Ideas and Ideals

The research interest in the rural lifestyle is due to several trends. On the one hand, it is the deepening depopulation of rural areas and the growth of crisis phenomena. On the other hand, there is a trend of deurbanization, which it is legitimate to consider not only as a temporary consequence of the pandemic situation, but as an aspect of the formation of fundamentally new civilizational relations, the need for which is stated both internationally and at the Russian level. Thus, the reports of the Club of Rome argue for the inevitability of the transition to a new paradigm of development. In the Russian scientific and philosophical literature, one of the alternative civilizational models has been called noospheric or spiritual-ecological, which should replace the prevailing technogenic-consumer model today. At the same time, the values and attitudes that dominate today are criticized first of all, and a return to a number of basic traditional values, preserved, in particular, in the rural way of life, is asserted at a new level.

The purpose of the study is divided into three main ones: to isolate the basic values and socio-cultural traditions of the Russian and, above all, the Siberian peasantry, which correspond to the spiritual and ecological civilizational relations; to identify the degree of prevalence of these values in the modern youth environment of Siberia; to give a general assessment of what is happening and offer their recommendations. As a result of the conducted survey of students of agricultural universities in Siberia, it was noted that the key socio-cultural attitudes and values of the rural lifestyle, namely: nature centrism, hard work, the dominance of direct human communication and mutual assistance, nepotism and the continuity of generations have largely been preserved. The rural way of life still retains its deep potential for the reproduction of the cultural, social and family way of life. But at the same time, it is actively undergoing destruction and transformation, which requires the adoption of appropriate socio-economic measures and infrastructural transformations, taking into account global trends in the development of a “smart village”. A significant role in realizing this potential is assigned to young people, namely graduates of agricultural universities as future professionals in the field of agriculture.

The methodology of the research was based theoretically, firstly, on a detailed and multidimensional critique of modern civilization, presented in the works of many authors (the Frankfurt School, E. Fromm, the works of the Club of Rome, etc.); secondly, on studies of the state of modern rural areas, in particular in Siberia. Sociological methods such as questionnaires and express surveys were used as empirical methods.

The article’s purpose is to identify the functional aspects of the use of а writer’s image in advertising discourse and to raise the ethical issues that arise in this case. Being at a junction of masscult and elitism, а writer’s image is exploited in advertising and becomes a brand, a stamp, a label. It becomes the part of what implements both functions of attracting attention and self-presentation. The ‘pleasure of recognition’ and the feeling of satisfaction from the involvement in cultural integrity are those positive emotions that advertising marketing focuses on. For this the advertising of consumer goods, catering establishments, shops, medical services, etc., uses literary classics texts. In this way, advertising refers to cultural memory as collective reconstructions of our common past image. The transfer of the classical text specific element into the advertising genre as into another semiotic system automatically simplifies and schematizes the meanings of the source text. At the same time, the range of images used in advertising as in a utilitarian genre demonstrates what fills the collective cultural memory, what is considered as necessary for its preservation.

The analysis of advertising texts against the ethical permissibility-inadmissibility, the acceptability-redundancy (being extreme/over the line) gives grounds to draw the following conclusions:

- advertising using а writer’s image, being only a small part of the general advertising discourse, creates a visual noise situation, ‘simplifying’ the classical text understanding impoverishes the process of its interpretation;

- advertising built on the basis of the writer’s images desemantization and deformation, works towards the deformation and perception of the author, forms false meanings;

- advertising, based on linguistic turns of phrase, like any joke, has the potential to cross the border of what is permissible when the writer’s image (name, text) as a result of carnivalization acquires additional vulgar and taboo meanings.

The mechanisms that determine the flexibility of language matter also since its instability and aesthetic choice turns out to be inextricably linked with a moral choice.

