“There is true and false honor” (D.S. Likhachev)

At first glance, the statement of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev, the most famous scientist, writer and public figure, about the existence of the so-called false honor seems somewhat strange and incomprehensible: honor, understood as the highest dignity of a person, cannot be false. In this case, probably, it can already be called dishonor. But the great Russian thinker of the 20th century interprets the concept of honor in this way, denoting its two possible components - truth and falsehood. Let us try, following the scientist, to understand what is true and false honor.

Let us turn to the letter "True and False Honor" from the well-known collection of letters for youth "Letters about the good." D.S. Likhachev writes: "... ideas about honor are completely false, and these false ideas cause enormous harm to society." How to understand this statement of the author? He speaks of the so-called "honor of the uniform", which is a heavy burden on the shoulders of officials. However, the writer makes one think: is it really difficult for modern officials and those in power to observe the unwritten laws of honor? Turns out it's almost impossible! And when circumstances require it, understood by the author as his own selfish interests, then the expression “honor of uniform” distorted by modern bureaucrats appears. It is she who forces officials to defend false projects, to insist on the continuation of obviously unsuccessful construction projects, and to demolish cultural monuments. There are quite a few examples of such a violation of honor. One cannot but agree with Likhachev on this: for modern officials there is no concept of honor, for them there is only a great desire to hide their shortcomings and failures, to defend the right to continue to live and work exclusively in their own interests, and not for the benefit of people. This is a false honor, which should be called and recognized as dishonor.

And what, in Likhachev's understanding, is true honor? The author's answer is simple and unambiguous. Honor is the conscience of a person, that inner measure of everything good and bad, which will not allow you to stumble and do something bad, immoral. And then there will be no longer the notorious "honor of a bureaucrat's uniform", but simply honor - a universal concept and principle, in accordance with which the life of a decent person should be built.

Thus, we can conclude: true honor is conscience. Today, in a non-spiritual world, this concept is so important and significant that everyone who considers himself a person should be aware of it. False honor is the unwritten rules of solidarity of officials acting in the interests of the state and people, but only for reasons of their own benefits and aspirations. It is impossible not to admire the conclusions of the Russian thinker, who at the turn of the century warned about the consequences of a true and false understanding of honor.

D.S. Likhachev

Letters to Young Readers

LETTER TENTH
HONOR TRUE AND FALSE

I don't like definitions and am often not ready for them. But I can point out some differences between conscience and honor.

There is one essential difference between conscience and honor. Conscience always comes from the depths of the soul, and by conscience they are cleansed to one degree or another. Conscience "gnaws". Conscience is not false. It is muffled or too exaggerated (extremely rare). But ideas about honor are completely false, and these false ideas cause enormous damage to society. I mean what is called the "honor of the uniform." We have lost such a phenomenon, unusual for our society, as the concept of noble honor, but the "honor of the uniform" remains a heavy burden. It was as if a man had died, and only the uniform remained, from which the orders were removed. And within which a conscientious heart no longer beats.

The “honor of the uniform” forces the leaders to defend false or vicious projects, insist on the continuation of obviously unsuccessful construction projects, fight with the societies protecting monuments (“our construction is more important”), etc. There are many examples of such upholding of the "honor of uniform".

True honor is always in accordance with conscience. False honor is a mirage in the desert, in the moral desert of the human (or rather, “bureaucratic”) soul.

LETTER ELEVEN
PRO CAREERISM

A person develops from the first day of his birth. He is looking to the future. He learns, learns to set new tasks for himself, without even realizing it. And how quickly he masters his position in life. He already knows how to hold a spoon and pronounce the first words.

Then he also studies as a boy and a young man.

And the time has come to apply your knowledge, to achieve what you aspired to. Maturity. We have to live in reality...
But the acceleration persists, and now, instead of teaching, the time comes for many to master the position in life. The movement goes by inertia. A person is constantly striving towards the future, and the future is no longer in real knowledge, not in mastering skills, but in arranging oneself in an advantageous position. The content, the original content, is lost. The present time does not come, there is still an empty aspiration to the future. This is careerism. Internal anxiety that makes a person unhappy personally and unbearable for others.

LETTER TWELVE
A PERSON MUST BE INTELLIGENT

A person must be intelligent! And if his profession does not require intelligence? And if he could not get an education: that is how the circumstances developed. And if environment does not allow? And if intelligence makes him a "black sheep" among his colleagues, friends, relatives, will it simply interfere with his rapprochement with other people?

No, no and NO! Intelligence is needed under all circumstances. It is necessary both for others and for the person himself.

