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 Classification:   UNCLASSIFIED       Status:        [STAT]
 Document Date:    01 Jan 91          Category:      [CAT]
 Report Type:      JPRS Report        Report Date:
 Report Number:    JPRS-USS-91-006    UDC Number:
 Author(s):  V.I. Shamshurin]
 Headline:   Medicine and Biology as Sociohumanitarian Sciences
 Source Line:  915DO010E Moscow SOTSIOLOGICHESKIYE ISSLEDOVANIYA in
 Russian No 1, Jan 91 (signed to press 03 Dec 90) pp
 62-68
 Subslug:  [Editorial roundtable written up by V.I. Shamshurin]
 FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE:
 1.  [Editorial roundtable written up by V.I. Shamshurin]
 2.  [Text] At present, in scientific and current affairs literature a
 great deal of attention is being paid to man.  However, very
 frequently this is done in a strictly declarative manner, that is, we
 must, supposedly, pay more attention to man, carry out concrete
 research, for example, in sociology and so forth. But just what is
 man?  Who and what are studied in investigating man? His thoughts,
 aspirations, hopes, desires, beliefs; ore x~erna #orms--conduct,  -
 deeds, way of life, morals, social, legal, moral and other standards
 and views? Or possibly, the methods by which man organizes his own
 life in a society of others such as him? Or do they search for
 substantiation for purposefully compiled social schemes, utopias,
 questionnaires, polls and so forth? The scientist, the sociologist,
 must be clearly aware, for example, of with what he precisely is
 concerned in conducting a poll, questionnaire and here clearly define
 for himself the cardinal philosophical viewpoint which will determine
 the various results of the research: Is man totally and completely
 the product of external circumstances (natural, social), that is, a
 mechanism, or as a living organism does he possess free will and an
 independent spirit? For the sociologist these are crucial questions.
 But what do the representatives of other sciences, for example of
 biology, physiology or for instance medicine, think about this
 matter? Seemingly, they are totally and completely involved with the
 corporeal aspect of human life, with man's physical health and
 external conduct. But there is also the interior world of man and it
 is indispensable for the physician and biologist to consider this.
 Participating in the discussion of this and other questions were:
 R.A.  Chizhenkova, candidate of biological sciences and senior  .
 science associate at the Biophysics Institute of the USSR Academy of
 Sciences; A.S. Ivanov, candidate of medical sciences and senior
 science associate at the Surgery Center of the USSR Academy of
 325
 Approved for Release
 91010
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 Medical Sciences; I.I.  Sventitskiy, candidate of technical sciences
 and senior science associate at the Institute of Soil Science and
 Photosynthesis of the USSR Academy of Sciences; V.V.  Semenov,
 candidate of philosophical sciences and physician; A.I.  Panchenko,
 doctor of philosophical sciences and head of the department of
 philosophical sciences of the INION [Institute of Scientific
 Information on Social Sciences) of the USSR Academy of Sciences; V.I.
 Shamshurin, candidate of philosophical sciences and editor of the
 journal SOTSIOLOGICHESKIYE ISSLEDOVANIYA (chairing the session).
 3.  V.I. Shamshurin: I would like to raise the following questions
 for discussion. What is the spiritual organization of man as a member
 of society? What is the role of analyzing the nature of human
 interests in their relation to social development? As is known, the
 social conduct of people, according to M. Veber, is organized in
 accord with their view or their understanding of social reality.
 But, if we view these problems from the viewpoint of natural sciences
 directly involved with man (biology and medicine), what can be said
 about the implied importance of these problems?
 4.  If, for instance, a biologist merely examines a body organ and a
 physician merely treats this, then there is no need for the
 "questioning" which precedes contact with man.  The only thing
 needed is the practical skill of a "plaintiff," that is, a certain
 questionnaire with questions which must -be-answered-bur-merely '1yea,_1____-____ _
 or "no," as all the remainder is superfluous. This is like a
 harnessed horse running in blinders. It runs but it does not know
 where or who and, more importantly, why it is being guided. And
 possibly it is not necessary to guide at all.  Far from the best
 coachman is in control here and at best he is idle and at worst he
 gets in the way. What driver is needed?
 5.  Any humanitarian science is not only an analysis of the sense of
 words and proper meanings (as in Ancient Greece, although Aristotle
 mentioned the physician Hippocrates, Plato, and the God of Medicine
 Askiepios in relation to politics). This is, above all, an analysis
 of successful, beneficial social actions (as was felt in Ancient
 Rome), that is, direct or indirect contact with controlling the
 social behavior of man.
