be own for these Russian thinkers.
Gogol rated highly A. Khomyakov’s book “Semiramida”. Khomyakov as a forefather of Slavophilism paradoxically revealed non-Slavic roots of the Slavs’ spiritual world and of Russian’s in the first turn. Khomyakov started to talk about Irani phenomenon as about a value category as about synonym of creative spirit. He praised Iran as unsurpassed focus of the highest achievements. Everything that worked against the high culture, against creativity opposed to Iran.
We cannot forget that Nietzsche highly valued the same position. He expressed it in his poem “Zarathustra” that influenced so much the enlightened people of Europe and Russia. And you know Zarathustra was a prophet and the founder of Zoroastrism, the ethnic religion of Iranians. Nietzsche praised the freedom of Zarathustra, his ability to come over attachment that made the book very significant for the modern philosophy as well. By the way, an ancient Zoroastrian city of Arkaim was found on the territory of Russia in South Urals.
As Khomyakov thinks Iranity that he changed from an ethnic cultural and religious realia to historical and philosophic notion finds its embodiment in the positive principles of the cultural world. Iranian (and East Iranian) spiritual base lies in the basis of Jewry and Christianity, ancient Greece and Rome. It is necessary to note that many of a priori statements and hypotheses of Russian history and philosophy find their affirmation in the facts that were unknown at that time, many of which became the common property only of the modern science. I am talking about the researches of the contemporary Russian scientists – academicians Toporov and Trubachev. You know they continued Khomyakov’s researching the relationships of Iranity and Russia but they were doing it in the context of academic discipline Irano-Rossica. Toporov is most close to Khomyakov’s views for he opened the wide horizons of spiritual ties of Iranians, Indians and Russians working exclusively within the borders of the science and partly philosophy.
The main aim of Khomyakov in the course of all “Semiramida” was clarification of the problem of spiritual Slavic ancient homeland. Deducing the origin of Slavdom and Russians from Eastern Iran he admits: “Having received the ancient enlightenment in Iran they invariably kept their ancient heritage in their short and toiler’s life of ploughmen, merchants and townsmen”. It is said about Russians.
One of the most volumetric characteristics of East Iran significance is formulated in such a way: “Iran’s grandeur is not a matter of luck and some conditional circumstances. It is a necessity and direct demonstration of spiritual strengths that lived in it from time immemorial and it is a reward for it has been keeping a sense of human respect and of human fraternity from all the human families for the longest time”. In the last case Khomyakov means Russian, of course, because as he thought that they kept the grandeur of ancient Iran at most.
You have to see and hear with what interest and hope modern Iranians talk about Russia. Unlike most of Russians Iranians both intellectual and plain people know about commonness of Iranian and Russian origin. For them sense of alien is imaginary to some extent, they are distant relatives to Russians and they want to renew the former relatives.
I turn to the famous lines of Osip Mandelstam:
I came into a blessed fortune –
Wandering dreams of alien singers;
We are free to despise
Our relatives and boring neighbors.
And may be not one treasure
Will go to great-grandchildren omitting grandchildren,
And scald will sing an alien song
But will pretend that it is his one.
Philosopher Nikolay Fedorov in “A common business philosophy” wrote about Eastern Iran as of the place of passing away of Slavic ancestors. He told that Pamirs and its environs keep the remains of the ancestors that have to be transported to Moscow to the Kremlin. Originality of religious and ethic Fedorov’s concept comes across the problem of replacement of Christian spiritual center – Constantinople, Tsargrad. It is lost and it lost its real meaning of a spiritual center. The Kremlin occupies the place of Constantinople, that is the symbol of thinker’s teaching. The place of the Kremlin is on Pamirs. As there is a symbol of “realized reality” the Kremlin finds its own real topographic features that is Pamirs, a place of forefathers’ passing away, spiritual ancient homeland of Russians, Christians and worldwide history of spirit.
It is a question of a united above ethnic commonness of Slavs and Iranians, Russians and Tajiks – Iranians that live in the East of Iran. Everything is almost forgot but the history itself makes us remember the achievements of the leading Russian intellectuals. Wide assessment of their works is seen in the remote perspective though I repeat it is extremely actual now when we meet the acts of xenophobia more often that is exact antithesis to xenophilia.
Let’s remember about Zarathustra of Nietzsche again. Intellectuals of Russia and the West of the begging of the last century spoke one language. They praised sense of alien for the sake of perceiving and separation of new and new horizons of their culture. In this way antique and Persian images appeared in Russian culture but they were taken as their own heritage, heritage of the common to all mankind culture. Pre-revolutionary Russian culture like two-faced Janus looked in its past and its future. This was possible only because deep basis of the Alien-love lay to in the basis of this view. It is not out of place to note in this article that Persia was always something unreachable and may be painted into eschatological colors for Russian poetical perception. (íà ïîëÿ ñíîñêà ** eschatology is a teaching about finiteness of the world and man, about that or other character of the outcome of the world history, of the present being.) Poetry of V. Khlebnikov and S. Esenin illustrates eschatological image of Persia, Iran both in common key of turning to the subject and in choosing the metaphors.