This is very, very important, and above all, in order to live happily and for a long time - yes, for a long time! For intelligence is equal to moral health, and health is necessary to live long - not only physically, but also mentally. The Bible says, "Honor your father and your mother, and you will live long on earth." This applies both to the whole people and to the individual. This is wise.

But first of all, let's define what intelligence is, and then why it is connected with the commandment of longevity.

Many people think: an intelligent person is one who has read a lot, received a good education(and even predominantly humanitarian), traveled a lot, knows several languages.
Meanwhile, you can have all this and be unintelligent, and you can not possess any of this to a large extent, but still be an internally intelligent person.

Education should not be confused with intelligence. Education lives on the old content, intelligence lives on the creation of the new and the awareness of the old as new.

More than that ... Deprive a truly intelligent person of all his knowledge, education, deprive him of his very memory. Let him forget everything in the world, he will not know classics of literature, will not remember the greatest works of art, will forget the most important historical events, but if with all this he retains a susceptibility to intellectual values, a love of acquiring knowledge, an interest in history, an aesthetic sense, he will be able to distinguish a real work of art from a "thing" made only, to surprise if he can admire the beauty of nature, understand the character and individuality of another person, enter into his position, and having understood another person, help him, will not show rudeness, indifference, gloating, envy, but will appreciate the other if he shows respect to the culture of the past, skills well-mannered person, responsibility in solving moral issues, the richness and accuracy of his language - spoken and written - this is what an intelligent person will be.

Intelligence is not only in knowledge, but in the ability to understand another. It manifests itself in a thousand and a thousand little things: in the ability to argue respectfully, to behave modestly at the table, in the ability to imperceptibly (precisely imperceptibly) help another, to protect nature, not to litter around oneself - not to litter with cigarette butts or swearing, bad ideas (this is also garbage , and what else!).

I knew peasants in the Russian North who were truly intelligent. They observed amazing cleanliness in their homes, knew how to appreciate good songs, knew how to tell “by-life” (that is, what happened to them or others), lived an orderly life, were hospitable and friendly, treated with understanding both other people’s grief and someone else's joy.

Intelligence is the ability to understand, to perceive, it is a tolerant attitude towards the world and towards people.
Intelligence must be developed in oneself, trained - mental strength is trained, as physical ones are also trained. And training is possible and necessary in any conditions.

That physical strength training contributes to longevity is understandable. Much less understand that longevity requires training of spiritual and spiritual forces.

The fact is that a vicious and evil reaction to the environment, rudeness and misunderstanding of others is a sign of mental and spiritual weakness, human inability to live ... Pushing in a crowded bus - weak and nervous person, exhausted, reacting incorrectly to everything. Quarrels with neighbors - also a person who does not know how to live, deaf mentally. Aesthetically unreceptive is also an unhappy person. He who does not know how to understand another person, attributing only evil intentions to him, always taking offense at others - this is also a person who impoverishes his life and interferes with the lives of others. Mental weakness leads to physical weakness. I am not a doctor, but I am convinced of this. Years of experience convinced me of this.

Friendliness and kindness make a person not only physically healthy, but also beautiful. Yes, it's beautiful.

The face of a person, distorted by anger, becomes ugly, and the movements of an evil person are devoid of grace - not deliberate grace, but natural, which is much more expensive.

The social duty of a person is to be intelligent. This is a duty to yourself as well. This is the guarantee of his personal happiness and the "aura of goodwill" around him and towards him (that is, addressed to him).

Everything I talk about with young readers in this book is a call to intelligence, to physical and moral health, to the beauty of health. Let us be long-lived, as people and as a people! And the veneration of the father and mother should be understood broadly - as the veneration of all our best in the past, in the past, which is the father and mother of our modernity, the great modernity, to belong to which is great happiness.

Quoted from:
D.S. Likhachev. Good Letters. St. Petersburg: "Russian-Baltic information Center BLITZ, 1999.