 6.  The essence of the latter approach is that if you have a good
 idea or an ideal, whatever it might be, then show it in fact, in
 practice, and thereby persuade me of your truthfulness. This does not
 mean that a primitive utilitarian demand is being made of "let us
 get a feel- for what you are thinking. No, this is a completely
 reasonable desire to be certain that an idea or concept is effective
 and that the system, as the cyberneticians say, "possesses
 feedback." A social analysis of the actions of man, that is, his
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 rights and duties reinforced in the word and with the aid of the
 word-this is what we have in mind in the given instance. And this
 means the actions related to the social body, to politics, the
 economy, that is, to any concrete manifestation of human life
 activity and in the given instance, with biology and medicine.
 Certainly, the natural scientists and physicians know the ancient
 philosophical truth that "a body without reason is dead." Then we
 are no longer involved with biology, surgery or cardiology but rather
 with pathologic anatomy. Plato wrote: "The person with a naturally
 healthy body who leads a healthy way of life but catches some unusual
 illness, for such persons and in such a state Asklepios pointed out
 how they should be treated: with medicines and bleeding the illness
 must be driven out, in maintaining, however, the ordinary way of life
 so that social affairs do not suffer" ("The Republic," 407a).
 Thus, what is the role of social relations in the health of man and
 society?
 7.  V.V. Semenov: In actuality in recent years, one can hear more and
 more often the opinion that the sociohumanitarian sciences must turn
 to the living man, to his problems, and not be limited to abstract
 cognitive limits of research or the "somatic" pragmatic questions.
 In the literature there are enough examples of such an appeal, but
 for now what results have we encountered? A separate area of
 cognition has arisen entitled "border problems of science" and
 "common scientific problems,  and-here comp etely d fferent
 disciplines are brought together reflecting one or another aspect of
 human activity: political science, economics, natural scientific
 research and medicine. Such an association thus remains a range of
 disciplines which are unrelated except for the idea of man. The
 futility of the attempts to isolate common grounds for such diverse
 areas of knowledge is reflected in the problem widely discussed in
 methodology of the incommensurability of theories. No general concept
 of man is obtained nor can it be with such an approach. What one now
 understands by this is in essence a mechanical or even an eclectic
 bringing together of various disciplines. An effective general
 concept of man as a social individual should be provided in such a
 positive science as sociology in its interaction with political
 science, political economy and other disciplines. The specific area
 of research is the following.  Dialectics asserts that there are no
 positive phenomena which do not have a negative aspect and which not
 only grows along with the positive but under certain conditions turns
 the positive into the negative, and under certain conditions this can
 also lead to ecological, medical-biological and then social crises
 and disasters. In order that this does not happen, it is essential to
 study the social mechanisms of crisis prevention. Such mechanisms
 should be found in the structures of society itself, in its social
 institutions as a legitimate resistance to the "positive" and which
 grows as the positive phenomenon is converted into the negative. Here
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 is one of the areas of social research and a point of contact between
 the humanitarian and social sciences.
 S. A.I. Panchenko: In my view, the interaction of the
 humanitarian-social and natural sciences can be most beneficial in
 the area of the problems of humanitarianizing biology and medicine.
 This conclusion can be confirmed, in the first place, from the
 example of literature on the mass information media and in books for
 now basically published abroad. They raise the questions of
 parapsychology, psychokinesis, extracensory perception, unidentified
 flying objects, astrology and so forth and these at present are also
 being discussed actively in our country. Here, it seems to me, the
 basic object of discussion to a significant degree relates to social
 psychology and it can be said the issue of the "social health of
 society." In other words, during those moments of history when
 society is in a crisis stage of its development, certain things which
 "replace- reality are cultivated "above" and actively perceived,
 supported and experienced "below." Moreover, on a general level the
 rise of such things, in my view, is tied to a need-for "miracles"
 and this is internally inherent to man. Here it would be possible to
 argue about different historical forms of rationality or mentality,
 about political regimes, about global crises, or whatever you wish,
 but in man there is a need for a "miracle" and this is possibly
 responsible for the maintaining of "social health" and for creative
 activity. In my view, this need is -one -of -- the            rces of------
 human existence. And it must be supported, regardless of the
 distorted forms of its employment, for example, in the mass
 information media. Of course, here the role of medical workers is far
 from the last.
