Peter Meylakhs, Center for Independent Social Research, St.Petersburg, Russia
THE PUBLIC SPHERE IN THE RUSSIAN NEOMORALIST DISCOURSE
I encountered the topic of covering of moral issues in the Russian press when I studied the construction of the drug panic in the Russian print media. The moral panic around drugs occurred in 1998-2001,whereupon the problemof drugs gradually subsided from the media attention space. I noted that the construction of the drug panic coincided with rather intense media discussion of other problems usually associated with morality – homosexuality, pornography, sexual education and other issues. So, my next step was to try to determine some characteristic features of this discourse on morality.
One of the characteristic features of the Russian public sphere is relatively recent appearance of social movements and actors, whose claims for social transformation are coined not in political but rather in moral terms. For instance, the youth movement "Going together" (Iduschie vmeste) was started as a pro-Kremlin movement whose social objectives lied almost exclusively in moral domain – the claims-making activity of the movement was focused on fighting various "immoral phenomena" such as homosexuality, pornography, drug abuse etc. whereas political dimension was all but absent in the movement's agenda. Recently, there appeared numerous non-governmental organizations on the Russian public scene such as "parental committees for morality," and other similar organizations that are actively engaged in moral crusades against the evil.Paradoxically as it may seem for some, organizations of emergent civil society may be engines of intolerance, bigotry, and social exclusion rather than openness, freedom, and social inclusion.Since the end of the nineties there were two attempts to propose legislation that recriminalizes homosexual activity. Not long ago an Orthodox family brought a legal action against a TV company requiring to ban "Simpson" cartoons from broadcasting on the grounds that it instills immorality in children. (The family's complaint was rejected by court). Such claims-making activity is going not in the ideological vacuum but against the backdrop of what can be dubbed "Russian neomoralism," that is gradual backsliding on liberal moral values of Perestroika period with concomitant return to the old Soviet values and their blending with mythologized pre-revolutionary Russian tradition. The symbolic action directed to consecration of this blend was the State Duma decision to ratify the pre-revolutionary Russia national flag with the Soviet national anthem.I should emphasize that it would be overly premature to speak about this discourse as a new official ideology or dogma; rather we are witnessing certain tendencies, which may or may not gain dominance in the Russian ideological space.
In my work I tried to analyze some of the characteristic features of the Russian neomoralist discourse. I must say that it was only a pilot project grounded on a case-study of two Russian leading newspapers – "Rossiyskaya gazeta" and "Nezavisimaya gazeta" for the periodof 1997-2005. For this purpose I examined the coverage of "moral battles" around three topics – homosexuality, sexual education, and pornography. I chose these papers as ones that represented at the time of my research Russian mainstream –Rossiyskaya gazeta was and is an official media outlet of the Russian government and Nezavisimaya gazeta was popular among Russian liberal audience.
The issues of homosexuality, pornography and sexual education were covered most extensively in the period between 1997 and 2001, which by the way coincided with the moral panic around drugs. In that period there appeared articles in Rossiyskaya gazeta that reported about kind of universal conspiracy of homosexuals. For instance, on October 22 1999 there was a piece in the paper that included the following passage:"The blue and rose [which in Russian stand for gays and lesbians] have been gaining influence and clout in society. And judging by how hard and vigorously the "colored" are striving for power, how they occupy key positions in mass media, TV companies, in executive and legislative branches of power, in election headquarters of our leading politicians, - we all will have to be put under enormous pressure of those, who, under influence of sex partners, are able to make any non-traditional decisions on the highest state level."Non-traditional in Russian is another name for gays and lesbians. The similar trend could be observed with regards to another moral issue – pornography and its regulation. In contrast to 1996 when there were discussions in the newspapers about a system of regulation of products containing pornography similar to the one that exists in the Western countries, in 1999 there appear more radical calls for censure that do not suggest any compromise with "conductors of depravity." Another quote from Rossiyskaya gazeta: "Maybe we should stop to imitate everything that exist in the 'civilized West' with its theorems about legitimate and illicit lechery. The essence does not change…We should not be afraid of being accused of sanctimony (Rossyskaya gazeta, 22.01.99). In this year there was a flood of materials calling to put an end to "pornomadness." In the beginning the projects on sexual education of pupils were covered with sympathy in both pulications that I examined. In 1996 several articles were published that argued that such programs were necessary. However, by the middle of 1997 the situation started to change. There are started to appear more and more articles (written mainly by clergymen and pedagogues) that claimed that such programs "breed depravity and teach pupils various perversions." In the opinion of Igor Kon – one of the leading scholars of sexuality in Russia – there was declared a crusade against sexual education.Конструированиенаучногоконсенсуса?