Honor is the true beauty of a person. Honor is something that no man can give you and no one can take from you. Honor is a gift of man to himself. How often do we say: "What beautiful person!" What does "beauty" mean? It seems to me that this concept includes, first of all, inner, spiritual content, when a person lives in harmony with the outside world and himself, does what he loves, realizes his benefit to society, is self-sufficient, he does not need to intoxicate himself with alcohol and drugs in order to feel happiness . When a person does not commit incomprehensible acts, does not do what he should not do, when he is fully aware of himself and takes care of his honor. And what is honor? How do we understand this word and do we understand it correctly? Why is honor needed, and is it really there? To understand this, I think, first of all, it is worth looking in the explanatory dictionary. We open and read: “Honor - worthy of respect and pride in the moral qualities and ethnic principles of the individual". We can agree with this definition. But on my own, I would put a question mark next to the word "pride". In my opinion, which I do not want to impose on anyone, the words "pride" and "honor" are a bit contradictory. That is, honor in my understanding is human dignity, something that everyone has, that cannot be given or taken away, bought or sold. Everyone has honor! It seems to me that there is an opinion that the concepts of "knight" and "honor" are inseparable. In general, it is correct, since my first association with the word honor is precisely a knight. Why? Because young people who, for their honor, could give their lives or even kill a person for the honor of their beloved. But, like everyone else, the era of the Middle Ages has passed, and other times have come, completely different, and with them the meaning of honor has changed. Now, thinking about honor, you think only of honest people. After all, the root of the words honor and honest is one. And it is a pity that now honest people have a hard time. But there is still such a belief that an honest person cannot be rich. When they say about a person that he knows how to live, they usually mean that he is not particularly honest. Why not? Of course, I agree that big money is a test for the soul, for the person himself. Money (especially big money) is not given to everyone, and even fewer people stand the test of money. Money provokes a lot of negative thoughts and actions to develop in a person. Not everyone, of course, but many. And if a person was born in a wealthy family, and wealth is his natural habitat, then he simply does not need to despise others and consider himself better than others. Such a person can have wonderful feelings, such a person can be honest and rich. But such people, unfortunately, are few. In our country, they are practically non-existent for obvious reasons. We live in such years when people who allow themselves to tell the truth can be dealt with. It is sad, but the 20th century gives terrible examples when people are simply destroyed for what they said, what they did. Moreover, this happens completely imperceptibly, a person either simply disappears, or turns out to be “accidentally” killed, or all the facts indicate that this is suicide. And there are a lot of examples. To an ordinary person in everyday life it is important to behave with dignity, that is, to live according to the principles of honor and conscience. It comes to my mind: "Take care of honor from a young age." Apparently, this is the most important wish for a person. And the most deserving life path, however, and the most difficult. There is another, easier, simpler. But there is baseness, meanness, dishonor! And if you want to be happy all your life, be an honest person. In different countries, different people honor and dignity have completely different interpretations and meanings. And I really want to hope that someday in the future the concept of honor throughout the world will be the same, uniting in different countries now and those that were before, but have not reached our time. And now, having read all of the above, I would like to repeat once again that it is honor that is the true beauty of a person. That without honor a man is not a man. That this is the only thing that can remain with a person, even if everything is taken away from him! After all, as F. Schiller said: “Honor is dearer than life”!

What is honor? This is an indicator by which society evaluates the moral dignity of a person, it is our inner judge and limiter associated with the assessment and perception of such qualities as nobility, chastity, morality, valor, honesty, conscientiousness and much more. Objectively speaking, in the world of sins and temptations, it is difficult to be a man of honor - it is much easier for them to appear, to pretend to be such, and this fact leads us to a discussion about what is true honor in this case, and what is imaginary?

In Russian literature, there are many examples of virtues, people who are honest and correct in relation to their thoughts and actions, no less than those whose activities are thoroughly saturated with hypocrisy and falsehood. Imaginary honor is the prerogative of weak and empty personalities who do not know how or do not want to live their own lives, but only pretend to be completely different personalities. Moreover, such people often have a pronounced dissonance of thoughts and actions. The main indicator of imaginary honor is bad faith, while in the case of true honor, conscience comes first. Those who only pretend to be an honest person have no self-respect at all, and honest people, on the contrary, are primarily guided only by their own worldview and worldview, honesty and justice in relation to themselves and to others.

A good example of a man of honor is Pyotr Grinev, the hero of A.S. Pushkin "The Captain's Daughter" We get acquainted with his activities even at an age when a person’s character is a priori not fully formed - however, already quite young, Peter, with absolutely good intentions, thanks the traveler for his help, giving him his sheepskin coat. As the story progresses, we become more and more convinced of the conscientiousness of this hero: he fights for the honor of his beloved in a duel with Shvabrin, well aware of the risk to his own life, but immediately forgives the villain who slandered Mary, realizing that no physical punishment can teach a scoundrel a lesson and inspire him with respect for people, which means that no such punishment makes sense. And even own life for Peter, it does not enter into any rivalry with self-esteem, and therefore, when Pugachev gives the hero a choice: to die or go over to the side of the enemy, Grinev undoubtedly chooses death. Yes, perhaps self-esteem mixed with youthful passion and thoughtlessness in actions often played a cruel joke with Grinev - but over time, when emotions subsided a little, and Peter began to understand the logic of his actions and judgments, his respect for himself and for people only intensified, and the sense of justice became aggravated and sparkled with new colors. Peter is an example of true honor, while Shvabrin, a low, greedy and stupid person, appears in the story as his complete opposite.

