Ideas and Ideals

The article is devoted to the problem of personal involvement in dance activity. The author applies an interdisciplinary research methodology: on the one hand, a semiotic analysis of the dance language is carried out and the features of the dance sign are considered, on the other hand, a psychological description of the dancer’s personality is given, a psychological portrait is created. According to the methodology of the cultural-historical approach, the sign is taken in its instrumental function and orientation. The author puts forward a hypothesis about the dual orientation of the dance movement as an expressive language: orientation on the viewer as a visual component of the sign and on the dancer himself through the kinesthetic component. The material of dance as a type of artistic activity is the body of the dancer, which undergoes reinterpretation and symbolization. Not only the body, but also the whole personality can become the material of dance, it can be included and transformed in the course of the dance activity. The bi-directionality of the dance sign can lead to a discrepancy, a rupture of the function of the dance movement, which is expressed in an object relation to one’s own body, in strict control of movements and the non-involvement of the emotional and sensual sphere of the individual in the dance activity. Stage forms of dance contribute more to this discrepancy, developing mainly motor technique in isolation from the semantic side of movement and focusing on the visual expressiveness of dance. On the other hand, ceremonial, sacred, ritual dances, many forms of modern free dance contribute to the integral inclusion of a person in the dance and are aimed at transforming the personality in plastic action. On the basis of biographical material, the destinies of outstanding dancers and dance teachers are analyzed. It is shown how an object attitude to one’s own body and one’s own personality can lead to an internal split and loss of subjectivity. A contradiction may arise between a person’s experience in dance and her/his behavior in real life. It is removed under the condition that a person carries out a transformative activity – work on himself/herself.

The article deals with the issues of socio-philosophical and culturological thought as a factor of interaction between Russia and Serbia in the modern European space. In the study the author presents the historical periods of socio-cultural development of relationships between the two countries, beginning from the first millennium. The work focused on identifying the common mental, cultural and historical commonalities of our peoples which allowed for the development of interaction between the two countries in the field of scientific cooperation, socio-philosophical, cultural and spiritual relations [1, c. 244-250]. The author defines the role of the language of communication and examines an important stratum of Serbian culture: Orthodoxy. In this context, the aspects of spiritual and cultural unity between Russia and Serbia, which have shaped the unity of views of the representatives of Serbian science and cultural, socio-philosophical and spiritual-cultural thought have emerged. The author defines the role of the ‘Russian House’ Centre for Culture and Science in Belgrade, Serbia, as a fulcrum of cultural, scientific and religious life of the Russian immigrant community and a firm manifestation of the Russian-Serbian spiritual, socio-philosophical and cultural ties between the two states.

The paper focuses on such phenomena of intercultural contacts between Russia and Serbia as the scientific and cultural influence of the Russian intelligentsia after the 1917 revolution. Several waves of Russian emigration in the 19th and 20th century had the biggest impact on Serbian spiritual culture, architecture, civil engineering and art. One of the first associations of Russian post-November emigrants was the Archeological Society of Serbia (1921), represented by the Slavist historian A.L. Pogodin. Emigration to Serbia increased after the ruefully known ‘Philosophical steamer’ in 1922. This year, the St. Petersburg scholarly community widely marked the 100th anniversary of this exodus of Russian intellectuals, which marked the loss of the spiritual forces of Soviet Russia, but there was a considerable acquisition of culture, science, architecture, and theatrical art in Serbia, and thus in Europe.

The article examines the uniqueness of modern architecture in Japan from the point of view of combining aesthetic principles, the origins of which go back to the traditional religious and  philosophical thought of the Far Eastern civilization, with new design techniques. The author gives a retrospective analysis of its formation, starting from the Meiji era. The phenomenon of the naturalness of the architecture of metabolism and minimalism is revealed based on the analysis of the most important Japanese aesthetic principles, the observance of which allowed modern Japanese architects to create an architectural sign-symbolic space filled with deep meanings reflecting the connection of times and generations.

