CC BY
6УДК 13.1
The Problem of the Moral Heritage
Polina A. Solkina*
Siberian Federal University, 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041 Russia1
Received 9.04.2010, received in revised form 16.04.2010, accepted 23.04.2010
This article presents a social-philosophical analysis of the Russian society development from collectivism to individualism. The goal is to show designation of problematics of general dissociation, falling of moral principles, loss of the state identity on the a national scale. The author has presented destructive influence of dynamics of the West and the analysis correlated with methodological sources of the collectivism theory. Also the article covers that globalization problems concern everybody, and support of the moral education help to preserve its origionality through the comprehension and the perfection of public relations.
Keywords: transitional period, globalization, collectivists type of society, individualistic type of society, morals.
Point
At the present moment the majority of population in Russia exists in the mode of individual survival. The main range of problems is associated with personal prosperity inside of which the main interests are concentrated.
The moral and ethical issues, to be more precise, its fall or total absence more and more frequently become the object of social interest and heated disputes. Such keen perception of the situation regarding the issue of morality is due to, in the first place, the unfavourable state of things in respect of this issue and tendency for the change for worse.
First of all, globalization is - «...an attempt to spread the integral system of neo-liberal values». (Inozemcev, 2004)
The modern society evaluates in the terms of the global mobility and the unprecedented
* Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected]
1 © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
intensity of all social processes. Therefore, the main development problem is to maintain the stability of the human which creates an identity crisis. (Mantatov, Mantatova, 2007)
The transition period is a stress for the society and a break with something traditional and usual, something that was normal before, and adaptation to something new, often imposed. A contemporary researcher suggested the characteristics of these periods when «we no longer just exist in the body or within our traditions and habits and, turning them into objects of reflection, expose them to a radical revision and remodeling. (Taylor, 1988)
Example
Our life is what our philosophy of life is. The dominant philosophy of utilitarianism has created such phenomena of modern social life as a spiritual vacuum, an inversion of values and a
consumer lifestyle. The philosophy of idealism (abstractionism) led to the person’s alienation from nature. The philosophy of materialism (technocracy) has generated self-destructive forces that made humanity face the fact of the eco-technological apocalypse. It is technocratic materialism that spawned a utilitarian approach to life and an exploitative attitude towards nature. E. Gobar was right when he wrote: «If a modern person continues to worship the gods of materialism, he will lose a great gift and a sense of actual human existence» (Gobar)
Russian society is largely a transition, it can not be characterized as purely traditional, but in full it is not, and modern society. Traditionalism is updated in moments of dramatic acceleration of the socio-cultural dynamics and are apparent in the spontaneous reactions of individual adaptation. (Gavrov, 2002)
The development and changing of social states are directly influenced by various processes and happenings. «When a system is changing it reveals itself in the relation to other systems at some moment transferring from one state to another one under the influence of various causes that are determinants of the processes of this system’s changing. Under «determinism» the category that reflects the changes of social states under the influence of disturbing factors is meant.
Revealing the forms of social determinism and, in particular, the assignment form, is essential depending on the distinction of two society types - collectivist and individualist, while in each society type social interaction is reflected; its own way of social life organization based on a specific method of material production, its own social structure, social dominants; standards of naturalness and ideals of social existence appear in different ways, etc.» (Maslova, 2005)
Industrial revolution has changed the rhythm of life, «change is avalanching upon our heads
and most people are grotesquely unprepared to cope with it». (Toffler, 2001)
Western civilization is modernizing the locomotive of global development, accelerate the socio-cultural dynamics of a planetary scale. The domination of modernist paradigm, suggesting accelerating turbulent race of capitalism, in which the rate of change reaches a certain critical level, including in relation to adaptive capacity of human psyche. Medical statistics reported a significant increase in mental health, psychosomatic diseases, indicating that people are simply not able to adapt to the flow of social and cultural change, where nothing is permanent, when the risk becomes systemic. (Gavrov, 2002) Modern globalization processes, presented by the naturalistic process of the world’s growing interdependency in the result of information technologies expansion, volume and services and goods nomenclature increase, expansion of financial lows between the countries - all these presuppose a special attitude to the past as well. They use and successfully spread those historical facts, within which bases there is their «consumptive value», i.e. their excuses for aggressive pretensions of the western civilization.
