Utopia Balcanica

Până la urmă, creştini sau patrioţi? Tolstoi vă roagă să vă hotărâţi

icoana-maicii-domnului-cu-iisus-hristos_si-romania-mareMereu m-a amuzat felul în care, mai ales în lumea ortodoxă, credinţa în Iisus şi în doamne-doamne merge mână în mână cu a fi un mare patriot. Dacă-i vrei pe unguri “în ţara lor”, dacă plângi pentru podu’ de flori peste Prut şi te panichezi de oculta mondială care vrea să otrăvească români dându-le codex alimentarius, sigur eşti şi un bun creştin, măcar verbal, dacă nu chiar ţinând posturi şi pupând cadavre.

De la lideri de opinie obscuri precum neregretatul Justin Pârvu şi fraţii Roncea, trecând prin vedete cu personalitate multiplă ca Dan Negru şi Liviu Mihaiu, până la Vadim şi Becali şi chiar şi demagogii mainstream, toţi creştinii sunt patrioţi şi viceversa.

Dar oare a fi creştin şi a fi patriot nu se exclud reciproc? Mesajul lui Iisus n-a fost unul cosmopolit şi universalist? Pentru că dacă n-a fost, naşpa: să nu uităm pasajul din Matei când Iisus refuză s-o vindece pe gagică fiindcă nu era evreică, şi se înduplecă numai după ce tipa se umileşte nasol. Înseamnă că Iisus a fost un proto-naţionalist evreu iar noi, restul lumii, suntem în viziunea sa numa’ câini mâncând fărâmituri de la masa stăpânilor noştri semiţi. Se aude la mânăstirea Petru Vodă?

Dar să fim serioşi. Iisus e o mică parte din mesajul lui Iisus. Mesajul lui Iisus s-a pus la punct de către Petru, Pavel şi restul găştii după ce de Rusalii, adică când Iisus plecase de ceva timp, învăţătura lui s-a deschis brusc “către toate popoarele” fiindcă evreii n-o găsiseră foarte distractivă.

Şi multă lume, pe bună dreptate, e de părere că mesajul ăsta al lui Iisus, cu iubeşte-ţi toţi semenii exact la fel, indiferent ce limbă vorbesc şi ce hram poartă şi dacă-s homo sau negri sau chiar unguri, nu-i deloc compatibil cu a fi patriot, nici măcar “patriot în sensul bun”, presupunând că există şi aşa ceva.

Puţini oameni au fost mai creştini decât Tolstoi, de exemplu, şi el a scris cele de mai jos fără să fi văzut două războaie mondiale.

tolstoi-2
Un gagiu care arată aşa sigur ştie mai multe decât voi despre învăţătura lui Iisus.

Patriotism or Peace

The following letter, called forth by the dispute about Venezuela between the United States and England, first appeared in the Daily Chronicle of March 17, 1896.

[…]

Often, when one asks children which they choose of two incompatible but eagerly desired things, they will answer, “Both.” “Which do you wish – to go for a drive, or to play at home?” “To go for a drive and to play at home.”

Exactly so with the Christian nations, when life itself puts the question to them, “Which do you choose – patriotism or peace?” They answer, “Patriotism and peace.” And yet to combine patriotism and peace is just as impossible as to go for a drive and to stay at home at one and the same time.

[…]

For, if there live side by side two armed men, who have from childhood been taught that power, riches, and glory are the highest goods, and that to obtain these by arms, to the loss of one’s neighbors, is a most praiseworthy thing; and if, further, there is for these men no moral, religious, or political bond, then is it not clear that they will always seek war, that their normal relations will be warlike, and that having once caught each other by the throat, they separate again only, as the French proverb has it, pour mieux sauter, they draw back to take a better spring, to rush upon each other with more ferocity?