 9.  Secondly, in that same literature all the sought or supposedly
 visible "substitute,, things and abilities are established from the
 "scientific" viewpoint. Here it is essential to figure out what a
 scientific viewpoint means.  This has a common cultural point as
 there is the old tradition of putting natural science into opposition
 to the "'sciences dealing with the spirit" (0. Dilthey). If such a
 tradition is valid, then we cannot view biology as a
 sociohumanitarian discipline. I propose that the designated tradition
 is not quite valid. Certainly any sciences in one way or another
 derive from the needs of man and ultimately arrive at disclosing the
 conditions of his life.  Natural sciences disclose the natural
 conditions, while the sociohumanitarian sciences show the social and
 spiritual ones. Understandable in this context is the great interest
 which is now being shown in the so-called anthropic principle in
 cosmology: together with physics, cosmology shows that the
 organization of the Universe is precisely one where life could arise
 in it and where man could appear along with life. The opinion of V.I.
 Vernadskiy is confirmed that life is a cosmic phenomenon.
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 10.  But is there a natural science on human capabilities and human
 conduct (social) in that very sense as a science on inanimate
 objects? The impression is gained that many parapsychologists would
 like to fit their subject of research into the framework of methods
 worked out by natural science. Parapsychology has a rather long
 history. Thus, in 1882, the Society of Psychic Research was founded
 in Great Britain and this set as its goal the study of those human
 abilities which "are inexplicable on the basis of any broadly
 accepted hypotheses." Since the, parapsychology has acquired an
 institutionalized development. The anthology "Basic Experiments in
 Parapsychology" published in 1884 in Great Britain under the
 editorship of K.R. Rao has pointed out that around 2,000 such "basic
 experiments" have now been carried out. But what is the interesting
 point? The interesting point was that the rate of definite results
 for all these experiments was assessed at 50 percent. This means that
 the experiments did not produce anything definite. Certainly for
 physics a result with a probability of 50.0001 percent would be more
 definite, but 50 percent is complete ambiguity. In turn, this can
 mean only one thing: experimental methods in physics which are
 perfectly applicable to investigating inanimate objects cannot be
 applied unconditionally to researching the phenomena of the psyche
 and consciousness. Psychic and psychophysical relationships can
 scarcely be modeled in the same manner as physical causal
 relationships (and actually a majority- of- the-experiment-a3  - -----
 parapsychologists is involved in this).
 11.  Thirdly, on the basis of the so-called "experiments" and
 practice of parapsychologists, numerous speculations and
 falsifications have arisen. Parapsychology has been even turned into
 a sort of "business." An example would be the activities of the
 famous conjuror, U. Geller, who appeared recently on our Central
 Television. Somewhat before, 15-20 years ago, Geller demonstrated his
 tricks on British Television and he not only "wound" and
 "stopped" watches, but also taught "spoons and forks to bend,"
 and this was enormously successful (particularly with children). So,
 the screens of current Soviet television are offering us rather
 obsolete information. This information, incidentally, has not
 informed us that in 1975, another famous magician, J. Randy,
 published a book entitled "The Magic of Uri Geller." It condemns
 Geller for violating professional ethics of illusionists evident, in
 particular, in Geller's use of the terms "psychokinesis,   "
 "extrasensory perception" and "parapsychology." "This,"
 commented J. Randy and the English physicist G. Taylor, "as well as
 the story of Geller's doctoring photographs for the Israeli
 newspapers showing him together with Sofia Loren led to a decline in
 Geller's popularity...."
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 12.  I do not want to doubt the abilities of Geller or the necessity
 of investigating the depths of the human psyche, but at the same time
 it cannot be doubted that tricks are possible in such practices. The
 same Randy describes a case when young persons trained by him joined
 a collective at the Parapsychology Laboratory of Washington
 University, convinced the co-workers of this laboratory of their
 "supernatural" abilities and then at a press conference unmasked
 both this "supernaturalness" and the convictions and activities of
 the parapsychologists.
