Ideas and Ideals

The issue of catharsis, which continues to be a central topic in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, has become particularly significant in the context of contemporary socio-anthropological investigations. Historically associated with the aesthetic experience of tragedy, it transcends the boundaries of a singular artistic work, acquiring the characteristics of social reality – a collective ritual and a mechanism for social regulation. This is the focus of our study. The methodological foundation of our research logic encompasses a historical and philosophical exploration of the conceptualisation of catharsis from ancient times to the present day, a comparative analysis of historical forms of societal catharsis, and an interdisciplinary perspective. Particular emphasis is placed on the anthropological approach, which aids in unravelling the origins of cathartic practices and elucidating the essence of human existence within the framework of social integration processes. The objective of this paper is to delve into the intricate nature of social catharsis, a multifaceted phenomenon encompassing emotional release, intellectual enlightenment, and spiritual transformation, which serve as catalysts for heightened social engagement. In exploring the historical evolution of this concept, particularly in ancient Greece, two distinct levels of interpretation emerge: emotional catharsis and intellectual catharsis. Through an examination of various manifestations from ancient origins to contemporary secular forms, such as the trial of Socrates, medieval carnivals, religious rituals, theater performances, and media events, we aim to uncover both universal and distinctive features of social catharsis. R. Girard’s mimetic theory, which views catharsis as a ritualistic form of sacrifi ce, serves as a focal point for our analysis. Additionally, R. Schwager’s insights contribute to the consolidation of the hypothesis that the primary function of social catharsis lies in liberating individuals from collective feelings of guilt. Catharsis, which was originally linked to religious and ritualistic practices, has undergone a remarkable metamorphosis in contemporary secular society. However, it continues to serve the functions of social control, psychological relief, and aesthetic enjoyment.

Nowadays, audiovisual content can be manipulated quickly and convincingly using generative artificial intelligence. So-called deepfakes are created, i.e. images, videos, and audio tracks that look or sound as if people did or said something they never did or said. The author notes that deepfakes cause serious problems for political and public discourse, undermine trust in information content and political institutions, thereby contributing to the polarization of society and the weakening of social cohesion. At the same time, deepfake technologies offer exciting prospects for new forms of historical and political education and creative expression. The entertainment industry is experimenting with deepfakes to reduce production costs and create innovative effects. In the advertising industry, the use of deepfake technologies allows the creation of virtual influencers and opens up new possibilities for personalized, including socio-political, interaction. The author concludes that there is a need to respond to the challenges posed by deepfakes, but also to seize the opportunities they offer. Achieving a positive outcome requires the combined efforts of various social, political, and institutional actors. Policymakers can play an important role by developing appropriate regulatory proposals at the national and international levels, in particular to regulate the activities of large social media operators. However, the networks themselves, through self-regulation, can also take responsibility and help prevent the use of deepfakes for criminal or unethical purposes. Developers can improve deepfake detection and AI-generated content labeling technologies, and media outlets can use effective fact-checking tools. In addition, a literate civil society is needed that, given the media reality altered by deepfakes, is particularly critical of media content whose origin and veracity have not been verified by credible media organizations.

This article proposes a socio-philosophical study of the phenomenon of ‘common-law marriage’ (cohabitation) as a vehicle of individualist ideology, employing the following methodologies: historical, logical, systemic, and comparative analysis. A comparison of ‘common-law’ and offi cial (civil) marriages reveals signifi cant differences.

Official civil marriage begins with free consent and a mutual promise. A stamp in the passport serves as confirmation of this step. The constant characteristics of marriage are: an initial focus on a long-term relationship and the creation of a new community of people in the form of a family (the social unit of society). It has been revealed that ‘common-law marriage (cohabitation)’, viewed as a stage before or as a substitute for official marriage, is based on the priority of personal freedom and the possibility of an easy breakup, which creates a foundation for insecurity in the relationship and can serve as an exclusion of responsibility to the partner. In a ‘common-law marriage,’ there is no initial commitment to a long-term relationship, no commitment to creating a ‘we’ community, and no commitment to having children as a natural development of marriage, as a prerequisite for the consanguineous relay of generations, linking the past with the future through the present. It is argued that a ‘common-law marriage’ does not lead to the creation of a full-fl edged family, but rather a parafamily. The fundamental idea of  a ‘common-law marriage’ is freedom as the right to self-realization, independence, and choice. A ‘common-law marriage’ supposedly provides the allure of an “open door” in relationships. This fl awed understanding of freedom ignores its inextricable link with responsibility. The focus on the short-term nature of a ‘common-law marriage,’ with the possibility of abandoning a partner, can foster a superficial, consumerist attitude toward that partner, contributing to social atomization and a reduction in the fertile age of marital relationships.

