The driving force and source of development of the person and his communities
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This cycle, calling it ethnogenesis, that is, the emergence, development and extinction of individual unified communities, tried to analyze and explain L. N. Gumilev with the help of introducing a new concept "passionarity".
Official science in the person of its representatives such as Yanov A. L, Klein L. S and many others rejected the passionary theory of the ethnogenesis of Gumilev because of its inconsistency with recognized criteria of scientific research, such as, for example, objectivity and verifiability.
On the one hand, it's hard not to agree with this, but on the other hand, not everything that does not meet the criteria of scientific research is pure fantasy, because the field of science is rather limited, and beyond it we may find a lot of interesting and unquestionable in the form of concrete facts and phenomena, which science cannot explain.
It is from this ultraboundary field of cognition that we criticize the concept of L. N. Gumilev, but not only, and we note both its negative and positive features, and try to give a slightly different explanation of the life cycle of local human communities in its basis, which Gumilev gives the name ethnoses, while official science as nations or peoples.
Each local community of people is a temporary, changing integrity, different from neighboring or more distant communities, because people in them are differently connected, that is, their connections, in particular, the organizational hierarchy, interests, values, customs, history of development, the main language communication, the territory of accommodation, religious views necessarily do not converge at least on several specified parameters.
Exact definition to these communities (ethnoses, peoples, nations), without having noted their essence with evidence, it is impossible to give – therefore it at anybody did not turn out – until as there will be clear a basis of development of these human formations, and this basis in any materialistic or idealistic theories is not looked through.
What is offered in this regard by L. N. Gumilev?
His concept, to be brief, boils down to the following.
1. Gumilev put forward the following mechanism of emergence, existence and disappearance of holistic communities, calling them ethnoses: "… the relative duration of different phases of ethnogenesis can be very different, the phase of historical formation is short; the process is very intensive. The phase of historical existence at most of ethnoses is longer previous because in this period forms a complex uniqueness of the ethnos, comes to an end its expansion and conditions for formation of superethnic cultural formations are created. The phase of historical decline can vary especially strongly on the duration, so how it depends as from intensity of internal processes of decomposition of ethnos, and from its historical destiny determined by extent of development of the material basis which is saved up for the previous period, physiographic conditions of an area, and a condition of adjacent ethnoses. At last, the phase of historical relicts already entirely depends on historical and geographical features of this territory [14, p. 55].
2. Dynamics of ethnogenesis is explained by Gumilev as the presence in each person of the fluctuations of some energy which undertakes from the biosphere of Earth and transformed by the person into work. Gumilev called this ability the passionarity: "An indispensable condition of emergence and the course of process of ethnogenesis up to its attenuation, after which the ethnos turns into a relict, is its passionarity, i.e. ability to purposeful overtension. We can explain it so far, having only accepted a hypothesis, i. e. the judgment which is generalizing noted facts, but not excluding a possibility of emergence of other, more graceful explanations: the passionarity is an organic ability of an organism to absorb energy of the external environment and to give it in the form of labour. In humans, this ability fluctuates so strongly that sometimes its impulses break the instinct of self-preservation, both individual and species, as a result of which some people, in our terminology – passionaries, commit and cannot fail to do the acts that lead to a change in their environment. This change concerns equally the environment and the relations in human communities, that is ethnoses. Therefore, the passionarity has the energetical nature, refracting through the mental features stimulating hyperactivity of carriers of this sign creating and destroying landscapes, peoples and cultures" [15, p. 50].
3. The push to increase the passionarity Gumilev sees in the external factor (bursts of cosmic radiation). The fact that the pushes have cosmic origin apparently results from the fact that Gumilev could not explain by earthly reasons the linear form and huge extent on the surface of the Earth of these pushes [16]. "One and the same push can create several foci of increased passionarity (and as a consequence – several super-ethnoses). So, the push VI touched Arabia, the valley of the Indus, Southern Tibet, North China and Middle Japan. "The same push can create several centers of the increased passionarity (and as a result – several superethnoses). So, push VI reserve Arabia, valley of Indus, Southern Tibet, Northern China and Central Japan. And in all these countries arose ethnoses-peers, but each of them had original stereotypes and cultures" [17, p. 14-17].
The logic of development of a civilization, according to Gumilev, consists in series of ethnoses, i.e. in replacement of the perished ethnoses by emerging ones, and the term of life of each ethnos is 1200-1500 years old.
Presented by Gumilev mechanism of emergence, existence and disappearance of holistic communities (ethnoses) – ethnogenesis, as it is evident at once, has in itself no strong basis, it is rather a set of the facts fastened with quite superficial considerations of the author.
But at first we will look at critical remarks of colleagues-scientists to address Gumilev's concept which concern a basis of ethnos, life cycle of ethnos, influence on this cycle of external factors, structure of life cycle of ethnos.
L.S. Klein points out that the basis of the ethnos, according to Gumilev, constituting the "geobiochemical energy of living substance" cannot be correlated with any kind of energy known to natural science [18, p. 228-246].
Shnirelman V. A. and Panarin S. A. state the absence of transparent, distinct and consistent definition of ethnos [19, p. 5-37].
M.I. Artamonov believes that Gumilev underestimates a role of social, cultural, religious and other non-biological factors in ethnogenesis, exaggerating a natural factor and equating ethnos and population [20, p. 75-77].
Yu.K. Efremov notes numerous mistakes of Gumilev at his definition of communication of ethnogenesis with landscapes [21, p. 77-80].
L.S. Klein sees no reason for subdivision the life cycle of the ethnos into four phases and for accommodate of this cycle into the interval of 1200-1500 years [18, p. 237-238].
A.L. Yanov believes that Gumilev equates events of ethnic and political history [22, p. 110-111].
L.S. Klein believes that the "passionaries" of Gumilev are identical to a sort of mutants who have acquired an increased ability to absorb the energy of the biosphere, and, accordingly, to stimulate the development of the ethnos [18, p. 238]. From the point of view of psychology, "passionaries" in Gumilev's representation are people who have a psychotype with a pronounced manic tonus.