Ideas and Ideals

This article explores the differences between “social capital” and “network capital”, which are used in the context of network reflection. It is emphasized, that both capitals are interpretative variables and can be seen differently, depending on a semantic context. Every social structure implies branched social relations. That is why methodological tools of network approach are “convenient” for the study of social capital. In its core we find nuances of the interpretation of social capital. They depend not only on the nature of network actors but also on the researcher’s focus, on the network connections configuration or their content. Regardless of the course of the research, social capital is necessary for understanding social networks and social processes and is a result of said processes. As regards network capital, it can be defined as a form of social capital giving access to resources through interpersonal relationships (relational dimension). Defining characteristics of such relationships are trust and mutuality. However, the semantic emphasis can be transferred from the nature of relations to their modern support technologies. And so network capital appears as a measure of the value of communications maintained through telecommunication channels. The extreme position to social and network capitals suggests that social capital should be removed from the network approach and be completely replaced by the network capital. Otherwise, science denies other social forms of capital with their social characteristics. The author pays special attention to the ways of studying social networks using the theoretical capabilities of network capital in all its interpretations. The standpoint of its disregard, individualistic, and group approaches are highlighted.

Global polarization and linear economy models has for generations been the servant of ruthless capitalism and bourgeoisie ventures. In such ruthless circumstance there has been alarming situation both globally and locally to challenge prevailing linear economy structures to question and create a sustainable platform for protecting the resources and user structures of our future generations. Life cycle assessments globally has been a case study which has shown the minimal usage of products in value based propositions and bringing the environmental ecosystem in a balanced structure irrespective of political or governmental interventions. From the birth of the Paris Agreements on Climate changes, scientists and technologists globally has stressed upon the importance of sustainability and resilience on global food security as well as natural resource management. In such scenario resource allocations even in advanced countries like Europe and America has fallen prey to gross inequality, gender gaps and faulty resource transitions even in most advanced regions. Shocking Gini coefficient figures across boundaries have led scientists and economists globally to rethink and restrategise the way strategic business management hovers globally and to better revisualise globalization and utilize the resources our earth has endowed us upon. This paper challenges prevailing notions and even best practices in current management scenario and principles of economics of entrepreneurship to jump start a society based on values, tradition and value based usage proposition; in other terms from a linear based economy to a sustainable resilient circular economy model with greater emphasis on environmental protection, poverty eradication with better integration of triple line bottom of pyramid and better community disciplines to foster a vibrant shared economy model. There is a persistent gap lying across various parameters of a linear economy which has in turn been the causal effect of human impoverishment, poverty and vast scale ecological destructions. A case based approach and exploratory study in this research paper tries to answer rising question in addressing this burning topic of circular entrepreneurship which is quite different in structure and outcome to normative economical falsifications arising out of entrepreneurship models which has till now failed to create a functional economy devoid of hazards and wastes

The study examines all aspects of individual investment accounts as a long-term financial instrument. The authors analyze the advantages and disadvantages of this tool for private investors and the state, give the main indicators of the development of IIA and the stock market. The paper gives the forecast of the dynamics of the development of the Russian stock market and compares it with the stages of development of the American one. The authors define the new conditions of the “game” and give characteristics of qualified and unqualified investors. The authors pay special attention to the regional aspect, determine the key directions of the development of IIA at the local level. In the conclusion, the ways and prospects of its development are proposed.

Research object: individual investment account.

Research subject: IIA as a long-term financial instrument.

The article is devoted to the perception and understanding of the categories of the national, nation, patriotism and related values by the young generation in the context of an increasingly spreading postmodern and transhumanist worldview. The topic is considered on the example of an interview conducted by the author among students of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after Herzen (St. Petersburg).

