Tag: history

As it is known, Oswald Spengler considered the religion to be the essence of every culture. Indeed, the people’s theology (representing the story of its gods from the outside) unfolds (from the inside) as its anthropology, where correlation with the sacral allows for appropriate positioning of a person. From this, in particular, it follows that the study of the culture of certain peoples should begin with the reconstruction of their religious patterns. However, often the reconstructions, which are supposed to be working models, turn out to be only static models, more or less dexterously adapted to historical reality. Dissecting a foreign religion, the researcher is inclined to lose sight of the fact that it was filled with living acts of faith, without which all its charm disappears, integrity crumbles, and intimate depth transforms into a popular print.

A human is a being engaged in generation, exchange and consumption of concepts. I speak of “concepts” and not of “ideas” intentionally, as mostly intellectuals are involved in generation of the latter, and very often, they are the main consumers. A government and a family, a trade and a military field, a theatre and a sport, a visual art and a music bear the impress of religious and philosophical concept that define architectonics of particular society and distinguish it from others.

Objectivity of the world of history has little to do with the objectivity of the physical world, the actual existence of which happens to be an external attribute in relation to individual. Historical reality is an anthropic by definition which implies that human attitudes, representations, beliefs and even fantasy — all those things which may be described with the word “ideas” — become not only subjective rueful feelings, but under certain circumstances may become constructive factor of historical being. And if somebody takes a chance to list the most fundamental ideas that have reigned over the minds of people who featured all known societies within the entire history we know, then he/she will be get assured that the greater part of them had particular religious component. The latter sets specific requirements to history comprehension, since it is easier for researcher to understand scientific, political, philosophical concepts, alien to his/her time and culture, than alien religious forms.