Logic and philosophy

Good is opposed to evil. There has been a struggle between these categories since the very foundation of the world. Unfortunately, evil is sometimes stronger in this struggle, because it is more active and requires less effort. Good requires hourly, everyday patient labor of the soul, goodness. Good must be strong, active.

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Federal Agency for Railway Transport

Siberian State Transport University

Chair " Philosophy and cultural studies»

THE PROBLEM OF GOOD AND EVIL IN THE MODERN WORLD

Essay

In the discipline "Culturology"

Head Designed

Student gr._D-113

Bystrova A.N. ___________ Leonov P.G.

(signature) (signature)

_______________ ______________

(date of inspection) (date of submission for inspection)

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The problem of choosing between good and evil is as old as the world, but meanwhile it is still relevant today. Without understanding the essence of good and evil, it is impossible to understand either the essence of our world or the role of each of us in this world. Without this, such concepts as: conscience, honor, morality, morality, spirituality, truth, freedom, decency, holiness lose all meaning.

Good and evil are two moral concepts that accompany a person throughout his life, these are the main, basic concepts of morality.

Good is opposed to evil. There has been a struggle between these categories since the very foundation of the world. Unfortunately, evil is sometimes stronger in this struggle, because it is more active and requires less effort. Good requires hourly, everyday patient labor of the soul, goodness. Good must be strong, active. Kindness is a sign of strength, not weakness. A strong person shows generosity, he is truly kind, and a weak person is kind only in words and inactive in deeds.

The eternal questions of the meaning of human life are closely connected with the understanding of the meanings of good and evil. It's no secret that these concepts are interpreted in countless possible variations, and moreover, each individual person is comprehended in different ways.

The purpose of the work will be to highlight the problem of good and evil.

We consider it important to solve the following tasks:

Consider the problem of understanding good and evil;

To identify the problem of evil and good in literature based on the works of E.M. Remarque “A time to live, a time to die”, B. Vasilyeva “The dawns here are quiet” and A.P. Chekhov "Lady with a Dog"

The work consists of an introduction, two main main parts, a conclusion and a bibliography.

CHAPTER 1. The problem of understanding good and evil

The problem of destructive tendencies, manifested at the individual and collective level, is devoted to the works of prominent Russian thinkers: V.V. Rozanova, I.A. Ilyina, N.A. Berdyaeva, G.P. Fedotova, L.N. Gumilyov and many others.(And you read all of them, of course? And if not, what do they have to do with it?)They give an ideological and philosophical characterization and assessment of the negative, destructive phenomena of the human soul, it is shown that one of the most important themes of Russian literature from the moment of its inception to the present day is the problem of good and evil, life and death. Classics of Russian literature Х I 10th century not only managed to convey the acuteness of the problem of evil, the tragic existence of a person who has lost touch with nature and spiritual roots, but also predicted the destructive trends in the development of civilization. Many of their predictions came true in the past millennium.

Representatives of Russian and foreign literature of the twentieth century have already encountered the negative manifestations of modern civilization: wars, revolutions, terror, environmental disasters. Treating and evaluating destructive phenomena differently, they nevertheless reflected them in their art, introducing their own, subjective, vision of the world into the objective images of reality. M. Gorky, M. Bulgakov, A. Platonov Russian classics
The twentieth century left us an artistic image of the tragic events in the history of Russia, its people, individual destinies.(Where, in what books, and on what pages exactly did they do this?)The depiction of the crisis processes of the decay of cultural values ​​required from writers not only a creative rethinking of the artistic heritage of literature X I X century, but also attracting new poetic forms of expression.

Good in the broad sense of the word as a good means a value representation that expresses the positive value of something in relation to a certain standard or this standard itself. Depending on the accepted standard, good in the history of philosophy and culture was interpreted as pleasure, benefit, happiness, generally accepted, appropriate to the circumstances, expedient, etc. With the development of moral consciousness and ethics, a more rigorous concept of proper moral good is developed.

First, it is perceived as a special kind of value, not related to natural or elemental events and phenomena.

Secondly, good marks free and consciously correlated with the highest values, ultimately, with the ideal, actions. The positive normative-value content of goodness is connected with this: it consists in overcoming isolation, disunity and alienation between people, establishing mutual understanding, moral equality and humanity in relations between them; it characterizes the actions of a person from the point of view of his spiritual exaltation and moral perfection.

Thus, good is associated with the spiritual world of the person himself: no matter how the source of good is determined, it is created by a person as a person, i.e. responsibly.

Although good seems to be commensurate with evil, their ontological status can be interpreted differently:

1. Good and evil are principles of the same order of the world, which are in constant combat.

2. The real absolute world principle is the divine Good as Good, or absolute Being, or God, and evil is the result of erroneous or vicious decisions of a person who is free in his choice. Thus good, being relative in opposition to evil, is absolute in the fulfillment of perfection; evil is always relative. This explains the fact that in a number of philosophical and ethical concepts (for example, Augustine, V.S. Solovyov or Moore), goodness was considered as the highest and unconditional moral concept.

3. The opposition of good and evil is mediated by something else God (L.A. Shestovin which book, on which page?), "the highest value" (N.A. Berdyaevin which book, on which page?), which is the absolute beginning of morality; thus asserting that goodness is not a finite concept. It can be clarified that the concept of good is indeed used in a twofold "application", and then Moore's difficulties(Who else is this?)related to the definition of good can be resolved by taking into account the difference between good as an absolute and simple concept and good as a concept correlated in the system of ethical concepts with others. In elucidating the nature of goodness, it is useless to look for its existential basis. The explanation of the origin of goodness cannot serve as its justification, therefore the logic of value reasoning itself can be the same for someone who is convinced that basic values ​​are given to a person in revelation, and for someone who believes that values ​​have an “earthly” social and anthropological origin .

