Documents / FOIA release
This is a CIA JPRS translation, dated 1 January 1991, of an editorial roundtable written up by V.I. Shamshurin for the Moscow journal Sotsiologicheskiye Issledovaniya. Soviet scientists, physicians and philosophers discuss medicine and biology as sociohumanitarian sciences and the links between the natural and social sciences. One participant says public interest in parapsychology, UFOs and astrology reflects a human need for miracles during social crisis. He also criticizes parapsychology experiments and Uri Geller's performances.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
## Document 8 of 10 personality' and ''stagnation'' evolved with maximum accuracy an optimum method of conduct for themselves. The policy of carrot and stick and the corresponding notion of a ''cog'' gave rise to the committing of certain actions and the abandoning of others. But the population ''which does not know how to live'' is the engine of progress. Precisely those who were unable or who could not adopt the line of conduct imposed on them are the hope of society, even posthumously. The Russian intelligentsia has always stood out both in its high morality and in its low socioutilitarian adaptation and in its absence of what previously was called ''mercenariness.'" In Russia, the intellectuals were always the pioneers, the defenders of law and...perished under the wheel of history in order years later to return to the people as an achieved long-term social good and social charity. Tragicness went hand in hand with the development of progressive thought. 34. The portion of the people who possess high adaptation abilities on the social level allowing them to secure the goods of life, can adapt to any conditions. But for the personality, for its development and activity, it is essential to have space and the possibility of choosing also inner spiritual freedom. Without this, the personality is not realized and this is always a tragedy. 35. V.I. Shamshurin: Spirituality, morality-are these ordinary concepts for a biologist...? 36. R.A. Chizhenkova: No. Merely abstract appeals to restore morality are futile. These cannot operate in isolation from the other aspects of social life. Nevertheless, the perfection of a society should be measured by the attitude to the living and even the nonliving world and not only and not so much by the attitude toward women (this is too narrow). This is what comprises the higher spirituality which brings together the entire noosphere. Possibly it was something like this that E. Le Roy had in mind when in 1927 he proposed the term 'noosphere.' Reason will embelish the new (anthropogenic) age in the world. The last (incomplete) book by V.I. Vernadskiy 'Nauchnaya mysl kak planetarnoye yavleniye'' [Scientific Thought as a Planetary Phenomenon] was devoted to an optimistic belief in human reason. At present, in relation to perestroyka, we are rethinking the economic principles of the life of society. But the measure of economic gain cannot completely serve as the fundamental criterion for the reasonability of one or another innovation. This criterion must be employed only in an aggregate with other ones. Neither economic successes nor technical progress are a justification of human suffering or the fading of nature. Priority lies with the principles of morality. The Hippocratic medical oath 'Do Not Cause Harm!' should be found in all spheres of social life as a 'symbol of belief' in the modern age.
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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.