The results of this study can be used to develop measures to prevent the negative consequences associated with the increasing number of common-law marriages and may be useful for developing public policies aimed at supporting families, including implementing family-related social projects and developing educational programs and materials on family topics.

The new wave of globalization, driven by technological and technical progress, has affected absolutely all areas: manufacturing, the labor market, financial and economic relations, and education. The equalization and unification of educational standards and the increasing availability of international higher education programs have contributed to an increase in the number of students who can study or continue their education not in their home country, but abroad. As a result, in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, international educational migration acquired new characteristics. The authors notes that over the past ten years, the education sector has been undergoing global changes. By these changes, the authors understands not only the migration of students and teachers in the classical sense, but also the digital migration of students from classrooms to digital educational and entertainment resources, platforms, and various internet portals. Globalization is currently one of the key trends in the development and expansion of the global economy.

The authors of the article examines the concept of digital migration in education as a consequence of globalization. In addition, it examines the concept of digital mobility in education and provides a comparative analysis between traditional methods in education and new, predominantly digital methods in education.

The article examines the impact of digitalization on the social structure of modern society. As a result of digital technologies taking center stage in the functioning of public institutions, the position of the individual in society is changing. Modern people exist both in the world of digital networks and in the real world, “online” and “offl ine.” At the same time, they can play different roles and have different statuses in the real world and the digital environment. Thus, a kind of dualism of human existence is formed. Under the infl uence of digital technologies, the social structure is undergoing a transformation. This is refl ected in the emergence of new social groups whose activities are either related to the functioning of digital structures or are modifi ed under the infl uence of changes taking place in society. Entire social groups are formed and function in the digital environment, creating the phenomenon of “network societies” with their own norms. A relationship is emerging between the transformation of the social structure and the modifi cation of the political system of society. Political actors are evolving. For example, political parties are being modifi ed into electoral clubs. Changes in the social organism caused by digitalization have led to a loss of support from the traditional social groups and strata that parties previously targeted. Under the new conditions, the moods and needs of new social strata and groups must be taken into account. As a result, political forces are forced to adapt to the new conditions, which leads to the erosion of the political spectrum. Thanks to the widespread introduction of digital technologies, the voices of individuals and entire groups have become noticeable. Social networks are largely replacing traditional media, actively competing with them and becoming a signifi cant force in public life. All of this is becoming an important factor in politics that must be taken into account by participants in political action. In a digital society, politics is becoming more complex. As a result, the political system is gradually transforming and acquiring new features. 

The article attempts to analyze philosophically the vulnerability of conversation in online communication. The purpose of the article is to analyze the factors that weaken conversation as one of the key genres of communication. The author notes that the effects of online communication mediated in the format of social networks and instant messengers on direct interpersonal connections have not yet been fully studied, as the emphasis is already shifting to a high-tech novelty – neural networks. The role of the smartphone as a key cultural artifact is noted, turning the ‘good old’ social networks into immersive media platforms with functionality that intensifi es the process of destruction of the genre of conversation in real time and co-presence. The article posits the thesis that technologically mediated electronic interaction – whether in messengers and social networks or with a neural network – constitutes one of the fundamental communicative mythologemes of the age of universal connectivity. It is substantiated that the activity occurring in all the listed formats is not a conversation, despite the prevailing perception as such. The mythologem is born from a stable feeling of communicative well-being against the background of an increasing number of virtually continuous connections (superfi cial online communication with its own specifi cs), while in fact, due to the almost constant technological mediation of interaction, the fullness of the conversation as a communicative act and the fullness of communication in general are truncated. The author reveals the substitution of the corresponding concepts: in the case of a messenger, this is just correspondence, in the case of a social network, correspondence in the context of constructing an identity. As for the interaction with the neural network, carried out through prompts - whether it is communication –  is a debatable issue, the author comes to the conclusion that, rather, it is a complex imitation of communication through elements of dialogicity. The study used methods of statistical and structural analysis.

The crisis of the neoliberal model of capitalism that we observe today, and the transition to a platform-based economy is accompanied by a profound ideological transformation. The article provides a critical analysis of posthumanistic and transhumanistic concepts, which are considered as the ideological foundations of the emerging order of digital capitalism. It argues that, despite their declared rhetoric of liberation, these philosophical movements become tools for legitimizing new forms of exploitation, alienation, and control. Methodologically grounded in critical theory and the Marxist tradition, the work demonstrates how the interests of digital capital are objectively served by ideas of human deconstruction (R. Braidotti) and techno-utopianism/transhumanism (N. Bostrom). The philosophical concepts examined in this work effectively camoufl age the real social and economic problems arising from the rapid development of digital technologies, namely: the hyper-concentration of capital and power, the precarization of labor, and the destruction of human subjectivity. By manifesting a radical rethinking and alteration of human nature, these ideologies create a philosophical basis for the formation of a plastic and manageable ‘new human’, stripped of identity and critical consciousness. This ‘new human’ as a construct is a necessary and systemic condition for the existence and development of digital capitalism.