Already in antiquity, the idea of ​​an irresistible connection between good and evil was deeply comprehended; it runs through the entire history of philosophy and culture (in particular, fiction) and is concretized in a number of ethical provisions.

First, good and evil are mutually determined and are known in antithetical unity, one through the other.

However, secondly, the formal transfer of the dialectic of good and evil to individual moral practice is fraught with the temptation of man. "Testing" (even only in the mental plane) of evil without a strict, albeit ideal, concept of good can much more quickly turn into vice than actual knowledge of good; the experience of evil can be fruitful only as a condition for the awakening of the spiritual power of resistance to evil.

Thirdly, the understanding of evil is not enough without the readiness to resist it; but opposition to evil does not in itself lead to good.

Fourthly, good and evil are functionally interdependent: good is normatively significant in contrast to evil and is practically affirmed in the rejection of evil; in other words, real goodness is a deed of goodness, i.e. virtue as a practical and active fulfillment by a person of the requirements imputed to him by morality.

CHAPTER 2. The problem of good and evil in creativity
EM. Remarque, B. Vasilyeva, A.P. Chekhov

2.1 The problem of good and evil in the work
EM. Remark "A time to live and a time to die"

E.M. Remarque is one of the most significant German writers of the 20th century. Devoted to the burning problems of modern history, the writer's books carried a hatred of militarism and fascism, of a state system that gives rise to murderous massacres, which is criminal and inhuman in its essence.

The novel A Time to Live and a Time to Die (1954) about the Second World War is the writer's contribution to the discussion about the guilt and tragedy of the German people. In this novel, the author achieved such a merciless condemnation, which his work has not yet known. This is an attempt by the writer to find in the German people those forces that fascism could not break.(Why didn't you say that when you answered?)

Such is the communist soldier Immermann, such is Dr. Kruse, who is dying in a concentration camp, his daughter Elisabeth, who becomes the wife of the soldier Ernst Graeber. In the image of E. Graeber, the writer showed the process of awakening anti-fascist consciousness in a Wehrmacht soldier, comprehending by him the extent to which he "lies with the guilt for the crimes of the past ten years."

An involuntary accomplice to the crimes of fascism, E. Graeber, having killed the Gestapo executioner Steinbrenner, frees the Russian partisans brought to execution, but he himself dies at the hands of one of them. Such is the harsh verdict and retribution of history.

2.2 The problem of good and evil in the work
B. Vasilyeva "The Dawns Here Are Quiet"

The characters in the story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet...” find themselves in dramatic situations, their fates are optimistic tragedies(And what does it mean?). Heroes yesterday's schoolchildren(and not schoolgirls?)and now participants in the war. B. Vasiliev, as if testing the characters for strength, puts them in extreme circumstances. The writer believes that in such situations, the character of a person is most clearly manifested.

B. Vasiliev brings his hero to the last line, to the choice between life and death. Die with a clear conscience or stay alive, staining yourself. The heroes could save their lives. But at what cost? You just need to step back a little from your own conscience. But the heroes of B. Vasiliev do not recognize such moral compromises. What is needed to save the girls? Quit without Vaskov's help and leave. But each of the girls performs a feat in accordance with her character. The girls were somehow offended by the war. Rita Osyanina's beloved husband was killed. The child was left without a father. The Germans shot the whole family in front of Zhenya Komelkova.

Almost no one knows about the exploits of heroes. What is a feat? In this cruel, inhumanly difficult struggle with enemies, remain human. Achievement is the overcoming of oneself. We won the war not only because there were brilliant commanders, but there were also such invisible heroes as Fedot Vaskov, Rita Osyanina, Zhenya Komelkova, Liza Brichkina, Sonya Gurvich.

What did the heroes of the work of B. Vasiliev do - good or evil, killing people, even enemies - this question remains, in the modern concept, unclear. People defend their homeland, but at the same time they kill other people. Of course, it is necessary to repulse the enemy, which is what our heroes do. For them, there is no problem of good and evil, there are invaders of their native land (evil) and there are its defenders (good). Other questions arise: whether specific invaders came to our land of their own free will, or whether they want to seize it, etc. However, good and evil are intertwined in this narrative, and there is no single answer to the question what is evil and what is good.

2.3 The problem of good and evil in the work
A.P. Chekhov "The Lady with the Dog" th »

The story "The Lady with the Dog" was conceived at a turning point, both for Russia and for the whole world. Year of writing 1889th. What was Russia of that time? A country of pre-revolutionary sentiments, tired of the ideas of Domostroy that have been implemented for centuries, tired of how wrong everything is, and how little a person means by himself, and how little his feelings and thoughts mean. In just some 29 years, Russia will explode and inexorably begin to change, but now, in 1889, thanks to A.P. Chekhov, appears before us in one of its most threatening and terrifying guises: Russia a tyrant state.

However, at that time (by the way, we note that the time of writing the story and the time depicted by the author coincide) few people could still see the impending, or rather, close approaching threat. Life went on as before, for everyday worries are the best remedy for clairvoyance, because behind them you see nothing but themselves. As before, quite wealthy people go on vacation (you can go to Paris, but if funds do not allow, then to Yalta), husbands cheat on their wives, owners of hotels and inns earn money. In addition, there are more and more so-called “enlightened” women or, as Gurov’s wife used to say to herself, “thinking” women, to whom men treated, at best, condescendingly, seeing in this, firstly, a threat to patriarchy , and secondly, the obvious female stupidity. Later it turned out that both of them were mistaken.