The problem of ethnic self-identification of descendants from interethnic marriages is taken as a starting point. It is shown that it differs depending on whose point of view the phenomenon of “metisization” is considered. It was revealed to be the cultural, rather than genetic, basis of Russian self-identification among modern students (which seems to be traditional for the Russian ethnos), as well as the large role of the constructivist factor in ethnic self-identification. Constructivism is expressed in the fact that, in the opinion of a significant number of interviewed students, any descendant from interethnic families can choose any nationality, and not necessarily the nationality of one of the parents. In general, it is the students’ view that questions of national self-determination relate to the sphere of a person’s free choice.

To confirm the latter, some aspects of the youth value system were analyzed, such as the patriotism characteristic for today’s youth, nationality (including inter-ethnic marriages), the future and behavior patterns that one should be guided by. A significant part of the students surveyed tend to give preference to globalist values (different from traditionally Western ones) and adhere to post-Christian patterns of behavior. The category of a nation is losing its meaning, and the transhumanistic worldview is apparently gaining influence among the surveyed students. Ontologism begins to disappear from the perception of young people; the world for them is increasingly turning into a “constructor”.

Abstract

One of the most studied, debated, noticeable and important gaps in history is the transition period between the Middle Ages and Modern Times. This is primarily due to the specifics of the civilizational development of Europe in this period. It is almost universally accepted that its essence is connected with the transition from feudalism to capitalism.

This era is ‘transitional’ and includes many different transformations: cultural, mental economic, political, when instead of an ethno-political space, a national-political world is formed. Therefore, it makes sense to call it so — the era of transformation, when the agrarian economy is transformed into a post-agrarian one, although not yet ‘industrial’, ‘pagan’ culture comes out from the ‘underground’ and actively pushes the Christian religion-ideology, ‘A Christian’ becomes a ‘free person’, etc.

It is during this period that civilizationally significant processes begin and end:

- The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Counter-Reformation are coming to an end.

- There is basically a ‘progressive’ stage of absolutism.

- All means of ‘feudal redistribution’ of Europe have been exhausted (The Italian Crusades, the Thirty Years’ War).

- The final division into ‘national states’ takes place.

- Geographical discoveries are being fully completed.

- In general, the first stage of the technical revolution is coming to an end.

- A new bourgeois type of man is being actively formed.

This article offers a brief analysis of this period as a special Era of Transformation, within which complex processes take place:

1) Renovatio - as a ‘return’ to the state of culture ‘before the fall’ (first of all, ancient).

2) Reformatio - as a ‘return’ to the ‘correct’ form of Christianity (‘early Christianity’).

3) Revolutio - as a ‘return’ to the ‘correct’ form of government (a wide range from the ‘Roman Republic’ to the traditional German community or the Old Testament model).

They are difficult to relate, they do not go synchronously, during the period they significantly change their meaning, at the same time, the logic of civilizational development implies a movement from Renovatio to Revolutio, from cultural deformations and changes to the replacement of the social system.

This study is aimed at the early practice of speech (or speech acts) as a functional tool in performative constructions, which can be considered as an integral part of the cultural heart and the reflection of an important semantic and pragmatic connection between the intentions and actions in mythical thinking. This way of thinking created images on the interpretation of the world as a system determined by supreme forces (gods). Communication of people with higher forces as an early speech practice of Indo-European cultures is traced in ancient prayers, rituals, incantations, spells, etc. They not only reflect the fixed language formulae which are a base of a cultural matrix but also offer a whole picture of the mythical thinking functioning. The following fundamental cultural phenomena are noted: the power of the word, as a primary vocal image; the act of assigning a name as giving birth to a creature (what is not named, does not exist), voice as a ritual constitutive force in prayers, and in the tabooing. The study of performative constructions in ancient Indo-European language data (Avesta, Upanishads, Edda, Old /New Testaments, Old Church Slavonic, and Anglo-Saxon spells) has revealed a strong relation of the functional power of voice to the ritual actions, which reflect in the traditional performative constructions - first person singular verbs: 1) prayers - I pray, I ask; 2) naming - I name, I give a name; 3) actions taken during incantation - I stretch out [my hands], I order; 4) and also the representation of voice as a divine being, which reflects in the concept of true godly knowledge and corresponds with the physical ability to attract attention and ask to follow with voice. In early performative practice, to legitimize the action it must be followed with words said out loud properly. And this interdependent phenomenon forms the heart of culture.

