We have not been taught this. At school, at the university - everywhere where they tried to make us even a bit like intellectuals, we were told that everyone has the right to their point of view. “I do not share your beliefs, but I am ready to die for your right to express them” - we, the children of the nineties, grew up with this phrase spoken by Evelyn Hall, but attributed to Voltaire.
True, over the years, reality teaches you to understand shades. You can express your beliefs, say, in a comfortable living room at home. And you can come to a stranger, gobble up everything that lies in the refrigerator, say that the food is tasteless, the master is a fool and the mistress is a prostitute, and then, when asked if you, dear man, have gone crazy to refer to Voltaire. And you’ll be surprised now, but you don’t have to get it in the face, and then - an eternal ban on crossing the threshold of this house. For some Voltaire is still valid. The approach works.
You know another scandal from the HSE, but I’ll remind you anyway. Professor Hasan Huseynov, a specialist in classical philology, called the Russian language “cloaked” on his Facebook page. Network users were expectedly outraged, began to demand explanations, and at the same time became interested, what else Huseynov writes. And then the full gentlemanly set of the Russian liberal was revealed: the Donbass is called “dambas”, his militia is called “bandits”, and the country that pays for Mr. Huseynov’s stay at the HSE chair is, of course, “Erefiy”. The professor has much more affection for Ukraine (which he does not have “on”, but always only “in”) and the heavenly degree of Kitezh of any opposition, “the freest city” in Berlin.
And here in us, taught by intelligent discussion, the internal struggle begins. On the one hand, Voltaire and Evelyn Hall say that the professor has the right to his point of view. On the other hand, some demon tells us that Mr. Huseynov behaves exactly like in our second example about the hostess and the refrigerator, and sarcastically asks: why doesn’t the philologist who is so sick of "Erefii" teach, for example, at the Humboldt University? Why would he eat the bitter bread of the occupier and aggressor when it would be more consistent not to eat it? After all, if it is as large as supporters say about it, any university in the world will consider it an honor to invite it.
Be that as it may, the professor’s behavior provoked a lively response, and the HSE management recommended that he apologize. In response, a group of writers and people who consider themselves as such wrote an “open statement”.
“It seemed to us that the Soviet tradition of forcing the most vivid, talented, independent people to repent before the party and the people remained in the distant past. And here we are again mistaken, the signatories cry out (the late Brezhnevsky syllable of treatment is issued by the authors of the 1986 journalism department of the Moscow State University, Sergei Parkhomenko, but here I can be wrong). - Being free people in a non-free country is not easy. But you and I have no other choice. ”
And my inner Voltaire says that these people are right, that indeed Soviet tradition forced (not without the help of Pope Sergey Borisovich, a Soviet journalist) that it really is not easy for free people even now. But another voice maliciously hints that in fact now all these one hundred and more signatories have gathered in my kitchen around my refrigerator and they are not indignant because they “worry about the reputational losses of the HSE” (as in the letter), but because they are afraid that they, after Huseynov, may be refused home. No, do not put on a "philosophical ship" and drive out of the country, as was done in the early Soviet years, but simply stop feeding at the expense of the budget, do not give bonuses and grants. In other words, to give that very freedom, having acquired which a person really gets the moral right to praise or blaspheme whom he wants and how he wants.
There were few true dissidents who put their lives and health at stake in the USSR. To count, enough fingers. The remaining "dissenters" mastered the virtuoso art of figs in their pockets: from nine to six write articles in a state newspaper, teach at a state university or speak at the State Radio and Television, and after six sincerely scold everything that they themselves were a part of. The fall of the USSR and the nineties really gave these people a new degree of freedom: now they could do the same thing during working hours and for wages. And all their worries about freedom of speech, their assertion of Huseynov’s right to write nasty things about the language of the people of this country - this is just the protection of the very order of things, in which biting a nursing hand is not just not shameful, but is considered to be valor.
I repeat: we were not raised by fighters with dissent. Children of a dashing and free era, we understand what real freedom is: words, thoughts, actions. In us is still alive inner Voltaire. But when freedom begins to be abused at our expense, when that which is dear to us and beloved is insulted, and again at our expense, the immortal hero of Griboedov’s play is recalled, promising the heroes to give “sergeant-servant to Voltaire”. At school age, we sympathized with Chatsky. Over the years, we begin to understand Famusov. Ladies and gentlemen, please do not make us fall in love with Skalozub either. Behave decently - or move away from the refrigerator.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.