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 It is only these two ways that lead to the integral perception of the world. Both are identically essential and neglecting either of them is fatal to the individual as well as to society. 9. We live in the age of the scientific and technical revolution, which is rich with impressive scientific discoveries which gradually encompass all areas of knowledge. In that case, why do we need some kind of irrational perception of the world based on feelings (such as, for example, the feeling of duty) rather than the mind and, consequently, something which is of indefinite and loose nature? The point is that it does not change what is rational and scientific but supplements it with essentially new elements. 10. For example, let us consider the problem of man's moral behavior. The results of scientific studies obtained through rational ways of thinking may be true or false regardless of moral considerations. The table of multiplication and now also the art of making computer programs can be successfully applied by a very good person for good and useful purposes as well as by the worst scoundrel for his criminal intents. This situation is well familiar: science serves progress but can be used also by the most reactionary forces. Therefore, the conclusions of rational science do not include a moral principle. However, to the people morality is of vital importance. Concepts of morality, and even more so "'a moral feeling,'" appeared long before science, from the metaphorical and "'irrational'" (I am deliberately using this word) knowledge of the world as well as in the process of the summation of human empirical collective experience. It is only subsequently, in connection with the establishment of the world religions that, on a parallel basis, rational and ethic substantiations for moral doctrines appeared (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Spinosa and Kant). 11. What meaning do I invest in the concept of the irrational? It is by no means something secret, mystical or, in general, unattainable by the mind. Rather it is a question of what is irrational in the narrow logical understanding: an intuitive accomplishment seems irrational in terms of a discursive one; from the viewpoint of individual unique experience a logical conclusion and evaluation is irrational in terms of experimental proof, etc. Therefore, anything which I will be subsequently calling irrational and illogical, and so on, may turn out to be entirely rational from a broader viewpoint of the knowledgeable intellect, which explains and evaluates its own experience and metaphorical thinking. 12. The behavior of the individual in the world around him is based on the knowledge of this world. This knowledge is developed in two interrelated areas: one in which logic has the final word and another dominated by the feelings: compassion, love of one's neighbor and of
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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.