The relevance of the study of the formation of legal consciousness in the ancient period lies in the lack of study of this phenomenon from the point of view of multiculturalism in the process of the formation of ancient legal consciousness. The ancient world of antiquity developed in conditions of multiculturalism, yet researchers hardly pay any attention to this side of the development of society. Ancient legal consciousness had a difficult and long process of development, and the problem of its formation is still debatable. The subject of the study is the process of influence of multiculturalism on the formation of legal consciousness in the ancient period, which had passed a long and difficult period of formation, development and design. The article uses the category ‘social representation’, which is used in the analysis of social legal preferences from the point of view of moral values. Law, as a specific social and legal phenomenon closely connected with other forms of regulatory and cultural social systems of various ancient states, was a leading factor in the process of the formation of legal consciousness in the Ancient World. The peoples of the ancient world actively interacted with each other and replenished their legal culture by borrowing the best legal patterns in the process of mutual cultural exchange. Roman lawyers assimilated the best achievements of the law of other peoples, and they were among the first to actively apply the multicultural legal models of other peoples in their legal practice. The ideas of ancient society concerning law differed from our modern understanding. They were based on cosmic harmony, justice, duty and morality. These ancient legal patterns are entrenched in stereotypes of the mentality of society, cultural patterns of antiquity, and with their help the process of forming a legal consciousness through the acculturation of legal consciousness takes place. Philosophical ideas about the law of Ancient Greece go back to mythology, however, it was these mythological ideas about divine justice, duty, morality in the process of cultural exchange, multiculturalism that became the basis for Western legal consciousness, the origins of which lie in Ancient Greece and Rome.

Methodology. The study was carried out using the culturological method in the analysis of the concept of multiculturalism of the formation of ancient legal consciousness. The historical method, analysis and synthesis, abstraction, concretization and generalization were also used.

The best works of modern literature often have mythological overtones that allow us to raise the deep layers of human experience. Mythologism of the XX - XXI centuries is a wide, complex and contradictory phenomenon, requiring also serious penetration into the linguistics of the text of the studied work.

The analysis of the literary process, from the 19th century to the 21st century, clearly shows that it is traditional to have vocabulary referring the reader to various cultural subtexts, which we call mythopoetic paradigms that have an associative connection with mythological images and are a means of creating mythological subtext, as well as a means of enriching a literary text with additional meanings. Mythopoetic paradigms help in creating the subtext of a work by their ability to evoke certain models, images, whole cultural traditions in the reader’s mind.

A.A. Potebnya believes that the doctrine of ‘mythological devices’ of thought should be given a place in the history of literature: if the previous content of our thought is not a subjective means of cognition, but its source, and the image (being recognized as ‘objective’) is completely transferred into meaning, then in this the case the researcher comes across myth-making. Many myths are generated by the external and especially the internal form of the word.

The research of Yu. M. Polyakov’s texts convincingly shows a mythopoetic type of thinking of this writer, since mythopoetic paradigms are cross-cutting and cover almost all of the author’s texts. In this regard a novel “The Mushroom Tsar” by Yu. M. Polyakov is especially specific.

Yu. M. Polyakov’s works are rich in mythologemes of various types that allows us to talk about his texts within the framework of the neo-mythological tradition, which provides a deep understanding of the writer’s texts and the system of his idiostyle as a whole.

