Can Jürgen Habermas’s prescriptions be applied to this question?
In 2008–10, supporters of the first president were called “Levoni’s Witnesses” by their opponents. Today, Pashinyan’s fans are sometimes called “Nikol’s Witnesses.” There are other similar examples. The implication is obvious: they are sectarian — like the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Sometimes the word “sectarian” functions merely as a label. That also happens in religious life when we label Protestants or Catholics as “sectarians,” and they do the same to us. But in all cases the phenomenon exists, and it is important to understand its roots. (I recently took part in a discussion devoted to exactly that.)
One root lies in a mistaken understanding of truth — or, if you prefer, in a lack of scepticism. I mean the kind of scepticism Goethe called “positive, benevolent.” That is, you do not claim that everything is false or that nothing can be asserted with one hundred percent certainty. Instead, you accept that progress is not the elimination of all errors and illusions, but the replacement of one inadequate truth with another, less inadequate truth. Even if it remains inadequate, it does not cease to be truth.
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From this follows an unambiguous conclusion: no one has the right to “monopolize” truth. That is how the “bad cultivators” in the parable behaved: cutting themselves off from reality, they imagined that the vineyard they were hired to tend actually belonged to them. That parable, I think, teaches us to exercise sufficient humility — to understand that we cannot judge people and events from the standpoint of some supposedly absolute truth we possess. Humility in this case means being grounded (the Latin root humus means soil).
When people are not grounded but float in their egoistic fantasies, they seek only like-minded people, isolating themselves from the rest of humanity, refusing to accept others, even hating them. An exclusive, not inclusive, system takes hold.
Members of a sect typically make no effort to approach truth. They “outsource” all truth-related functions to a charismatic leader, a vozhd or a führer. For the sake of that leader, sect members are ready for great sacrifices: “My son died in the war, but for you, my Führer, I will sacrifice three more.”
The solution, naturally, is critical thinking, literacy, and dialogue. The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas recommends creating forums where people can persuade one another without coercion and without violence. It is worth noting that insults and abuse are themselves a form of violence.
But let us agree that what I have proposed is a rather theoretical solution. Imagine a representative of a totalitarian sect who is ready to self-immolate at the command of the leader. Or, in the “best” case, someone slipping into ecstasy or trance when they hear their idol’s voice. Truthfully, I do not know on what plane any genuine dialogue is possible with a person in a trance.
Or how can I possibly convince someone who writes a comment like this: “Иск жоховурто шат тхур е вор дзез нман тахвац шнер гоютюн унен”?
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
