“Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man in it is a worker,” these are the words of the hero of the novel I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons" by Evgeny Bazarov. Can we agree with his statement?
I think not really. Nature is undoubtedly a temple that must be treated with care, protected and preserved for its beauty. There are so many magnificent places on our Earth: majestic mountains, deep rivers, deep seas, dense forests and much more.
Any creation of nature requires a reverent attitude towards itself, because it is given to man for life and for the soul. This was also reflected in fiction. The works of M. Prishvin, K. Paustovsky, poems by S. Yesenin, I. Bunin, K. Rylenkov and many others glorify the beauty of the surrounding world and enrich the human soul.
But people should not only admire the temple of nature, but also live in it. Therefore, nature can be called a workshop, and man can be called a master. The rest depends on what kind of master. This problem has always interested writers and poets.
V. Rasputin’s story “Farewell to Matera” talks about the flooding of fertile lands during the construction of a hydroelectric power station. People have lived on this land for centuries. They grew bread, used the gifts of forests and rivers, gave birth and raised children. And now they are burning huts and destroying cemeteries. The village where people are being resettled from Matera is poorly suited for rural residents. There is nowhere to keep livestock, there are no hayfields nearby, cellars are flooded. Of course, people, cities, and enterprises need the electricity that a hydroelectric power plant will provide. But isn't it coming at too high a price?
The writer emphasized the power of nature by creating the image of a larch that grew on the island. And the workers tried to burn it and cut it down. But the strong tree did not give in to people. I think that this larch is a symbol of the power and immortality of nature. The author of the story makes the reader think about his attitude towards the world around him and that if nature is a workshop, then man should be a good master, which does not destroy the living world, but lives with it in harmony.
It is precisely such a master that we can call the hero of B. Vasiliev’s story “Don’t Shoot White Swans” by Yegor Polushkin. His wife calls him “Poor Bearer.” Kind, impractical, penniless, it is unlikely that modern people will like him young reader. But, undoubtedly, it is this hero of the story that will make everyone think about their attitude to the beauty of the world around them and teach them to love their native nature.
Egor lived the life of Mother Nature. With pain in my heart I looked at the anthill engulfed in flames, at the linden tree with its bark completely torn off. He felt sorry for every little animal, every blade of grass and twig. And he also dreamed that Black Lake would become Swan Lake again. With all the money given to him for purchases by his fellow countrymen, he bought swans in Moscow and brought them home, to a forest lake. I thought that no one would raise their hand to such beauty. Got up! The swans were killed, Yegor died. But his son, Kolka, is growing up, in whose soul his father managed to instill a love for Mother Nature. Closing Vasiliev’s book, the reader will think about the questions posed in the story by the writer, and about his attitude to the world.
Nature – Temple or Workshop?1
Is it possible to achieve a balance between the human thirst for knowledge and the virgin integrity of nature? Will the era of Mercy come for a man - a son in relation to his mother - Nature? Or is there a diabolical curse encoded in the very essence of technocratic civilization? And in the principles and foundations of consumer society lies the impossibility, unattainability of Harmony of human needs and natural capabilities? But perhaps, the more visible the bottom of the exhaustion of material resources is, the more visible the light at the end of the tunnel of spiritual resources? Both human and natural?
"Trees! I'm coming to you! Save yourself
From the roar of the market...
To you! Into the living mercury
Foliage - let it crumble!
Open your arms for the first time!
Abandon your manuscripts!
Marina Tsvetaeva 2
“... and it is not clear what they should do - either swim or sink; ships without captains, captain without a ship; We need to re-invent some meaning of existence»
Group "Agatha Christie"
If we recognize that nature is both the source and factor of the value worldview of “cosmic harmony” then naturally, the question arises: Isn’t Henry Thoreau’s position outdated that approaching nature helps bring man closer to “cosmic order”, and human contact with nature embodies a transcendental ideal, beauty and purity. 3
P.S. One of the answers is in the chapter “Bridges between islands or epicenters of existence and spiritual resources of nature”
October 25 in the assembly hall of the central city library named after. A.M. Gorky, a regular meeting of the “Literary Environment” readers’ club was held, dedicated to seeing off autumn. It opened with a clip of the song “It’s a pity that autumn is leaving, I want to see it off...” (lyrics by S. Krylov, music by S. Nikitin). We just want to preserve the beauty of the passing autumn, like all living things that surround us. Therefore, the main theme of the meeting turned out to be very appropriate: “Nature - a temple or a workshop?” This evening, dedicated to the year of ecology, was prepared by O. V. Isusova, arts librarian. She recalled that the issue of the relationship between man and nature was raised back in the 19th century by I.S. Turgenev, long before environmental problems became global character. The writer already noticed the consumer attitude of man to the world around him and brought this topic to general discussion in the novel “Fathers and Sons.”
