Have you ever wondered why the vast majority of biblical commandments begin with «not»? The only real exception is the positive recommendation to honor father and mother. In this regard, many thinkers have concluded that culture, religion, and social regulation come down mainly to prohibitions.
The only exception in essence is the positive recommendation to honor the father and mother (the commandment “respect the Sabbath day”, although formally positive, essentially boils down to what NOT to do on this day). In this regard, many thinkers have concluded that culture, religion, and social regulation come down mainly to prohibitions.
Truth and falsehood, holiness and sin, valor and crime are indeed asymmetrical. What religion calls a sin, or the law a crime, or those who have eyes and ears a lie, are usually pretty undeniable and unequivocal things. In our world, it is true that a lot of effort and money (and even cartridges) are spent on calling black white and vice versa, but this often works only because many of us voluntarily consider it good to give up our opinion and replace it with an official one. distributed from a high tower. So calmer, although at the same time lies and meanness remain them.
The truth is more difficult. It is elusive, subjective, often depends on place, time and is not always generally comprehensible. And it is impossible to demand from people to behave in truth, honestly, nobly, valiantly and holy, if only for the reason that there are no common paths to the heights, common algorithms. If they were clearly spelled out, then a paradox would arise: is it possible to become a saint by observing the “rules of holiness”, or a hero according to the charter? In all these cases, personal effort, choice, responsibility turn out to be necessary, which cannot be imputed to a person as a duty, although it can and even must be assessed according to merit. And you can demand from everyone just what begins with “not” and is indicated in the commandments and the Criminal Code.
To be a person means to occupy a certain place in the world, which has the property of resistance.
It is no coincidence that Alexander Solzhenitsyn called his famous appeal letter «Live not by lies» and not, say, «Live by truth.» Truth is relative and falsehood is absolute; it is no coincidence that lie detectors are becoming more widespread, but something is not heard about the truth detector. A person acts as a lie detector, and by how well she copes with this, one can judge how developed a person is.
The minimum level of human dignity, from which human dignity begins, is, as Solzhenitsyn wrote, to be the place where a lie does not pass: to recognize it, to call it by its name, not to support it. To be a person means to occupy a certain place in the world that has the property of resistance. And if anything in the world can pass through this place without hindrance, then the place is empty and there is no one there.