The author shows seemingly insignificant, but entailing so much life situations, depicts integral, extremely realistic characters with all their shortcomings and knows how to convey to the reader not only the content, but also the ideas of the story, and also makes us feel confident that true love, faithfulness can do a lot.

CONCLUSION

Good is the highest moral value. The opposite of good is evil. It is an anti-value, i.e. something incompatible with moral behavior. Good and evil are not "equal" principles. Evil is "secondary" in relation to good: it is only the "reverse side" of good, a retreat from it. It is no coincidence that in Christianity and Islam, God (good) is omnipotent, and the devil (evil) is only able to tempt individuals to violate the commandments of God.

The concepts of good and evil underlie the ethical assessment of human behavior. Considering any human act as “good”, “good”, we give it a positive moral assessment, and considering it “evil”, “bad”, we give it a negative one.

In real life, there is both good and evil, people do both good and bad deeds. The idea that in the world and in man there is a struggle between the "forces of good" and the "forces of evil" is one of the fundamental ideas that pervade the entire history of culture.

In all the works we have chosen, we see the struggle between good and evil. In the work of E.M. The remark "A time to live, a time to die" the author presents a hero who overcomes his evil, who is trying with all his might to bring peace to the earth.

In B. Vasiliev, the problem of good and evil turns out to be somewhat hidden: there is an enemy that needs to be defeated, and there is a force that defeats him (even if this force turns out to be weak).

A.P. Chekhov in "The Lady with the Dog" it is very difficult to consider the forces of good and the forces of evil. However, the author considers ambiguous, but real life situations, describes the whole, extremely realistic characters of the characters with all their shortcomings and tries to convey to the reader not only the content, but also the ideas of the story, and also makes us feel confident that true love, loyalty can do a lot.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Vasiliev, B. And the dawns here are quiet ... / B. Vasiliev. M.: Eksmo, 2008. 640 p.
2. Karmin, A. Culturology / A. Karmin. M.: Lan, 2009. 928 p.
3. Tereshchenko, M. Such a fragile cover of humanity. The banality of evil, the banality of good / M. Tereshchenko; Per. from French And Pigaleva. M.: Russian Political Encyclopedia, 2010. 304 p.
4. Remarque, E.M. Time to live and time to die / E.M. Remarque. M.: AST, 2009. 320 p.
5. Houser, M. Moral and reason. How nature created our universal sense of good and evil / M. Hauser; Per. from English: T. Maryutina. M.: Drofa, 2008. 640 p.
6. Chekhov, A.P. Stories and novels / A.P. Chekhov. M.: Children's Library, 2010. 320 p.

World literature is rich in examples of true kindness, because people tend to create moral guidelines and strive for them. There are especially many of them in the books of Russian writers, who very often reflected on the essence and distinction between good and evil. That is why most of the examples from our list refer to domestic prose.

1. F. M. Dostoevsky, "Crime and Punishment". Rodion Raskolnikov decides on a terrible crime, because he sees a glaring social injustice when most people live in poverty. He develops the "idea" that "extraordinary" people have the right to commit reprisals against the townsfolk for a good purpose. However, after the murder of the old woman and her sister, he realizes that he has committed a terrible deed and suffers. In the throwing of the protagonist, we see the eternal struggle between good and evil. As a result, Raskolnikov surrenders to the police, and this suggests that he cannot live in peace, remembering his crime. Good wins thanks to the influence of a believing girl, Sonya Marmeladova, who convinces the protagonist to pacify pride and turn on the path of moral and spiritual purification.
2. A. I. Kuprin, "Olesya". Olesya and her grandmother Manuilikha are innocent victims of human hatred and ignorance. The villagers drive them out of the village only because they consider them "witches". In fact, the grandmother and granddaughter do no harm to anyone, but only have a gift from nature. There is a kind of exchange of roles. Those who are initially considered "evil" are in fact good, and the inhabitants who appear to be "good" are actually evil. They boast of their faith, but at the same time they beat a defenseless person on the threshold of the temple. In their souls, malice has long avenged good qualities, but outwardly the peasants still retain the illusion of good intentions.

Lack of kindness

1. M. Gorky, "Old Woman Izergil". In the legend told by Izergil, the son of the eagle Larra was doomed to eternal life in solitude. He did not love anyone, did not feel pity or compassion, did not want to respect anyone. Larra valued only his freedom. He didn’t even need his mother, and he killed mercilessly, without even thinking. So, he dealt with the elder's daughter, who refused him love. And in punishment for this, the people left him alive, and he could not die. It was his own qualities - the lack of any kindness and excessive pride - that became the most cruel punishment for him. He himself doomed himself to eternal suffering in a hermitage.
2. "The Tale of Boris and Gleb". In the old Russian life, Svyatopolk, the heir to Prince Vladimir, the son of Yaropolk, decided to kill his brothers, Vladimir's own sons - Boris and Gleb, because he did not want them to claim the throne. Only those with a hard heart can commit fratricide. Boris and Gleb accepted their death humbly, but after death they ascended to heaven and found peace. I think this means that even the most cruel atrocities are unable to eradicate, destroy the good.