Writers and artists were the first to notice that nature is increasingly turning from a temple into a workshop. And looking carefully at some of the paintings of landscape painters known from childhood, the guests of the evening were able to discern in them the first signs of today's problems: already then, in the 19th century, people creative professions showed concern about the fate of nature, called on them to love it and treat it with care.
Contemporary landscape painters, marine painters, and animal painters are also concerned about the state of the planet: I. Beuys (Germany), D. Sobrow, Z. Forman (America), T. Ono (Japan), K. Flerov, V. Vatagin, V. Fomin, (Russia). They are already ringing all the bells:
Ding-dong Ding-dong, ding-dong -
hears the forest, hears the valley
either a sigh or a groan.
What is it about? Who is it about? –
this old bell.
The sound is not filled with delight,
and hit, as soon as I remembered...
Impressed the audience unusual paintings American surrealist artist B. Levinson, painting cycle contemporary artist Russia N. Larsky “Man and Ecology. Corrosion".
The conclusion suggested itself: we need to treat the Earth as a temple, without destroying the established order. And we need to learn this attitude, including from artists, writers and poets.
It was M.A. Gavrilenko, head, who suggested turning to the work of the latter. arts sector: guests responded with pleasure to the invitation to read poetry at environmental theme and about the wonderful “farewell season” - autumn. Sounded famous works not only beloved classics (A.S. Pushkin, S. Yesenin), but also modern Arzamas poets (S. Klyueva, S. Makarycheva, T. Naumova, E. Volkova, N. Karaulov, L. Kuznetsova). The poems read and the topic of ecology raised inspired a little sadness in the listeners:
It smells like smoke, and it’s very sad -
Those courtyards where they burn leaves,
Autumn wanders unseen,
Leaving Moscow...
And yet... “blessed is the autumn bliss - the edge of change and premonitions...”.
At the end of the evening, we agreed on the next meeting, which will take place on November 29 and will be dedicated to the life and work of the artist V. Vereshchagin.
“The world is not a temple, but a workshop!” - exclaimed the youthfully perky Russian realist; and before him, in the era Great Revolution, the French realist said: Much seems mysterious and lofty to us just because that we are on our knees before him. Let us rise, brothers!”
Militant bourgeois realism dispersed a lot of fog, broke many stuffy vaults, but not all free minds, not all free hearts without reservations welcomed the destructive work of enlightenment thought. I'm only talking here about free minds and hearts, I’m not talking about those romantics to whom the world seemed less picturesque, devoid of the mystical medieval haze. I’m not talking about those who childishly feel sorry for the silver-bearded god in a golden crown, who pretends to be stern among a host of angels with multi-colored wings. There are still many more adults in the world who play with dolls in the manner of Ibsen's wife Solnes than is supposed. I remember how, after a stormy speech by a young educator, one very intelligent young lady insisted almost in tears:
- “I want there to be angels! Otherwise, the world is ugly!” - This passion for dolls, this capricious desire, contrary to the cold demand of a strengthened mind, to believe that fairy tales are true, does not at all prove, as some people think, some particularly poetic fold in human nature; on the contrary, all this artificial mysticism, all this artistic childishness shows a peculiar dryness of the heart, an inability to embrace the beauty of reality, an inability to sense the complex life, the multifaceted brilliance of real world, which is more fabulous than any fairy tale!
Young Goethe, having read Holbach's System of Nature, eloquently described the difficult state of mind, into which his acquaintance with the materialistic view of the world plunged him. But here we see nothing more than a confusion of two different relationships to the world: science is gray, because by its very task it is forced to decompose, anatomically dismember the nature it studies, but it does not at all deny its harmony and its beauty. A scientist should not bring an aesthetic, sensual attitude into his research, but only as a scientist; as a person, he will admire the grandiose beauty of Mother Nature with no less delight.
Wouldn’t it really be ridiculous to say that a doctor cannot love his mother with deeply tender love or passionately adore his wife, because he knows too precisely what elements anatomically make up their body, physiologically their life? Goethe's attitude towards Holbach is reminiscent of the attitude of that young man who was horrified when the functions of the brain were described to him, and argued that after this there could be nothing noble and lofty in a person, because everything is only chemical processes in a piece of jelly.