 13.  Fourthly, and now from the truly philosophical viewpoint (that
 is, from the metaphysical and metaspiritual viewpoint divorced from
 the concrete realities of our life), here the problem arises of the
 relationship of the spirit and the body, the psychic and the
 physi(ologi)cal, the mind and matter. Again the old "accursed"
 problem arises of what was first-matter or mind? Clearly, on the
 abstract level the positing of this question makes no sense. Clearly,
 for philosophy as well as for life, science, practice and medicine,
 both are important, although in concrete situations, at specific
 historical stages and in specific concepts (including in sociology!)
 preference can be given to one or the other. The idealistic system of
 Hegel did not prevent him from disclosing the development dialectics
 of the conscience. The dualistic philosophical position of the
 Australian neurophysiologist G. Eckles did not prevent him from
 investigating the ion mechanisms for the transmiss of n of nerve impulses (he received the Nobel Prize for this). Profound
 materialistic convictions also do not prevent the carrying out of
 scientific research and the achieving of outstanding results.
 However, up to the present no philosopher has been able to reduce the
 entire diversity of the world to just the spiritual or just the
 corporal. For this reason, of course, we do have grounds for putting
 medicine and biology into a sociohumanitarian context.
 14.  I.I. Sventitskiy: I would like to examine the relationship of
 social and natural sciences from the following position. The
 exacerbation of the global natural scientific, social and production
 problems clearly has a common prime cause. The essence of this is
 that man in his activities has not considered the important laws of
 nature. One of these is the energy extremality of self-organizing
 and, particularly, living systems. The latter in their development
 spontaneously strive for the fullest utilization of the free
 (accessible) energy under the existing external conditions. Modern
 achievements in the 1970s and 1980s in nonequilibrium thermodynamics
 (G. Nicolis, I. Prigogine), the physics of self-organization and
 evolution (V. Ebeling, R. Feistel) as well as ecological
 bioenergetics show that the structural organization of living systems
 and their functional relations have a common energy extremality or
 bioenergetic purpose. An energy economicness of living nature can be
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 traced in all stages of its development and in all its
 manifestations, with the exception of the present stage in the
 development of human society.
 15.  The destruction and pollution of the environment, in reaching a
 scale threatening the health of people and the possibility of their
 further existence, is the result primarily of the wasteful,
 noneconomic use of enormous energy capacity which human society has
 gained in recent decades. The ecological problem is largely
 exacerbated by the food problem. The intensification of food
 production everywhere has been accompanied by an exceptionally rapid'
 rise in the expenditures of anthropogenic energy per unit of product,
 by an accelerated growth of pollution and'destruction of the
 environment, by a deterioration of food quality and by a negative
 influence of it [food?] on human health.
 16.  The genesis and initial development of culture and social
 relations of all peoples, regardless of their nationality and
 geographic location, obviously and with good reason are permeated
 with and accompanied by artistic images of the methods of securing
 food, the most precious and irreplacable type of free energy.
 17.  V.I. Shamshurin: You are right. At present, this is being
 intensely studied by representatives of a recent current in foreign
 sociology, the followers of "figurative-vFT socFoiogy ot-L. El-
 18.  I.I. Sventitskiy: And they are right to do this, as the needs of
 man in the preindustrial period were very largely determined by the
 energy found in food. During extensive industrial development, the
 technogenic energy consumed by man surpassed by many-fold the energy
 consumed in food. During this period technologies wet. clearly
 energy-wasteful and this became the main reason for the exacerbation
 of global problems. Precisely man's awareness of the particularly
 important social importance of bioenergetic extremality in the
 development of living systems, including human society, and the
 inevitability of shifting it to autotrophy will make it possible to
 accelerate the development of energy-saving and ecologically safe
 technologies, protect nature and ensure the survival of man under the
 conditions of the biosphere.
 19.  V.I. Shamshurin: Thus, the points of contact and similarity of
 social and natural sciences can be seen. What about the differences?
 In what way does philosophy differ from medicine?
 20.  A.S. Ivanov: The difference is as follows. Our main
 philosophical aphorism "know thyself" (or "nature" or
 "society") belongs to the realm of recommendations, advice for long
 research, wishes and desires for ideals that would be difficult to
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 achieve at the given moment, ones more desired than urgent. This is
 proper but not the one needed now. Our aphorism is "physician, cure
 thyself." It has a concrete appeal and offers clear practical
 guidance. In the mouth of any patient, it can be a direct demand and
 a "verb in the imperative" and moreover has the character of direct
 completed action.
 21.  What sort of art can you have, he [the patient] might say, if
 you yourself are not healthy and look bad; I will not come to you for
 treatment. Such an understanding in medicine of one's own purpose has
 come down from the times of Hippocrates who said that a physician
 should look decent in order to extol his ability by his appearance.
