Nobody likes morality. On the other hand, good advice sometimes helps out in difficult situations. How to learn to formulate your thoughts so that they do not have excessive edification? Hints from Joseph Brodsky in the retelling of Nikolai Kryschuk.
“Don’t teach me how to live!” This phrase of Ellochka the cannibal from the novel “The Twelve Chairs” is probably familiar to everyone. But have you ever thought that Ilf and Petrov, against their will, expressed with this phrase one of the main properties of human psychology? Children and teenagers hate it when adults teach them how to live. Adults also retain this property, it’s just that they are less likely to be in the situation of students. Does this mean that preaching and moralizing should be completely withdrawn from the pedagogical arsenal?
The question is, generally speaking, rhetorical. We know, of course, that it is better to educate by our own example, but this does not always work out. It brings up the atmosphere of a team, family or school, but this is most often also from the realm of dreams. In addition, we ourselves cannot do without moralizing (love for moralizing is the same innate property as dislike for it). And most importantly: with all the dislike for notations, each person not so rarely needs direct advice, not only on a specific occasion, but also in the desire to morally decide. Therefore, preaching and moralizing are possible, but under certain conditions and according to specific rules. For me, in this sense, the model is Joseph Brodsky’s “Speech at the Stadium”, which I do not get tired of re-reading from time to time.
Brodsky gave this speech to graduates of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1988. He was already a Nobel Prize winner, so the first condition was met: the sermon was delivered by an authoritative person. In addition (if this is not a rule, then a good reception), the poet did not hide the fact that he was dealing with a sermon. He seemed to be apologizing for resorting to such an unpopular genre. Thus, the reproach “Why are you preaching to us?” was no longer possible.
This is how Brodsky explained it: “When I remember my colleagues, when I realize what is happening with university curricula … I feel nostalgic for those who sat in your chairs a decade or so ago, because some of them at least they could recite the ten commandments, and some even remembered the name of the seven deadly sins. But how they disposed of this precious knowledge subsequently and how much they succeeded in the game, I have no idea. I can only hope that in the end a person is richer if he is guided by the rules and taboos established by someone completely intangible, and not just by the Criminal Code.
All reservations and doubts are important here, because they completely remove the tone of edification. The word “game” is important, and not, for example, “life path”. It is common for a young person to treat life as a game, this term is clear to him. Brodsky once again recalls the game, explaining why he allowed himself to address students with a sermon: “Because a person of my age is supposed to be more cunning than any of you in the chess of existence.” Another step towards connecting with the audience. I would say “better, kinder, smarter” – longing, now something from “Borodino” will begin: “Yes, there were people in our time” (however, how would the students of the University of Michigan know Lermontov?). And smarter is understandable. In addition, each of us is hungry for other people’s secrets.
The speaker does not flatter the audience. Flattery is pleasant only in the first minutes, then this high assessment falls on a person as a burden. Brodsky perceives his listeners “as a group of young rationally selfish souls on the eve of a very long journey.” He suspects that their greatest desire today is “to prosper and to have a decent environment,” and yet he believes that it “doesn’t hurt them to become acquainted with these commandments and a list of sins.” And again: “Life is a game with many rules, but no referee… So it’s no wonder so many people play dirty, so few win, so many lose.”
Everything, the attention of the audience is provided. Only the last chord is needed. Because it is known: a person likes to have the last word for him. “Therefore, consider what you are about to hear as merely the advice of the tip of a few icebergs, if I may say so, and not Mount Sinai… Ignore them if you will, question them if necessary, forget them if you cannot otherwise: in them nothing is mandatory.”
I will give just one example of Brodsky’s instruction. It is important here what arguments he finds when talking on a well-known topic. For example, try to be kind to your parents. It sounds too much like “Honor thy father and thy mother.” Well. “I just want to say: try not to rebel against them, for in all probability they will die before you, so that you can save yourself at least this source of guilt, if not grief.”
You, as Brodsky would say, are reasonable egoists, yes, but not soulless people at all. I’m talking for your own benefit: the feeling of guilt then tortures you, be careful. If not love, then concern for your peace of mind should tell you the right behavior.
There is one more important thing here: this advice is paid for by my own experience. Brodsky rebelled against his parents. In the US, he was known more as an essayist, and graduates may well have been familiar with his essay “A Room and a Half”, which was published three years before this speech. It was also known that his parents had died by that time, and the authorities did not allow him to say goodbye to them. A person who did not have the opportunity to say the last goodbye even over a fresh grave had the right to such advice.