Kindness to save someone else's life

1. I. A. Bunin, Bast shoes. Nefed is an incredibly kind person. He was not afraid to go to a city six miles away in a terrible blizzard just to get the coveted red bast shoes for a sick child. He took out both bast shoes and magenta to dye them, but he could not walk back to the house. Nefed sacrificed his life to please a child who might not live. His act is truly selfless and kind. This is confirmed by the fact that the city men, lost and desperate, escaped only because they found a dead body in the snow and realized that there was housing nearby.
2. M. A. Sholokhov, "The fate of man." Andrei Sokolov went through all the horrors of the war. He spent two years in captivity with the Germans, he knew hellish hunger, cold, inhuman fatigue and homesickness. He lost his entire family, which he built over the years - his beloved wife and three children. He could have completely hardened, but kindness and the ability to sympathize were preserved in his heart. He took in a little orphan boy who had lost his parents in the war. This is an example of real human kindness, which even the most difficult life trials are unable to trample.

sacrificial kindness

1. O. Henry, The Gift of the Magi. Della sells her luxurious hair, which she is proud of, to buy a Christmas present for her beloved husband. John, in turn, sold the expensive family watch to buy Delle's long-awaited combs. Thus, it turned out that their gifts to each other are not needed now - Della does not have long hair to decorate with combs, and John does not have a watch that can be attached to a chain. And it is this contrast that allows us to see the most important thing - the kindness of these young couples in love, who are ready to sacrifice the most precious thing, just to please their loved one.
2. V. F. Tendryakov, "Bread for the dog." The boy, the hero of the story, takes pity on the starving "enemies of the people" - dispossessed peasants, and steals food from his parents. Then he meets, in his opinion, the hungriest, whom no one else will regret - a stray dog, and shares a piece of bread with her. The boy takes food for the hungry from his own lunch, deliberately leaving a part of what his mother serves on the table. Therefore, he himself is malnourished in order to help those who need a piece of bread more. This is a truly kind act that deserves respect.

Kindness as salvation

1. M. Gorky, "At the bottom". Of all the heroes of the play, Luke becomes the personification of kindness and compassion. His neighbors, the inhabitants of the rooming house, have sunk to the very “bottom” of life, but with his kind words, with his inexhaustible faith in man, Luka tries to help everyone who can still be helped. He instills faith in Anna that her soul is immortal, Vaska inspires that you can start living honestly, Nastya - that her dream of bright love can be fulfilled, Actor - that he can stop drinking. Luke preaches love and compassion for a person as opposed to evil, hatred, "cruel truth." His kindness becomes a beacon of light for desperate characters.
2. R. Bradbury, Green Morning. The hero of the story - Benjamin Driscoll - moved to Mars along with the first settlers. Despite losing consciousness due to lack of air, he did not return to Earth, but remained, and began to plant tree seeds. Benjamin worked tirelessly for a month, and when it finally started to rain, all the trees he had planted grew and began to emit much, much oxygen. Thanks to his good deed, the planet became green, and the settlers were able to breathe deeply and freely. I think only a kind person could do that. Benjamin did what was good for the whole planet, not for him alone.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!

The eternal theme for every person, the most relevant in our time - "good and evil" - is very clearly expressed in Gogol's work "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka". We already meet this topic on the first pages of the story “May Night, or the Drowned Woman” - the most beautiful and poetic. The action in the story takes place in the evening, at dusk, between sleep and reality, on the verge of the real and the fantastic. The nature surrounding the heroes is amazing, the feelings experienced by them are beautiful and reverent. However, in the beautiful landscape there is something that breaks this harmony, disturbs Galya, who feels the presence of evil forces very close by, what is it? A wild evil has happened here, an evil from which even the house has changed outwardly.

The father, under the influence of his stepmother, drove his own daughter out of the house, pushed her to commit suicide.

But evil is not only in terrible betrayal. It turns out that Levko has a terrible rival. His own father. A terrible, vicious man who, being the Head, pours cold water on people in the cold. Levko cannot get his father's consent to marry Galya. A miracle comes to his aid: pannochka, a drowned woman, promises any reward if Levko helps get rid of the witch.

Pannochka turns to Levko for help, as he is kind, sympathetic to someone else's misfortune, with heartfelt emotion he listens to the sad story of pannochka.

Levko found the witch. He recognized her because "something black could be seen inside her, while the others shone." And now, in our time, these expressions are alive with us: “black man”, “black inside”, “black thoughts, deeds”.

When the witch rushes at the girl, her face sparkles with malicious joy, malevolence. And no matter how evil is disguised, a kind, pure-hearted person is able to feel it, to recognize it.

The idea of ​​the devil as the personified embodiment of the evil principle has been worrying the minds of people since time immemorial. It is reflected in many areas of human existence: in art, religion, superstition, and so on. This topic also has a long tradition in literature. The image of Lucifer - a fallen, but not repentant angel of light - as if by magical power attracts an irrepressible writer's fantasy, each time opening from a new side.

For example, Lermontov's Demon is a humane and sublime image. It causes not horror and disgust, but sympathy and regret.

Lermontov's demon is the embodiment of absolute loneliness. However, he did not achieve it himself, unlimited freedom. On the contrary, he is lonely involuntarily, he suffers from his heavy, like a curse, loneliness and is full of longing for spiritual intimacy. Cast down from heaven and declared an enemy of the celestials, he could not become his own in the underworld and did not get close to people.

The demon is, as it were, on the verge of different worlds, and therefore Tamara represents him as follows:

It wasn't an angel

Her divine guardian:

Wreath of rainbow rays

Did not decorate his curls.

It was not a hell of a terrible spirit,

Vicious Martyr - oh no!

It looked like a clear evening:

Neither day nor night - neither darkness nor light!

The demon yearns for harmony, but it is inaccessible to him, and not because in his soul pride struggles with the desire for reconciliation. In the understanding of Lermontov, harmony is generally inaccessible: for the world is initially split and exists in the form of incompatible opposites. Even an ancient myth testifies to this: when the world was created, light and darkness, heaven and earth, firmament and water, angels and demons were separated and opposed.

The demon suffers from contradictions tearing everything around him. They are reflected in his soul. He is omnipotent - almost like God, but both of them are unable to reconcile good and evil, love and hate, light and darkness, lies and truth.