The understanding of form in the Far Eastern aesthetic tradition is considered, through the analysis of the concepts of katati, kata and sugata, as well as its determination within the framework of the ‘aesthetics of wind’. The importance of the ideological principles of kaei and ma in shaping in the architecture of metabolism and minimalism, as well as in the organization of space, is revealed. The concretization of the kaei principle in relation to the architectural form is the recognition of layering and the duality of the latter. The form hides the inner semantic content of an architectural object, being a kind of shell, a symbol. In addition, the explication of the kaei principle is observed in the transition of internal space to external space. This is how a sense of unity with nature is achieved, even in an urbanized environment. This principle is embodied in the aesthetic concept of renmentai.

The category of the main architecture is a space–time interval. Applied to architectural space, ma reflects emptiness and rhythm. Ma unites and fuses space and time; it is expressed in such things as openings, transitional spaces, space defining the form, smoothly changing forms.

The analysis of the principle of excess of color comes to the conclusion that the formation

of the aesthetics of black and white is a reflection of the characteristics of wabi – simplicity. Using the example of a semiotic analysis of the works of architects-metabolists and minimalists, including the projects of Kisho Kurokawa, Kenzo Tange, Tadao Ando, the implementation

of some traditional aesthetic principles in modern Japanese architecture is considered, that allowed us to achieve harmony of architecture and nature.

The article is an attempt to generalize the results of the discussion that was held on the pages of this journal after the publication of the article [9] on its pages. In total, 11 authors participated in the discussion, published in the journal “Ideas and Ideals”. Summing up the discussion, we note that narcissism is interesting as a topic of interdisciplinary research and discussions. The available materials allow us to conclude that either the phenomenon of narcissism itself or its reflection by specialists are at the initial stage of formation. The published articles allow us to conclude that different groups of authors interpret both culture itself and the modern phenomenon of narcissism in different ways. The understanding of culture as a set of practices used by P.A. Orekhovsky and V.I. Razumov, is shared by N.I. Martishina, V.A. Skorev, Yu.Yu. Pershin, G.A. Illarionov, V.I. Kudashov. The approach to culture as a metasystem is typical for the works of A.G. Teslinova and L.Yu. Logunova. A variant of culture as a feature of cognition was proposed by O.V. Khlebnikova (“conceptual” and “clip” thinking), a variant of distinguishing socialist and capitalist (“necrophilic”) culture is used by S.M. Zhuravleva. Thus, narcissism is considered in very different contexts, which makes it difficult to understand it and makes, in fact, impossible to develop a conventional attitude towards practices implemented in politics, science, and education. It is appropriate to refer to the following discussions of the theory and practice of narcissism with the topic of the relationship of narcissism with religiosity. From a prognostic perspective, it is interesting to look at the prospects for links between narcissism and the future of postmodernism and the mass consumer society. According to P.A. Orekhovsky and V.I. Razumov, if we consider the discussion that took place as an experiment in the indication of scientific rhetoric, then its results convincingly testify both to the fruitfulness of the concept of narcissism and to the legitimacy of concern for the preservation of the universe of previous practices and conventions. The lack of clarity in the understanding of narcissism indicates that this phenomenon is just beginning to attract the attention of specialists.

The article presents an analysis of the development of the consumer society and its main features of manifestation at the present time. It is noted that the formation of consumer relations is due to the development of the ideas and practices of capitalism, which led, firstly, to economic and technical development, manifested in the growth of incomes of the population; blurring of boundaries between social classes; individualization and a sharp increase in the diversity of consumption. Secondly, the development of the desire to increase capital, social privileges, improve one’s own social status through the consumed products of production. Thirdly, the formation of a culture of behavior based on individual tastes, desires and values of people.

