Cosmism emerged in Russia before the October Revolution and developed through the 1920s and 1930s; like Marxism and the European avant-garde, two other movements that shared this intellectual moment, Russian Cosmism rejected the contemplative for the transformative, aiming to create not merely new art or philosophy but a new world. Cosmism went the furthest in its visions of transformation, calling for the end of death, the resuscitation of the dead, and free movement in cosmic space.
Cosmism was developed by the Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov in the late nineteenth century; he believed that humans had an ethical obligation not only to care for the sick but to cure death using science and technology; outer space was the territory of both immortal life and infinite resources. After the revolution, a new generation pursued Fedorov's vision. Cosmist ideas inspired visual artists, poets, filmmakers, theater directors, novelists (Tolstoy and Dostoevsky read Fedorov's writings), architects, and composers, and influenced Soviet politics and technology. In the 1930s, Stalin quashed Cosmism, jailing or executing many members of the movement.
Today, when the philosophical imagination has again become entangled with scientific and technological imagination, the works of the Russian Cosmists seem newly relevant.
This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
@Gloomy That's sort of what the Renaissance alchemists were looking for, among other things - with substances more likely to hasten mortality than bring immortality!
@revenant Good point - we like to think so and we should always hope, but we can't break the laws of science and those do limit what we can actually do.
@ArishMell Yes and people will carry on experimenting on others. Nazi and Japanese docs did not have to face justice if they surrendered their findings.
@revenant There is a huge difference between genuine experimental surveys and treatments carried out properly, with all consent and the ethics considered very carefully first; and what tyrannies like the Nazi regime did.
@ArishMell I am trying to figure that out too. I think to attain this perfect ideal state of humanity all sacrifices will be necessary and even minimised. We are in a world of concepts now which might not have much to do with reality anymore. But it is still deeply religious.