The article is a continuation of the author’s publications on the topic of posthumanism, published in the previous issues of the journal and dedicated to the theory and practice of this ideological trend of social thought. In this article, the author systematized and identifi ed three directions of the
predecessors of posthumanism: geographical determinism, the theory of local civilizations and Russian cosmism. The fi rst predecessor, geographical determinism, is presented in the article by Johann Herder, Elise Reclus, Pyotr Alekseevich
Kropotkin and Lev Ilyich Mechnikov. The author shows that thanks to this trend of social thought, the ideas of humanism, based on ideas about a single history of mankind along the path of progress, began to be questioned. The second predecessor, the theory of local civilizations, is analyzed based on the works of N.Ya. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, A. Toynbee and L.N. Gumilyov.
The author analyzes in particular detail the legacy of the latter. The third predecessor of posthumanism, according to the author, is Russian cosmism, associated with the names of not only Russian scientists N.F. Fedorov, K.E. Tsiolkovsky and .L. Chizhevsky, but also with French philosophers such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Jules Deleuze. The article concludes that the three predecessors of posthumanism prepared public consciousness and social sciences for an adequate perception of posthumanism.

The genesis of modern technogenic culture is determined by the impact of global trends of the era of ‘Industry 4.0’, marking the advent of smart technologies actively developing within the framework of a digital ecosystem. This article
investigates the infl uence of artifi cial neural networks on contemporary sociocultural spaces and social institutions. It provides a retrospective analysis of the evolutionary path of neurotechnologies from early experimental studies of
mid-last century to current advanced achievements such as multilayer artifi cial neural networks and deep machine learning technologies. The author notes that the current stages of transformational processes differ signifi cantly from previous phases of industrial evolution due to the total spread of intelligent machines and network information infrastructures, which exert a decisive infl uence on all
spheres of human activity, ranging from production cycles to everyday life patterns of population.
A detailed study of the effects of these methods on key areas of human activities, including state governance sector, industry, healthcare, commercial activities, education process, and creative industries allows considering positive impacts of wide-scale introduction of neuroalgorithms, among them an increase in decision-making effi ciency, improvement of diagnostics and therapy of diseases, optimization of manufacturing processes, and expansion of possibilities for obtaining quality educational services. However, potential threats and risks associated with large-scale use of neurotechnologies are also highlighted, such as issues related to personal data protection, compliance with bioethical norms and legal regulations. There is a need for a comprehensive approach to further deve lopment of this fi eld of knowledge, involving integration of efforts from representatives of various scientifi c disciplines, development of strict regulatory legal acts, and implementation of reliable technical means for ensuring information security aimed at minimizing risks and providing reliable functioning of neurotechnology solutions. These trends pose before the scientifi c community several urgent problems concerning cybersecurity risk assessment, development of technical
ethics standards, and evaluation of long-term socio-economic effects of innovative technological revolution.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies emerged in the United States in the 1990s. Presidential administrations from Kennedy to Biden issued executive orders strengthening affi rmative action (AA) policies, and these policies
were further developed through legislation and court decisions. The dissemination of AA policies occurred in two directions: from the top down, through government, and from the bottom up, through organized minorities. Large organizations created equal employment opportunity and AA departments, which became the precursors to modern DEI departments. Conceived as a temporary measure with limited scope, AA policies eventually evolved into permanent policies
encompassing all of society. Throughout its history, these policies have been criticized, with questions raised about their effectiveness and constitutionality. DEI and the associated reverse discrimination are viewed by the Trump administration as a problem that must be addressed immediately. Trump has issued executive orders aimed at ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs,
ending discrimination, and restoring merit-based opportunities. This article analyzes AA as a complex phenomenon that exists in several forms: a social movement
and its ideology, policies and social practices, a subject of sociology and organizational psychology, a body of law and case law, and an institutionalized profession. DEI is often referred to as a “diversity-industrial complex”. It represents
a complex structure that includes, in addition to DEI departments in organizations, training and consulting centers, online resources, think tanks, law fi rms, and much more. This article describes the DEI movement’s seizure of
power in organizations. It analyzes how DEI is being dismantled and the obstacles these efforts face. DEI, like the voke activism movement at large, when its existence is threatened, creates “backup airfi elds” – front organizations where they can operate and where funds can be funneled for the lean years. Each element of the diversity-industrial complex must be dismantled in its own way. To effectively and irreversibly abolish DEI, it is necessary to identify the full range of social forces and mini-institutions that underpin this ideology and policy, and fi nd ways to counter them.