ducational organizations require a fundamentally new organization of business processes. The transition to blended and distance learning (remote work) is the first reason. The second reason is the problems of Russian higher education that have accumulated earlier. Universities need to improve the efficiency of personnel, eliminate losses, maintain and improve the quality of the educational product. Lean production tools and techniques are suitable for these tasks. Lean production approaches have been used in large industrial plants around the world for many years. The expansion of lean practices to the service and public sector is a current trend. The ideology of lean production is also permeating higher education institutions. The Lean Universities Association contributes to this process. The National Project “Labor Productivity” is also a driver of development. Universities are training personnel for the implementation of this project. The students’ lean-club can be a successful form of interaction with students. Lean-club members will participate in the analysis of processes and generation of ideas for continuous improvement of the university. The activities of the lean-club will improve the work of the university and form a lean thinking among its members. The Kaizen quality philosophy can form the basis of the lean-club’s concept. It involves the gradual but constant implementation of improvements. The main tool will be quality control circles. Their participants will analyze business processes and make proposals for their improvement. Both Kaizen philosophy and lean production are customer focused. Students are customers and consumers of most of the key processes of the university. Building a system of continuous improvement of the university with the participation of students is considered appropriate. Student lean-club members need certain personal and professional competencies to implement projects. The most important competencies are soft skills and basic knowledge of lean production. They do not prevent you from joining the lean-club. Lean-club members can acquire these competencies as they work. Learning in practice, in the process of project activities from simple to complex, seems to be important and valuable.

The article analyzes the emergence of the so-called red funeral ritual in the 1920s in Soviet Russia as an important component of political everyday life. The first part of the article examines the funeral rituals of representatives of the Bolshevik elite. The second part attempts to characterize the transformation of funeral rites among the “common” population. The analysis undertaken clearly shows the undoubted political and public nature of funeral rituals in early Soviet Russia. Initially, Soviet funeral rituals were powerfully influenced by radical utilitarianism and total nihilistic denial of the religious worldview, intensified by the excesses of the World War, Revolution and Civil War. Nevertheless, nihilism and utilitarianism, the highest expression of which was the idea of ​​cremation, were quickly pushed out by a new funeral ritual, the key elements of which were demonstration and “theatrical ritual” with its music, processions, pretentious speeches and fireworks, in many respects borrowed from military funerals. The main role in the emergence of the red funeral ritual was played by the cult of fallen heroes, which in turn was a guarantee of political immortality of the Bolshevik leaders. As a result, the red funeral became an important element of the alternative Bolshevik culture. The concept of Vladimir Buldakov, who characterized revolutionary funeral rituals as “neo-pagan”, is at least controversial. The attempt to make funerals of the Bolshevik elites a model for mass funerals collided with conservative rituals, especially in the countryside. With regard to the 1920s, at best, we can talk about the emergence of a kind of “the effect of dual faith", a specific symbiosis of red and religious funeral rites. Thus, in the 1920s, the process of a new Soviet ritualism development was far from complete, including the Soviet party and state elites, as evidenced by the fluctuations between party asceticism with its utilitarian attitude to ashes and splendid funerals of leaders.

The article presents the actual problem of teenagers’ suicides as a reflection of the realities of the modern information society.The research methodology was made up of a general scientific method, namely the analysis of scientific literature on the research topic, as well as methods of statistical data analysis, which made it possible to prove that the modern information society increases the threats in the field of adolescent suicide. As a result of the analysis, it was revealed that the individual psychological characteristics of children and teenagers affect the formation of their propensity for suicidal behavior. In adolescence, children have not yet formed an adequate attitude towards death, which can lead to committing suicide for seemingly insignificant reasons.The main conclusion that we have made basing on the results of the study is the following: adolescence is a very dangerous and unstable period in the development of an individual. Social structure, environment, various events - all these things can have a detrimental effect on the vulnerable, fragile psyche of a teenager.The Internet is a separate and very significant threat, as the global network contains dangerous content. In a modern fragmented society, a teenager is usually left to himself, and if, at the same time, he does not have an emotional contact with his parents (and this contact, as a rule, is absent during this period even in fairly prosperous families), then the teenager has no one to share his experiences or consult.Thus, an unhealthy society creates unhealthy conditions for the development of future generations, and as a result, modern children choose death without even knowing life.

