How the bright ideas become evil
In search of the roots of European values, we usually mention the democracy model elaborated in ancient Greece, the principles of law established in ancient Rome, as well as Christianity. Even the most extremist pro-Russian and Russian propagandists who call Europe a gay-rope (allegedly, a den for gays), and the liberals – liberasts (with the same hinting), even though they originate from these roots. Because these values in itself are not something sweet and tasty, it is the base of the world-outlook, whose superstructure can be both beautiful and ugly. Similarly, the Islam follower can be a good and virtuous man, and can become a fighter for the “Islamic state”. There are terrorists even among the Buddhist.
Any value can be distorted and brought to an absolute absurdity, as, for example, the idea of the communism, generally humane, had turned into a comedy in our life. Christianity is not an exception in this respect. Moreover, the thoughts can be distorted just, it can be said, at the next moment of pronouncing them.
The Apostol Paul, for example, considers his duty to convert pagans to Christians, therefore, he was preaching in various cities, including the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor. These sermons in the future gave birth to his “Paper to Ephesians,” which he wrote in Caesarea or Rom, 63 AD. He specifically wrote, “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take our stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the power of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm”(Ephesians, 6.11,12). Those who are slightly familiar with the Gospel, including the Papers of Paul the Apostle, understand what it is about, struggle against evil rather than against people who are inflamed with that evil.
Read also
However, converted inhabitants of Ephesus, in response to this sermon, began to burn their books written before that, which, as it turns out, were preaching “wrong” things. In other words, as said in modern language, in order for the “wrong” files do not mislead people, they were deleted (were destroyed). While the spirit of Christian values, in my opinion, would correspond leaving it to the discretion of people to understand whether these books are harmful or not. Otherwise, artificially “destroyed” ideas have the feature to “spring up” again from an unexpected place and become more dangerous. Because the target should be not the people or their books, but the evil that they may beget.
As a continuation of this tradition, in 680 AD, the 6th Ecumenical Council made a decision to burn the books that in a “wrong way” tell about the Christian martyrs. Very similar to the current Russian government’s decision: to ban the books that “distort the history”, in particular, the Great Patriotic War, with which the Special Committee is involved.
The tradition of burning the books, of course, is not merely “European”. Back in BC 3rd century, such order was issued by emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, who also issued an order to bury the authors of “wrong texts” alive. It was natural that eventually “national movement” of ignorant masses overthrew these emperors. In the 18th century, the Orthodox Jews burned their countryman philosopher Moses Mendelssohn’s (the famous composer’s grandfather) books. But we are more interested in the “European” (actually, anti-European, anti-Christian) tradition of destroying “harmful files”. Pertaining to this, in the 15th century, dictator Savonarola in Florence was remarkable, who was sending his young “activists” to the houses of nobleman. They were confiscating musical instruments and secular books, including Boccaccio’s “Decameron” and were burning all of that. Well, the German Nazis’s bonfires in this sense have become a classic example.
These phenomena, I repeat, happened during the “European culture”, contradicting its best manifestations. It happens so when people take an idea and make it an absolute and extreme by creating, in the end, the exact opposite of this idea. Thus, the fight against the evil becomes an evil.
… At the end of the 20th century, the Armenian intellectuals burnt Vardges Petrosyan’s book entitled “Fire Shirt” because it said about establishing normal relations with Turkey.
Aram ARAHAMYAN