IN lately the aesthetic has become capricious with the demand for the existence of seraphim in heaven, and arguments similar to Goethe’s are again being intensively dug up by the stunted epigones of that very bourgeoisie, whose first leaders proclaimed the triumph of reason and truth. This only proves that the bourgeoisie ceases to love reality; that the roots it has planted in mother earth are becoming thinner and thinner; that reality is becoming more and more rebellious and inaccessible to her as a beauty, so that she begins to seek a more pleasant acquaintance with a skinny and long-necked, bloodless and passionless otherworldly dream.
But there is a completely different type of people on whom the cold prose of enlightenment has a depressing effect. A Sunday school teacher handed me a semi-literate notebook written by her student, a Moscow factory worker. This notebook was one of the most tragic documents I have ever read. Scientific lectures given to a young worker in Sunday school, stirred his whole soul. At first I did not understand why he resisted with such passion, with such undisguised malice, the scientific truths that were irresistibly paving the way into his mind with the weapon of logic. He expressed himself heavily, confusingly, but one could feel the passion bubbling in these lines, written in a large child’s handwriting: “I was always taught that man came from Adam, created in the bright image and likeness of God; Now learned gentlemen tell me that the man simply came out of the forest. Will I ever believe this? Finally, everything became clear to me; I reached a page full of fire, where the spiritual torment of the poor young man poured out in a rapid stream: “Madame teacher! You have destroyed my peace of mind; I am now an unhappy person; For many years now, consumption has been eating away at my chest, and the doctor told me straight out that I don’t have long to live. This means that the end will soon be over; I won’t even breathe, talk, listen, look - I won’t even do that, but, according to science, I will have to rot stinkingly underground. However, I have not seen any joy in my life, and how can I do this so that my last days? I don’t see any way to do this; but until now I firmly believed that the final end had not yet come, that life is not in bodies, but in souls, and that there is a just Lord... And I tried to be kind and not do any bad deeds; So, although I can say on the eve of death, dying at just over 20 years old, I found peace for myself, and my fears went away. Madam teacher! You and the other gentlemen teachers at school completely disturbed my peace, because if a man from the forest is nothing like rational cattle, then tell me, what should I grab onto, how to console myself, how to drive away my dying fears? So, should I now, having believed your science, lose all hope? - and should I consider my birth and life a mockery and torment? From a young age I have been working and can either die or work until they take me to the hospital, and then I’m done for. I can’t wait for awakening, but only decay. What have you turned me into in my eyes: food for worms.”
If bourgeois realist who talks about the fact that the world is not a temple, but a workshop, will say that life, although it fits entirely between the cradle and the coffin, is still a pleasant thing, if you know how to manage it, then proletarian He will quite rightly answer him that no matter how he, a proletarian, manages his life, everything turns out badly. “It’s bad to drink, sir, and it’s bad not to drink,” my neighbor on the horse-drawn horse said recently. - Not drinking is very boring, however, and drinking the same thing is not much fun. He got drunk and forgot, he beat his poor drunken wife and, I can say, humiliated her to the ground... Then he opened his eyes, and the need is worse than before, sir, more boring than before, standing here: hello, sir! This is not like a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, who, with a fat hand roundly pointing to his supplies, says: “Eat, drink and be merry!” This is not like the “sober realist” who spent the morning translating larger essay on the physiology of animals and plants, and then in a democratic blouse stained with ink, he sits down at the table next to his wife - a “reasonable person” and naughty children and eats his modest soup with appetite, teaching: “A life not filled with rational labor is a life without excesses and organized according to the rules of hygiene is an unconditional blessing, and pessimists are in vain to speak against this.”
The position of the young author of the above letter to the teacher was greatly complicated by consumption. But you have to be very frivolous not to know that all people are sick from birth with a fatal disease. If another rich man, instead of eating, drinking and having fun, suffers from spleen and yawns ideologically, looking with indifferent eyes at all the bounties of fate poured out of the cornucopia at his feet; if many intellectuals are destroying the very possibility of a hygienic life and rearing up, then all the more can a proletarian exclaim: “Our life is a dog’s life, there is nowhere to escape!”
The world is not a temple, but a workshop. A nasty, capitalist workshop, full of senseless noise, spontaneous hostility, hard labor and parasitism... Everyone drags the bottom of the workshop, feet first, to the cemetery.
Here Spinoza looks at me from the portrait with soft eyes and says: “A wise man thinks of nothing less than death.” Isn’t it better in these times, most revered Baruch, for a wise man not to think at all, eh? And so why not get drunk like a green serpent?
Mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura
Non veder, non sentir me gran ventura…
I, however, do not give such a bitter answer to Spinoza. Against. This is the answer I would give him if I thought that the world was a workshop and nothing more. But Spinoza did not think so. I don't think so either. “So you think the world is a temple?” Am I, in fact, following a trajectory “from Marxism to idealism”?
