Ideas and Ideals of Open Education
Artem Zubkov
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2023-15.4.1-203-216
Abstract:

This article examines the phenomenon of open education, its infl uence, and prospects within the context of contemporary education. An in-depth exploration of this pedagogical approach offers invaluable insights for educators, researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders intrigued by advanced methodologies and ideas in the educational realm. The primary objective of the research is to ascertain how the principles of open education facilitate the transformation of traditional educational frameworks and how they can promote educational equity. To achieve this aim, the author employs a method of analyzing diverse sources and practical examples. It is posited that open education represents a signifi cant stride towards creating a more inclusive and accessible educational milieu, anchored in the principles of democracy, self-organization, and knowledge equality. The article’s key fi ndings encompass the understanding that open education, rooted in principles of accessibility, inclusivity, self-organization, and knowledge democratization, offers novel opportunities for the transformation of conventional education and the realization of educational fairness. Challenges in implementing open education, including digital disparity, content quality, accreditation, and student motivation, are also illuminated. Open education introduces pedagogical innovations, infusing elements of fl exibility and individualization. Novelty contributions of the research encompass delineating the impact of open education on transforming educational frameworks, a profound comprehension of open education principles and their application for ensuring educational equity, and the formulation of new methodological approaches to studying the open education phenomenon. In conclusion, the study offers valuable perspectives on the role and position of open education in the current educational landscape and its potential for further exploration. This work will be of interest to those seeking to understand and probe the possibilities that open education presents for today’s educational environment.

Very Old and the Very Modern Clothing of Anarchism. Рractice
Yury Voronov
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2023-15.3.1-92-109
Abstract:

This article discusses examples of the practical implementation of the ideas of anarchism or attempts at such an implementation. The author believes that without taking into account and systematizing these phenomena, the economic history of the world is incomplete. The author does not make it his task to promote these examples and attempts, he only believes that they cannot be ignored. First, the author considers the anarchies that existed in Europe in the Middle Ages: Free Frisia and Dithmarschen in the north of Europe and the ‘Forest Cantons’ on the territory of modern Switzerland. The phenomenon of the Wild West in the history of the United States is analyzed as a form of long-term existence of the economy on a vast territory without government control. It is noted that those elements of self-organization of the population that were formed during the development of new territories in the western United States are usually hushed up. The author also considers temporarily existing anarchist communities in Spain in the 1930s and modern anarchist movements in Latin America, as well as the problem of the so-called ‘optimal size of the state’, which was raised by the anarchist Leopold Kohr. The paper describes a zone of Zomia, in which 100 million people currently live, who do not recognize the authority of any state. The author explores ideological roots of the Makhnovshchina, an anarchist movement during the Civil War. It is shown that the Republic of Nestor Makhno was organized not spontaneously, but according to certain initial political principles. The author especially highlights the successful attempt to build an anarchist community in Libya, where the principle of the absence of state taxes was practically implemented, since the state had other sources of income. In conclusion, two events of recent years are analyzed, behind which it is not customary to see the practical implementation of anarchist ideas: the Ukrainian Maidan of 2014 and the ‘Yellow Vests’ movement in France in 2018. Both of these phenomena are currently usually interpreted as spontaneous or inspired from outside. However, the author believes that such an interpretation is one-sided, not taking into account the continuity of pre-existing ideological and political currents.

Ideology of the New Atheism as a Variant of the “Multiple Versions of Modernity” of Post-Secular Society
Yulia Smirnova,  Regina Fazleeva
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2023-15.3.1-110-125
Abstract:

The article analyzes the main ideas of Alan Gilbert Nixon, a contemporary sociologist of religion and researcher of the new atheism movement. The subject of the study is the ideology of the new atheism movement as a special anti-religious worldview associated with the work of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens, which arose in 2006. Nixon himself, studying this movement, uses an original methodology, which he calls ‘grounded theory’ and explores the development of a new atheism in the actual contextual space of interaction between participants and the prospects of this interaction. The methodology of the authors of this article is based on the principle of the unity of the historical and logical interpretation of the key concepts and positions of A. Nixon in the process of a systematic analysis of historical background, ideological foundation, self-presentation of representatives of the new atheism movement. In addition, in the context of this study, a number of social changes (the globalization of capitalism, the development of the Internet and the related “leaps of communication”, the religious renaissance) are considered as a necessary context for the formation of a special “narrative mythology” of the new atheism, expressed in the idea of the greatness of Nature and Science. and suggesting a kind of piety within the worldview of the new atheism. As the main result of the presented analysis, one can single out the conceptual design of key aspects of the existence of a modern anti-religious worldview: hyperskepticism in the knowledge of the world, nihilism and the denial of classical metaphysics of rationality, criticism of the values of religious morality; a postmodern paradox that erases the boundaries between religious/non-religious and cancels the very possibility of discrimination on religious grounds, which nullifies the confrontational logic of the new atheism; the emergence of secular non-religious missionary work as a result of the process of competition of ideas in the space of “multiple modernities”; and, finally, the fact that the new atheistic message is gaining adherents because the anti-religious worldview is subject to the cultural logic of late capitalism with its postmodern spread of pluralism of cultures, discourses, organizations.