I can give other examples concerned with the historical spiritual contacts of Ancient Russia with Iranians of Middle Asia. Linguists and religious scientists admit that there is Iranian origin of the number of central Gods of Old Russian pantheon (Hors, Semargl, Dazhbog, Stribog). The name Kiev comes from Iranian name Kiya and Iranian tsar dynasty of Kiyanids. Kiev Russia had stable contacts with North East purlieus of Iranian world – Horezm.
There are no religions in the world that are not formed only on the basis of somebody’s own mind. There are no philosophic systems in the world that are based on the ethnic achievements. Loving of alien has always been ontological category of perception, axiological perception.
*** Ontology (Greek - teaching) is a teaching about being, about principles of its formation, its laws and forms.
I recall the figure of Saint John Damaskin. He was the last father of the Church, theorist of its dogmatic principles and acquitted worshiping to the icons. But where did he live? His life passed at court of Damascus amidst people of another religion. Alien was a common milieu of his life and creativity.
What did we come to? If we want to look fairly in the world it is necessary to know that world is never one-color. Only multicolor of culture can bring the fruit of joy and perception. What people learn foreign languages for? Not only their own rational needs to read newspapers, books and to speak foreign language, don’t they? Able to speak a foreign language a person can look at himself with more reasons. It is difficult to make Alien your Own, to appropriate it, to make it the achievement of your own culture. People whose ideology permits such an action, who are fortified in the bases of their own culture are able to achieve this. And only ignoramus, uneducated person can neglect the achievements of alien culture.
We know that tolerance to which appeal politicians, religious leaders and cultural workers for several decades is still not a living principle. The tolerance lacks procedure categories that would fortify and strengthen it. I am convinced that procedure category of the tolerance is Alien-love as a visible demonstration of immanent to human nature philia. The special conditions are necessary for people again and again to find the feeling of friendship and love. And it is necessary to teach them like the Christian apostles did. Without teaching to love Alien the feeling of friendship and love to other people and perception of tolerance to other people will be unrevealed and stay unclear.
I will finish with what I already said but otherwise: Alien-love is a cognitive category, a category of axiological speculation for it is possible to cognize Alien only through value. There is always some mystery in alien values therefore an alien-lover by definition is a person who can sees the mystery. He looks into Alien as in the mystery, his task is to discover this mystery and make it his mystery, to pass it through himself. In the middle of the century there was a popular term – transparency, i.e. ability to let the light pass, to brighten a thing, after that it becomes clearer. So Alien-love is a special type of transparency of the existence and of all Being for the sake of recognition of its real borders and volumes.
It is clear that modern Russia lacks a toolkit of a transparent Alien-love to understand the real horizons of its own culture, its present and future. For the future will be based on axiological weighting of its own and alien values. Here is what the most alien-loving poet of Russia said about the recent past aggravated by present:
“Alien-love is not among our virtues. People of USSR live together like schoolchildren. We know each other when we sit at one desk and during breaks while we are crumbling chalk”. (O. Mandelstam, “A journey to Armenia”).
Question. Didn’t Alexander Macedonian become a real Persian being an alien-lover?
Shukurov. Alexander Macedonian remembered very well that he was Greek. His views on the universe are quite another matter when his political and philosophic views coincided. After all he was Aristotle’s disciple and evidently his mentor inspired his campaign to the East. Arrian tells about this and he also tells about his suspicions that Aristotle poisoned his disciple; he had sent the poison in an asinine hoof. In some sense Alexander really became Iranian when he named himself a son of Persian ruler mother. He became an Iranian sovereign and this is metaposition that stood above ethnic affiliation, some concrete nationality. The gods make their choice and this choice was fixed on Alexander. Persians knew it very well.
Question. Is a mechanic transferal of alien possible?
Shukurov. I’ve already said that perception of alien must be realized by value and axiologically but it must be made maximum carefully. I told that a person should have a value approach to be able to perceive alien correctly, he has to have a number of values with which he can start to value alien. Alien-love is a procedure. The tolerance is a principle. And to achieve principle tolerance it is necessary to be an alien-loving person every day, all your life. It is necessary to have in stock procedural values that will allow you acting as a doctor or surgeon. Doctor is nobody for a patient but he loves patient as his relative. And he treats him if he is a good doctor, as he would treat himself. But to accept alien automatically is ridiculous. And I am talking to about this.
Question. How to teach alien-love?
Shukurov. The simplest what I can say is trivial. A teacher in the school first must understand the importance of alien-love, to have in stock the abilities of this procedural game with alien. It is necessary to work with a teacher, not with a pupil.
What would I do? I would conduct extension courses for teacher all over the world. And let’s suppose that the commission could return a verdict, tell that this teacher can work in school and that one cannot because he is not prepared enough for full work. And this is not the matter of alien-love but it is the matter of knowing the humanitarian disciplines, literature, poetry, foreign languages, general psychology that instill this sense necessarily.
Question. Islamic jihad and Islamic conception about women position… How do you value this alien-love?