The consumer society is analyzed from the standpoint of psychological, sociological and philosophical approaches, since the process of consumption of a modern person goes far beyond the purely economic framework and reflects not just the satisfaction of physical and physiological needs, but determines the psychological and socio-moral aspects of human life. It is shown that the traditions of the modern consumer society influence the formation of people’s spiritual indifference to each other. Under the influence of the ideology and practices of the consumer society, there is a shift in the hierarchy of human needs, which leads to a corresponding deformation of value systems. A person, striving to meet new social standards, ideals, patterns of consumer behavior, loses the traditional worldview, focused on society. Through consumed things, a person seeks to find self-expression, self-realization, gain social status and prestige. Such human qualities as compassion, kindness, respect, spirituality are deformed. This loss causes a spiritual and moral crisis, leading to the formation of spiritual indifference of a person to a person. Indifference, in turn, leads to social detachment, which contributes to the formation of a sense of disunity between people, to the alienation of people from each other and from oneself as a social being.

In recent years, researchers around the world are increasingly turning to the problem of social alienation, which is caused not only by the coronavirus infection epidemic, but also by numerous other social and institutional processes. This article presents an overview and sociological analysis of foreign approaches to the study of social reclusion as a form of social alienation in religious, socio-philosophical, psychological, recreational, historical-cultural, spatial-geographical and economic-political discourses. Social reclusion is demonstrated both on well-known historical (reclusive poetess Emily Dickinson and others) and on modern cases. It was revealed that social reclusion can occur in relation to the whole society, certain social groups (for example, family) or institutions, as well as territories. Special attention is paid to home reclusion (solitude within the walls of your home) and green reclusion (solitude in nature). The author draws attention to the opposition of researchers of social reclusion and social exclusion, isolation, cultural participation and freedom. It is emphasized that social isolation is not identical with social reclusion, but can accompany it in conditions of limited social contacts, which confirms the phenomenon of A. Hansen’s reclusive openness. It has been established that the determinants of home reclusion can be the place of residence, moral and psychological state of a person, limited health opportunities in older people, visible physiological deficiencies or dependence on the screen (mainly among young people, which in Japan is called “hikikomori”). Guided by the dialectical idea of ​​the functionality of social reclusion, both its negative and positive aspects are shown, for example, the promotion of reintegration into society.

This article is dedicated to making sense of the cultural term “road” in research literature. Also, the author makes a disclosure of different “road” term interpretations in various scientific articles. The necessity of this analysis is contingent on terminological variety, which leads to problems while using terms even in one and the same article. In this article we are trying to highlight a dominant term for different fields of knowledge for the word “road”.

It turns out that in ethnologist articles specialists describe the road as an archetype, a mythologeme. The archetype of the road as a sort of spatial archetype appeared in the collective mind and outspoken in ethnic texts; traditions and rituals play an important role in the world view of different nations. Describing a road as a mythologeme allows to give it a sacral meaning, a road as a way to the “other world”, the borderland between ‘us’ and ‘them’, a dark place. In literary articles the road is viewed as chronotopos, assembling spatial and time relationship in literary texts.

A number of researchers highlight that the “road” chronotopos as a storyline creator and organizer is reflected in Russian literature of XIX-XXI centuries and act independently in the texts of different periods and different authors.

The analysis of the road as a metaphor can also be found in linguistic research. Authors suggest different ways of metaphorization, such as “way of life/way of death”, “way of perception”, “way of work”, “way of salvation/way of sin”, “way of creation/way of destruction”. The culturological method permits the authors to look at the road as a concept and divine the terms “road” and “way”. Within philosophy of culture a “road” had a meaning of a cultural universal relevant to different cultures, world models: mythological, religious, philosophical, artistical. Art science makes an accent on characteristic art’s image of the road.

The article concludes about the importance of the phenomenon of the road as an integral part of culture at all stages of its development, as well as a fairly thorough study of the road as a cultural phenomenon, the formation of various conceptual schemes for its description in the domestic research literature.

