title: 'The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers'
author: George M. Young
publication: 2012
cite: [#201904050512]: George M. Young. The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers. 2012.
[#Young2012]: George M. Young. The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers. 2012.
#book
Preface has a content warning. Only religious ideas deserve and demand content warnings. Because religious ideas are virulent ideas, designed to turn your mind.
Russian Cosmism, a highly controversial and oxymoronic blend of activist speculation, futuristic traditionalism, religious science, exoteric esotericism, utopian pragmatism, idealistic materialis
in the Russian god-seeking but human-centered philosophical tradition, empha- sizing the existential, the historiosophic, and the eschatological
"exoteric thaumaturgy"-wonderworking conducted in an open, intellectually respectable form.
The "defining genetic mark" of Cosmist thought is "active evolution".
Humanity is to be formed into a single organism, which is said to result in a higher "planetarian consciousness", which will lead to new ethical and physical progress.
I'm struck by the similarity to Alexander Campbell's Millennial aim, which saw 201904050557 unity as a precursor to the Millennial Kingdom. As I've said elsewhere, I think this is backwards.
The Russian Mind pursues unity. Similar to how 201904050601 Growing up in the One True Church predisposes you to transhumanism.
the Cosmists also characteristically display an emphasis on the "Russianness" of their projects, a suggestion-sometimes even an insistence-that being Russian has somethingto do with the cosmic scope of their creative thought, that a Slavic instinct for expansiveness, wholeness, unity, and total solutions underlies the global, and beyond-global character oftheir investigations and projects.
The Cosmists were geniuses of unusual, seemingly conflicting tendencies and pursuits.
- "the infinite City of God" — the city spread across the cosmos?
- The bicycle represented "horizontal flight" — I've had this thought
- We need to progress from mechanical to organic wings, and escape gravity through mechanical invention. Seems to suggest mechanical is not opposed to organic.
- Evolving towards God means growing smaller/faster toward a singularity
Whether it will be the Kingdom of God or of perfect Communism, Russians have traditionally believed with special intensity... And that kingdom is to come, emphatically, not in some sweet by-and-by up yonder, but in our time and here on earth.
Catholicism stands for unity without freedom, Protestantism for freedom without unity, and Orthodoxy for sobornost', the synthesis of freedom and unity, wholeness, communality, spiritual consensus.
Fedorov would propose that all matter contains the dust of ancestors, and that traces of ancestral dust could be extracted and used not to do hostile magic but scientifically, to restore life to the departed.
201904072204 The Russian landscape leads to antagonism between Humanity & Nature.
Fedorov sees nature-worship as a death-wish.
201904052311 Fedorov personal life
201901120212 Tolstoy knew/knew of Fedorov
201904072157 Fedorov condemned Tolstoy as a Buddhist
Dostoevsky knew Fedorov
Cosmism > Spirituality without Technology leads to a dead end
And further, also in contrast to some of the other Cosmist thinkers, he believed that spiritual development alone, without scientific technology, could also lead only to a dead end.
Cosmism > The Pursuit of Knowledge for its own sake leads to War
Moreover, by pursuing knowledge for its own sake and scorning all practical application of knowledge, Fedorov argued, the learned merely aided those who would wage war. The learned contribute to the waging of war either directly, by discoveries which can be turned into weapons, or indirectly, by allowing their discoveries to be turned into articles of commerce, which leads to competition, which then inevitably leads to war.
Oof
Fedorov would later write that the most serious and destructive division between people was not between rich and poor but between the learned and the unlearned. Those of the learned class, he argued, had separated themselves from the unlearned masses, from the soil, from their origins, from their fathers, and, ultimately, from nature, God, and life.
The learned, who had the knowledge to control the blind, destructive forces of nature, did not feel the need to do so. Living in cities, insensible to nature's brute power, the learned viewed nature merely from an aesthetic standpoint.
The unlearned, on the other hand, who knew and had to bear the brunt of nature's blind force every day, had the desire but lacked the knowledge to exercise control.
To the learned, nature was a matter of beauty or ugliness, to the unlearned, a matter of life and death.