One child was forgotten in the church. This was done by a tipsy mother. The child fell asleep during the long service. Our divine services, as you know, are filled with much verbiage, in which, according to scripture, there is no salvation. When the child woke up, there was no one in the church and it was dark. Only in front of the most revered images did lamps glow. The child began to cry; to his first cry, the huge building responded with screams and shouts, and for quite a long time someone was buzzing and someone was responding in the arches and corners. The child fell silent; his own voice was scary to him with such accompaniment. He went to the doors. And every step he took rang and he was counted. It was clear that the population of the empty church was paying attention to his moves. Here, in the fading light of someone’s lamp, thin face with big eyes, some saint threatens with a long yellow finger. The child presses against the wall. His little hand landed on some ledge. What is it? These are someone’s legs pierced by a nail, there is blood on them, and when the child looked up, he saw in the semi-darkness a thin body, ribs, an ulcer and a distorted face. It’s dark, strangely scary in an empty but alive, in a silent but resounding temple. Horror squeezed my little heart. Covered in tears, the child knelt down and begged in a thin voice: “God, God, don’t hurt me.”
Isn't this what the temple world was like? The man sighed joyfully when he freed himself from the presence of the “God” and began to work, managing in his own way the area of nature closest to him. Let those who are afraid without God’s help whine. A strong and brave man proudly raised his head and stretched out his steel arms: “There is no God, so now I am me!”
But the workshop is organized disgustingly. The vast majority are interested in reorganizing it. But only a minority so far understands what they are really interested in and in what direction the reorganization is needed.
Yes, it is necessary to reorganize, because there is no strength to live and work in a workshop under the current conditions. This is the starting point. I have no strength. “Our life is like a dog: there is nowhere to go.” There is one point here, a limiting point, a strange break. As soon as it becomes clear that you need to fight for the reorganization of the workshop, that in this struggle you have numerous comrades, all your ideas and feelings quickly change. The struggle is difficult, often threatening hunger, wounds, death and does not promise very easy victories: radical improvement cannot be expected for our generation. But you notice with surprise that this is a secondary issue. It’s secondary whether you live to see victory. The only thing that matters is whether the workshop will finally be rebuilt? It's boiling inside new job, unlike all the others; work that is not aimed at creating any products necessary for life is work of criticism, breaking, destruction. But in order to destroy - both for you and the large, recently stirred up masses, with whose strength alone the planned titanic work can be accomplished - it is necessary positive plan, a plan for how the workshop should be organized. Others cleverly and hastily escape from the break that I spoke about: they outline petty improvements that can somewhat decorate “a dog’s life”; they imagine a series of such improvements and do not go beyond the boundaries of their personality, the benefits for themselves that are understandable to the simple mind; the workshop always remains a rationalistic workshop. Others - once their critical and creative thought has begun to work - raise the question more sharply about such a re-edition of the workshop, which would immediately allow a person to “straighten up”, and here majestic prospects open up: how bright, how huge, how full of beauty and happiness is the workshop of the future; How dear is the creator-man, that great artisan, for whom there is a world and a workshop and a piece of material, that artisan who, conquering the elements, creates something reasonable, beautiful, jubilant, in the image and likeness of his harmoniously beating heart. At the breaking point, a person becomes greedy: he does not want to stop at satisfying the first needs - he welcomes the endless growth of needs and the endless growth of productive forces, slavishly obedient to the human ruler. The prospects are grandiose, the scope of the struggle is increasing, the great goal gives rise to that enthusiasm, without which no great goal can be achieved. But if the ideal that grows out of the proletarian criticism of the existing workshop grows the soul, then it grows even more through struggle, a struggle in which the individual is lost in the collective, naturally becomes selfless, active, heroic... The individual is lost in the collective in order to find himself enriched, so that in your heart you can experience the tides and breakers of mass love, mass hatred of hearts walking on the ocean. All the scales of reason, this yardstick to which everyone is measured in the capitalist workshop, have been thrown back. People rise to the super-reasonable, that is, to the historically reasonable, to the reasonable from the point of view of class and humanity. And where has the question of death gone now? O incurable disease, which every person is sick with? “A Dog’s Life” has turned into a seething struggle, full of intense pleasures that make you forget about suffering: it can no longer be said that there is nowhere to go, there is somewhere to go - forward, towards the enemy!