The egoism of the individual is terrible. But the egoists of private life are not armed; they do not count it good to prepare, or to use, arms against their competitors; their egoism is controlled by the powers of the state and of public opinion. A private person who should, arm in hand, deprive his neighbor of a cow or an acre of field would be at once seized by the police and imprisoned. Moreover, he would be condemned by public opinion, called a thief and a robber. Quite otherwise with states. All are armed. Influence over them there is none; more than those absurd attempts to catch a bird by sprinkling salt on its tail, such as are the efforts to establish international congresses, which armed states (armed, forsooth, that they may be above taking advice) will clearly never accept. And above all, the public opinion which punishes every violent act of the private individual, praises, exalts as the virtue of patriotism, every appropriation of other people’s property made with a view of increasing the power of one’s own country.

Open the newspapers on any day you like, and you will always see, every moment, some black spot, a possible cause for war. Now it is Korea; again the Pamirs, Africa, Abyssinia, Armenia, Turkey, Venezuela, or the Transvaal. The work of robbery ceases not for an instant; now here, now there, some small war is going on incessantly, like the exchange of shots in the first line; and a great real war may, must, begin at some moment.

If the American desires the greatness and prosperity of the States before all nations, and the Englishman desires the same for his nation, and the Russian, Turk, Dutchman, Abyssinian, Venezuelan, Boer, Armenian, Pole, Czech, each have a similar desire; if all are convinced that these desires ought not to be concealed and suppressed, but, on the contrary, are something to be proud of, and to be encouraged in oneself and in others; and if one’s country’s greatness and prosperity can be obtained only at the expense of another, or at times of many other countries and nations, then how can war not be?

Obviously, to avoid war, it is necessary, not to preach sermons and pray God for peace, not to adjure the English-speaking nations to live in peace together in order to domineer over other nations, not to make double and triple counter-alliances, not to intermarry princes and princesses, but to destroy the root of war. And that is, the exclusive desire for the well-being of one’s own people; it is patriotism.

Therefore, to destroy war, destroy patriotism. But to destroy patriotism, it is first necessary to produce conviction that it is an evil; and that is difficult to do. Tell people that war is an evil, and they will laugh; for who does not know it? Tell them that patriotism is an evil, and most of them will agree, but with a reservation. “Yes,” they will say, “wrong patriotism is an evil; but there is another kind, the kind we hold.” But just what this good patriotism is, no one explains. If good patriotism consists in inaggressiveness, as many say, still all patriotism, even if not aggressive, is necessarily retentive; that is, people wish to keep what they have previously conquered. The nation does not exist which was founded without conquest; and conquest can only be retained by the means which achieved it namely, violence, murder. But if patriotism be not even retentive, it is then the restoring patriotism of conquered and oppressed nations, of Armenians, Poles, Czechs, Irish, and so on. And this patriotism is about the very worst; for it is the most embittered and the most provocative of violence.

Patriotism cannot be good. Why do not people say that egoism may be good? For this might more easily be maintained as to egoism, which is a natural and inborn feeling, than as to patriotism, which is an unnatural feeling, artificially grafted on man.

It will be said, “Patriotism has welded mankind into states, and maintains the unity of states.” But men are now united in states; that work is done; why now maintain exclusive devotion to one’s own state, when this produces terrible evils for all states and nations? For this same patriotism which welded mankind into states is now destroying those same states. If there were but one patriotism say of the English only then it were possible to regard that as conciliatory, or beneficent. But when, as now, there is American patriotism, English, German, French, Russian, all opposed to one another, in this event, patriotism no longer unites, but disunites. To say that patriotism was beneficent, unifying the states, when it flourished in Greece and Rome, and that it is also similarly and equally beneficent now, after eighteen centuries of life under Christianity, is as much as to say that, because plowing was useful and good for the field before the sowing, it is equally so now, when the crop has come up.

It might, indeed, be well to let patriotism survive, in memory of the benefits it once brought, in the way we have preserved ancient monuments, like temples, tombs, and so on. But temples and tombs endure without causing any harm; while patriotism ceases not to inflict incalculable woes.

