Published: May 7th, 2018

Participants in the discussion agreed that the main issue is the limits of freedom. Another acute and more specific problem of modern society is how to protect children from destructive content, and to reduce the amount of such content. To solve these problems should, first, civil society.

According to the chairperson of the film forum and the festival "VVERH", producer Yuri Ryazanov, it is necessary to introduce measures to regulate child safety on the Internet. The expert cites as an example the experience of China, where hard Internet censorship operates. "China has completely shut down the Internet; the word" chastity "does not cause laughter." Today, the word "chastity" and what is happening on the Internet is... ", says the producer.

Chairman of the Commission on Harmonization of Interethnic and Interreligious Relations of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, Iosif Diskin, called not to wave his hands, but to act accurately and professionally. He also said that it is important to distinguish between artistic culture and art.

"Art culture lives by the same laws, and art - according to others. Let the artist freely create, but when he goes out to a wide audience, the society has the right to speak out, "he said.

Deputy Chairman of the Izborsk Club Vitaly Averyanov protested that it is impossible to sever art and culture. He also negatively assessed the state of Russian society from the point of view of culture: it, in the words. Expert, is in a state of chaos and decay. At the same time, there are changes that occur in cultural policy.

"Culture is a holistic phenomenon and if there is a certain illness in the culture, it manifests itself in the media, and in art culture and in everyday culture," Averyanov said..

President of the Institute of Regional Projects and Legislation Boris Nadezhdin noted that adults have the right to choose where and what content to consume, and children need protection.

"The greatest achievement of European civilization, in my opinion, is that we survived until those times when no one forces us to go to church or do the opposite," Nadezhdin stressed. Therefore, if there is no violence and if a person does not experience coercion, then such content, according to some experts, is entirely acceptable. Co-chairman of the People's Council, Vladimir Khomyakov, talking about society and culture, expressed the opinion that Russia is a separate civilization, to which Diskin argued that it is impossible to choose a civilization, this is a profound error.

When discussing issues of cultural policy, experts repeatedly turned to the experience of China. In particular, Diskin noted that it is necessary to understand what are the consequences of the fact that Russian society will adopt the norms that operate in China. According to him, limiting the Internet, we restrict access to the world's artistic heritage.

The forum told that it is impossible to find a balance, closing and defending is the law of development, so the main thing is to focus on the needs of a real society, and take into account the context of its existence and development.

The political analyst, the European observer of Rosbalt, the columnist of Deutsche Welle, Ivan Preobrazhensky, expressed the opinion that the fundamental issue of any censorship is the creation of a counterculture that is stronger in China than ever.

The European example, he said, is fundamentally different - in Europe, there are no such counterculture volumes, because any talented person can punch his way. "Struggling with what artists create, we struggle with the art itself - this is a European approach," the expert explained.

In Western practice, he said, art is created without censorship, after which, at the stage of commercialization, it either gets demand or becomes mainstream or not. Moreover, it happens on an expert level, and then goes to the level of mass culture. At the same time, it is important to bear in mind that within Europe itself the perception of culture is seriously different from country to country.

Despite the difference in approaches to the assessment of Russian society, experts agreed that the state forms the image of the future with the help of culture. It is necessary to raise the level of education of the population, while the state should actively develop this direction and invest in increasing access to culture.