By 1999 the tone used for coverage of this issue becomes close to hysterical, similar to the one that was used in the moral panics around drugs. There also occurred shift in legitimation of the moral crusade against sexual education – while in 1996 opponents of sexual education employed rational arguments: sexual education, in their opinion, will generate more problems than it will solve (more abortions, sexual infection etc.), towards the end of the century the basic argument against such programs was cultural-religious. It was asserted that they contradicted "our Orthodox culture," "the core of our culture." The following quote from Nezavisimaya gazetaillustrates the point. "There is no more tabooed issue in Russian culture than issue of physical love, this prohibition lies in our cultural core, in the part of our culture and nature that is not liable to transformation. This core can only be exploded. Now, let's imagine that our children, under the guidance of grown-ups, will learn what was traditionally never talked about with children. What can happen when the cultural core comes under such a barbaric assault? Only nuclear explosion (Nezavisimaya gazeta, 20.01.1998). By 2000 the problem of sexual education gradually disappears from mass-media, the projects on sexual education were closed. By the way, it is the only instance when neo-moralist campaign was successful - neither moral crusade against homosexuality, nor outcry against "pornomadness" brought any tangible results.
Now, the purpose of the neomoralist discourse, as of any moral crusade, is consisted in protection of moral boundaries of community. According to Michele Lamont moral boundaries is one kind of symbolic boundaries, which can be defined as a system of distinctions that are applied for categorization of objects, people, practices, and also of space and time. Any society or community has moral and symbolic boundaries, that divide bona fide community members from Others, which can be external, when they belong to other communities, or internal, when they do not fit the moral standards of the community. Such boundaries are expressed in normative prohibitions and cultural attitudes and practices that distinguish beween "us" and "them."
Now, at first I considered the neo-moralist discourse as a kind of retrograde discourse that calls for return to some kind of Soviet or fundamentalist totalitarianism, with system of total prohibitions concerning homosexuality, discussion of sexuality, and pornography. But then, I when I read these texts more attentively and thoughtfully I noticed significant differences. The purpose of neo-moralist discourse in contrast to totalitarian discourses is not complete elimination of vices and evil from both public and private spheres but purification of the public sphere. The central moral boundary in this discourse is the boundary that regulates relations in the latter. It defines what is allowed in the public sphere and what cannot be tolerated. In our case, there occurs a process of purification of the public sphere, when it is constructed as one, in which only "normal" individuals can participate – any other who does not fit themoral standards of this discourse "should stay home and do there his dirty business."I will illustrate it by another quote. "What used to be shameful to show, for what a person could be prosecuted and even imprisoned, now is shamelessly put in the forefront and equally shamelessly demonstrated. Look at us, how non-traditional we are."(Rossyskaya gazeta, 22.10.1999). Another quote: "What, according to common sense, must be very intimate, not for common viewing, now is showed off and becomes a norm, whereas it shouldn't be a norm!" (Rossyskaya gazeta, 22.10.1999). So the main strategy of neomoralists is purification and safeguarding of the public sphere from various kinds of evil.At the same time, and that, as I said earlier, is radically different from totalitarian discourses, the individual's rights to engage in "immoral behavior" (such as homosexual activity, or watching pornography, or talking about sex with his or her own children) in the private sphere are acknowledged. Every one can do as he pleases at home. I quote: "Of course, it is a completely personal matter, and thank God, nobody has a right to intervene in this kind of things now(Rossyskaya gazeta, 22.10.1999).