In the global world, non-European cultures are denied their own self-valuable status- they are an expression of cultural exoticism, which is nothing else, but curious. Though, to our mind, different types of culture are understood not as forms of integral human race existence, but as a disclosure of heterogeneity of the mankind, consisting of different types of people, who are far from being equal according to the criteria of «the progress». (Kozlova, 2009)
«May you live in interesting times» - this is the English translation of an ancient Chinese proverb and curse. When ideals, traditional way of things, accustomed way of life and mind stereotypes change this is always a shock, a stress.
People need time to come around and cope with it.Today Russia is exactly at this turning point. The transition period, when old ideals are ruined, leaves space for spiritual emptiness.
The influence of the purposeful breakdown of the previous values’ sets played not the last role in the collapse of the national character, making people feel themselves inadequate, helpless, lonely and needless in the today’s world conditions. «Weak awareness of unity» can be observed «among the Russian people of nowadays» (Solzhenitsyn, 1998)
As the result of today’s global processes not only the oblivion of the world order in general, but the oblivion of moral structure of the society and state has happened as well. Not the moral consistency was put at the head of it, but a personality with its interests and rights. The degradation of the moral world order has caused the degradation of the personal behavior fundamentals also. Active formation of the immoral world globalization can be observed with the worship of profit, hedonism, unlimited prosperity of one people and, at the same time, unlimited poverty of the other (Pavlov, 2005). Thus, the spiritual and information space of the society can be found under control of the extensive processes of chaosmos formation. The point is that «liberalism is not an ideology which can be fought with using propagandist methods, but the way of people’s life in the conditions of the national break down». (Kudashev, 2004)
The necessity to distinguish the society types results from the processes that occur in the country at the present moment. Transformations in Russia include formation of the law-governed state and transfer to the market economics. At the same time the historical development of the nation, its uniqueness fade away. This leads to chaos and indifference (out of which comes abashment while a team is always characterized by consistency, and an individual with the worship
of freedom always generates chaos and in order to hold under control the society in which profit and unlimited freedom fatally lead to chaos, the West has created the cult of the court system which at its highest point is absurd while it cultivates not the social norm as the highest achievement of the humanity, but the judgment of each person with everybody else, and this is not typical for our society type, where social opinion, conscience and other social norms are social regulators).
The strategic task determined by VV Putin, the President of Russia, is as follows: «the understanding of our place in history, our place in the today’s world and what values of the civilization should we choose» should be in the forefront in order to strengthen the national security of Russia. Security as a social and philosophic, and political category reflects the problem of the future of Russia. The future of the Russian nation can appear under the threat as due to the severe external impact, so due to the profound internal contradictions that lead the nation to break down or ruin. And in this case the national security of Russia depends directly upon the mechanism of the state administration, purposes of political forces and social movement activities and, of course, upon the functioning of the most important social institutes that are to provide stable development of the social relationships in the today’s Russia. That is why the Russian scientists more and more often turn to the Russian history and the traditions of selfadministration. It is especially emphasized that in a collegiate state the most important are spirituality, perfectness and virtue. Only people who succeed in virtue can govern the collegiate state. (Verkhovtseva, 2004)
One should speak about the transformation of traditional, historical values taking into consideration the situation in the world when the human distinctiveness is under the threat of globalization. «In our opinion the models of
global administration of the unipolar world in reality clearly and consecutively reflect values and standards of the modern western conscience of the individualist type of society. Such models and concepts as «the end of history», «conflict of civilizations», «golden milliard of the mankind» and «limits of growth» are comfortable for people who are perfectly settled today and try to claim their status quo forever leaving the peoples of outskirts without the future. It was not accidently mentioned that «only the passionaries can serve the nation, people who are guided by sincere political virtue in their deeds. For the elite social progress is not the point. Following the ideals of the industrial determinism the elite invents laws of society establishment, when the social avant-garde of the collectivist society follows the natural laws of social development. It creates favourable conditions for social progress». (Churinov, 2001) The sharpness of conflicts in Russia around the destiny of the Soviet axiological and normative heritage can be explained not only by the fact that the majority of this heritage is in the flesh-and-blood of the older and, partially, medium-age generations of Russians, but also that the different attitude to the past in great respect predetermines the real choice of the future which many have not even made yet. (Komarovsky, 2000)
Life with all obvious evidence shows that the growing deficit of religious faith and morality, customs and traditions derived from it becomes the main cause and condition for the generation of an outrageous number of law violations, inefficient laws and law-enforcement institutions, the multivarious decisions of which do not strengthen people’s trust in justice and state power and the laws it issues but vice versa enhance people’s feeling of insecurity and anxiety for instability of social life. Perfectly understanding such regularity, already in the 7th century the Chinese Emperor Kan Shi announced: «The number of lawsuits increases if people stop fearing to go to