Shukurov. The matter is that in Arabic countries the poor from the suburbs rises under influence of intelligence of poor manner: teachers, small lawyers and Islamic religious leaders from outskirts. These people stir up the youth. Have you ever seen among those who practice jihad people older than thirty? They are young people mainly. And gray-hair shopkeepers and small lawyers rule them. What alien-love can they have? Such people are ready to kill their father and brother for the idea of jihad. Now the following is happening in Arabic and Iranian world: intellectuals from Arabic countries and mainly from Paris – for there are many immigrants from Northern Africa – and they rebel against jihad and introduce the conception of Islam improvement. But intellectual improvement, and this improvement is another reading of Koran and the Prophet. These people are very experienced, they are scientists and philosophers as usual, these people are quite famous in the Western science and philosophy. They are supported by the Western society; they share intellectual experiences that can turn to political practice at any time.
Question. You told here about alien-love and accepting values. What do you think about the problem of imposing values to people through mass media? What is your attitude to such teaching of alien-love?
Shukurov. I do not have a very good attitude to the modern journalism. I am convinced that journalists do not have values. They have opinions, changing opinions. Today a journalist thinks like this, tomorrow he will think otherwise. They overturn opinions of situational and representational character to people but not values. For they do not possess these values themselves. For that they have to have a good education that they do not have. The values are formed first at home and at school if it is a good school. They are formed also at university undoubtedly. During this time a person must gain this stock of values to be able to look in the world with self-respect. And this is not rhetoric but years of teaching in Moscow State University.
Question. What is your attitude towards national idea?
Shukurov. Any idea should be supported by small concepts. For example, Aristotle, a teacher of Alexander Macedonian proposed a theory of topology. He named it “topica”. The matter concerns common places – “toposes”, “tops” what culture consists of as a matter of fact. There are patrimonial tops, there are introduced tops and there are specific tops that come from patrimonial ones. Any thing is corpuscular. By thing I imply an object. While I am not talking about an object from the point of worldview it will remain an object. There was French artist Marcel Duchan may be you have heard about him, he made a work of art from household goods – from lavatory pan. And it wasn’t an object any more, not a lavatory pan but it was a thing that overstepped the limits of its household usage.
So to create an idea first it is necessary to create these tops, to create these small points and then to make the common. And who is going to make these tops? Who is going to propose conception? Such people are not numerous. And they are not claimed. Humanitarian science is in a state of neglect. There are no people. And when people that do not have any connection to working out ideas, for example, Nikita Mikhalkov start to spout rhetoric, to tell about general things that we need to have God, need to have tsar and so on. This is not an idea it is proclamation. He could have written a leaflet without going to television and have thrown them around Moscow or around the country. We need toposes – special toposes, patrimonial toposes and introduced toposes. For example, introduced topos comes from an alien environment.
Question. You said that collision never leads to peace only to conflict. But collision has another side of a coin. Collision leads to development, to progress. But not always. Sometimes it leads to decay.
Shukurov. Thank you for the question. It is true collision leads to renewal. But renewal of what? The values. Alien can prevail and introduce new values, creative values. Like it happened during the campaign of Alexander or during the change of totalitarianism in USSR to the values of modern values of Russia. New values were strange for the Soviet period. But other cases are known in the history when reactionary values, values of wild horde cross over the agricultural or town mode of life, destroy it, destroy its culture that has been created through the centuries. It was like this at the time of Mongolian yoke in Russia and Iranian lands from Horezm to Persia.
Question. If to regard culture as a system some perceived from outside values, alien values perhaps would destroy this culture. If the number of such values increases quickly it can lead to crisis of the culture and may be to its ruin, to the ruin of the system of its own values. In connection with this what should be the time for adaptation to alien values for them to become similar to its own values?
Shukurov. D. Likhachev described the time for adaptation. New Christian values in fact acted destroying. We can judge about their introduction for the country was big by moving of the monasteries what Likhachev told about. Monasteries and monks were introducing the Christianity in Russia. Missionary work was developed, as you know, in the West. The speed of advancement of positive alien values, in my opinion, depends on the degree of readiness of the society to assimilate them. The attempts of Peter and Catherine the Great to propagate the mode of Western life could be assimilated only in St. Petersburg and further there is famous Russian lack of roads. What speed could be on gullies? The measure of speed here must be the maturity of public thought.
I believe that culture is not a system. This can explain some incorrectness of your question. Excuse me. System is always frame. It we can introduce alien in it then in fact there will be something different from frame construction. For example, if you start shaking up an egg and frying it, i.e. you will shell it first, then as a result it is not an egg any more but an omelet. Culture is not a system, it is free, like an omelet released from shell. Any culture, at least as I see, culture is much more free, such culture is always problematic, it works with many problems, it is not a problem but problems accompany its vital activity if it is a fortified culture. But it is always necessary to make a reservation. If values are worked out in this culture then penetration of not massed alien will not introduce destruction as I think. Fortified culture is obliged to cope with innovations, to make them its baggage, next problem of its internal content.
