Is the subject of a “culture of behavior” a philosophical subject in the strict classical meaning of the word? There are, and there will be opposing opinions about this matter; but I know for sure that in Russia this subject has already penetrated political discussions, including the ones on cultural policy and legislation.

I myself have heard a representative of the legislative power speaking on the high rostrum about the draft law on culture, reasoning about which country would be more cultural: the one, which has no Tolstoy and Chekhov, but where people don’t spit on the street; or the other, which has Tolstoy and Chekhov but people spit on the street and disassemble railway lines to make use of the parts without even thinking about possible derailing of a train (as it was in one of Chekhov’s short stories). Are these things related? Or completely separated? If a state cares about culture, which aspect of it should be taken care primarily? – According to that public servant, it would be better not to have Tolstoy and Chekhov if only people could be clean.

I also remember one edgy program about culture on the Russian radio. The talk dwelled upon the past year, and whether it had been a crisis or progressive year for the Russian culture. The beginning of the discussion questioned how to measure the level of cultural development in general. One of the participants, a Russian culture scholar, was comparing his point of view to that of a traditional art critic or cultural historian. An art critic looks up, at masterpieces, and does not care what putters about “down there”. On the contrary, our scientist was looking down and did not care what was puttering about “up there” – amongst Platos, Rafaels and Dostoevskys.

The scholar from the radio program explained his custom, whilst frequently traveling around the world, of estimating a states’ cultural level through observations of the state’s public toilets. Then, from his point of view, the cultural level is denoted by the sense of smell.A scaled picture of global cultural development has been illustrated through his sensations in toilets. Last year he had a very negative experience: he said that it is not only Russian but also world culture that is suffering from a true crisis.

Both the legislator and the scholar have similarities.

My answer to them would be the following: a truth apparent for thousands of years, is that in order to keep streets clean someone must clean them. This duty of cities governors does not depend on philosophy, cultural policy or cultural legislation. The logic of our characters is sobering and rational only at first glance: continued inspection reveals a character that can produce antithetical deadlock.

For example, an obvious index of the high cultural level of a country is democracy. The inevitable sign of democracy is official strikes. Once here, in Athens, several years ago in the scorching heat of July, I witnessed the sign of true democracy: a strike of garbage collectors, which lasted for several weeks. Over that time no one cleaned streets or collected garbage. For our public servant and our cultural scientist this situation is clearly a deadlock.

In all seriousness, what does the notion of “culture of behavior” give us? As early as in 1950s, American anthropologists published a book where they collected 164 definitions of “culture”. There long-standing amongst the main definitions they listed “culture” as “cultural behavior”.

However hard we try to gain multiple definitions of culture, they all would rotate around two related concepts: value and tradition. Cultural behavior embodies both values and traditions. I think that banal spitting on the street and a habit to drop litter at one’s feet is a sign that a person does not consider the world outside of their flat their own. Or rather, they do not see it as their own home. One does not spit on something precious because it is of value; however there are peoples, who do not consider spitting as filthy: this is already tradition, and nothing can be done about it.

Since old times, the culture of behavior in the world has been connected, first of all, with the understanding of the dirty and the clean; second of all, with the philosophy of an action, which is the cornerstone of ethical doctrines and a foundation for any state legislation.

Separation of the dirty from the clean, and rejection of the dirty was called “catharsis” in the Ancient culture. But curing (iatreia, therapeia) was understood the same way: repulsion of dirt, filth removed from the body and soul. Aristotle uses “purification” and “curing” as synonyms, for example, in Politics, when he talks about purification with help of spiritual chants.

Meanwhile we have to realize that catharsis is not a harmless thing. In the ancient culture dirt and filth are repulsed by the clean forever – in a rude, cruel and determined way – for good. Otherwise it is impossible to purify oneself, because filth is an image of death. According to a legend, during the Thargelia festival in Athens, a condemned criminal (the embodiment of public filth) was led through the city and publicly thrown from a rock. Quite cruel, wasn’t it: but this is how painful and bitter the sensation of purification is.

The question immediately rises: of course, preserving clean street is part of the culture of behavior, but does it have to do with catharsis in its ancient, classical understanding? – Apparently, yes. A clean person does not spread dirt around while a dirty one can become clean with help of cathartic ritual.

All day long we hear form TV commercials: if you only take care of your body and make it clean, beautiful and shining, if you show the magnificence of its qualities, everything will be all right, and all problems will be solved. An opposite voice is also strong: forget about your body altogether and care only about a soul; your body is only imperfect shell and a fragile vessel.

Both ideologies are deeply rooted in our mass culture.

Recently I read a script of a film (romantic comedy) intended for mass distribution. In the script a man is facing heavenly judgment, and angels descending from heaven have to choose bodies for themselves, just like a jacket or a coat, in a special heavenly storage (kind of a changing room). One of angels, a former man elected to be “dressed” in a beautiful muscular body when making love to a very plain girl, who then couldn’t believe her own happiness. In this scene a handsome angel-man delivers crucially important words for the script’s message: pronouncing to the girl that a body is not important; it is only a shell, and the important thing is inside.

So what should be purified first: a body or a soul? In the sphere of interpreting the relationship between a body and a soul ancient classical philosophy can teach modernity a serious lesson.