The demon longs for justice, but it is also inaccessible to him: a world based on the struggle of opposites cannot be fair. The statement of justice for one side always turns out to be injustice from the point of view of the other side. In this disunity, which gives rise to bitterness and all other evils, lies a universal tragedy. Such a Demon is not like its literary predecessors in Byron, Pushkin, Milton, Goethe.

The image of Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust is complex and multifaceted. This is Satan, an image from a folk legend. Goethe gave him the features of a concrete living individuality. Before us is a cynic and a skeptic, a witty creature, but devoid of everything holy, despising man and humanity. Speaking as a concrete person, Mephistopheles is at the same time a complex symbol. In social terms, Mephistopheles acts as the embodiment of an evil, misanthropic principle.

However, Mephistopheles is not only a social symbol, but also a philosophical one. Mephistopheles is the embodiment of negation. He says about himself: "I deny everything - And this is my essence."

The image of Mephistopheles must be considered in inseparable unity with Faust. If Faust is the embodiment of the creative forces of mankind, then Mephistopheles is a symbol of that destructive force, that destructive criticism that makes you go forward, learn and create.

In the "Unified Physical Theory" by Sergei Belykh (Miass, 1992), one can find words about this: "Good is static, peace is a potential component of energy.

Evil is movement, dynamics is the kinetic component of energy.”

The Lord defines the function of Mephistopheles in this way in the Prologue in Heaven:

Weak man: submissive to destiny,

He is glad to seek peace, because

I will give him a restless companion:

Like a demon, teasing him, let him excite him to action.

Commenting on the “Prologue in Heaven”, N. G. Chernyshevsky wrote in his notes to “Faust”: “Negations lead only to new, purer and truer convictions ... With denial, skepticism, the mind is not hostile, on the contrary, skepticism serves its goals ... "

Thus, denial is only one of the turns of progressive development.

Negation, "evil", of which Mephistopheles is the embodiment, becomes the impetus for a movement directed

Against evil.

I am part of that force

that always wants evil

and forever does good -

This is what Mephistopheles said about himself. And these words M. A. Bulgakov took as an epigraph to his novel "The Master and Margarita" ..

With the novel The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov tells the reader about the meaning and timeless values.

In explaining the incredible cruelty of the procurator Pilate towards Yeshua, Bulgakov follows Gogol.

The dispute between the Roman procurator of Judea and the wandering philosopher about whether there will be a realm of truth or not sometimes reveals, if not equality, then some kind of intellectual similarity between the executioner and the victim. At times it even seems that the first one will not commit a crime against a defenseless stubborn one.

The image of Pilate demonstrates the struggle of the individual. In a person, principles collide: personal will and the power of circumstances.

Yeshua spiritually overcame the latter. Pilate was not given this. Yeshua is executed.

But the author wanted to proclaim: the victory of evil over good cannot be the end result of social and moral confrontation. This, according to Bulgakov, is not accepted by human nature itself, should not be allowed by the entire course of civilization.

The prerequisites for such a belief were, the author is convinced, the actions of the Roman procurator himself. After all, it was he, who condemned the unfortunate criminal to death, who ordered the secret murder of Judas, who had betrayed Yeshua:

In the satanic, the human is hidden and, albeit cowardly, retribution for betrayal is being committed.

Now, after many centuries, the carriers of diabolical evil, in order to finally atone for their guilt before the eternal wanderers and spiritual ascetics, who always went to the stake for their ideas, are obliged to become creators of good, arbiters of justice.

The evil spreading in the world has acquired such a scale, Bulgakov wants to say, that Satan himself is forced to intervene, because there is no other force capable of doing this. This is how Woland appears in The Master and Margarita. It is to Woland that the author will give the right to execute or pardon. Everything bad in that Moscow bustle of officials and elementary townsfolk experiences the crushing blows of Woland.

Woland is evil, a shadow. Yeshua is good, light. In the novel, there is a constant opposition of light and shadow. Even the sun and moon become almost participants in the events ..

The sun - a symbol of life, joy, true light - accompanies Yeshua, and the moon - a fantastic world of shadows, mysteries and ghostly - the kingdom of Woland and his guests.

Bulgakov depicts the power of light through the power of darkness. And vice versa, Woland, as the prince of darkness, can feel his strength only when there is at least some light that needs to be fought, although he himself admits that light, as a symbol of goodness, has one indisputable advantage - creative power.

Bulgakov depicts light through Yeshua. Yeshua Bulgakov is not quite the gospel Jesus. He's just a wandering philosopher, a little weird and not at all evil.

"Se is a man!" Not God, not in a divine halo, but simply a man, but what a man!

All his true divine dignity is within him, in his soul.

Levi Matthew does not see a single flaw in Yeshua, therefore he is not even able to retell the simple words of his Teacher. His misfortune is that he did not understand that light cannot be described.

Matthew Levi cannot object to Woland’s words: “Would you be so kind to think about the question: what would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if all shadows disappeared from it? After all, shadows are obtained from objects and people? Don't you want to skin every living thing because of your fantasy to enjoy the full light? You are stupid". Yeshua would have answered something like this: “To have shadows, sir, we need not only objects and people. First of all, we need a light that shines even in the darkness.”

And here I recall Prishvin’s story “Light and Shadow” (the writer’s diary): “If flowers, a tree rise to light everywhere, then a person, from the same biological point of view, especially strives up, towards the light, and, of course, he is this very movement of his up, towards the light calls progress ...

Light comes from the Sun, shadow from the earth, and life generated by light and shadow takes place in the usual struggle between these two principles: light and shadow.

The sun, rising and leaving, approaching and receding, determines our order on earth: our place and our time. And all the beauty on earth, the distribution of light and shadow, lines and colors, sound, the outlines of the sky and the horizon - everything, everything is a phenomenon of this order. But: where are the boundaries of the solar order and the human?

