Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency JPRS report, dated 1 May 1989, is an English translation of an essay by academician Boris Raushenbakh from the Moscow journal Kommunist. The essay argues that people need both rational scientific knowledge and metaphorical, emotional knowledge, and that these connect to morality and religious feeling. It also criticizes crude atheist propaganda and calls for restoring moral principles. The only mention of UFOs is a passing remark that some people turn to belief in flying saucers.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
## Document 3 of 3 certain starting system of elements of morality must exist, which humanizing could strengthen, refine and channel. In the past this initial system was somehow spontaneously developed by life itself. Today this process has been weakened and distorted. Therefore, it would be useful to turn to the experience of the past. 36. The child developed the elements of morality in the family which in the past played a significantly greater role in the life of all of its members than it does today. Today the family is no longer the focal point of common concerns and interests of its members. Frequently the father and the mother work in different areas, the children attend the 'extended-day'' school and everyone has his own interests, which frequently are difficult to combine within some kind of unity. Furthermore, in frequent cases intimate family talk is replaced by joint watching of television. It is not astounding that today the initial concepts of morality are acquired by the child at best from parental instructions rather than direct observation of their lives and the natural desire to imitate them. 37. In the past the moral obligations imposed upon man by virtue of his belonging to one stratum or another played a certain positive role. Let us recall perhaps the sense of honor of the nobility which made some immoral (from the viewpoint of the nobility) actions impossible. The unwritten honor code of the nobility was mastered by the individual in childhood by observing the behavior of the adults, listening to their conversions and evaluations of events and becoming the subject of strict remarks if the child committed an error: 'a member of the nobility does not act like this!' 38. We must acknowledge that the church as well played a major role in the development of morality. It would be an unforgivable error to believe that moral behavior can be the result exclusively of any type of education in school or elsewhere. Here again we have the same law as in the other areas of human activity: if you want to do something good you need systematic and daily training. Familiarity with the rules of moral behavior is not enough. One must live according to such rules in order gradually to turn knowledge into habit, into a natural standard. Metaphorically speaking, one should commit a moral act at least once a day. Real daily life is always more complex than beautiful plans and by no means could we classify all of our actions as being entirely moral. In such a case a person who aspires to lead a moral life must feel, as is now usually said, conflicting emotions. He may become sincerely regretful for his failure to cope with a situation which has appeared. 39. It would be unwise to let a serious matter such as moral 'training'' develop uncontrolled. Let us give the church its due: it developed a long time ago an efficient mechanism not only for
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 13 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.