courts hoping to easily find justice there...One half of our people won’t be enough to solve the problems of the other half. Therefore, I demand that those who go to the court should be treated so mercilessly that they will feel disgust for the law and shake with fear from only a thought of standing in front of the judge». (David, 1996) Referring to R. David such codes created on the basis of the European model still exist in Japan but the citizens, as a rule, do not turn to them, likely to justice. The courts themselves incline the parties to amicable agreements and have developed a unique method of implementing the law or, to be more precise, of avoiding such implementation... Everything said about the Far East can be also said about the Northern Africa and Madagascar. In the conditions when individualism occupies such small space and the unity of social life is put in the forefront, the main value is keeping and reestablishment of harmony and not respect for the law. The law of the western pattern that exists in these countries is mostly only a decoration. The majority of population continue to live in accordance with traditions not taking into consideration sophisticated legal norms. (David, 1996)
The most important mechanism for the maintenance and transmission of norms, values, culture samples were national traditions, social and cultural heritage. In the national tradition of focusing social and cultural experience of identification. Traditions are a standard national experiences and integrate society. Traditions can be as positive and negative, officials societal progress and solidarity, or returning to archaic. Cultural heritage includes the positive and negative experiences. Interlocking of different cultural traditions in the bosom of the national culture contributes to its enrichment, increasing the number of innovations.
Values as elements of the identity of the people seen at two levels: the individual and
society. Personal level of national values is placed in the deep layers of psyche and personality defines the model of its behavior and thinking. It has a universal character and includes values such as family, work, health, safety, personal achievement, self-improvement. Stress and place of each of these values in the cultures of different nations will be different. For example, for the Russian people is characterized by the desire for internal improvement, personal growth and change in themselves, but for Americans -Appreciation of productive human activity, they recognize the value of action.
The second level of national values - that values social, ideological, expression of which depends on the degree of politicization of society, from the particular political situation. In an era of social change, this level of national values is dynamic and is linked to socio-political transformation of society. To include the nation's social values such as land, freedom, language, the historical destiny of the nation. The state propaganda, the media shape and control the nation's value system. The more rapid socio-historical processes in a given society, the more intense the new value is produced, transformed or repaired value of the historical past of the state. (Gavrov, 2002)
In every culture there are people who are bearers ofvalues that embody the spiritual horizons of the nation, offering a personal influence on the processes of historical dynamics. This category includes the saints, heroes, strangers, charismatic leaders, whose influence on the actions of people is enormous. If the number of people with a distinct value orientation is reduced or disrupted internal communication, in a society growing instability, disturbance, confusion. Maintenance of the national picture of the world, culture is a task for individuals. Personal start in the national culture of industrial society is playing an increasing role in the intellectual and artistic
development of the individual becomes a criterion for the development of national culture.
Mitroshenkov O.A. notes: Nowadays an adaptation to the new conditions in the spiritual and mass-communicative areas is mainly on the step-down. This is reflected in the averaging of cultural standards and information quality, reducing of analytical materials and programs level, «yellowing» and de-intellectualization of many mass media resources, narrowing of the people’s requests diversity, depletion of their life horizons. The spiritual goods market in the terms of ratings, popular formats, brands, adjusting to the engrafted demand, works as a kind of quasicivilized process. It is not driven by creativity, nor by the creation of something new in culture, but by the distribution of the familiar and the routine that gives, however, a good income. As for the television, the superiority of watching TV over reading is absolutely undeniable. It is significant that 96,0 % people watch TV and only 4,6 % say that reading is the favorite activity in their spare time. A book, especially a serious one, requires significant intellectual efforts, while watching TV serves mainly as a background activity. The averaging and the popularization of the television that affected the general tone of broadcasting, types of hosts, programs network, «similarity» of channels, as well as the reluctance to close the «opposition» channels give the reason to speak about the strengthening of the conservative stabilizing function of broadcasting in contemporary Russia. (Mitroshenkov, 2005)
In the Russian society, the sharpening of globalization opposition is revealed in various spheres, also including culture. In Russia, since 2003 the film distribution share of Russian films and cartoons, including those of patriotic theme, has been significantly increased due to the state support («9-th Company», «Alexander Nevsky. Total War», «1612», «Dobrynja Nikitich»,
«Alesha Popovich and the Tugarin Dragon» and others.). In 2005, the «Nikola» kvass advertizing campaign was started under the slogan: «No Cola-nization! Kvass is the health of our nation!»
