Ideas and Ideals

This is the last article by Wolfgang Sassin, regular contributor to “Ideas and Ideals”, member of the journal’s international editorial board. He was very worried about the problem of the future, and the key idea in his reflections was the relationship between uncontrolled population growth and the corresponding transformation of man as a species, the transformation of Homo Sapiens into Homo Billionis (Wolfgang’s term). In the proposed article, controversial from the point of view of evolutionists, he reflects precisely on this. And he comes to the extremely important conclusion that a person of modern civilization should think not about control over nature, but about control over himself.

The author offers his own scenario of human evolution, based on the fact that in the process of evolution, a person managed to turn his weakness into strength, thanks to the ability to think abstractly, have a strategy of action and be future-oriented, use in strategy not only his own experience, but also the knowledge gained from observing the world around us, to be open to existing patterns and to see ourselves and others as part of these patterns. Man acquired the ability for strategic thinking, which gave him the opportunity at all times to oppose something to the conditions of existence, in the spatial and temporal sense. The author shows that one should distinguish between biological evolution and the evolution of consciousness. In the conditions of uncontrolled population growth, a person begins to change as a species: he evolves towards Homo Billionis - a creature that is comfortable only in a herd. Instead of improving technology, man should rationally control himself and set rigid boundaries for his own motives and dreams, and not control and correct the nature of a small and easily vulnerable planet that he still tries to subjugate.

The article analyzes two approaches to explaining the American Revolution. The first belongs to Irina Zhezhko-Braun, who in her works examines the features and formation of social technologies created by the left in the United States, their application in the struggle for power, the transformation of the consciousness and behavior of social subjects, the emasculation of the original democratic principles and other social processes. Vadim Rozin, being not only a methodologist, but also a culturologist, outlines another explanation - culturological. At the same time, he puts forward a hypothesis according to which modernity is a complex double process of a parallel crisis of the culture of modernity and the emergence of “postculture”, which for the time being is manifested for researchers in the trends of sociality. The author of the article considers it necessary to consider the American Revolution by combining both approaches (from the point of view of social sciences and cultural studies), that is, to implement a sociocultural approach and discourse. For this, he first characterizes the social and cultural approaches separately. If the selection and characterization of culture presupposes procedures for comparing different cultures, analysis of the integrity of culture and an invariant vision of the world, then sociality is set by the processes of directed social change, management and power. Then, relying on the material of the reconstruction of the modern American revolution, which was proposed by I. Zhezhko-Braun, the author outlines a sociocultural explanation. In particular, he claims that the successes of the quiet and invisible for many “step-by-step American revolution” can be explained not only by effective social technology and the connivance of the ruling class, but also by the fact that guided social changes are taking place against the background of parallel processes of the completion of modernity and the formation of post-culture

The starting point of the paper is the three articles in the journal Ideas and Ideals by Irina Zhezhko-Brown who analyzes the formation of a new ruling class in the USA, which rests on racial and gender minorities. The values proclaimed by the elite are fundamentally different from traditional American values.

The paper shows that any attempt to bring them into life can have devastating consequences for American society and, ultimately, lead to its downfall. Considering the huge role of the USA in the world system, this can be compared to the fall of the Roman Empire.

The author shows that it is possible to escape such an outcome. The obstacle to this escape is the entire social and economic system that has developed in the USA. In the field of economics, the priority in recruiting personnel is given to quotas based on race and gender instead of qualification and business qualities, which will lead to a significant decrease in the financial performance of companies and the wages of employees.

The author analyzes such long-term macroeconomic defects of the American economy as the budget deficit, trade and balance of payments deficit, and the growth of government debt. In the near future, these defects may lead to a deep economic crisis, a stock market crisis, and the US dollar can lose its position as the key currency.

The paper considers economic and political premises and prevention methods of these destructive processes.

This note is a response to the criticism of colleagues who expressed their opinion about the publication: Razumov V.I., Orekhovsky P.A. ‘Carnival Time: Russian Higher Education and Science in the Postmodern Era’ // Ideas and Ideals. – 2020. – Vol. 12, No. 3, Part 1. – Pp. 77-94. The article received ten different responses, including both agreements with some of the theses, and objections, as well as alternative proposals. The works represent a wide scientific geography from Abakan to Moscow, although the bulk of the reviews came from Novosibirsk. The authors represent various humanitarian specialties. An analysis of the works published in Ideas and Ideals allows us to conclude that the reforms of science and education undertaken by the Government of the Russian Federation are alarming. At the same time, attention is drawn to both dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs and a wide range of ideas about what strategy for the development of science and education is required in modern Russia. Similarly, very different positions are presented in relation to postmodernism and its role in changes in science and education. The authors make an attempt to characterize the grounds for the coincidence and difference of the positions of the debaters and authors.

