Intellectual situation in Belarus: What form has it taken and what to do

To describe the intellectual situation in Belarus, to realize self-determination – that is why the conference “Intellectual situation in Belarus: circumstances and self-identity of thinking” worked

At the plenary session of the conference organized by the Flying University famous Belarusan philosophers and thinkers spoke their minds.

Valiantsin Akudovich: I hope for the Flying University

Telling about the origin of the modern Belarusan thinking discourse, the philosopher Valiantsin Akudovich recalled that to create a discourse is to create a place where other authors will come in order to realize their creative aspirations, their intellectual initiatives.

Mr. Akudovich started from the Soviet times and noted that during the 70 years of communist reign it was prohibited for the Belarusans to think: “Perhaps, it is impossible to forbid thinking on your own to one single person, but it is possible with the society”. At last, in late 80s – the beginning of 90s the gateway of possibilities got open and all those committed to Belarus as such rushed to fulfill their intellectual initiatives.

The place for the formation and deployment of Belarusan philosophy should have become a magazine (as Akudovich referred to it aphoristically, “culture without philosophy is like a wedding night without a bride”). But at that time instead of a magazine literature and philosophical gathering “ZNO” as well as some others were formed.

The principal goal in the 90s was to fill the place in the cultural discourse which was vacant of thinking, filling Belarusan dictionary with appropriate terminology base.

The need in places where intellectual initiatives can group has been growing. The “Fragments” magazine was created. Active translation work has started. More than 200 figures of foreign thinkers were introduced in Belarusan philosophical discourse through texts. Akudovich marks the heuristic nature as well as the esthetics (“One can fall in love with the beautiful thought as with a beautiful woman, and even more”). The first decade (90s – 2000s) summed up the publication of the Anthology of Belarusan thinking.

Among the events of the next decade one can mark the seminar “Belarusan thought: genealogy, context, perspectives”, initiated by Uladzimir Abushenka and Igar Babkou. Belarusan Collegium, EHU, Humanitarian Techniques Agency and others are working. The most prominent editions are the books and Aliaksandr Grytsanau’s encyclopedia, “Topas”, “Arche”, “Belarusan political review”, “PaRTyzan” (Partisan) and others.

Valiantsin Akudovich called these days the days of absent goals and hazy discourse. Despite the crisis of philosophy as institution, he expressed hope for the Flying University, as it is there where Akudovich feels live physicality.

Tatsiana Shčytcova: Transformation of philosophy into Belarusan social and cultural area should take place

EHU philosophy professor Tatsiana Shčytcova concentrated on the peculiarities and problems of the intellectual situation. According to her, the peculiarity of the Belarusan situation lies in overlapping of the three different crisis discourses – global, regional and local.

On global level one can observe the crisis of humanities in the world, the prevalence of the utilitarian values, while on regional –crisis of philosophy discredited by the ideological past; crisis, driven by destruction of the Soviet system. It was not straight away that Belarusans began to realize that philosophy can embody love to wisdom, not to the party.

Transformation of philosophy into modern Belarusan social and cultural area on new terms should take place, Tatsiana Shčytcova asserts.

The overlapping of the three crisis contexts is determined by the fact that philosophy in Belarus is “persistently unconvincing”. Tatsiana Shčytcova marked such negative features as the philosophers’ coming down to study of culture, craze for postmodernist authors instead of critical attitude, conversion to supra-academic forms of thinking. The fact that due to mere economic reasons the number of hours of philosophy teaching in EHU and BSU is decreasing indicates the gradual degradation of philosophy: the demand for the philosophy among university applicants is in decline.

EHU philosophy professor has also indicated the problem of intellectual area politicization and set the task of conceptualization of Belarus, calling it the Belarusan thinking project: “The conceptualization of Belarus should be implemented through the process of thinking itself, which is relevant to the peculiarities of Belarusan nation, its self-identity”.

Mrs. Shčytcova recalled the main roles of philosophy according to J. Habermas: as a place keeper, philosophy contributes to the interdisciplinary alliances, and as interpreter it creates connection, link, which joins disintegrated cognitive, esthetic and moral contexts together.

Uladzimir Abushenka: The principal problem is motivation

In the European context intellectual situation is to some extent determined by science. Modern science (it concerns the humanities to a lesser degree) is a huge production, great resources and the network of institutions. Here Belarus as a small country has the corresponding possibilities, and the level of science production development is low.

But this production starts to prevail. The very purpose of science creation – research and search – is pushed to the sideline. The structure starts producing itself only for itself.

 The main problem is with motivation, with the absence of human resources’ potential, assumes the deputy director of the Sociological Institute Uladzimir Abushenka. Among other problems he mentioned appliance, i.e. the question of fundamental and applied aspects in science.

The process of “commercialization” of science occurs – qualified professional personnel come down to the market, marketing and other spheres which bring income first but don’t make intellectual products. The elective character of science allows it to fit in the external demand, means that the science production will be done, spun and adopted if there is demand on it. The problem of “fragmentation” is similar to this one: specialists leave for more narrow spheres: saying something like “I’m working, and do not disturb me with your talks about the intellectual situation in Belarus”. The retirement of professors from the academic field represents threat to the existing institutions.

Is there any sense in supporting those institutions that have been formed? If we are dissatisfied the existing situation, what can come to change it then? Uladzimir Abushenka didn’t give answers to these questions. But he is sure about the necessity of other places where one can think about the intellectual situation.

Uladzimir Matskevich: A philosopher should be free and well provided for

After choosing Belarus as a local place to implement thinking, philosopher and methodologist, the creator of the Flying University Uladzimir Matskevich realizes the thesis “To think globally and to act locally” (“To think Belarus”).

A philosopher should be well provided for, Uladzimir Matskevich is sure. Well-being and wealth doesn’t imply a lot of money, but it implies freedom. Only then the philosopher can be free and independent from the customer. “If you do not order your work yourself, then you do a service function, - said the methodologist. – The one who orders controls your thinking, not you”.

And in case you run out of money, Uladzimir Matskevich has agreed “to act like Skavarada”, who walked round Ukraine and philosophized. Nevertheless, this is a borderline case. According to Matskevich, both a single philosopher and groups of people should be free so that to have possibility to join global thinking and still act locally. And what do the philosophers do? They write, speak, for instance, on the university basis.

According to the words of Uladzimir Matskevich, a philosopher is a big entrepreneur who creates new demand for customers. Real philosopher should create people’s thirst for values and ideas.

- I define intellectual situation in Belarus as my own, - emphasized Matskevich. – How is it – to be a Belarusan in the situation of lack of thinking in order to construct all the necessary facilities for Belarus? Belarus should be played in. It means to think about Belarus as about something that should be, not something that exists now. Belarus should be invented so that it can be fulfilled.