Material Progress and the New Morality: Russia as Probing Ground

John Lachs's essay is a wonderful expression of the mind and soul of an outstanding philosopher and American. My long-term friendship with John Lachs is the best evidence, in my own eyes, that his every moral judgment is proved with his practical deeds and public positions. His every sentence is full of hidden or even open passion that goes beyond the rationalized boundaries of formal philosophy. This is a rare and precious case in our life today and thus it should be emphasized.

In return, I would like to repay John Lachs with the same passion. After reading and rereading his essay I concluded that my reply should also go beyond a formal disciplinary, academic framework. My response to his essay is also rooted in passion, but the source of my inspiration is slightly different. John Lachs questions the problem of moral progress and the possibility of optimism from, and for, almost a pure American perspective--i.e., a rather balanced society in the state of seemingly perpetual economic growth. I agree that such a state may raise issues concerning moral improvement and the relation of moral improvement to material growth and progress. Does moral progress parallel economic growth? Alternatively, is there perhaps a reverse relation? In a different place, from a different perspective, is there a different relation?

I. A Russian Perspective:
The Anomic State of Public Consciousness

All in all, Russian society today is characterized by what philosophy and social science call "anomie." Anomic societies emerged in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s, although the theory of anomie (set forth by social theorists such as Durkheim, Merton, and Parsons) did not enjoy any success in this region and was known only to a narrow circle of experts on Western social theory and criminology. It is true that the realities of the authoritarian social order, with its super-stable societal conditions and total lack of individualism, either "old" or "new," did not leave an unfilled vacuum in social reactions and thus did not give enough material for using the theories of anomie as a theoretical and applied tool of research. However, anomie, as a social phenomenon, characterized by the dispersion of social and political values, existed in Russia in the very depth of its society. Still, the deterioration and further collapse of the Soviet society has changed the whole picture. From a state of total "fill up" of social space, Russian society has made a rapid transition to the state of vacuum of moral values.

The diffusion of many basic as well as derivative value orientations in Russian society, as well as the vagueness of public concepts about what is permitted and what is not, has had an unprecedented effect: practically speaking, solidarity and motivation are dramatically lacking. No one wants a union of almost any kind with anyone else. Most interactions are limited to short-term, direct, and narrowly oriented contacts very often associated with either hidden or even open instrumental orientation. Societal hopes, visions, and programs for the future no longer exist as such. At the macro level of the society, one may observe in Russia a mixture of social/cultural goals and issues--should Russia be incorporated into the global community, or should the empire be preserved, or should an Orthodox theocratic state be constructed, or even should the monarchy be restored? Thus, at the macro level there is no evident conceptualization of national goals and identity; there is only "macro-anomie." The success-oriented values, actively propagated by advocates of the pro-Western modernization of Russia, now confront the opposite tendency, a striving for the preservation of the traditional moral values of the Orthodox sacrifice, nonmaterialistic orientation in daily life, suffering for lofty providential goals. It is noteworthy that both "liberal" pro-Westerners and nationalistic anti-Westerners consider violent means of social change as being quite appropriate...