Forests, fields, water with their vapors and all life on earth strives for light, but if there were no shadow, there could not be life on earth, everything would burn out in sunlight ... We live thanks to the shadows, but we do not thank the shadow and we call everything bad the shadow side of life, and all the best: reason, goodness, beauty - the bright side.

Everything strives for light, but if there were light for everyone at once, there would be no life: clouds cover the sunlight with their shadow, and people cover each other with their shadow, it is from ourselves, we protect our children from overwhelming light with it.

We are warm or cold - what does the Sun care about us, it fries and fries, regardless of life, but life is arranged in such a way that all living things are drawn to the light.

If there were no light, everything would be plunged into night.”

The necessity of evil in the world is equal to the physical law of light and shadows, but just as the source of light is outside, and only opaque objects cast shadows, so evil exists in the world only due to the presence in it of “opaque souls” that do not let the divine light. Good and evil did not exist in the primordial world, good and evil appeared later. What we call good and evil is the result of the imperfection of consciousness. Evil began to appear in the world when a heart appeared capable of feeling evil, that which is evil in essence. At the moment when the heart admits for the first time that there is evil, evil is born in this heart, and two principles begin to fight in it.

“A person is given the task of finding the true measure in himself, therefore, among “yes” and “no”, among “good” and “evil”, he fights with a shadow. Evil inclination - evil thoughts, deceitful deeds, unrighteous words, hunting, war. Just as for an individual the absence of peace of mind is a source of anxiety and many misfortunes, so for an entire people the absence of virtues leads to famine, to wars, to world plagues, fires and all sorts of disasters. With his thoughts, feelings and actions, a person transforms the world around him, makes it hell or paradise, depending on his inner level ”(Yu. Terapiano.“ Mazdeism ”).

In addition to the struggle of light and shadow, another important problem is considered in the novel "The Master and Margarita" - the problem of man and faith.

The word "faith" is heard repeatedly in the novel, not only in the usual context of Pontius Pilate's question to Yeshua Ha-Nozri: "... do you believe in any gods?" “There is only one God,” answered Yeshua, “I believe in him,” but also in a much broader sense: “To each will be given according to his faith.”

In essence, faith in the last, broader sense, as the greatest moral value, ideal, meaning of life, is one of the touchstones on which the moral level of any of the characters is tested. Belief in the omnipotence of money, the desire to grab more by any means - this is a kind of credo of Barefoot, the barman. Faith in love is the meaning of Margarita's life. Faith in kindness is the main defining quality of Yeshua.

It is terrible to lose faith, just as the Master loses faith in his talent, in his brilliantly guessed novel. It is terrible not to have this faith, which is typical, for example, of Ivan Bezdomny.

For believing in imaginary values, for inability and mental laziness to find one's faith, a person is punished, as in Bulgakov's novel, characters are punished with illness, fear, pangs of conscience.

But it is quite scary when a person consciously gives himself to the service of imaginary values, realizing their falsity.

In the history of Russian literature, A.P. Chekhov has firmly established the reputation of a writer, if not completely atheistic, then at least indifferent to matters of faith. It's a delusion. He could not be indifferent to religious truth. Brought up in strict religious rules, Chekhov in his youth tried to gain freedom and independence from what was arbitrarily imposed on him earlier. He also knew, like many others, doubts, and those statements of his that express these doubts were later absolutized by those who wrote about him. Any statement, even if it was not quite definite, was interpreted in a very definite sense. With Chekhov, it was all the more simple to do this because he clearly expressed his doubts, but he was in no hurry to present the results of his thoughts, intense spiritual search to the judgment of the people.

Bulgakov was the first to point out the world significance of ideas" and the writer's artistic thinking: "By the power of religious quest, Chekhov leaves behind even Tolstoy, approaching Dostoevsky, who has no equal here."

Chekhov is unique in his work in that he searched for truth, God, the soul, the meaning of life, exploring not the lofty manifestations of the human spirit, but moral weaknesses, falls, impotence of the individual, that is, he set himself complex artistic tasks. “Chekhov was close to the cornerstone idea of ​​Christian morality, which is the true ethical foundation of all democracy, “that every living soul, every human existence is an independent, unchanging, absolute value that cannot and should not be considered as a means, but which has the right to charity of human attention."

But such a position, such a formulation of the question requires from a person extreme religious tension, because it carries a danger that is tragic for the spirit - the danger of falling into hopelessness of pessimistic disappointment in many life values.

Only faith, true faith, which is subjected to a serious test during Chekhov's staging of the "mystery about man", can save a person from hopelessness and despondency - but otherwise it will not reveal the truth of faith itself. The author also forces the reader to approach the line beyond which boundless pessimism reigns, impudence is powerful "in the decaying lowlands and swamps of the human spirit." In a small work, The Tale of a Senior Gardener, Chekhov argues that the spiritual level on which faith is affirmed is invariably higher than the level of rational, logical arguments on which unbelief resides.

Let's look at the content of the story. In a certain town there lived a righteous doctor who devoted his life without a trace to serving people. Once he was. found murdered, and the evidence undeniably denounced the "famous for his depraved life" varmint, who, however, denied all charges, although he could not provide convincing evidence of his innocence. And at the trial, when the chief judge was about to announce the death sentence, he unexpectedly for everyone and for himself shouted: “No! If I judge incorrectly, then let God punish me, but I swear, he is not to blame! I do not admit the thought that there could be a person who would dare to kill our friend, the doctor! Man cannot fall so deep! “Yes, there is no such person,” the other judges agreed. - No! the crowd responded. - Let him go!

