Religion. Medien . Idiographiche vs. nomothetiche .

Religion. Medien. Idiographiche vs. nomothetiche.

Im Rahmen der Städtpartnerschaft Erlangen – Wladimir

Konferenz “Religion und Medien im postsowjetischen Rußland”

Sprecher: Timoschuk Alexey [email protected]

Religion. Media. Idiographic vs. Nomothetic.

Partnership Erlangen – Vladimir

Conference “Religion and Media in postsoviet Russia”

Speaker: Timoschuk Alexey [email protected]

Plan1. Epistemology of the religion and media mode of

being.2. Ontology of the religion and media mode of being.3. Praxiology of the religion and media mode of being.4. Noosphere as the place of interaction of religion and

media.5. Nomothetic and idiographic aspects of religious media

in Russia today.6. Nomothetic and idiographic aspects of religions and

media in Vladimir today.

1. Epistemology of the religion and media mode of being.

Nomothetic, idiographic are succinct terms, coined by W. Windelband. Together with H. Rickert, Windelband brought attention to the processes of generalization and individualization in culture and history

Heinrich Rickert (1863-1936)

Wilhelm Windelband(1848-1915)

Baden neokantian school

This is important for us, because, although both media and religion are products of culture, there is a strong tendency to use them as GENERALIZING tools in society

2. Ontology of the religion and media mode of being.

There are two opposing views in philosophy:

- one think, that history, culture, man are one, the world is united;

- another think, that they are different, the world is aggregation of singularities.

These two concepts will help us to analyze the dialectics and dynamics of Religion and Media relationship.

Christian Wolf (1679-1754), founder of the first

philosophical school in Germany, suggested the term "monist" for those

who claimed the existence of one

substance and “pluralist” for thinkers, attributed diversity to the reality.

Thales (625-554 B.C.): everything comes from water… everything is water

Plato (428-348 B.C.): Chora never alters its characteristics. For it continues to receive all things, and never itself takes a permanent impress from any

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.): earth, water, fire, air, ether comprise all the material world

Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274): the world is the universal hierarchy of things, ordained by God G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831): Absolute is all in all

K. Marx (1818—1883): human history is the dialectics of productive forces

W.James (1842-1910): Universe is pluralistic: it’s fixed and mobile, determined and indeterminate, free and unpredictable

G. Leibniz (1646-1716): world is total discreetness of individual monads

J.Deleuze (1925-1995): “nomadic singularities” should replace the classic subject – object relationship. The actual state of affairs is not integrity, not unity, but multitudes. Rhizome instead of the tree.

W. Dilthey (1833-1911): life is the adequate term to describe the fickleness and dynamics of culture

G. Simmel (1858-1918): history is the regularity of the individual

3. Praxiology of the religion and media mode of being.

Examples of the unifying function of the religion

• “Catholic European Union” in Middle Ages• Orthodox world• Buddhist sangha• Islamic umma• Vedic India• etc.

Examples of the religion, bringing social disunity

•Christians and Muslims•Catholics and Huguenots•Sikhs and Muslims•Sunnies and Shias•Hindu and Muslims•etc.

Nowadays media acts in many ways as globally unifying factor, since it's values are often universal (security, humanism, well-being). Even this unity may be basic, like consumption, there are more solidarity in consumption than in different religions. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. use petrol, buy spinach, surf the net. Whereas we see that religion often separates world into certain groups and becomes inefficient for generalizing policy.

4. Noosphere as the place of interaction of religion and media.

If we compare the evolution of inorganic and organic matter, we may notice a giant acceleration: 20 billion years ago - Big Bang, 15 billion years ago - formation of Halo of Milky Way Galaxy, 4 billion years ago - formation of first rocks on Earth, 1 billion years ago - first living creatures are dated (Coelenterata), 265 million years ago - era of dinosaurs, 120 million years ago - first primates, 100 thousand years ago - Homo Neanderthals, 40 thousand years ago - Homo Cro-Magnon, 2 thousands years ago - slavery considered a norm, 500 years ago - geographic boundaries of the Earth were fixed, 200 years ago - practice of torches was standard criminal procedure, 50 years ago - women received equal rights, 10 years ago - informational unity of the world became reality. The formation of noosphere (nus – intellect) means:- widespread use of technology and science;- overall anthropic pressure on nature;-exhaustion of natural resources;- only collective and moral human intelligence may help;- religion is also one of the actors in noosphere.

Vernadskiy V.I. (1863-1945), a proponent of co-evolution of man and nature, marked out three cosmic forces: geochemic, biochemic and noospheric.

5. Nomothetic and idiographic aspects of religious media in Russia today.

Type of religious media

•Addressed to all (generalizing)•Addressed to big groups (less generalizing)•Addressed to smaller groups (individualizing)

6. Nomothetic and idiographic aspects of religions and media in Vladimir today.

Grigoriy Anikeev, Vladimir media magnate, would-be runner for the post of the head of the Government. His ABI media group controls major Vladimir region news paper «Prizyv» and «TVC» television. Anikeev is a deputee in Duma and “edinoross”.

When I tried to point to the editor-in-chief that according to civil law and secular studies one cannot use in public speech terms “sect”, “cult” and offered to write a commentary to the article, he refused to do it.

October, 2nd, 2009 famous actor V. Miodushevskiy in his author’s program “Miodushevnye mgnovenia”, which is dedicated to his personal happenings in life, unexpectedly dedicated the whole program to Hare Krishnas. He exposed them as hypocrites, describing how once, when he travelled in the train with leaders of Hare Krishnas and their followers, he first felt relieved, thinking that at least his neighbors wouldn’t eat meat, drink wine and smoke. But then the leaders allegedly got the chicken with onion, costly cognac and cigarettes. When he tried to protest against smoking in the compartment, they said: what is not allowed for Krishna, is allowed for his followers (allusion to Roman proverb – quod Jovi interdicet, bovi licet)

Hare Krishnas were angry with TVC and expressed that the should be equal time on TV given. TVC blankly refused. Hare Krishnas promised to said that they will suit them in the court for extremism. Seeing, that they were serious, TVC invited Hare Krishna leaders to meet and discuss the conditions.I went with Hare Krishnas as an expert on the ethical representation of religion. There came the author of this programs, PR manager of the “TVC” television. Miodushevskiy also came to this meeting, which was set in one of the café. I think there were some thugs also sitting near by who looked very unfriendly all the time. TVC denied there were any bad message. They insisted Hare Krishnas were biased in judging the contents. You may judge it for yourself, by listening to program yourself.