The article is a comprehension of one of the tenets of philosophical materialism, one of the three conservation laws - the energy conservation law. It is an integral part of modern natural science. The author emphasizes the ontological status of the mathematical foundation of the law of energy conservation, and gives unexpected and very interesting extrapolations and applications of it. The author insists that the law of energy conservation does not have only an ontological and epistemological, but also a moral dimension. The author begins his article with admiration for the beauty and harmony of mathematics and deals with many fascinating and demonstrative mathematical achievements in the development of the greatest minds of mankind - Pythagoras, Leibniz, Newton, Fibonacci, Bach, Newlands, Mendeleev and others. Simplicity and elegance of Mathematics were also appreciated by naturalists. The author cites the position on this account of two prominent representatives of empirio-criticism of the second half of the XIX century - Ernst Mach and Richard Avenarius - with their conceptual methodological platform of the “principle of economy of thinking” as a fundamental regulative science. In the future, the author tries to highlight the amazing aspects of the law of energy conservation within the framework of Plato’s philosophical theories about the “world as eidos”, Descartes about the potential of “innate ideas”, Hegel’s philosophy of history, the concept of L.N. Gumilev about ethnogenesis and passionarity and V. I. Vernadsky biosphere theory with his “law of constancy.” From the standpoint of the law of energy conservation the author substantiates providentialism within the framework of Christian apocalyptic dogma. The entire content of the article is not just permeated by the personal assessment of the author on all the mentioned personalities and their theoretical constructs, the author takes the liberty to present his original conceptual idea on this topic to the readers.

The article focuses on the arguments given by an Australian researcher John Bigelow who aspires to prove the existence of regular relations between the compositional structure of William Shakespeare’s cycle of 154 sonnets and the system of modal scales in the version of Shakespeare’s outstanding contemporary, composer and theorist Thomas Morley, which served as a basis for musical theory of that time. It is noted that J. Bigelow managed to prove the rightfulness of his own assumptions allowing to disclose such relations. One of the brightest examples he draws is the relations between the first eight sonnets and sonnet 145 and the interval structure of the corresponding modal scales and peculiarities of the triton sound as well as the auditory perception of certain non-tempered thirds and fourths. At the same time, the article points at a certain inaccuracy of Bigelow’s arguments and his lacking the principle of universality as the reasons and observations given by the researcher concern only the smallest part of the cycle and not the whole one. Nevertheless, Bigelow’s conclusions are certainly worth the attention, and one may continue the research of the sonnets cycle in the given direction which might probably lead to a fuller understanding of its compositional structure.

Shakespeares Sonnets (1609) contains several rhyming patterns that were regarded at the time as ‘anomalies’. In a list of ‘Rules’ for poetry published in 1585, the very first prohibition laid down by King James VI of Scotland was that a syllable should never be rhymed with itself. In 1603 James VI of Scotland became James I of England. And yet, in Shakespeare’s sonnets, the very first of King James’s prohibitions is broken  ̶  rarely, but repeatedly. If Shakespeare’s successive sonnets are aligned with the successive notes in musical scales for the canonical series of the Renaissance ‘modes’, then the locations of Shakespeare’s rhyme-anomalies coincide reliably with the locations of the notes that are significantly discordant with the tonic according to a musical theory that was published in 1619 by the astronomer Johannes Kepler. Kepler’s master-work The Harmony of the World (1619) was dedicated to King James I of England. This work opens with a Dedication to King James, in which King James’s celebrated political successes were credited to his understanding of the ‘celestial harmonies’.    It is argued here that Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence constitutes a ‘microcosm’ that formally echoes Kepler’s theory of the ‘macrocosm’ and ‘the harmony of the spheres’. If Shakespeare could somehow have brought the formal patterning in this ‘microcosm’ to the attention of potential patrons in the Jacobean Court, then he could reasonably have hoped that this might curry favour with those among them who shared ‘Platonic’ interests like those of Kepler.

The profile federal regional department (Russian Federation Ministry for Nationalities Issues and Regional Policy) since its establishment has been in a difficult situation in the matter of its activity object. This is proved indirectly by its numerous (five times!) renaming. Difficulties finally reached such a level that it was decided in October 2001 to abolish it. In 2004, the ministry was re-created, but in September 2014 it was abolished again. Between the articles 41 and 47 of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation of January 1, 2000, there was a contradiction in the matter of the content of "own revenues" category. The developers had to eliminate the contradiction, but in such a way that, as far as possible, the volume of the region's own revenues should be increased in accordance with the political line. And indeed, in the amended article 47 of the Budget Code of January1, 2005, "incomes received by budgets in the form of gratuitous income, with the exception of subventions" were also attributed to the budget's own revenues. The greatness of the idea is that a significant increase in the region's own revenues is achieved by simply changing the definition. But this decision was not radical enough, and the concept of "own revenues" is completely excluded from the draft of the new edition of the Code. It is a tendency, though!

What is Marxist philosophy? About thirty or forty years ago the answer could be found in any textbook of philosophy. Philosophy is "the science of universal laws of motion and evolution in nature, human society and thought." The inseparable connection between philosophy and "various branches of positive science" was postulated as well as its status as a universal method of all sciences, and so on. But here is the casus – there are no works of Marx himself, where his philosophy of Marxism as such would be stated. Kant has three of his "Critiques", Hegel has "The Science of Logic." So N. Mikhailovsky once asked: "In what work did Marx expound his materialistic understanding of history? ... Where is such work of Marx? – There isn’t any." Lenin, at the beginning of his revolutionary career, sarcastically giggling, replied to Mikhailovsky that the philosophy of Marx is "dissolved" in his numerous works on economics, politics, history, etc., and it is, so to say, their "dry residue". Indeed there is little reason to fully trust the quality of the analysis of the leader of the world proletariat and his conclusions.

The problem of adapting of the educational activities of religious organizations to the existing system of education in Russia is an important issue. The problem is investigated on the basis of the postsecular philosophy. The article analyzes the problem and describes the adaptive mechanisms for resolving the controversial moments in educational sphere. The analysis includes certain models of adapting the educational activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in order to integrate it into the existing system of education in Russia.