The work examines the contemporary art scene of Novosibirsk from 2009-2019. In the first part of the article we carry out a sociological analysis of the artistic life of the city and highlight such features as: the prevalence of self-organized forms of art presentation over institutional forms, non-publicity and “diffusivity” of a significant part of art practices. We also analyse the influence of these factors on the perception of art and discuss what kinds of methodological challenges they provoke. Further we give a brief overview of some significant exhibitions of the past decade (such as “Siberian Underground. 20 Years Later”, “Repetition of the Untrodden” etc.), examine artistic circles of the city and their transformation from 1990 to our time, discuss principles of their formation and the nature of interactions among them. We also propose a schematic representation of the artistic circles under consideration, their interactions and attractions from a historical point of view. The second part of the article examines the aesthetic features of contemporary art in Novosibirsk from 2009-2019. The transition from the art of the 00s and early 10s to the art of younger generations of the late 10s is characterized by a change in the emotional tonality: from vitality and expressivity to fragile and melancholic sensitivity, from political irony and grotesque to ethical complexity and vulnerability. When considering art of individual artists of the specified period we outline two possible ways of their analysis based on the allocation of a common motive: neo-expressionist and post-conceptual. The first of these is united by the motive of “toys” as a way of working with corporeality and doubleness (for example, in the works of Konstantin Skotnikov, the Cosmonauts art group, Denis Efremov, Alexei Grishchenko, Mayana Nasybullova, etc.). The post-conceptual line is presented through the works of such artists as: Alexander Limarev, Mikhail Karlov, the BERTOLLO art group, Irca Solza. Here we propose a unifying motive of “a game” as a dichotomy of rule systems and their failure that is viewed as an opportunity to conceive another world. In the conclusion of the article, we suggest that such an integrated approach to the analysis of regional art of the last decade is promising.

The article applies K. Geertz scientific approach of ‘detailed description’ to a modern urban wedding. The work is based on materials of field research into the marriage practices among young Perm families. The research techniques included semi-formal interviews and case-studies of 26 persons (13 families) during the period 2016-2020. These qualitative methods were necessary to get information about an important life event: from the first meeting a future partner to the wedding ceremony. Such methods helped identify cultural bases for the bride and groom’s practices. The paper provides a detailed interpretation of only one case, consisting of several narrative sections. Every narrative is a personal view of the participant at the wedding ceremony. The narrative “wedding as a drama” shows a woman’s interpretation of the celebration. The bride’s story has some negative connotations. The bride expresses rejection of the wedding procedure and some of its attributes. The narrative “wedding as a holiday” represents the man’s view. The groom’s comments contain mostly positive connotations. His story highlights the status elements of the celebration. He stresses his family’s contribution to the wedding ceremony. Analyzing both narratives, an additional aspect of the topic was explored: “wedding as a parents’ project”. It shows the older generation’s role in the organization of the wedding. In addition, the paper describes some stories which are repeated in the narratives, including various forms of objectification, gender roles in the young family, and shifting of social roles.

The modern museum is not only in the sphere of mass interests, but also serves as a reflection and expression of certain mass trends. While maintaining the status of a classical cultural institution, it was to a large extent precisely the museum that has become an arena of public discord on determining the strategies of cultural reproduction. This issue gains a pronouncedly contentious character due to the rapid development of information formats of traditional leisure now including interactive technologies, arbitrary historical reconstructions, elements of theatricalization. In “Escape from Amnesia” (A. Huyssen) the ‘society of total spectacle’ demands searching for new means, which often contribute to loss and substitution of values.

The visitor’s interest towards the history of the quotidian greatly influences the dynamics of changing the creative potential of a museum, predominantly a memorial museum. Long-term practices of modeling the historical space reveal the internal form of the concept of ‘ex-position’. This is the natural cause of an internal conflict, when being ‘arranged in a straight line’ replaces the principles of accurate and documentally verified positioning of memorial objects. ‘Museumness’ should not supplant ‘the quotidian’, ‘the existential’; however, the functional principle of arranging the objects, their ‘pattern’ is often replaced by the composite approach, in which ‘decorative’ or ‘design’ solutions become dominant. This trend actively competes with the key theoretical foundations of museum source studies, and the traditional museum is increasingly transforming into a kind of parallel model of culture.