 22.  V.I. Shamshurin: Plato in this sense makes a very accurate
 comment: " Certainly in my opinion they treat the body not with the
 body, otherwise it would be inadmissible to have a poor corporeal
 state of the physician himself, rather they treat the body with the
 soul, and the soul cannot treat well if the physician's is poor or
 has become such." Why do I recall Plato? He, in my view, provides
 the most surprising correlation between medicine and the sciences
 dealing with society. Thus, in one of his sociopolitical works, "The
 Republic" in comparing medicine and legal art, he legitimizes them
 only under the condition that "both of them are concerned for the
 citizens viable both in terms of body and soul.... " ("The
 Republic," 410).
 23.  A.S. Ivanov: That is precisely the point. I constantly take
 instantaneous decisions in operations and I bear an enormous burden
 of responsibility-both moral and, incidentally, legal. On this level,
 precisely from the legal viewpoint, philosophers and sociologists in
 their activities are not involved in the law. I have never heard that
 they had responsibility stipulated precisely by the law and not by
 arbitrariness (since there has been more than enough persecution of
 the social scientists) for socioideological recommendations that have
 been ineffective or even lethal for society. Physicians treat both
 the body and the soul. And here I am a member of the humanities.
 Incidentally, I, as a cardiologist, am extremely close to the
 philosophical principle that "truth passes through the heart" which
 is rather well known and is inherent to the ancient philosophical
 cultural tradition which bears a name similar to the name of my
 profession, crypto- or cardiognosis. Hippocrates put it clearly:
 "The physician-philosopher is like God." Let us recall again the
 classic Russian literature of the 19th Century. Prince V.F.
 Odoyevskiy in his "The Story of the Cock, Cat and Frog" very
 precisely examines the role of psychoanalysis in.the treatment of
 hypochondriacs. And this is from the viewpoint of surgery! At
 present, unfortunately, an analysis of the inner motives of man is
 applied basically in psychotherapy and sex pathology.
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 24.  V.I. Shamshurin: Is there a difference (and in what manner)
 between the inner world of a patient and the inner world of a healthy
 person? In other words, if we turn to the specific work of a
 physician, is it helpful for him to know the particular features of
 the mind of his patients-both ailing and healthy? For instance,
 preop, during the operation and postop? What mental sets of the
 patient favor the achieving of health and which ones harm it? On this
 level, what are your tested procedures for "translating" or
 converting certain mental sets of the "respondents" into others?
 Are these being studies?
 25.  A.S. Ivanov: How can these be combined or, more accurately, how
 can healthy internal spiritual activity be made from sick? This
 question is important, in my view, from any viewpoint. Both as a
 "eternal, fatal- question of philosophy as well as an urgent,
 applied question for the research sociologist developing a concrete
 social program in the area of state, ethnic relations or a physician
 struggling directly for the health of a specific person.
 26.  Unfortunately, in medicine the answers to the given question is
 a particular matter worked out by each physician by trial and error.
 And as a result-everyone knows to say the least. Basically, this is
 studied in the medical schools and this is written about in the
 special scientific research and practical-manuals.  u  nowhere-
 do----_--they write or teach about what a person thinks in experiencing pain!
 27.  Generally, the role of thought and conscious motives in our work
 (both for the physician and for the patient) for me has assumed an
 ever-greater role. Seemingly, this is a philosophical question but in
 medicine it is pertinent as never before. Who should be considered
 sick? How does ailing flesh influence optimistic spirits? These are
 not abstract questions. Behind them, in essence, stands society's
 attitude toward the disabled. To what degree are they to be
 considered equal to persons with normal motor activity? Regardless of
 all declarations about humanism, the very fact that our subway and
 underpasses, our stairwells are not adapted for wheelchairs (which,
 incidentally, are produced in insufficient numbers and of poor
 quality) bespeaks a great deal. And the birth of sick children? In
 antiquity this question was easily resolved as they were thrown off
 the Tarpeian Rock. Our culture based upon charity and veneration of
 life, that is, on principles deriving from Christianity, cannot
 permit itself such a harsh equating of the internal and external
 world, such vulgar and even harsh materialism of paganism: "In a
 healthy body is a healthy mind." Here medicine should be clearly
 aware of its own philosophical positions. The mystery of life must be
 held secret, "it must not be harmed," as the same Hippocrates said.