The paper deals with the problem of the phenomenon of women’s protest during the process of “total collectivization” of the agricultural sector. The author investigates the phenomenon as social action within the framework of the structural-functional approach (M. Weber, R. Merton), which allows to eliminate ideological cliches and analyze women’s protest not as an affective social action (“Bab’i bunt” - women’s revolt), but as a complex social action in which the role of goal setting can be dominant. This approach makes it possible to establish the main characteristics of women's protest, its effect, and impact on the culture of peasant protest. It provides an opportunity to consider the processes of interaction between “authority – society” in the extraordinary conditions of “the Great socialist transformation”. Main sources are archival documents of the OGPU authorized representative in the Siberian region (krai); minor sources include archival documents of local party committees and Soviet organisations and also regional press. The author analyzes protest actions recorded by the OGPU officers with the participation of women in the first half of the 1930s, identifying the main characteristics of women’s protest, its forms, causes and motives, as well as the impact on peasant society and state policy. The author also reveals that this social action in the absence of a legal opportunity to influence the agrarian/peasant policy of the party was quite an adequate means to achieve certain goals of the protesters. “Bab’i bunt” was a marker of the extreme social life of early Soviet society during the “Great Break”, which demonstrated the radicalization of relations between the peasant society and authorities during a violent etatization of the village. The conclusion is that the women’s protest, as part of the general peasant protest at the first stage of “complete collectivization”, forced the authorities to adjust their policies and even seek some compromises.

The article considers the specifics of medical culture: medical culture as a part of the general culture of a society and professional culture. The present research defines the essence of the social process of medicalization. The paper highlights the idea that medicine in the ancient period (considered on the example of the practices of Ancient Greece) medicalizes culture in general and can be considered as historical and cultural prerequisites that laid the foundation for transfessionalism of a modern doctor. Nowadays, medical industry becomes the space of transfer, where knowledge of the computer and other information technologies, as well as knowledge of managing, teaching, social work, philosophy, etc., are necessary for a professional in this field. The center of transfessional activity is the doctor’s focusing on a patient's personality, and not just on the disease and its symptoms. A doctor has to become a competent guide for a patient, and not a custodian of unique, inaccessible knowledge. Transfessional transformations define the modern basic principles of healing, originated in Ancient Greece. They still remain strong in the modern medicalized world. Today the Ancient Greek medical culture resonates as prolongation of medical transfessionalism.

The topics of numerous discussions nowadays are economic, social, cultural, psychological, ethical, existential problems of medical treatment. Modern society realized that it is almost impossible to solve a range of problems of the domain of medicine and medical care alone through scientific and technological achievements. Consequently such questions have to be answered: how should medical help and care be provided? Why does clinical practice provide “high-tech” medical care? And why does it fail to provide the “humane” care, which patients need so much? How can a patient resist such negative aspects of illness experience, as objectification and technologization, being in contact with medical discourse? Russian Orthodoxy has accumulated a rich and unique experience in caring for ill people. The study of this experience and its practical application are nowadays in the focus of attention of many foreign experts. Unfortunately, in our country, this problem remains somewhat undervalued among researchers, and the specificity of medical care according to orthodox tradition is forgotten in most of modern hospitals. In the humanistic model of medicine, the healing process is considered as scientifically grounded and individualizing care for patients, including the sensual-emotional and moral-existential sphere of intersubjective relations between the patient and medical specialists. It is not only about the “healing” of the patient at the biological level, but also about the internal “healing” of each patient, relief from suffering, which is grounded on the uniqueness of his/her own situation. The ideal of the humanistic model of medicine reflects the attitude: “medicine must treat the patient, not the disease.” At the same time, the interpretation of this aim differs significantly within the framework of Western and Eastern Christian cultures, in this case Russian Orthodoxy. The individualization of medical care in the Russian Orthodox tradition is not connected with the recognition of the patient as a sovereign individuality, as is the case in Western Christian cultures, but in the spiritual unity of the sufferer and caregiver, determining the harmonious relationship of a person as a part with the Wholeness. The spiritual unity of the sufferer and the caregiver, unfolding as mutual love, creates the potential for joint and conciliar overcoming of suffering through spiritual perfection. Orthodox “technologies” of spiritual healing of patients are characterized by the lack of rationalization, unification, and, as a result, commercialization.

This is а translation of the interview with Saul Alinsky published in Playboy in 1972 and reprinted by the New England Review May 27, 2018.  American professional social organizer, he unilaterally created  the new field of social engineering and the new profession of radical-organizer. His two books became handbooks for several generations of organizers. Magazine Playboy sent Eric Norden to interview him. “I accompanied him from the East Coast to the West and into Canada, snatching tape sessions on planes, in cars and at airport…”