The trial of the murderer is a test not only for the inhabitants of the town, but also for the reader: what will they believe - "facts" or a person who denies these facts?

Life often requires us to make a similar choice, and our fate and the fate of other people sometimes depend on such a choice.

This choice is always a test: will a person retain faith in people, and therefore in himself, and in the meaning of his life.

The preservation of faith is affirmed by Chekhov as the highest value in comparison with the desire for revenge. In the story, the inhabitants of the town preferred faith in man. And God, for such faith in man, forgave the sins of all the inhabitants of the town. He rejoices when they believe that a person is His image and likeness, and grieves if they forget about human dignity, people are judged worse than dogs.

It is easy to see that the story does not deny the existence of God. Faith in man becomes for Chekhov a manifestation of faith in God. “Judge for yourselves, gentlemen: if judges and juries believe more in a person than in evidence, physical evidence and speeches, then isn’t this faith in a person in itself higher than all worldly considerations? It is not difficult to believe in God. The inquisitors, Biron, and Arakcheev also believed in him. No, you believe in a person! This faith is accessible only to those few who understand and feel Christ.” Chekhov recalls the inseparable unity of Christ's commandment: love for God and man. As mentioned earlier, Dostoevsky has no equal in the power of religious quest.

The way to achieve true happiness in Dostoevsky is to join the universal feeling of love and equality. Here his views merge with Christian teaching. But Dostoevsky's religiosity went far beyond the framework of church dogma. The Christian ideal of the writer was the embodiment of the dream of freedom, the harmony of human relations. And when Dostoevsky said: “Humble yourself, proud man!” - he did not mean humility as such, but the need for refusal

each from the selfish temptations of personality, cruelty and aggressiveness.

The work that brought the writer worldwide fame, in which Dostoevsky calls for overcoming selfishness, for humility, for Christian love for one's neighbor, for purifying suffering, is the novel Crime and Punishment.

Dostoevsky believes that only through suffering can humanity be saved from filth and get out of the moral impasse, only this path can lead it to happiness.

The focus of many researchers studying "Crime and Punishment" is the question of the motives of Raskolnikov's crime. What pushed Raskolnikov to this crime? He sees how ugly Petersburg is with its streets, how ugly the eternally drunk people are, how ugly the old pawnbroker is. All this disgrace repels the intelligent and handsome Raskolnikov and evokes in his soul "a feeling of the deepest disgust and malicious contempt." From these feelings, the “ugly dream” is born. Here Dostoevsky with extraordinary power shows the duality of the human soul, shows how in the human soul there is a struggle between good and evil, love and hatred, high and low, faith and unbelief.

The call "Humble yourself, proud man!" as well as possible suits Katerina Ivanovna. Pushing Sonya into the street, she actually acts according to Raskolnikov's theory. She, like Raskolnikov, rebels not only against people, but also against God. Only by pity and compassion could Katerina Ivanovna save Marmeladov, and then he would have saved her and the children.

Unlike Katerina Ivanovna and Raskolnikov, Sonya has no pride at all, but only meekness and humility. Sonya suffered a lot. “Suffering… is a great thing. There is an idea in suffering, ”says Porfiry Petrovich. The idea of ​​purifying suffering is persistently instilled in Raskolnikov by Sonya Marmeladova, who herself meekly carries her cross. "Suffering to accept and redeem yourself with it, that's what you need," she says.

In the finale, Raskolnikov throws himself at Sonya's feet: the man has come to terms with himself, casting aside selfish daring and passions. Dostoevsky says that Raskolnikov is waiting for a "gradual rebirth", a return to people, to life. And Sonya's faith helped Raskolnikov. Sonya did not become embittered, did not harden under the blows of an unjust fate. She kept faith in God, in happiness, love for people, helping others.

The question of God, man and faith is even more touched upon in Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov. In The Brothers Karamazov, the writer sums up his many years of searching, reflections on man, the fate of his homeland and all of humanity.

Dostoevsky finds truth and consolation in religion. Christ for him is the highest criterion of morality.

Mitya Karamazov was innocent of the murder of his father, despite all the obvious facts and irrefutable evidence. But here the judges, unlike Chekhov's, preferred to believe the facts. Their disbelief in man forced the judges to find Mitya guilty.

The central issue of the novel is the question of the degeneration of the individual, cut off from the people and labor, violating the principles of philanthropy, goodness, and conscience.

For Dostoevsky, moral criteria and the laws of conscience are the basis of the foundations of human behavior. The loss of moral principles or forgetfulness of conscience is the highest misfortune, it entails the dehumanization of a person, it dries up an individual human personality, it leads to chaos and destruction of the life of society. If there is no criterion of good and evil, then everything is permitted, as Ivan Karamazov says. Ivan Karamazov subjects faith, that Christian faith, faith not just in some superpowerful being, but also spiritual confidence that everything done by the Creator is the highest truth and justice and is done only for the good of man. “The Lord is righteous, my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him” (Ps. 91; 16). He is a stronghold; his works are perfect, and all his ways are righteous. God is faithful, and there is no unrighteousness in him. He is righteous and true...

Many people broke down on the question: “How can God exist if there is so much injustice and untruth in the world?” How many people come to the logical conclusion: "If so, then either God does not exist, or He is not omnipotent." It was along this knurled track that the “rebellious” mind of Ivan Karamazov moved.

