The great and mighty Russian language! It perfectly combines not only complex constructions, explanations of reality, society or the existence of God in the works of Mikhailovsky, Berdyaev or Solovyov, but also the beauty and simplicity of ordinary folk sayings and proverbs. A vivid example of this is the wise phrase: "Live and learn." These four words contain not only a high moral meaning, but also provide scope for philosophical reasoning.
Sociological Approach to the Proverb
The meaning of the proverb “Live and learn, ” is that no matter how experienced a person is, he always has to learn from his mistakes. A variant of this phrase is also another proverb “Life will teach.” From a sociological point of view, these phrases indicate that the processes of socialization or adaptation of a person to society never end in childhood. They continue even when we are in old age sitting on a bench at the entrance and watching life flying somewhere. This runs counter to the philosophy of one well-known Austrian psychoanalyst who flashes in jokes and funny stories as often as Lieutenant Rzhevsky. It's about Sigmund Freud.
How would Sigmund Freud react?
Surely, a famous scientist would have fallen into a stupor if we tried to prove to him that the phrase “A century live, a century learn” made sense far from ordinary. It does not smell like truisms and triviality. The fact is that Freud, like many behaviorists, believed that the consciousness of any person is formed only in childhood. It was not for nothing that the famous Austrian himself said that “Everything is from childhood”, and adulthood is a struggle against children's complexes, fears and neuroses. Where do the Austrians understand the great Russian spirit?
Eric Erickson and the meaning of the proverb
It has been a long time since the beginning of the 20th century, and scientists such as Anthony Giddens, Jürgen Habermas, Erich Fromm and other social philosophers have discovered that a person learns the world and himself in it throughout his life. The phrase “Live, Learn, ” is an excellent summary of Eric Erickson’s work. The American psychoanalyst identified eight stages of human life. At each stage, a person experiences a crisis. So, the first “oral stage, ” which lasts throughout the first year of a child’s life, forms trust or distrust of the mother and the world. Already at the fifth stage, a young person (13-21 years old) has a sexual and social identity. Life self-determination appears. At the last, eighth stage, which is called maturity or “ego-integration-despair”, a person develops an attitude towards death, youth, belonging to a generation, humanity.
The famous postscript "… and die a fool"
This proverb does not always express a positive attitude towards cognition and the desire to discover certain truths. So, one postscript dramatically changes the meaning of the whole message of the people: “Live a century - study a century, and you will die a fool.” Not a single more or less sensible sociologist in any case will not agree with such a phrase. Since, as we noted above, life is a process of cognition. Every day, sitting at home in front of the TV or in the chic foyer of the theater, going to work or study, talking with friends or hiding under the covers, reading a book, we learn something new. It can be a cultural or social code that allows us not only to communicate, but also to occupy a certain place in the social hierarchy. This may be the knowledge of the laws of the Earth through chemistry, physics, or the knowledge of the epistemological categories of responsibility, honesty, truth and falsehood through philosophy. But not every communication, like any book, gives a person food for the mind. Sometimes we get stuck in monotony and tautology. We read the same thing, we speak on the same occasion. And here the addition to the proverb already has weight. But can this be called a worthy life? O. A. Donskikh believes that conformism is the opposite of dignity.
Many writers can find the answer to the question, what does it mean, "Live a century, learn a century." Shukshin in his story “Cosmos, Nervous System, and Fatty Oil” contrasts the conservative old man Yegor Kuzmich, a kind of aged Ivan the Fool on the stove, a developing schoolboy who asks himself scientific questions. “Learning is never too late” is the main idea of this story.
Vivid examples of proverbs from the world of cinema
In mass art, this idea has been raised millions of times. It’s enough to recall such Hollywood films as “Dallas Buyers Club”, “Social Network”, “Forrest Gump” or “Personnel”. In the comedy film “Shots, ” the plot tells of two young people who are used to selling expensive watches. But the time has come for the Internet and the “sales people”, as they are usually called, have turned out to be not so popular. Then our heroes had to get out, retrain, show considerable inventiveness. They decided to go interns to the largest company in the world. And her name is Google. Hoping to get a job in the company, they began to learn new things and bring their ideas, ways of thinking and lifestyle to the world of Internet companies. So the proverb “Live and learn, ” applies not only to individuals, but also to large companies that have to adapt to modern realities.
As you know, IKEA used to sell matches, but now it is a Swedish giant whose furniture can be found in any home. History knows many such points at the state level. Countries borrow each other's experiences and develop. So, China borrowed the capitalist way of doing business, but at the same time left its socialist system. And now, the People’s Republic of China claims to be another superpower.