The memorial object, as a fact of intellectual history, is significant within the material culture and spiritual heritage. At the same time, the alleged meanings and false semiotization often substitute the biographical realities, when ‘fit for exposition’ is everything that the mass museum visitor connects in his mind with his arbitrary understanding of the past.

These are key aspects of the subject of modern museum criticism. This article discloses our understanding of the memorial exposition as a self-organizing system with a certain aesthetic code. Methodologically significant is the existential turn towards ‘evidence paradigm’ - giving up the impersonal demonstration of old things. This is a turn towards the model ‘things-speak’ (self-awareness, self-disclosure of things) - towards the structure that communicates ideas and life meanings. It is where the memorial object, understood as ‘message’, ‘material communication’, can disclose the fullness of its historical authenticity.

The article is devoted to the study of the problem of alienation of culture in a modern museum and the processes of actualization of objects and phenomena of history in the space of the paramuseum. In the center of the author’s attention is the theme of creating the illusion of existential comfort. It explores the contradiction between the need for museification of culture in order for a modern person to be able to appeal to it when building one’s own identity, and the constant desire to place the culture of the past on a safe reservation. The issue of aestheticization of cultural objects in the museum space and the role of a museum in interpreting, preserving and distorting their meaning is raised. The museum, created as a repository of antiquities, a collection of masterpieces, today has become the most sensitive system that responds to changes in the life of culture and society. An axiological analysis of modern museums shows their growing popularity as an element of the entertainment industry, while their aesthetic, analytical, and intellectual role is becoming obscure. Respect for the museum as a keeper of cultural memory, for the focus of scientific life is disappearing. Instead, a simplified “attraction museum” and paramuseum is coming to the fore, creating endless games with historical objects, reconstructions, visitors and interpretations of the events of history and culture. The authors of the article are among the first to turn to the concept of “paramuseum” and give it a comprehensive assessment. For the first time, a scientific classification of paramuseums (on the example of paramuseums of northwestern Russia) is proposed. Their main features and characteristics are identified. A synergistic approach to the processes of actualization and alienation of cultural objects in the museum environment made it possible to include the viewer, the recipient, as the third, necessary component of this system. This made it possible to conclude that museum values are alienated or updated not by themselves, but only in relation to the “person watching.” Thus, modern museums and paramuseums are a form of value-based self-consciousness of society, demonstrating the total stratification of post-culture society, its fragmentation into value clusters that can represent culture as a whole only in the process of analytical consciousness, but not in the collection of subject series.

The article is devoted to conflicting assessments of the state of the museum in contemporary museum criticism: museums are experiencing either a protracted crisis or the Golden Age. The public is also criticized: people prefer to come to museums in order to be entertained with the help of new technologies and to achieve a scientific goal, and not in order to fulfill their civic duty (appreciating national treasure).

In general, among the objectives of the museum (to form a “national imaginary”, to support a state ideology, to serve as a scientific and educational center, to entertain and give pleasure), the aesthetic is in the last place, but the current negative views about the state of a museum as a sociocultural institution are caused by the general suspicion that aesthetics has come to the fore as the most important factor.

In order to correctly assess what is happening, modern approaches to the duties of the museum and the needs of the general public need to take the existing points of view on this subject in both Russian and international specialized literature into account. The analysis of the situation also involves data from Internet resources specializing in reporting on the modern art market, which is closely tied to museum politics. The article compares various approaches to the current situation: the goals and objectives historically attributed to the museum, a review of current exhibitions and of the technology used, a change in museum policy as a whole (in particular the fact that what was considered a profanation of a great idea 10 years ago has become a cultural norm today).

Based on the results of the study, the following conclusion can be made: modern museums are indeed extremely commercialized. The most unexpected souvenirs are sold in museum stores. Para-museums openly parasitize on the tourist flow of large museums. More than that, nobody thinks twice about making a profit in any possible way, while simultaneously grumbling about the fall in cultural demands of the public. However, interest in museums among the general population remains unchanged, so asserting the widespread crisis of the modern museum is a very big stretch.