It is three years since our Gazette was launched, and practically each issue has set forth these or those aspects of the new vision of the socio-political idea about the attainment of fair life for the human race. We hope that our readers have taken interest in the question of finding a scientific solution to the present-day contradiction between the interests of those in power, on the one hand, and those of an ordinary man living in the society, on the other. We think this contradiction stems from the fact that those in power are usually the individuals whose level of thinking falls short of their right to hold a high post.

From this issue onward, we intend to pay more attention to giving practical recommendations concerning some steps in the field of ideology and methodology that the public (scientists in the first place) should take in order to rectify the present situation in this extremely important matter of social existence.

Just as the December issue had turned out, I received a call from a good friend of mine – a writer – with whom I often discuss every new issue of the Gazette. I always impatiently look forward to hearing his opinion. This time my interest was running high because the year’s last issue was important as it was summing up our dialogue with readers on the question of the organisation of the social form of life. Illustrated by diagrams, the rationale in the article seemed to provide convincing grounds for the objectivity of the idea of scientific ethics capable of actualising humanity in a human being. However, my good friend, the writer, saw the situation in a surprisingly different light. “The illustrations you have are really convincing as they show that the society should reconsider the methods of forming government bodies”, he said and continued, “But you are doing a favour to those who seek totalitarian power: now they will know what to do – identify and destroy all those who live by the standards of morality so that they would not meddle about and interfere with the way the select few want to live”. It is true: the reality is such that those vested with power are not at all interested in losing that power. Totalitarian regimes are game for anything in order to keep their privileged position and have always been wary of morally and intellectually developed people. This wariness has often led to repressions from which the intelligentsia was usually first to suffer. Totalitarianism, in fact, always declares war on its people.

If this war is waged for a long time, the consequences turn out to be biological: it is the genetic pool of society that comes to be destroyed. Russia is a good example. Life for the intellectuals of high moral standards was unbearable as far back as even the time of tsars. That is to say that a fairly vigorous emigration started over one hundred years ago. The scope of this process became monstrous after the Bolsheviks had come to power; furthermore those who did not emigrate were destroyed “on the spot”. World

War II capped the catastrophe: so those who adhere to ethical standards perish first.

The consequences of this so called “effective management”, as some allow themselves to maintain, will yet have a lasting effect upon the life of our society for a long time.

It is no fresh news that the states, in which masses are nothing but a social class of slaves who ensure those states’ welfare, get ready for war and are the first to show aggressiveness. It is the weakness of the people’s will allowing for such a state of life for most people that comes back in the form of the capability of the select few in power to impose the legislature expedient for them and declare it to be the people’s will. In the final analysis, such “practice” drains strength from the state and results in its social weakness. Notwithstanding their relatively high cultural level of science and technology, totalitarian societies, in terms of their social development, are still a short way off the Middle Ages.

But even in democratic states with free elections, politicians striving for power manage to disorient their population. According to V.Shenderovich’s mot juste, “it’s mostly the Sharikovs rather than the Preobrazhenskys who are elected”.

THE FATE OF POWER

As a philosophical category reflecting the content of human relations, power has been of interest to many researchers. However, we believe that no consistent (system-based) conception of this prime social institution has been developed so far.

Meanwhile, RPhG has insisted on a number of occasions that the absence of the scientific definition of power is the key reason for the bad run of things in our attempts to organise our life in a just and fair way. The absence of a system-based approach towards forming up (manning) government institutions gives rise to rather higgledy-piggledy processes in this field that range from violence and revolutions to demagogy and clownery in the course of democratic elections. The forming and reshuffling of the “elites” in power is just as inconsistent. The search for the state’s tool or body that could “... stand guard against the abuse of power” is just as discursive. This wish to find that tool was first expressed long ago by Montesquieu in the distant 18th century. Many countries today have accepted his ideas about the separation of powers, they can say they have certain progress in the organisation of social relations, but the situation is far from being ideal.

We should remember at this point that the legal framework and legal regulation of the change of power is, in actual fact, no longer a reflection of the need to improve the quality of government, but the formal implementation of liberal-democratic norms. The quality of power is understood as the level of thinking of the candidates for the posts in the government. However this indicator crucial for providing a decent life for people has been hushed up, or at least in no way has it ever been flaunted. The question of the organisation of just and fair life for the human race cannot be totally given to the state. Social governance, as a mechanism indispensable for social existence, should be formed on a scientific basis. The surrogate nature of today’s procedures for forming the bodies of state power shows first and foremost in that it is impossible to produce an optimal model of statehood that could serve a basis for the practical building of governance systems in each and every society. This also provides that the bodies of international governance, such as the UN, NATO, WTB and so on, could be formed with due respect to national specificity of states but on the basis of the general principle of power organisation.

The future of the question of power is the future of the entire human race. Today there is an opportunity of the global improvement of life of the human community and the attainment of the guaranteed provision of creature comforts for our descendants. We need just to take it.