Why are Armenians and Turks now agitated, being massacred, becoming like wild beasts? Why are England and Russia, each anxious for its own share of the inheritance from Turkey, waiting upon, and not ending, these butcheries of Armenians? Why are Abyssinians and Italians being massacred? Why was a terrible war within an ace of outbreak over Venezuela; and since, another over the Transvaal? And the Chino-Japanese war, the Russo-Turkish, the Franco-German? And the bitterness of conquered nations: Armenians, Poles, Irish? And the preparations for a war of all nations? All this is the fruit of patriotism. Seas of blood have been shed over this passion; and will yet be shed for it, unless people free themselves of this obsolete relic of antiquity.

Several times now I have had occasion to write about patriotism; about its entire incompatibility, not only with the truly understood teaching of Christ, but with the very lowest demands of morality in a Christian society. Each time my arguments have been met either with silence, or with a lofty suggestion that my ideas, as expressed, are Utopian utterances of mysticism, anarchism, and cosmopolitanism. Often my ideas are summed up, and then, instead of counter-arguments, the remark only is added, that “this is nothing less than cosmopolitanism!” As if this word, cosmopolitanism, had indisputably refuted all my arguments.

Men who are serious, mature, clever, kind, and who this is the most important matter stand like a city on a mountain top; men who by their example involuntarily lead the masses; such men assume that the legitimacy and beneficence of patriotism are so far evident and certain, that it is not worth while answering the frivolous and foolish attacks on the sacred feeling. And the majority of people, misled from childhood, and infected with patriotism, accept this lofty silence as the most convincing argument; and they continue to walk in the darkness of ignorance.

Those who, from their position, can help to free the masses from their sufferings, and do not do so, commit a vast sin.

The most fearful evil in the world is hypocrisy. Not in vain did Christ, once only, show anger; and that against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

But what was the Pharisaic hypocrisy compared with the hypocrisy of our own time? In comparison with our hypocrites, those among the Pharisees were the justest of men; and their art of hypocrisy was child’s play, beside ours. It cannot be otherwise. All our lives, with their profession of Christianity, of the doctrine of humility and love, lived in an armed robber camp, cannot be other than one unbroken, frightful hypocrisy. It is very convenient to profess a doctrine which has, at one end, Christian holiness and consequent infallibility, and at the other end, the heathen sword and gallows; so that, when it is possible to deceive and impose by holiness, holiness is brought in play, while, when the deceit fails, the sword and gallows are set to work. Such a doctrine is very convenient. But a time comes when the cobweb of lies gives way, and it is no longer possible to keep up both ends; one or other has to go. This is about to happen with the doctrine of patriotism.

Whether people wish it or do not wish it, the question stands clear to mankind, How can this patriotism, whence come human sufferings incalculable, sufferings both physical and moral, be necessary, and be a virtue? This question, of compulsion, must be answered.

It is needful, either to show that patriotism is so beneficent that it redeems all those terrible sufferings which it causes to mankind; or else, to acknowledge that patriotism is an evil, which, instead of being grafted upon and suggested to people, should be struggled against with all one’s might, to escape from it.

Cest a prendre ou a laisser, as the French say. If patriotism be good, then Christianity, as giving peace, is an idle dream, and the sooner we root it out, the better. But if Christianity really gives peace, and if we really want peace, then patriotism is a survival of barbarism, and it is not only wrong to excite and develop it, as we do now, but it ought to be rooted out by every means, by preaching, persuasion, contempt, ridicule. If Christianity be truth, and we wish to live in peace, then must we more than cease to take pleasure in the power of our country; we must rejoice in the weakening of that power, and help thereto.