Humanity already serves one goal: war
Simply reorient:
Horizontal to Vertical, Weapon to Tool, Cannon to Weather Control, "Sword to Plowshare"
201904060119 Cosmism > War on Nature as Unification through Common Task
Fedorov convinces a communist that he doesn't care about material good, and is powerless to give others spiritual good:
To this N.F. said: "I don't understand what you're troubling yourself about. After all, you won't be able to give those for whom you're troubling yourself anything except material well-being, since you don't admit to any other well-being; but meanwhile, working to obtain material well-being for others, you renounce it for yourselfand indeed are prepared even to sacrifice your life for the sake of this. But what if material well-being is no more important to those for whom you're troubling yourself than it is for you? To what end is all your bother?
Freedom & Equality cannot produce love. But love can produce freedom & equality.
In the course conversation I heard from N. F. that the so-called great principles of the great French Revolution-freedom, equality, and brotherhood-are the product of extremely shallow thought, or even of thoughtlessness, since brotherhood cannot result from freedom to fulfill one's whims or from the envious desire for equality; only brotherhood leads to freedom, for brothers who love one another will not envy one brother who is elevated above others, and will not try to lower him to their own level; and the brother who has raised himself above the others will try to bring all his brothers up to his level. For that reason, we must seek brotherhood first and not put it at the tail, after freedom and equality, as did the proponents of freedom, equality, and brotherhood-we must seek brotherhood first, and the rest will follow.
Brotherhood demands fatherhood, family, nation.
But there cannot be brotherhood without fatherhood and a fatherland-for only by fathers are we brothers, and therefore filial and paternal love must be placed at the head, and from this fraternal love will issue. Conversing in this manner, N. F. gradually unfolded an entire world outlook which was perfectly new to me, and which called for the unification of all people in a labor of universal resurrection.
"Neither Egoism nor Altruism, but Kinship"
Fedorov
nature is "our temporary enemy but permanent friend".
Fedorov
the phrase he used as early as the 1870S, "captain and crew of spaceship earth"
The universe is neither subject, nor object, but project.
Fedorov's view that true knowledge is neither subjective nor objective, but "projective"
201904072159 Liturgy as Vision of the world as it ought to be
That day, the one which the Lord shall accomplish through us, will be brought about not by the apparent movements of the sun, and not by the actual movement of the earth, but by the joint activity ofsons who have loved the God oftheir fathers and who have been filled with great compassion for all those departed.
...
The awaited day, the day longed for through the ages, will be God's command and man's fulfillment.
Fedorov
Of all religions, only Christianity now celebrates the idea, and will in the future celebrate the fact, of resurrection. Thus true, active Orthodox Christianity will replace all today's conflicting religions, and all people will voluntarily join the common task ofresurrecting their ancestors, becoming Christian in deed regardless of nominal creed or religious upbringing.
Passive Optimism — Judaism
Passive Pessimism — Hinduism
Active Optimism — Zoroastrianism
Fedorov believed in Autocracy/Dictatorship in rejection of Constitutionalism.
There are some connections to Democracy of the Dead.
Fedorov sees autocracy as unity against the force of death, instead of unity against an external human force.
My intepretation is that Fedorov senses the need for vast unity. Much as I do today.
Fedorov rejected "progress" as the ideal of replacing the fathers with the children—the glorification of cannibalism. Instead, the atonement for cannibalism must be resurrection.
#transhumanism #ChristianTranshumanism #HistoricPerson ### Young2012; The Russian Cosmists—The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers Dostoevsky knew Fedorov Tolstoy knew Fedorov — Tolstoy on Fedorov Fedorov condemned Tolstoy as a Buddhist Fedorov personal life 1851.…
…s Followers. 2012. [#Young2012]: George M. Young. The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers. 2012. Nikolai Fedorov #book Preface has a content warning.…
…ian consciousness", which will lead to new ethical and physical progress. I'm struck by the similarity to Alexander Campbell's Millennial aim, which saw 201904050557 unity as a precursor…
…tracted and used not to do hostile magic but scientifically, to restore life to the departed. - Cosmism > Technology must be focused on doing good 201904072204 The…