No matter how much a person pretends to be who he is not, sooner or later society will recognize his vile essence and accuse this person of dishonor and immorality. Grushnitsky, the hero of the novel by M.Yu., belongs to the type of people with imaginary honor. Lermontov "A Hero of Our Time". From time to time he was ashamed of the fact that he was a soldier, considered this rank unworthy, and “dragging” after Princess Mary, he humiliated himself in every possible way, kowtowed before her, throwing out feigned grandiloquent expressions. The hero even at some point began to hide the lameness, which, perhaps, all this time was only part of his image. He portrayed himself as a serious man, and, it would seem, treated his feelings with dignity and honor, but in an instant, with one refusal of feelings, the princess turned from an “angel” into a “coquette”, love evaporated, and low gossip and rumors. Grushnitsky, being a typical representative of the “water society”, planned for a long time to pretend to be the “hero of the novel”, but his whole essence very quickly got out, and later, having contacted such unworthy personalities as he, he showed a complete absence of honor and dignity, deciding to win a duel by deceit, for which he paid with his life.

To live easier or to live more correctly is the choice that each person makes for himself throughout his life. What is imaginary honor and what is true is easy to understand, each of us is the sculptor of our own destiny, but in any circumstances it is worth remembering the quote by A.P. Chekhov: "Honor cannot be taken away, it can be lost."

Honor is the true beauty of a person.

Honor is something that no man can give you and no one can take from you. Honor is a gift of man to himself.

How often do we say: “What a beautiful person!” What does "beauty" mean? It seems to me that this concept includes, first of all, inner, spiritual content, when a person lives in harmony with the outside world and himself, does what he loves, realizes his benefit to society, is self-sufficient, he does not need to intoxicate himself with alcohol and drugs in order to feel happiness . When a person does not commit incomprehensible acts, does not do what he should not do, when he is fully aware of himself and takes care of his honor.

And what is honor? How do we understand this word and do we understand it correctly? Why is honor needed, and is it really there? To understand this, I think, first of all, it is worth looking in the explanatory dictionary. We open it and read: “Honor is the moral qualities and ethnic principles of a person worthy of respect and pride.” We can agree with this definition. But on my own, I would put a question mark next to the word "pride". In my opinion, which I do not want to impose on anyone, the words "pride" and "honor" are a bit contradictory. That is, honor in my understanding is human dignity, something that everyone has, that cannot be given or taken away, bought or sold. Everyone has honor!

It seems to me that there is an opinion that the concepts of "knight" and "honor" are inseparable. In general, it is correct, since my first association with the word honor is precisely a knight. Why? Because young people who, for their honor, could give their lives or even kill a person for the honor of their beloved. But, like everyone else, the era of the Middle Ages has passed, and other times have come, completely different, and with them the meaning of honor has changed.

Now, thinking about honor, you think only of honest people. After all, the root of the words honor and honest is one. And it is a pity that now honest people have a hard time. But there is still such a belief that an honest person cannot be rich. When they say about a person that he knows how to live, they usually mean that he is not particularly honest. Why not? Of course, I agree that big money is a test for the soul, for the person himself. Money (especially big money) is not given to everyone, and even fewer people stand the test of money. Money provokes a lot of negative thoughts and actions to develop in a person. Not everyone, of course, but many. And if a person was born in a wealthy family, and wealth is his natural habitat, then he simply does not need to despise others and consider himself better than others. Such a person can have wonderful feelings, such a person can be honest and rich. But such people, unfortunately, are few. In our country, they are practically non-existent for obvious reasons.

We live in such years when people who allow themselves to tell the truth can be dealt with. It is sad, but the 20th century gives terrible examples when people are simply destroyed for what they said, what they did. Moreover, this happens completely imperceptibly, a person either simply disappears, or turns out to be “accidentally” killed, or all the facts indicate that this is suicide. And there are a lot of examples.

In everyday life, it is important for an ordinary person to behave with dignity, that is, to live according to the principles of honor and conscience. It comes to my mind: "Take care of honor from a young age." Apparently, this is the most important wish for a person. And the most worthy way of life, however, and the most difficult. There is another, easier, simpler. But there is baseness, meanness, dishonor! And if you want to be happy all your life, be an honest person.

In different countries, for different people, honor and dignity have completely different interpretations and meanings. And I really want to hope that someday in the future the concept of honor throughout the world will be the same, uniting in different countries now and those that were before, but have not reached our time.

And now, having read all of the above, I would like to repeat once again that it is honor that is the true beauty of a person. That without honor a man is not a man. That this is the only thing that can remain with a person, even if everything is taken away from him! After all, as F. Schiller said: “Honor is dearer than life”!