A Russian should rejoice if Poland, the Baltic Provinces, Finland, Armenia, should be separated, freed, from Russia; so with an Englishman in regard to Ireland, India, and other possessions; and each should help to this, because, the greater the state, the more wrong and cruel is its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded. Therefore, if we really wish to be what we profess to be, we must not only cease our present desire for the growth of our state, but we must desire its decrease, its weakening, and help this forward with all our might. And in this way we must train the rising generation; we must educate them so that, just as now a young man is ashamed to show his rude egoism by eating everything and leaving nothing for others, by pushing the weak out of the way that he may pass himself, by forcibly taking that which another needs: so he may then be equally ashamed of desiring increased power for his own country; and so that, just as it is now considered stupid, foolish, to praise oneself, it shall then be seen to be equally foolish to praise one’s own nation, as it is now done in divers of the best national histories, pictures, monuments, text-books, articles, verses, sermons, and silly national hymns. It must be understood that, as long as we praise patriotism, and cultivate it in the young, so long will there be armaments to destroy the physical and spiritual life of nations; and wars, vast, awful wars, such as we are preparing for, and into the circle of which we are drawing, debauching them in our patriotism, the new and to be dreaded combatants of the far East.

The Emperor Wilhelm, one of the most absurd personages of our time, orator, poet, musician, dramatist, and painter, chief of all, patriot, lately had made a sketch representing all the nations of Europe, standing, with drawn swords, on the sea-shore; there, under direction of the Archangel Michael, gazing at figures of Buddha and Confucius, seated in the distance. In Wilhelm’s intention, this denotes that the nations of Europe must unite, to oppose the danger moving upon them from the quarter shown. And he is perfectly right; that is, from his pagan, gross, patriotic point of view, obsolete these eighteen hundred years.

The European nations, forgetful of Christ for the sake of patriotism, have ever more and more excited and incited these peaceful peoples to patriotism; and now have roused them to such a degree that really, if only Japan and China as completely forget the teaching of Buddha and Confucius as we have forgotten the teaching of Christ, they would soon master the art of killing (soon learned, as Japan has shown); and being brave, skilful, strong, and numerous, they would inevitably do with Europe what the European countries are doing with Africa; unless Europe can oppose to them something stronger than armaments and Edisonian devices.” The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.”

To the question of a petty king, as to how many men, and in what way, he should add to his troops, in order to conquer a southern tribe which refused submission to him, Confucius replied, “Disband all your army, use what you now spend on troops for the education of your people, and for the improvement of agriculture; and the southern tribe will expel its king, and, without war, submit to thy authority.”

Thus taught Confucius, whom we are counseled to fear.

And we, having forgotten the teaching of Christ, having renounced him, wish to subdue nations by violence; thereby only to prepare for ourselves new enemies, still more powerful than our present neighbors.

A friend of mine, having seen Wilhelm’s picture, said: “The picture is excellent, only it does not at all signify what is written below. It really shows the Archangel Michael pointing out to all the governments of Europe, represented as brigands hung round with arms, that which is to destroy, annihilate them; namely, the meekness of Buddha and the reasonableness of Confucius.” He might have added, “and the humility of Lao-Tse.” And indeed we, in our hypocrisy, have so far forgotten Christ, and corroded out of our lives all that is Christian, that the teachings of Buddha and Confucius rise incomparably higher than that bestial patriotism which guides our pseudo-Christian nations.

The salvation of Europe, of the whole Christian world, comes not by being girt with swords, like brigands, as in Wilhelm’s picture; not by rushing across seas to kill our brethren: but, oppositely, by casting off that survival of barbarism, patriotism; and having renounced it, by disarming; showing the Oriental nations an example, not of savage patriotism and ferocity, but that one of brotherly life which has been taught to us by Christ.

Textul integral e disponibil pe Wikisource.

Şi mai are Tolstoi despre patrioţi un eseu foarte mişto şi chiar mai înţepător, găsibil şi el pe interneţ.

Vasile

Vasile e căpetenia internaţională a bărboşilor (şi a acestui sait). Are multe preocupări, cel puţin în comparaţie cu oamenii care n-au.

Salut, acesta e un mesaj de la fondatorul Utopia Balcanica, Vasile.