His rebellion boils down to a denial of the harmony of God's world, for he denies the Creator justice, thus showing his disbelief: “I am convinced that suffering will heal and be smoothed out, that all the offensive comedy of human contradictions will disappear, like a pitiful mirage, like a vile invention of a weak and small , like an atom of the human Euclidean mind, that, finally, in the world finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will happen and appear that it will be enough for all hearts, for drowning all indignations, for atonement for all the villains of people, all the blood they shed, enough to make it possible not only to forgive, but also to justify everything that happened to people - let it all be and appear, but I don’t accept this and don’t want to accept it! »

A person has no right to withdraw into himself, to live only for himself. A person has no right to pass by the misfortune that reigns in the world. A person is responsible not only for his actions, but also for all the evil that is happening in the world. Mutual responsibility of each to all and all to each.

Each person seeks and finds faith, truth and meaning of life, understanding of the “eternal” questions of being, if he is guided by his own conscience. From individual faiths, a common faith, the ideal of society, of time is formed!

And unbelief becomes the cause of all troubles and crimes committed in the world.

Good and evil in the work of Russian writers were in the spotlight. Writers reflected in their Creativity of Russian writers these moral categories by different means.

Pushkin touches on the theme of evil several times. In the poem "Anchar" the author believes that evil should balance good. A place for evil is reserved by nature at the edge of the universe. Spreaders of evil throughout the earth have become people who are driven by a thirst for power, wealth, envy (for the king) and fear (for the slave). These feelings are the conductors of evil. Money can play a similar role in a person's life. They make people lose their noble knightly qualities, family ties, love ("The Miserly Knight"). They poison the creative process ("Egyptian Nights"). One of the main manifestations of evil is violence. Its use leads to tragedy. Pushkin denies it in the ode "Liberty", in the prose works "Dubrovsky", "The Captain's Daughter".
Power acquired by violence will not be recognized by the people (Boris Godunov). A person who has chosen the path of crime cannot be a creative person.

Genius and villainy are incompatible ("Mozart and Salieri"), Pushkin's humanism lies in the conclusion that any Evil always punishable. He sees a good beginning in nature (“I visited again ...”), in art (the image of Mozart, “Poet”), in natural human feelings of love and friendship (“I remember a wonderful moment”, “October 19, 1827”).

Lermontov's creative heyday came in a darker decade than Pushkin's. Lermontov developed the theme of evil more acutely. He divides evil into two kinds. Evil the author respects the romantic for its strength and awareness of doom. This is revealed in the cycle of poems about Napoleon and in the poem "Demon". Another evil comes from society. This is the evil of "mocking ignoramuses", high-society inhabitants who poisoned Pushkin ("Death of a poet", "How often, surrounded by a motley crowd ...").

Pushkin writes with bitterness about the crowd that does not understand the poet. Lermontov reinforces this motif ("The Prophet"). For him, the people of light are the bearers of evil. Lermontov's heroes, actively chasing life, rush between good and evil ("A Hero of Our Time"). Good in creativity Lermontov is concentrated in nature, where the lyrical hero finds a response to the psychological state (“I go out alone on the road”).

Gogol has a different concept. He put everything together Evil in Russia, opposing him with faith in the spiritual revival of his homeland. Gogol gave pictures of evil from mystical images of ancient evil (“Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”, “Viy”, “Terrible Revenge”) to evil in contemporary society. The spirit of devilry instills in real people and is intertwined with petty philistine evil. Such is the story of the terrible portrait and the fate of the artist Chertkov, who exchanged his creative soul for money and sold himself to the devil (“Portrait”). In The Inspector General, The Overcoat, Dead Souls, the writer gives an extensive description of a small but numerous evil, shows its danger to society and the human soul.

At Nekrasov Evil has a specific social origin. The real source of evil is serfdom. It allows the nobleman to live in idleness and to treat the people with disdain (“Railway”, chapter 3). Serfdom turns a spiritually free person into a slave (“Hey, Ivan!” and chapters from the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”, “Last Child”, “About Jacob the Faithful, an Exemplary Slave”). Good in creativity Nekrasov also has a social connotation. The poet's kindness has a connotation of sacrifice ("The Poet and the Citizen", "On the Day of Gogol's Death", "N. G. Chernyshevsky", "Knight for an Hour"). The poet sees the moral principles of Russian life in the soul of the people:

Slept in bondage
The sun is free.
Gold, gold -
The heart of the people.

(“Rus”, song by Grisha Dobrosklonov from the poem “Who should live well in Rus'”)

L. Tolstoy agrees with Nekrasov in his assessment of serfdom and violence against a person. Tolstoy considers the concepts of good and evil philosophically. If a person lives in harmony with the surrounding world and his own nature, then he was created for good (Karataev). If people lose their national roots, try to remake the human essence in order to rise above those around them, then they fall into evil. In "War and Peace" such characters are Napoleon, Kuragin. Bolkonsky, Kutuzov, Rostov, who are spiritually connected with nature and people, are opposed to them. Tolstoy considers war to be the greatest evil.

Dostoevsky talks passionately about good and evil. It reveals the origins of evil. The social side of life is the background of the story about the struggle between God and the devil in the human soul. good and evil exist in the world in balance.

Raskolnikov ("Crime and Punishment") suffers from social evil and in the fight against injustice chooses the most terrible form. Forced good based on violence degenerates into evil. Initially, Raskolnikov feels himself to be the liberator of humanity from harmful bloodsuckers. But in the end it turns out that "he killed for himself." Sonya helps Raskolnikov to make a paradoxical turn for good. Sonya steps over herself for the well-being of others, keeping her soul pure. The path from evil to good lies through suffering, repentance, purification of the soul. All this is experienced by Raskolnikov in the epilogue, and the light of truth is revealed to him. Dostoevsky leaves any lowly fallen person the right to repent and rise to the light from the depths of hell.

Good and evil in the work of Russian writers occupy an important place, because these moral categories are decisive in the spiritual life of mankind. Classical literature sought to reveal the deadly nature of evil and save the soul from its destructive effects.