 To assume that the spirit, mental richness and fullness of life can
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 be apparent and, consequently, accessible to all, both to those who
 are now well situated as well as those who are still powerless, but
 he [the physician] must remember that the key to recovery is in his
 hands. The forces of his spirit are in a potential state.  Here we
 might refer to the experience of V. Dikul who literally worked
 miracles. Certainly, the imparting of a courageous attitude toward
 life and to the vicissitudes of life is a function of humanitarian
 science, for example philosophy, which must go hand in hand with
 medicine.  It is a different matter that the philosophy needed by man
 should be oriented precisely at him, and consider the concrete
 difficulties, joys, hardships, ideas, sadness and hope. It should not
 be on impersonal schemes and distant social abstractions behind which
 man cannot be seen and which provide no rosy glow for anything, no
 comfort, hope or certainty and no real way to achieve any of these.
 For this reason, we, the physicians, as no one else understand the
 representatives of the humanities who speak about the moral or
 "prophylactic" essence of their work. On this level, the role of
 domestic philosophical culture-the Russian philosophy at the end of
 the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th-for the physicians are
 as important as for the researchers of the history of culture. The
 names of V.S.  Solovyev, N.I. Berdyayev and others for us represent
 not only a distant cognitive but also practical professional
 interest. As for the study of motivation, ideas and images, this is a
 matter for the humanities, for the philosophers and sociologists.
 Here also there are great opportunities for  n-tar d'ss- ciplinary
 contacts as the physicians have enormous concrete material which
 requires professional sociological analysis. And now I am speaking
 responsibly as an official representative of the All-Union Scientific
 Surgery Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Here we perform
 diverse operations on vitally important organs including the
 intestines, liver, lungs and heart, including the transplanting of
 these organs and the reimplantation of extremities.  We also observe
 persons in the "distant" period after the operation, considering
 here the most diverse factors. We monitor not only the function of
 the organ operated on, but also the quality and way of life as a
 whole of our patients. This, in my view, is what we are now talking
 about.
 28.  At present, we at the Center operate under conditions of cost
 accounting (here is the importance of the socioeconomic factor for
 you) and this has opened up great opportunities both for the
 physicians, for the patients, and both on a creative and
 applied-organizational level.  It has become easier for us to
 establish contact as the physician has moved closer to man. For
 example, contracts are being concluded with various enterprises of
 not only Moscow but also the entire nation to study and treat both
 employees and their relatives. This brings enormous benefit to the
 health of specific individuals (and not to the abstract
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 "population" as a whole, as was the case before) and makes it
 possible to thoroughly study man on a modern level (we have the most
 advanced equipment) and promptly treat the illnesses.
 29.  V.I. Shamshurin: In actuality, what principle should underlie
 the definition of man's health? Real altruism and humanism with its
 assertion of the generic essence of human mental activity preserving
 in his "image and likeness" the equal rights of all persons to the
 spiritual and material values of mankind's culture? Or misanthropy
 and xenophobia based upon the principle of "ethnic selectivity"
 with its constant -veterinary- desire to place people, as Chaadayev
 wrote, in closed stalls?  Here the arguments inherent to these social
 concepts and drawn from one or another "national geneology" must
 prove that the harmonious combination of the fullness of thought and
 physical activity are possible only within the limits of one but only
 one nation more often understood biologically, in the form of a
 certain "selection," when the possibility is admitted of achieving
 a certain "purebreed strain of new people" and "builders of a new
 society."
 30.  R.A. Chizhenkova: The role of social science and particularly
 culture in the natural sciences is much greater than the most
 convinced representatives of the humanities can imagine. For me, a
 natural scientist, this is indisputable.
 31.  In recent decades in reviewing the problems of the development
 of society it has become a rule to discard psychological questions
 with extreme decisiveness and with extraordinary closeness seek out
 the boundary between the social and biological aspects of man,
 thereby splitting social sciences away from natural sciences, that
 is, from the foundation. Social sciences were being turned into the
 area of a parascience. As for the biological characteristics of man,
 such a deep abyss was created between them and social phenomena that
 man was actually no more than a "cog " in the social mechanism.
 Here there was a confusing of such concepts as society and the crowd,
 the individual and personality.
 32.  V.I. Shamshurin: How do you view the consequences of the notion
 of a "cog" in biology and in the social sciences?