În cea mai mare parte, acest sait e opera unui singur om. Pentru a putea rămâne în continuare semi-amuzantă (că gratuită e tot timpul) şi fără bannere cu pastile de penix, Utopia Balcanica are nevoie de ajutorul tău. Îl poţi sprijini pe Vasile pe Patreon sau, dacă eşti CEO la megacorporaţie, aş fi bucuros să fii clientul sau poate chiar sponsorul meu. Un asemenea gest te-ar umple de karmă GARANTAT. Scrie-mi!

În ultimă instanţă, poţi să iei şi un tricou.

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andrei
andrei
10 years ago

N-am pretentia de a avea dreptate, dar as emite unele pareri pe subiect, poate vreun balcanic apreciaza nuantele.

Intai de toate nu sunt lamuriti termenii. Ce intelegem prin patriotism? Ce ataca stimabilul parca arata mai mult a nationalism, daca ar fi sa ne ghidam dupa simplele definitii ale termenilor in dex. Iar problema de termeni poate sa fie simpla traducere gresita intre limbi si perioade. Daca patriotism inseamna dragoste pentru tara si neam, patriotismul nu e nociv. Dragostea nu ucide, nici cred ca exclude toleranta sau dragostea pentru altii. Ce e gresit in om e egoismul, adevarat fara indoiala. Nu mai putin rau e sa folosesti notiuni nobile in scopuri marsave. ca sa nu avem nelamuriri. ma aliniez cu parerea ca nu e nimic mai urat decat ipocrizia. (urata si cand pleci la macel pentru patrie si cand te dai patriot pentru ca suna bine).

Acum nuantele:
1. Daca patriotismul e dragoste pentru neam, dar sa zicem ca nu acopera in niciun fel relatia cu indivizi de alte culori, tot e un plus peste simpla dragostea de sine, nu? Pana la urma conteaza si unde ne situam. La patriotism inca nici n-am ajuns, greu vad posibil sa il sarim…

2. De bine de rau ideea asta parca ne-ar mai tine cumva impreuna. Ziceti voi ca ar trebui sa fim toti una. Sa fim atunci. Cum?
Iar daca nu putem, macar noi astia de impartim acelasi petic de pamant cu istoria si limba lui sa fim legati.

3. Pentru multi crestinismul e parte din ‘a fi român’, iar patriotismul e o forma de a-l apara. Asta ca sa avem si un pic de concret, sa mai indulcim ideile.
O sa ziceti cu siguranta ca daca esti crestin, ai pe Dumnezeu cu tine, restul sunt forme superficiale. E corect, dar din nou doar in plan abstract. Sa fii crestin nu e o stare, sau o alegere sau o emblema. Fara sa fim siroposi, urcand la un nivel ceva mai sensibil trebuie sa recunoastem ca e ‘un drum de parcurs’. Si atunci e just sa protejezi mediul in care il parcurgi.

Si daca e sa sustinem o cauza, prefer sa lamurim termenii si sa ajutam oamenii sa faca diferenta intre ce e superficial si devine ipocrizie si ce e sincer si are sansa sa fie profund.

Cred ca e clar pentru toti ca nu patriotismul, crestinismul sau buddhismul sunt problema omenirii sau a României.

andrei
andrei
10 years ago

atunci sa-mi lamuresc pozitia:

Necazul tau e ca structura asta e imaginara?
Este mai mult sau mai putin. Vorbim aceeasi limba. E un criteriu. E insuficient? Mie mi se pare foarte bun. Care altul? Grupa sangvina? Originea limbii?
Ar trebui sa fim mai selectivi poate? Nu stiu, dupa mine ar trebui sa fim cat mai buni cu cat mai multi.
Si in definitiv tragem la aceeasi caruta. Suntem macar prin economie legati. Impartim un teritoriu. Imparti cu vecinii tai o strada, curata sau murdara depinde de voi impreuna.
Dupa tine n-ai de ce sa tii la ei, s-a nimerit sa impartiti o strada, asta e. Eu zic ca daca tot suntem toti aici, hai sa ne facem viata mai buna pe cat putem. Daca s-a format natural grupul asta de ce sa-l demontam?
Daca tii sa demantelam sistemul asta de gandire, cum sa ne grupam altfel? Pentru ca e clar ca omul trage la grup, are nevoie sa apartina. Visam la pace absoluta si infratire intre popoare? Nu stiu daca ne permitem. Vrei sa ii atomizezi, sa fie fiecare cu a mamei lui? Nu cred ca rezolva nimic. Plus de toate astea. Ca sa iubesti, trebuie intai sa fii impacat cu tine. Trebuie sa ai constiinta propriei valori, propriei persoane, demnitate umana. Astea pot veni si din istoria care te-a dat.