The Сoncept of “Diaspora” in the Modern Theoretical Debate
Elnara Dumnova
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2023-15.3.1-162-176
Abstract:

The article presents an analysis of the transformation of methodological discourse on the concept of diaspora in the framework of migration issues studies. The development of research in a certain area is always associated with methodological issues that give rise to different approaches, despite this, they require their own solutions. The study of the experience of conceptualizing the concept of diaspora seems necessary from the point of view of clarifying the instrumental capabilities and, consequently, the methodological productivity of this concept, which is necessary for the selection and consistent justification of research optics in the process of developing a strategy for studying various aspects of international migration and separately the diaspora as its significant component. The transformation of the theoretical debate is considered within the framework of its periodization proposed by R. Cohen. Based on the analysis of a number of Western concepts of diaspora, the main approaches to the interpretation of this concept are revealed: essentialist and relativistic.

Representatives of the first approach (W. Safran, R. Cohen) position diaspora as a kind of the model, which has fixed features that determine its unchangeable essence. The most significant of them are forced nature of migration, the connection with the homeland and the desire to return there. Despite the fact that R. Cohen proposed an expanded somewhat liberalized set of features of diaspora, it continued to be considered from the point of view of the necessary presence of certain features of this community, which makes it possible to define it as a diaspora. This approach has been criticized. Its opponents were representatives of relativism and constructionism (Clifford, Gillroy and Hall). They identified the flexibility of diaspora, the diversity of its causes, a number of acquired features and aspects of existence, in addition to the connection with the motherland. The second approach considers a new type of diaspora – trans-diaspora – in the context of transnational migration. The diaspora began to be positioned procedurally in the new conditions of a globalizing world and transnational living space. Thus, two types of definitions of the concept of diaspora have been formed: reterritorialized and deterritorialized. The author of the article reveals the features of these approaches and their methodological productivity from the point of view of a research strategy.

Stratagem Thinking in Feng Menlong' Works: Аn Attempt at an Interpretation
Tatiana Zav'yalova
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2023-15.3.1-126-161
Abstract:

The article focuses on the problem of correlation between ethical norms and stratagem thinking. The analysis of the methods of description and representation of stratagem thinking in the works of Feng Menglong is aiming to achieve a complex research goal. Firstly, to supplement the information about the biography and work of Feng Menglong; secondly, to introduce new sources for the study of stratagem thinking; thirdly, to describe the complex of socio-philosophical views of Feng Menglong as he mastered stratagem thinking. The collection of stratagems A Complete Book of Wisdom is introduced as an academic source for the first time. The article is organized into three parts. The first part introduces the problem: China civil officials, as well as the military class, actively used stratagems in management practice. The second part analyzes the facts of Feng Menglong's biography that initiated his interest in stratagems. Everyday stratagem thinking in Feng Menglong's personal experience provides a basis for evaluating wisdom and foolishness as significant social factors. The analysis of Feng Menglong's biography may confirm the hypothesis that in Chinese culture stratagem thinking was limited by the Confucian ethical system, which, on the one hand, does not encourage the use of stratagems, but on the other hand, does not prohibit it either.  The third part focuses directly on the analysis of the literature source. The analysis of the structure and content of A Complete Book of Wisdom proves that stratagem thinking is a kind of practical and figurative-associative thinking, which does not destroy ethical frameworks, but shows an acceptable way out into the “gray zone” of ethics. The description of stratagems in A Complete Book of Wisdom is based on traditional Confucian values, but at the same time sets multi-option way to planned action.

