Another thinking should contradict the primitive thinking of “agile”
Recently, the Director of “Antares” publishing house, Armen Martirosyan, told me that 40 copies of each published book in average is sold in Armenia. In Georgia, this number is 19 times more. Some people would say, “Well, it not the time for the book, people do not have money for food. Well, when the economic problems will be solved, then they will start reading a book.” I think this is an illusion. Just on the contrary, no economic problem will be solved until we begin reading 20 times more, until the reading has become respected, until we see the “light of the book” in the eyes of people who have “achieved success” and talk from high tribunes. Because these problems are due to the non-establishment of the state whereas one of the foundations of the state is having a true “elite”.
Certainly, the problem refers not only to the present day and not only to Armenia. “Even the difficult problems, which fully refer to the material and economic sector, can be solved only through ethics of convictions. The most convenient reorganization of the basis of social life may only push forward to some extent but it is impossible to solve the problems completely. The only realistic way for us is first of all to become a new man in the old environment, to be transformed to a society with new way of thinking, to mitigate the contradictions between people and inside the people so that it would be possible to once again live in the cultural environment,” – wrote German humanist Albert Schweitzer in 1960. They seems to be empty dreams of an intellectual, neither Germany nor the world has followed this prescription and apparently are not going to follow.
If the Internet had existed 56 years ago and Schweitzer would make such a note “on the Facebook”, hardly he would get so many “likes”. On the contrary, it is very likely that they would make “angry” comments underneath citing their sorrows and dissatisfactions with this or that person. But not to repeat the simple truth that it is possible to eliminate the defects only thru healing the society and it is possible to heal the society only by placing high and “elite” standards before it, to avoid saying this would also be wrong. It is wrong to be afraid of appearing ridiculous, misunderstood and overly “idealist”, it is wrong to worry about which “offended” will express his offensiveness and for what reason.
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Given all this, I think it is principal that today’s people in Armenia should continue to speak publicly about their complex and “abstract” problems of the meaning of the life in order to continue publishing Armenian and foreign authors’ serious, thinking-rising books in Armenian language (definitely in Armenian and definitely in Mesropyan letters), in order to write and perform such music, stage such plays, create such paintings. Yes, all of this is not designed for mass consumption but I’m sure that it indirectly affects the masses. They see a piece of light in the corner, which perhaps they do not understand, it is very likely that they reject and deride but they know that it is a piece of light and subconsciously reckon with its existence.
I am convinced that one of the most important preconditions for the establishment of the statehood is the establishment of the “elite”, the nobility and aristocracy. It is not mandatorily to see a positive meaning in these terms. The elite can be Nazi or Stalinist, yes, monstrous and criminal but no one, I think, will deny that these states were established and had their “elite”. It is much more desirable that the elite are hereditary, ancestral. We treat this fact with irony that every second man in Georgia considers himself a “prince” but look, when this consciousness wakes up, the state building proceeds much more successfully which is evidenced by modern Georgia. The representatives of our “elite” over 25 years know very well that they are not “elite” individually and ancestral, simply they are “quick-witted” and “agile” guys and therewith express the decades-old (not only the last 25 years’) mass thinking.
The target must be this thinking rather than its carriers. While thinking can be opposed only to thinking, such a thinking, which we conventionally consider “elite”. Hence, no need to be afraid of being an “elite”. As another humanist, Leo Tolstoy, used to say, “do what you should do and let it be what it be.”
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