Thus, we observe the processes of religious-national identity restoration in different countries and regions, which are actively involved in the processes of globalization. Coming back to one’s own religious and national traditions is the reaction of society to the negative consequences of globalization - westernization and unification. (Danilova, 2009)
Only multipolar world can stop the American globalism, revealing itself as a non-constructive and forceful imposing of its system of values to all the world society, up to the loss of its sociocultural identity, and precisely in such a world Russia has its chance not to lose its sovereignty and identity. National culture preservation and development will also help the process.
Thus, general course of thinking is appropriate of all the nations, involved in historical movement; it is constant and continuous, having tendencies to growth, though, in some periods history can slow down and contain as panhuman, so individual features, being typical of every separate ethnos, though, there is one common human nature in the basis of everything. (Jacenko, 2009)
Every country on our planet, including Russia, can overcome the tragedy of globalization consequences, if it preserves its nationality and consequences, if it preserves its nationality and independence. Every country can forewarn itself and its people from destruction, if it refuses form crashing its for-ages-accustomed political, economical, cultural, moral-ethic and spiritual principals. Humanity can survive and save its countries, if it comprehends, that the way of development, leading some states to progress and prosperity, leads others to backwardness and destruction. (Dureeva, 2009)
А model of state should be created based on a national tradition where the form of political organization of power is not very important but one of the main principles is a match of people’s ideals with both the past and the present. Therefore, nowadays the society needs to achieve an axiological consent based on moral social, political and other values that are shared by the majority of the population. The question is not about the new implementation of the «social agreement», but the state’s concern of the practical realization of the citizens’ constitutional rights (as well as the universal values) to life, labour, health protection, personal security, prosperity, education, freedom, possessions, justice and personal dignity. (Dines, 2QQ8)
Resume
To reckon up it should be emphasized that the crisis of values is typical not only for the Russian reality but also for the rest of the world. In today’s Russia we can observe the situation when immorality steps out in the forefront of social life taking under control human minds and the range of spheres it influences goes deeper and wider. Social instability, crisis of values of the world today, break down of original moral fundamentals, loss of ideals and deficit of humanism - all these features characterize the contemporary Russian epoch.
Future global changes are so large-scale, that no country and no people in the world are ready to their perception. Some branches of production disappear, others appear. The highest technologies become meaningless and are replaced by new ones, yet unknown; today’s prosperous territories will be devastated, others will suffer from congestion of ridicule, and yesterday’s laws will be the condition of success. That is why today the whole world speaks about the necessity «to open oneself
anew», «to invent oneself anew» or at least «to One of the ways out of the crisis situation can
conscious of oneself in the new world». (Jur’ev, be borrowed from the «Last will and statement»
2005) left by I.Ya. Yakovlev, the enlighter of the Chuvash
Hobsbawm E. pointed out that «people are people, whose main idea was concordant to, as he
ready to fight even against the enemy that is much said it himself, the evangelic tradition - «seven
stronger; unwillingness to obey fundamentally times love». It is love for God, Russia, native
changes the situation, and ... it becomes people, native language, parents and children,
impossible for the West to control the modern labour, truth and justice. One of the quotations
world». (Hobsbawm, 2004) from this document is: «Hold in honour, love
The humanity has reached a crisis, it needs great, kind and wise Russian people who bear
help to regain its welfare and balance, but welfare inexhaustible powers of mind and will... Believe
can be returned only through spirituality». in Russia and love it and let it be your mother».
(Steiner, 1997) (Yakovlev, 1998)
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Проблема нравственного наследия
П.А. Солкина
Сибирский федеральный университет Россия 660041, г. Красноярск, пр. Свободный, 79
Данная статья, представляет собой анализ социально-философских теорий, отражающих актуальную тенденцию развития российского общества на пути от коллективизма к индивидуализму. Основная цель - обозначение проблематики всеобщей разобщенности, упадка нравственных устоев, утраты идентичности государства в ракурсе общенационального масштаба. Автор представил деструктивную динамику влияния Запада и анализ, соотнесенный с методологическими истоками теории общинности, соборности и коллективизма. Также статья постулирует, что проблемы глобализации затрагивают каждого из нас, поддержание и культивирование духовно-нравственного воспитания позволят сохранить свою уникальность через осознание и совершенствование общественных отношений.
Ключевые слова: переходный период, коллективистский тип общества, индивидуалистический тип общества, нравственность.