Dialectical View on Disturbed Harmony in the First World War Letters of German Students in 1914-1918
Tim Trendelkamp
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2023-15.2.1-193-208
Abstract:

In this article the collection of letters written by voluntary students during the First World War is analyzed from a philosophical point of view. The collection was assembled by Philipp Witkop during the years of the First World War and after it. The author of the article analyzes two philosophical tendencies of materialism and idealism, which appear in the letters. These two philosophical tendencies are considered as phenomena of well-ordered life in peaceful times. The main material of this research is the original text of the collection of letters, as compiled by Philipp Witkop. Then, the texts of Clausewitz, Scheler, Heidegger and Ernst Jünger were added to further enrich the scope of the study. To assess the genuinity and political meaning of the compilation of letters, the author consulted with the contemporary researchers and their results. The main method of this study is the method of reading the text, conducting conceptual analysis and then attempting to develop a philosophical scheme in order to create a senseful context of what was read. Finally, the attempt is made to reunify the contradictions which were discovered as a result of the textual analysis. This attempt of reunification of the discovered contradictions is called the dialectical synthesis. Thus, the dialectical method is one of the important methods employed during the course of this study. The phenomenon of war could be successfully defined as a phenomenon of the destruction of the harmony of usual, peaceful order of life in a state.  The author comes to the conclusion that the content of the letters can be mainly divided in two subgroups. The first subgroup is the subgroup of Idealism. Roughly speaking, these are the students who are enthusiastic about the participation in the war. They have an intellectual tendency towards collectivism. The second subgroup is the subgroup of materialism. This is the subgroup of those students who do not approve of the war. The mindset of these students can be called individualistic. Finally, some letters which attempt to create a dialectical synthesis of these two tendencies could be identified. This dialectical synthesis overcomes the fear of death. But it does not abandon the value of the individual conciousness and the individual personality. The discovery of the dialectical syntheses gives the prove that there can be a more complex attitude towards the historical phenomenon of war as a destructor of well-ordered harmony. It is possible not only to be afraid of death and miss the peaceful times, but also to radically welcome the new times of war. The author highlights the complexity of the human being.

But at the same time, the author offers an argument for the possibility to create a senseful philosophical scheme to make sense of the complex properties of the human experience.

Religion and Its Significance in the Socio-Cultural Life of a Person: Spiritual and Practical Meanings of Family-Patrimonial Memory
Larisa Logunova,  Olga Zhuсova,  Tatiana Gritskevich
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2023-15.2.1-160-176
Abstract:

The connecting elements of the spirituality and religiosity of the individual are social meanings. The human mind rests on them in moments of truth. The authors analyze the basic foundation of spirituality of an individual - the family-patrimonial memory of the Siberian community. This is an element of spiritual life, capable of constructing social and cultural ethical meanings, determining the fate of people, comprehending one’s existence. Meaning is an epistemological value. It acts as a reference point for the need for a person’s religious choice. Family and tribal memory has a stabilizing cultural-creative function necessary for the reproduction and maintenance of the social order, enshrined in spiritual practices.

Family and tribal memory is defined by the authors as a system of ideas, stereotypes, united by a value-semantic core (family solidarity in understanding one’s historical identity) with the spiritual and activity bases of mental structures for assessing the dynamics of historical events, filled with a variety of personal meanings at the level of semantic functions and variability of semantic interpretations. Family-patrimonial memory is narrative. The study of family mnemonic narratives allowed the authors to determine the significance of sociocultural trauma in the evolution of understanding of their religiosity by members of the Siberian territorial community. The array of interviews with the older generation of Siberians was divided into thematic clusters containing the semantic positions of performing spiritual practices or refusing them. These meanings are passed on by older generations to their grandchildren as a symbolic spiritual capital that influences the behavior of young members of the community. The unity of religiosity and the inconsistency of the content of social memory is devoted to the author’s study of the attitude towards religion of the multi-confessional Siberian community.

The Everyday Life of the Neoliberal Subject: The Interplay of Macro and Micro Ideological Structures
Pavel Gordok
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2023-15.2.1-177-192
Abstract:

