Worldly sharing/text
When Speaking of the kingdom, Berdyaev argues that it has a "dual image"—the good that pursues public ends and the evil that oppresses the individual, and focuses on the kingdom's suppression of the individual.
Beneath the vast and complex façade of the kingdom lies the power of enslaving individuals, and in the evolution of human civilization, the most seductive and deceptive is the power of the kingdom. And with the continuous change of objective things, its form is also constantly "dressed", such as the ancient Roman Empire, the theocratic rule of the Pope, the Moscow Tsarist regime, the German Third Reich, etc. are excellent examples.
[Note] A kingdom is a country headed by a king
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="6" > the human basis for the existence of kingdom seduction</h1>
The reason why the kingdom has great allure to human society, Berdyaev believes that the main reason is that the pursuit of power in human nature, especially the power of the kingdom. Therefore, man is keen to establish the kingdom and to hold the scepter of the kingdom. The enslavement of the individual and the squeeze on the freedom of the individual inflicted on the kingdom are imperceptible. That is to say, the reason why the power of the kingdom is so powerful is that people are willing to fall. Willing to put their creative power into the construction of the kingdom, people not only expect to be blessed by the wings of the kingdom, but also worry about not being able to do their full loyalty. To put it bluntly, the enslavement of the kingdom is mainly blamed on man's misconception of the kingdom, on man's hypnosis of appeasing the kingdom and on endless imperial dreams.
Among them, the reason why hypnosis has flourished for a long time is that hypnosis is irrational, and this is mainly reflected in the impulses in human nature, calculating gains and losses by feelings. At the same time, Berdyaev believes that the so-called sovereignty and totem of the ancient kingdom are the embodiment of this hypnotism, because both contain great impulsive irrational elements. But an understanding of the nature of the kingdom's repression of individuals may lead to the suppression of human nature's natural desire to pursue the power of the kingdom.
The kingdom naturally pursues the concentration of public power, which makes it unsupportable to all but the owner of the kingdom. At the same time, the kingdom is accustomed to proclaiming that it has supreme meaning and that it is represented by it. Specifically, the ancient kingdoms were eager to become an organization very similar to the Church, so that man's soul, conscience, and thought could be unified; so that man's spiritual freedom would cease. Because of the characteristics of the ancient kingdoms, each ancient kingdom was dormant with great human disasters.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > kingdoms and empires</h1>
Berdyaev believed that the ancient kingdom was governed by the will of man, like a monster, and once the will to dominate the kingdom was unchecked, it was very easy to become an empire. And the empire is crazier than the kingdom, more likely to devour everything. For example, "England was originally a small state, but as soon as it evolved into the British Empire, it had a kingdom all over the world." And like the Holy Byzantine Empire, the Russian Empire, and the First, Second, and Third Roman Empires, which one does not show such omnipotence? Thus, the emperors who often boasted of their mission and prominence were essentially mere expansionists. (2007, The Enslavement and Freedom of Man) If a kingdom wishes to become an empire, then it has the foundation to become a great empire, and such expansion is not so much a pursuit of spatial vastness as it is to satisfy people's natural belief in expansion.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="12" > individual morality and kingdom morality</h1>
In terms of purpose, individual morality is fundamentally different from kingdom morality. That is to say, it is moral to the individual, but not necessarily to the kingdom. This is mainly due to the fact that the Kingdom judges all means which can achieve its ends as the highest and best ends. But if an uninteresting individual asks for this purpose, he will find nothing. For what the nature of this purpose is, the kingdom itself is unpunished and cannot be condemned. Even sometimes this purpose is well known as a figment of the imagination. And the most tragic fact here is that "people's lives act as means of the kingdom."
As far as specific moral codes are concerned, people often regard arbitrariness, self-centeredness, greed, hatred, ferocity, violence, hypocrisy, and insidiousness as the vileness of individual personality, but for the kingdom it is a kind of nobility and goodness. This is truly puzzling. At the same time, we realized that "everything is permissible" was enshrined as the moral yardstick of the kingdom. And it is infuriating that we always hear the voice of the slave demanding morality, and the masters of the kingdom are the ones who shout the highest morals but regard them as dung. Finally, Berdyaev concludes that "in fact, when kingdoms and nations do not manifest human morality, man is enslaved in it, and his individual personality is destroyed." ”
At the same time, he quotes Leo Tolstoy as saying that "the great historical figures of the ancient kingdom are nothing but representatives of crime, hypocrisy, cruelty, for without which the so-called great men cannot be made." "Berdyaev also believed that individual life had a supreme moral meaning, and that it should not be deprived of it even for any reason for the survival of the kingdom." I thought that the death of a man, even the most insignificant of minor people, was more important and tragic than the demise of a kingdom or empire. ”
In general, Berdyaev's conception of the state is an extreme of the "state sitting" theory, and his views lack detailed and rigorous logical arguments, which of course give rise to a sense of inhibition. Therefore, we should also analyze their views rationally and should not be biased. But his views can indeed serve as both material for Schmidtism (nationalism).