But what a strange workshop this world is! And can one say about it that it is prosaic, that only bourgeois-organized or bourgeois-disorganized working life flows in it? Where there! There is a place in the world for enthusiasm, for creativity, for colossal construction, for boundless love that conquers time and space. And you still find that he is not poetic enough, gentlemen. romance? - Poor, dry-hearted! The world is a nasty workshop, but through the efforts of its sufferers, this workshop becomes the arena of the world's greatest struggle and turns into a temple. Yes! turns into a temple in which man himself will be God.
“I must consider my birth and my life a mockery!” Once you enter into the struggle, the golden paths to the sun of freedom and joy will unfold before you, new flowers will bloom under your feet, you will find how your life can be “settled,” and the “meaning” of your life will begin to be felt so brightly! And life will unfold into a wide, beautiful valley far, far beyond your grave, and your fears, like a pack of beaten dogs, will leave you.
Nature accompanies man throughout his entire existence as a species and humanity as a cultural and social community as a whole. According to many scientists and philosophers, people themselves are fully products of nature and its evolutionary development. Of course, one cannot exclude religious context question. After all, according to the majority of inhabitants of planet Earth, man was created by God (and some identify the Creator with Nature). Whether it’s a temple or a workshop, we’ll try to figure it out in this article. But first, a little about the terms.
The concept of "Nature"
This is what surrounds us. It is divided into non-living and living. Inanimate things include subsoil and rivers, lands and waters, stones and sand - inanimate objects. Everything that moves, grows, is born and dies - wildlife. It consists of plants and animals, and man himself as well. biological species. The biosphere and everything connected with it is nature. Is a temple or a workshop for a person, what is his role in the relationship with the Blue Planet, as with a living being?
Nature - workshop
"Man is a worker in it." These famous words of Turgenev, spoken through the mouth of Bazarov, excited the minds of young scientific revolutionaries for a long time. The hero of the novel is a rather contradictory personality. He is a secret romantic and a secret nihilist at the same time. This explosive mixture determines his concepts: there is nothing mysterious or secret in the surrounding nature. Everything is subject to man and his rational activity. In Bazarov’s understanding, nature should be beneficial - this is its only purpose! Of course, every person (and even a character in a novel) has the right to his own point of view, and to choose for himself: is nature a temple or a workshop? It may seem to everyone who shares that everything around can be remade, corrected to suit themselves. After all, man, in their opinion, is the King of Nature, who has the right to these actions that bring him good. But look how the hero himself ended his life. According to some modern interpretations work, the young scientist is killed by Nature itself (in the figurative sense of the word). Only the reason itself is prosaic - a scratch on the finger of the hero, who with a rough scalpel invades the established order of life and death and dies! The insignificance of the reason should only emphasize the inequality of power before death, no matter how you deny it.
Destructive activities of people
The consequences of a certain (the development of scientific and technological progress, the development of subsoil and thoughtless use are sometimes catastrophic. This is especially evident in last decades. Nature simply cannot withstand such influence and begins to slowly die. And with it, many species of plants and animals may disappear, including humans, as a species of mammals. The problem of the survival of humanity and all living things is becoming more and more tragic. And if you don’t stop in time, all this can lead to global, already inevitable consequences.
Where is the road to the temple?
These events make us think seriously: what should relationships be like? What is Nature: a temple or a workshop? The arguments in favor of the first point of view are quite weighty. After all, if humanity treated Mother Nature as a temple, the Earth today would not know those environmental problems that the entire progressive community of scientists is spending their efforts on solving. And, according to some experts, there is less and less time left!
Of course, nature is a temple first and foremost. And you need to go there with a feeling of deep faith and behave there without violating established customs.
Is nature a temple or a workshop?
The arguments in favor of harmony are undeniable. itself is a fundamental part of nature. And man and nature should not even be considered separately from each other. They are one. Secondly, the relationship must include a special responsibility, as a rational being, of man to Nature, his caring attitude towards it. From childhood it is necessary to instill in people the guardianship of those whom we have tamed. And the activities of society have literally “tamed” the entire environment.
Noosphere concept
In such a question as “nature - a temple or a workshop”, studying the works of brilliant scientists who are significantly ahead of the existing understanding of the world in their views can help.
Academician Vernadsky, for example, was one of those who first pointed out the unity of nature and man. The biosphere, changed by the intelligent activity of people, in his understanding, corresponds to the concept of the noosphere. This is a new sphere of the mind, where human activity becomes the determining factor of development. This, in turn, has a huge impact on natural processes, up to destruction and the possibility of self-destruction. In the doctrine of the noosphere, man is represented as deeply rooted in nature, and humanity is represented as a powerful geological force that transforms the appearance of the planet, its appearance. The developed noosphere is formed by the efforts of the entire society in the interests of mutual enrichment and comprehensive development.