Neoliberalism can be understood both as a practice of governance organized around economic norms of competition, flexibility and risk calculation, and as a technique of shaping and transforming modes of subjectivation. These two interpretations are closely intertwined: the institutions that capture neoliberal discourses become the starting point for the formation of a particular subjectivity known as human capital. At the same time, labour is understood very broadly: even pre-reflexive behavioural practices (e.g., sleep) are included in the idea of human capital. The purpose of this article is to analyse and criticise the neoliberal subject’s image of the life-world. The life-world is understood as an area of everyday human activity within which the pre-predicative resources of “common sense” are at work. The author takes an integrative approach, combining ideological theory and the study of everyday life. M. Foucault’s series of lectures, ‘The Birth of Biopolitics’, is used as the main source of content for the theory of neoliberalism. The critique of the neoliberal subject’s life-world is carried out through the ontological argumentation of the Ljubljana School of Psychoanalysis. The imperative of neoliberal ethics calling for unlimited pleasure is clearly evident in the mode of existence of consumer products. A certain commodity exists as a negation of its own idea: non-alcoholic wine, for example, is a negation of the idea of wine itself. In this sense, pleasure is stripped of any barriers, but just as importantly, the process of its reception becomes a meaning-in-itself that is institutionally supported. Pleasure is linked to the structurally constitutive absence of the object of desire. Thus, a critical analysis of ideology actualises the category of alienation. The overcoming of neoliberal subjectivity is only possible through the acceptance of a fundamental rupture (alienation) as the ontological basis of identity, a position that has been called an object-disoriented ontology.

Very Old and the Very Modern Clothing of Anarchism. Theory
Yury Voronov
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2023-15.1.1-105-133
Abstract:

This article discusses the main stages in the development of the theory of anarchism. The author started his examination of anarchist ideas from Errico Malatesta’s book “The System of Anarchism in Ten Conversations for the Peasants”. Then, the author considers the works of a French politician, philosopher and economist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The paper touches upon the problem of practical implementation of his theoretical principles up to the present time. The author also takes into account the works of the geographical school of anarchism (Elise’e Reclus and Peter Kropotkin). The paper analyses the anarchist origins of the classical school of political economy. It is noted that a significant part of Adam Smith’s ideas was previously expressed by his predecessor, anarchist William Godwin. In particular, it is shown that the category of invisible hand’ originated from anarchist ideas about the inner world of a person, and not from the ideas that ‘the market will decide everything’. Some aspects of the history of the First International, the role of anarchists in the creation and activities of the First International are considered. The article describes the emergence and development of anarchism in Japan, it is shown that the Japanese branch of anarchism is closely connected with the works of M. Bakunin. The problem of long-term propaganda of the ideas of anarchism in US universities is touched upon. The main authors of anarchist works are singled out from among them. The author also considers Christian theological anarchism associated with the name of I. Illich, as well as the works of the followers and propagandists of anarcho-Islam that have appeared in recent years. According to the author, the ideas of anarchism are poorly analyzed by historians, which leads to many incorrect assessments of current events and erroneous predictions of the future, especially in recent decades.

The reason for this is ignoring the role of anarchist thought in the socio-economic life of the world. It is noted that the penetration of anarchist ideas into social theories and political doctrines of very different directions takes place in such a way that they become an inseparable part of them and are no longer considered anarchist. Briefly, the main idea of ​​the article can be expressed in the words: “Theoretical anarchism does matter”.

The Citizen in Search of Community: Peculiarities of the Organization of the Far Eastern Urban Space (the Case of Khabarovsk)
Leonid Blyakher,  Andrei Kovalevskii
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2023-15.1.1-134-147
Abstract:

As a rule, the tradition of analysis and description of the Russian city space marginalizes significant parts of this space. Thus, industrial zones, low-rise residential areas, etc. fall outside the concept of ‘city’. The Soviet ‘private sector’ often remains outside the scope of analysis, covering more than half of the city’s territory and a significant part of its population in individual settlements. This discussion in scientific papers has appeared recently, and we want to proceed with it in the space of Far Eastern cities. In this paper, we propose to look at these ‘marginal’ territories and the groups inhabiting them from a fundamentally different perspective, to consider them not as ‘territories of prospective development’, but as already established social space, with its inherent social significances and practices. From the framework of the Khabarovsk city we determine the ratio of ‘normal urban’ (regular urban development) and ‘marginal’ spaces on the basis of two years of observation, three series of in-depth interviews and analysis of statistics, demographic and spatial data, and then combine these two separated parts into a single object - the city, which, as we show in our work, is eminently characterized by both these types of spaces. As the study showed, it is in the ‘invisible’ part of the city that the most stable communities are formed, actively participating in the ‘struggle for the city’, organizing routine resistance to the aspirations of powerful agents to change their space. In areas of regular urban development, on the contrary, communities are increasingly replaced by ‘combinations’, associations regarding the use of common elements of urban infrastructure. At the same time, ‘meeting points’ appear between these parts, uniting the city, giving it a chance to form integrity, or at least coherence. The authors present an analysis of the urban space and urban communities of Khabarovsk in this article.