Inca o chestie. Puncteaza unul din cei cativa intelectuali vizibili de la noi ca dragostea se bazeaza in primul rand pe a vedea in celalalt un seaman al tau. Trebuie sa recunosti ceva din tine in el. Daca omul tau din TL se recunoaste mai curand in maramuresean decat in bulgar, ce grija avem noi? Nu cred ca e datoria noastra sa-i spunem in cine sa se recunoasca. Sau?

Revin la argument si zic ca daca patriotism (pentru ca n-am primit o alternativa) inseamna sa iubesti populatia cu care ti se pare ca semeni, atunci el e inclus in crestinism. matematic multimea totala a oamenilor include multimea conationalilor.
Iti dau dreptate ca oamenii produc disonante. Nu-si asuma pana la capat ceva, au limitele lor in intelegere, dar cred ca aici nu e in mod obligatoriu cazul pentru asta.

revenind la lecturile propuse, cu scuzele de rigoare n-am avut rabdarea sa parcurg decat jumatate din povestea cu francezii, dar am acelasi sentiment. Nu patriotismul e problema, ci faptul ca unii il folosesc pentru a manipula prostimea. Uite care e din punctul meu de vedere ecuatia: Prostimea are nevoie de apartenenta la un grup. “Aristocratia” manevreaza prostimea dupa propriile interese, folosindu-se de asta. Nu o sa separi nici oamenii de grup, nici pe puternici de lacomie. Sigur nu daramand un concept. Maine o sa se faca razboi in numele stiintei, in numele pacii. Nu conteaza ce pui la mijloc, realitatea va fi aceeasi.

Problema reala e cum sa faci prostimea sa discearna. Sa inteleaga ce e bine si ce e rau. Ce e patriotism si ce e corupt.
Si daca nu poti asta, ce oferi la schimb pentru dogma crestina?

Cu asta voi considera ca mi-am lamurit pozitia. Ma tem ca o continuare a discutiei aici poate devia sau lua forma de polemica forumista si nu sunt interesat. Daca te pasioneaza discutia, te rog sa-mi scrii pe mail.

andrei
andrei
10 years ago

Salut si eu. Andrei unul sau altul. anonim de pe internet, sau anonim pe internet, putin importa persoana, in discutie sunt idei…

Andrei P.
Andrei P.
10 years ago

Băi, Vasile, mi-ai adus aminte de-o fază dintr-un SF. Nu e Tolstoi, da’ sună mişto: “The universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice. The language is not narn or human or centauri or gaim or minbari. It speaks in the language of hope.”
“It speaks in the language of trust. It speaks in the language of strength and the language of compassion. It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul. But always it is the same voice. It is the voice of our ancestors speaking through us and the voice of our inheritors waiting to be born. The small, still voice that says: ‘We are one. No matter the blood, no matter the skin, no matter the world, no matter the star. .. We are one. No matter the pain, no matter the darkness, no matter the loss, no matter the fear. .. We are one.’ Here, gathered together in common cause, we begin to realize this singular truth and this singular rule that we must be kind to one another. Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us and each voice lost diminishes us. We are the voice of the universe, the soul of creation, the fire that will light our way to a better future. We are one.”
“We are one.”

animal00
animal00
10 years ago

de fapt, petru ii ala cu deschiderea. Restu i-au zis ca muie ba, tu n-ai fost cu El cand futeam si pescuiam.

in rest, patriotismu ii ca stelismu numa ca are mai multi oameni.

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