MORAL RIGHT: THE LAW OF HUMANENESS

Human thinking is man’s essence and the peculiarity of his organism giving him a better chance to succeed under the conditions of his habitat. This is how biologists construe the features of living organisms adding with regret that mankind has not yet come to understand it. And it is true that the biology approach to the social form of man’s life could, to a large measure, help us to understand the principles of forming a system of control over social processes. There is no doubt whatsoever that this system should consist of the people of good moral principles, i.e. those with a high level of thinking.

Recommending the principles for the organisation of a governance system based on the new scientific concept of practical ethics, we are aware of the complexity of this kind of work. Even if we succeed in raising the question of compliance of the level of thinking of government officials with their social status, they will quickly prove that it is the powers that be that are the cleverest in the country: now many of them have already provided themselves with all sorts of degrees and titles. It is not always easy to know “wheat from chaff”, but the concept of wisdom, as the product of man’s thinking evolving from generation to generation, should be taken into account if we are to attempt to organise the human society governance system: this is a real way to end the deadlock in that matter.

Wisdom (conscience, ethics, humaneness) as part of the regulation of social processes is nothing but ethical and civilised life based on humanism in the relations among all people. By accepting wisdom as the highest-developed form of human intellect and emotions as the social code of just and fair life, we are realising the principle of sociogenesis. This is the very natural law of the organisation of human communities that the human race lacks but badly needs in order to depart from internal wars, terrorism and revolutions forever and ever. The endless chain of those who like to rule, from kings, tsars, khans, general secretaries and presidents, on the one hand, to road traffic policemen, on the other, should finally be cut short. As history shows, all those in power have something in common and that something is the absence of wisdom. See for yourself, we know practically nothing about leaders who made themselves famous through the humane treatment of their people, but we do know those who achieved distinction and fame through victories and punishments, i.e. murders, in essence. So the good question is: why? Why are ‘thrones’ held by those with low thinking capacity and how should we call them then with all that in mind?

This is a really important question. If we were to assume that wise men are people with highly developed thinking ability, it would be logical to consider someone with an insufficient thinking ability a handicapped person. But this is absolutely wrong. The matter is that man has acquired his thinking ability through this or that combination of genes, and they are different in each one of us. Any person can approve oneself in a certain field, but those who are not capable of ruling in a fair way should not seek power. Wise men are few, but this is so not just because of the laws of statistical genetics, this is so because of social causes: it is humanists who perish first in wars and other collisions, therefore they become fewer, and hence the generation chain is broken. Besides, their humaneness “stands in the way” of arrogance and the ability to lick the dust as necessary and consolidate fast for gaining profit. Once vested with power, an individual acquires a guarantee of handsome welfare and does everything possible not to let it go. The methods to stay in power are many and they are well known to such people and they use them skilfully. Apart from that, their social experience prompts them to choose such a strategy because when it comes to survival, one must rely, first and foremost, on one’s own self. This is exactly the manifestation of the quantitative superiority of people with underdeveloped humaneness. However, the social form of human life constantly requires consolidation and mutual assistance, which can only be realised through the consistent principles of just and fair governance based on wisdom understood as the biologically given essence of man.

These conclusions are confirmed by the development of liberal-democratic ideas; they are not perfect yet, but their key ethical features such as humaneness and fairness so badly needed for human existence are inherent in them. However, it will be difficult for the human race to implement the forms of just and fair life across the world in which bureaucrats everywhere enjoy the monopoly of the principle of self-guaranteed welfare.

This global objective cannot be achieved without the organised and purposeful work of that part of mankind that is becoming increasingly aware that the well-established practice of forming the organs of power has to be changed. Today we are armed with knowledge which can be used in a peaceful way to organise serious global opposition to the totalitarian world practice of forming the government which pays no heed to the ethical component of thinking of functionaries clothed with authority.

The idea of the globalisation of ethics – HUMANISM AS THE CRITERION OF PANHUMAN TRUTH – should serve a basis for organising such opposition. Whereas scientific ethics, i.e. the present-day philosophical understanding of dignified social being or existence, as a product of man’s ethical thinking, should serve the principle upon which the root of the whole matter rests. Hence, the implementation of the right of ethics (provided or given by ethics) understood as the law of humaneness should become a more general purpose of this movement, i.e. the panhuman movement of humanism.

The practical implementation of the idea of the globalisation of ethics will depend upon the work of all members of the society. In this work, one should widely use the existing legal mechanisms, i.e. elections in the first place. Armed with the scientifically based understanding of ethics, our social organisations will be able to nominate candidates who would comply with the aforesaid ideas without yielding to demagogical rattling which is usual to any election campaign. At first, this can be implemented in well developed democracies, but one can also hope that gradually the ideas of global ethics will eventually win throughout the world. The work of a society aimed to implement these ideas will be nothing but that society’s indicator of its civic consciousness. The codification of the principles of ethics and humanism in the form of law will mark the final stage of the ethical globalisation.

Arnold KAZMIN,

Presidium Member,

The Russian Philosophical Society

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