A body and a soul are tightly connected. According to Aristotle, the soul is the first entelecheia of the body (prota entelecheia toy somatos), where entelecheia means, literally, "complete reality"; the words "first complete reality" imply that the body for the first time fulfills its essence as a body due to the soul and fully exists as a soul. Opposed to this is the thought that a body is a form: a vessel in which a soul substance was poured like a wine. Aristotelian model differs from it and is of greater complexity: a soul is a form of a living body. A body without a soul is shapeless; it is pure materia, and there is nothing to say about it. A soul is the first to render a body its content, therefore is “form and logos of a body”. But, on the other hand, without a body no soul substance can be implemented in a person.

How should we understand this idea: the soul is the first entelecheia of the body?

Firs of all, it apparently means that a human body is spiritual beyond repair; it cannot be non-spiritual even if it despises spirituality and lives a vegetative life, only reproducing some functions. Vegetativeness (for example, mechanical reproduction of addiction for a clean body) is also a version of human spirituality, and does not drive a soul out of the body. A body, while it is alive, always has a soul.But to find the soul in oneself and begin to take care about it is a different story. It is special and difficult for a human, sometimes compared to his/her second birth.

Second of all, (I think this is the most important), classical philosophy insists on a soul being outside and not inside. A body without life and without a soul is a pure possibility, “potency”; with a soul in body turns from “potency” into “energy”, according to Aristotle. (“Energy” in Greek is “reality”, literally “what is in reality” – en ergon). Therefore, we follow Aristotle, saying that a human soul is already presented in human actions (a word statement is also an action), and in this meaning it merges together with a human appearance; it is all outside. An action shows more about a person than a person knows about oneself; there is a reason why we learn the truth about ourselves exclusively from our own actions.

I think the modern culture cares far too much about the concept of “personality” (or “inner personality”), received by distortion of classical terms. “Personality” is from Greek prosopon, and Latin persona, which literally mean “a mask”, an appearance. Nowadays, personality is often understood as a hidden inner content. This concept make some people think about themselves better than their actions show, which is a road to irresponsibility. Aristotle is very direct on this subject: even love as a feeling is not love before you show it; i.e. before you turn in into “energy” or “reality”. Sentiment through energy fulfills the necessities for the fruition and responsibility of love.

Classical understanding of a soul (which earlier existed in Plato’s works, and in doctrines of philosophers of much later times, like Spinoza as well as existentialists and Heidegger in XX century) elucidates an idea which should be used as a foundation when thinking about a modern philosophy of action: without such philosophies of action talk of a “culture of behavior” is illogical.

Thus, a soul is present in action, which is performed by a body and a soul together. Aristotle underlines their togetherness: “decisiveness, memory, fear and pain, are shared by a body and a soul”. By this the question about what to purify first in order to make a person better, looses its sense. What should we start with?

There is a late Plato’s dialogue called Definitions: it was apparently written not by Plato himself but by his students. It has one amazing definition: paideia dynamis therapeytike psyches – “upbringing/education: a healing capability of a soul”. “A healing capability” here is given in two meanings at the same time, objective and subjective: as an ability of a soul to heal itself, and as a means for healing (a remedy of a soul). It can also be translated as “upbringing/education: a soul care product (a way to take care of a soul)”.

The same word “upbringing” (paideia) expresses the meaning of the first European concept of culture, the strongest and most influential in the ancient Mediterranean. I mean Hellenic culture, which existed in and was passed exclusively through the system of upbringing. The virtue of the Hellenic upbringing of the Hellenistic epoch was that it did not deny many local systems of upbringing but encouraged and guided them.

During Roman domination Hellas was preserved not because of its military power. Conquests of Alexander the Great were also held together not by the troops, but authority of Hellenic upbringing, which in the Mediterranean became a synonym for “upbringing” in general. Even in the late Imperial Rome, a cultivated man (a sophisticated man) was not only to know how to speak and write in Greek but also was to be brought up in Greek model.

In the modern world Greece, Russia and Europe are in front of an infinite sea of information, an ocean of cultural diver cities each resembling tiny Attica facing the huge Hellenistic Mediterranean. Having in mind Attica’s example, we can take liberty to say that censorship is not the main remedy against dominance of false values, fake “high art”, charlatans of culture, against nationalism and chauvinism. The main line of defense, which now has to be built up and fortified as much as possible in any country using the most powerful government recourses is national education in humanities, or specifically, artistic education: upbringing in the sphere of art and literature. Nothing else can cultivate people better and bring them together.

Since ancient times, history as a science has been an object of ideological manipulations: it is important but it is not history that teaches humanism and freedom. Humanism as an ability to understand another person, and freedom as creative freedom are first of all taught by reading and interpreting art, literature and the creative exercises in these genres. These activities help to achieve attention and sensitivity towards others; these arts require understanding of creator, his characters and his works.

I consider an ability to understand another person, an ability to be attentive to his needs is the most important skill of modern times. Without it, it is impossible to feel the world to be one’s own house where very different people live. Experiencing the world as your own house best of all makes you keep the space outside of your flat clean.

Therefore, let’s leave street cleaning to city governors. Let’s not get carried away with the utopian idea of creating global code of ethics or global humanistic legislation (they will not strike root just like the artificial language Esperanto). Perhaps instead it makes sense to proclaim a special value of the nation artistic education in every country? To discover its function of the humanization of society and promotion of mutual understanding in every country? Perhaps it makes sense to include this thesis in the Main Document of our Forum?