The subject of research in this article is the study of the genre areas of representation of the army as a socio-cultural institution in video games. To solve the research problems, methods such as classification were used to determine the main options for the representation of the army in video games, a structural-functional method to identify the media characteristics of games, forecasting to identify the prospects for a genre and ideological shift in military video games. As a result of the study, it was found that modern personalized war games are shifting from the era of the Second World War deeper into the past - for example, to the First World War or the Middle Ages, and their ideological content and content are also changing - from the linear fulfillment of a tactical task to a detailed narrative that reveals tragedy and heroism of military conflicts. According to the author, an important aspect of the success of military-patriotic education and the pragmatics of video games in the context of modern Russian culture is not just setting the task of creating games that glorify our military past, but also regulating the image of the Russian army today. A tool for this can be simulators of everyday activities, adventure games about the everyday life of border guards, signalmen, submariners on a campaign, managers of a military unit. Their potential is able to demonstrate the army as an institution for maintaining peace and ensuring security. The author assumes that such a genre experiment in military video games will make it possible to popularize Russian military video games on the market. In the conclusions of the study, 4 genres of army representation in video games are presented, in which the ideological paradigm is built around personal heroism or team genius, as well as personal exclusivity in extreme circumstances of military operations. The latter is formed by the very genre nature of video games, genre is message. The author revealed that the dominant genre is the action shooter, due to which the connection between the army and the categories of peace and security is lost and the categorical picture of the world created by the games of the military genre is distorted. The identified genre shift is destructive in nature, as it is aimed at destroying the socio-cultural institutions of the army.

This article presents the results of a hermeneutic analysis of the work of British designer Alexander McQueen. Corporeality is a system of signs applied to the human body. Clothing is the most important part of corporeality constructed by designers. An outfit is an ensemble of clothing elements that is an artistic statement. McQueen was aware of the overload of the body with symbolic meanings. His task as a designer was to construct a fashionable corporeality, which means controlling body parts with vestimental tools - silhouette, material, colour, fit, etc. McQueen’s aesthetic program is problematized through the image of the “strong woman”. The author analyzes the meaning put into the concept by the designer. The conceptual heroines of McQueen’s work inhabit the extremes of logocentric society: prostitutes, saints, aristocrats, the mentally ill and others.

The analysis is produced in the context of other concepts of the “strong woman” created by European, American and Japanese designers. It is noted and emphasized that the conceptual heroines of McQueen’s work inhabit the extremes of logocentric society: prostitutes, saints, aristocrats, the mentally ill and others. One exists in the lower zone (vampires, witches, criminals, etc.), while others, like Joan of Arc and Catherine the Great, find themselves at the very peak of the male order, contradicting its structure by their existence. The loneliness of Alexander McQueen’s women, settled on social points of extremity, correlates little with the usual images of strong women broadcast by contemporary culture.

The author hypothesizes that McQueen creates the image of a strong woman through the construction of a “doomed” and “prominent” corporeality, which is most precisely expressed in the concept of “martyr”. By constructing images of strong heroines, McQueen invented a woman who does not undermine the logocentric order, but strengthens it thanks to her flexibility and adaptability to any circumstances. A woman is thus a “substitute man”, solving those problems that men fail to cope with.

The main concepts of the article are discourse and instances of delineation. This is a set of social institutions that can form the structure of discourse, identify its main and secondary segments. The aim of the research is identification of the instances of delineation in the discourse of rock-culture. The methods of this research included narrative interviews with agents of rock-culture and discourse-analysis. Agents of rock-culture are musicians, their close friends, collector of discs, fans. The research allows us to draw the following conclusions. In the discourse of rock-culture the role of such institutions is fulfilled by a friend, a senior member of family, media and music shops. The friend that structures the discourse should have authority and prestige. They define aesthetic positions, give assessments and exert informational impact. A friend can influence both temporarily and permanently. A senior member of the family affects the discourse in the same way. Other instances of delineation are media and music shops. Media has the effect in rock-discourse of setting the agenda. Methods of forming the agenda are nomination of facts and rankings. A music shop organizes conversation between different agents of rock-culture. A shop operates like media. It provides positive nomination segments of discourse: the demanded goods create a certain verbal series influencing a visitor of the shop. A visitor enters a certain context that leads them to perceive themselves as a referent product that can further the thesaurus of the subject. The structure of the discourse formation is determined by the institutions that act both in the public and in the private field of cultural being. The public instances of delineation are media and musical shops (or market in the reality of Soviet culture). So the discourse of rock performs a double function. It introduces the subject into the sphere of social and cultural innovations. At the same time rock that has a private character returns one to cultural traditions.