 33.  R.A. Chizhenkova: The complete adaptation of a biological
 species to surrounding reality paralyzes its development and
 ultimately leads to extinction (P. Teilhard de Chardin). This is the
 case in biology. In and of itself social adaptation is a good thing.
 However, the variation of it which is optimal for the individual as a
 rule is an impediment in the development of society. To some degree
 it works for the good of the individual but not for the social
 organism. Those who rested on their laurels during the "cult of
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 personality" and "stagnation" evolved with maximum accuracy an
 optimum method of conduct for themselves. The policy of carrot and
 stick and the corresponding notion of a "cog" gave rise to the
 committing of certain actions and the abandoning of others. But the
 population ,which does not know how to live- is the engine of
 progress. Precisely those who were unable or who could not adopt the
 line of conduct imposed on them are the hope of society, even
 posthumously. The Russian intelligentsia has always stood out both in
 its high morality and in its low socioutilitarian adaptation and in
 its absence of what previously was called "mercenariness." In
 Russia, the intellectuals were always the pioneers, the defenders of
 law and...perished under the wheel of history in order years later to
 return to the people as an achieved long-term social good and social
 charity. Tragicness went hand in hand with the development of
 progressive thought.
 34.  The portion of the people who possess high adaptation abilities
 on the social level allowing them to secure the goods of life, can
 adapt to any conditions. But for the personality, for its development
 and activity, it is essential to have space and the possibility of
 choosing also inner spiritual freedom. Without this, the personality
 is not realized and this is always a tragedy.
 35.  V.I. Shamshurin: Spirituality, morality-are these ordinary
 concepts for a biologist...?
 36.  R.A. Chizhenkova: No. Merely abstract appeals to restore
 morality are futile. These cannot operate in isolation from the other
 aspects of social life. Nevertheless, the perfection of a society
 should be measured by the attitude to the living and even the
 nonliving world and not only and not so much by the attitude toward
 women (this is too narrow). This is what comprises the higher
 spirituality which brings together the entire noosphere. Possibly it
 was something like this that E. Le Roy had in mind when in 1927 he
 proposed the term " noosphere." Reason will embelish the new
 (anthropogenic) age in the world. The last (incomplete) book by V.I.
 Vernadskiy "Nauchnaya mysi kak planetarnoye yavleniye " [Scientific
 Thought as a Planetary Phenomenon] was devoted to an optimistic
 belief in human reason. At present, in relation to perestroyka, we
 are rethinking the economic principles of the life of society.  But
 the measure of economic gain cannot completely serve as the
 fundamental criterion for the reasonability of one or another
 innovation. This criterion must be employed only in an aggregate with
 other ones. Neither economic successes nor technical progress are a
 justification of human suffering or the fading of nature.  Priority
 lies with the principles of morality. The Hippocratic medical oath
 "Do Not Cause Harm!" should be found in all spheres of social life
 as a "symbol of belief" in the modern age.
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 Document 8 of 10                                                Page  13
 37.  Culture requires urgent concern. K. Marx warned about the danger
 of combining a revolution and a low cultural level and concern was
 voiced over this in Russian in 1917. Even if it is admitted that
 positive changes occurred over the decades, there has not been the
 proper optimism since no judgments have been made.      Undoubtedly,
 illiteracy has been eliminated, however to some degree the cultural
 heritage was destroyed and it is this which preserves the wisdom of
 previous generations.
 38.  Man should correspond to his proud name of Homo sapiens, both as
 a biological species, as a moral personality and as a social
 principal.
 39.  V.I. Shamshurin: Certainly we must not allow a pagan denial of
 the Christian culture which has come down to us or the destruction of
 the higher accomplishments of modern civilization and its common
 human values.
 40.  The hard-hearted social theories with all their reciprocal
 disdain generally derive from the same primitive interpretation of
 the social ideology first expressed by the Ancient Jews, the chosen
 nature of one, separately taken people or social group. The
 falaciousness of the various "veterinary" solutions to the very
 complex problems of man, society (their purpose an  word"hisry- #
 not merely obvious, but also involves the blood of an enormous number
 of victims and literally shouts inhumanity.  When, for the sake of an
 abstract scheme which Justifies the inequality of people, peoples and
 classes, they begin killing, then this is inadmissible from any
 viewpoint, from the philosophical, the sociological, the medical and
 the biological.
 41.  COPYRIGHT: Izdatelstvo "Nauka" , "Sotsiologicheskiye
 issledovaniya " , 1991