Among the central cultural categories,which are employed at the construction of the moral boundary that regulates sexual behavior are categories of sin, temptation, and suffering. In case of homosexuality, the sinner (homosexual) who transgresses these boundaries must recognize their existence, agree that he violates these boundaries and suffer from it, and only then he can expect leniency and indulgence. The main boundary-work, therefore, aims to enforce recognition and acknowledgement of the moral boundaries. Studying the newspapers I several times encountered the example of Tchaikovsky who deeply suffered from his homosexuality. Suffering, tormenting himself, and deeply repentant Other – that is the ideal type which is constructed in the neo-moralist discourse on homosexuality. Thus apart from purification of the public sphere, another goal of this discourse consists in enforcement of the evil to recognize the moral boundaries created by the good, even if the evil violates them.
Legitimation of these moral boundaries is accomplished by two means. First, through an appeal to "Traditional Russian Orthodox culture", monolithic, harmonic and organic, without internal contradictions, with unshakable where even if there were sins and sinners, they were necessarily repentant. By the way, such culture never existed – enough will be to recall the history of the Great Schism (Raskol), constant appearance of various sects and so forth. Second, with the aid of science – psychology, which provides objective knowledge about norm and pathology. It should be born in mind that many of claims-makers were so called Orthodox psychologists and pedagogues. By curious coincidence knowledge received through Russian Orthodox tradition perfectly coincides with knowledge obtained with the aid of science. Binary opposition between norm and pathology I came across on every step is an attempt to legitimize the moral boundaries by means of science – objective and impartial. Thus, neo-moralist discourse had double legitimation locus, and in that it differs from the discourse of Orthodox fundamentalism,which treats science with suspicion and hostility.
Now I want to move to a next theme. The point is that from the beginning of the 2000 and after the neo-moralist discourse on homosexuality, pornography almost disappears from the newspapers I examined. It appears rarely in other publications, which I did not studied so systematically. My colleague who is doing research on the Orthodox media also provided me with invaluable information that in that milieu the situation has changed as well – the mainstream Orthodox media prefer to write about positive values of family life rather than fight spiritual corruption and immorality. In other words, neo-moralist discourse (at least in the mainstream press) turned out to be short-lived. We can also note that all this discourse about moral decline of the Russian society was always present in the communist and right-wing press (in Pravda, Sovetskaya Rosiya, to give the most famous publications) but for the short time it appeared, and with a vengeance in the mainstream press, whereupon it swiftly vanished from the mainstream outlets. I also want to point out that in the communist press the issue of morality was closely related with political order, whereas in the neo-moralist discourse this issue was discussed independently from any politics. Idushie vmeste now fight fascism and racism, abstaining from issues of morality. It should be stressed, however, that despitethe climax of this discourse is probably in the past, many of its typical features are dispersed in the more conservative press.
But the central question remains: why occurred this decline of neo-moralist discourse?
A definite answer to this question is still to be given but some social theories that are engaged with issues of morality may provide some considerations. According to these theories moral panics and overall concern over morality often appear in the times of social crises and crises of legitimacy of the state. In the end of the nineties the Yeltzin political regime was in the period of such crisis, as instances of this, we may recall default, intense media discussion of presidential "family", certainly with Italian connotations, his permanent sickness etc. From the beginning of this century, we see stabilization of political regime in Russia (whatever form it takes), stabilization of the economy and other developments. The turbulent nineties are over. It is noteworthy that one advertisement of a recent Russian comedy "Zmurky" said "For those who survived in the nineties." It was the first retro-movie about Russian bandits of the nineties. And as we all know the retro-movies are shot when the epoch of the movie action is over. So one explanation might be that stabilization of political regime and social and economic life ruined perception of Russia as a society in the state of a moral crisis.
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