Lecture
The concept of "anthropological catastrophe as the loss of personal integrity" usually refers to a situation in which a person undergoes an event or process that disrupts their psychological or spiritual integrity, leaving traces on their personality and mental state. This may be linked to various factors and events that cause serious emotional or spiritual upheaval.
Examples of events and factors that may be regarded as anthropological catastrophes include the following:
Severe trauma: Physical or emotional trauma, especially in childhood, can have long-term consequences for a person’s personality and self-esteem.
Loss of a loved one: The death of a loved one, especially if it occurred suddenly or violently, can cause deep psychological trauma.
Difficulties in relationships: Long-term or recurring problems in interpersonal relationships, such as domestic violence or emotional devaluation, can affect personal integrity.
Difficulties in the spiritual sphere: Loss of faith, a spiritual crisis, or conflict with religious beliefs may also be regarded as a form of anthropological catastrophe.
Loss of self-identity: Certain events, such as long-term unemployment or the collapse of career plans, can affect a person’s self-esteem and sense of their own identity.
The philosopher’s language is complex and metaphorical, and to clarify his thoughts
he makes use of parables and allegories, which in turn require
clarification. Mamardashvili borrowed the metaphor of the “black hole” from A.
Asimov. Evidently, the scholar writes, there exists some
fundamental structure of consciousness, owing to which observed
heterogeneous, outwardly unconnected microscopic,
macroscopic and cosmic phenomena turn out to be far-reaching
analogies. The scholar proposes that these phenomena be regarded as metaphors
for properties of consciousness that demonstrate the fundamental involvement
of consciousness in the processes of cognizing reality. Here we are speaking of the inner
knowledge that a person possesses — a consciousness prior to experience, prior to cognition and within
cognition, inaccessible to any external, remote observer.
(Another’s knowledge, like another’s soul, is a dark place.)
Using G. Benn’s poem “The Whole” as an illustration, Mamardashvili
thus defines the fate of inner knowledge and of its bearer —
the human being.
a) A person’s consciousness and self-consciousness are always fragmentary:
simultaneously in intoxication and in tears, in the radiance of splendor and in darkness.
The determinacy and authorship of the content of consciousness slip away. As the
poet writes: in consciousness storms are always raging, but “which storms, whose”? A person
is in principle unable to establish the authorship of the content of his
consciousness. The same idea is found in Akhmatova’s lines: “I write on someone else’s
draft…”
b) A person is condemned to loneliness. A person is always unhappy, forever
alone — he is “rarely with anyone, mostly concealed” from outside eyes. Everything brews
in the depths and, breaking out into the open, is reduced to one’s “inner core.”
c) In one and the same act of yours, one person sees destruction, another
sees creation: “What you built, one person saw only that; the other saw only what you destroyed.”
All of these are but half-visions, for only the person himself possesses (or must possess!?) the
whole. [“How can another understand you? Will he understand what you live by?
A thought once uttered is a lie.” F. Tyutchev]
d) Equally indeterminate is any goal that a person sets before
himself, one which, upon being reached, is finally supposed to clarify his human
destiny. “But now there appeared what was to be.” And what then — the living goal
“turned to stone.” And what sort of outcome is this, what does it resemble: “a bald-headed reptile
in a pool of blood.”
Thus, the sense of “wholeness” is a special, inner state of mind,
the loss of which is the tolling of a bell that always “tolls for thee” (J.
Donne).
To clarify the anthropological catastrophe, let us examine the principles
of the three “K”s — the metaphors that Mamardashvili uses to describe and
illustrate the situation of fundamental indeterminacy.
Overcoming an anthropological catastrophe associated with the loss of personal integrity often requires professional support, including psychotherapy or counseling, to help the person resolve emotional and spiritual conflicts, restore psychological equilibrium, and return to the process of self-development and growth.
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