Ideas and Ideals

In the context of recent international events, issues of national identity have once again appeared on the agenda, which for the fi rst time clearly sounded in the domestic humanitarian discourse since the middle of the XIX century. The events of the last ten years have clearly shown that Russia, having experienced multifactorial external infl uences, is not а part of the Western or Eastern cultural and geographical worlds, but has its own ‘civilizational face’ and its own tasks in world history. In order to rationalize and systematically comprehend the basic categories of national identity, it is necessary to turn to the analysis of such concepts as ‘Russian civilization’, ‘Eurasian civilization’, ‘Russian world’.

To avoid extremes and modern temptations in their assessment, the methodology of such study must be based primarily on the position of such Russian thinkers as N.A. Berdyaev, K.N. Leontiev, N.S. Trubetskoy. They rightly noted that autocratic Russian imperialism and cosmopolitanism are opposed to both true patriotism and genuine humanity.  The infringed in the past Russian national identity is subjected today to nationalist temptations and threats of ideological excesses, which is refl ected in the extremely broad interpretation of the concept of the ‘Russian world’. The article gives the author’s assessment of this concept, which is based on the ethnocultural understanding of the Russian world. The necessity of overcoming its identifi cation, on the one hand, with the Eurasian civilization or the Eurasian cultural and geographical world, and on the other hand, with the civilization of Russia, is substantiated.  In the spiritual aspect, the Russian world is devoid of geographical, political, ethnocultural and linguistic ties, refl ecting the primordial human right to freely acquire one’s spiritual identity. But such self-identifi cation should be purely voluntary, especially in a multinational Russia. The civilization of Russia, in addition to the Russian world (or Russian subcivilization), also includes the Turkic, Mongolian and Ugro-Finnish ethno-cultural worlds (subcivilizations) from the standpoint of classical Eurasianism.

In the context of recent international events, issues of national identity have once again appeared on the agenda, which for the fi rst time clearly sounded in the domestic humanitarian discourse since the middle of the XIX century. The events of the last ten years have clearly shown that Russia, having experienced multifactorial external infl uences, is not а part of the Western or Eastern cultural and geographical worlds, but has its own ‘civilizational face’ and its own tasks in world history. In order to rationalize and systematically comprehend the basic categories of national identity, it is necessary to turn to the analysis of such concepts as ‘Russian civilization’, ‘Eurasian civilization’, ‘Russian world’.

To avoid extremes and modern temptations in their assessment, the methodology of such study must be based primarily on the position of such Russian thinkers as N.A. Berdyaev, K.N. Leontiev, N.S. Trubetskoy. They rightly noted that autocratic Russian imperialism and cosmopolitanism are opposed to both true patriotism and genuine humanity.  The infringed in the past Russian national identity is subjected today to nationalist temptations and threats of ideological excesses, which is refl ected in the extremely broad interpretation of the concept of the ‘Russian world’. The article gives the author’s assessment of this concept, which is based on the ethnocultural understanding of the Russian world. The necessity of overcoming its identifi cation, on the one hand, with the Eurasian civilization or the Eurasian cultural and geographical world, and on the other hand, with the civilization of Russia, is substantiated.  In the spiritual aspect, the Russian world is devoid of geographical, political, ethnocultural and linguistic ties, refl ecting the primordial human right to freely acquire one’s spiritual identity. But such self-identifi cation should be purely voluntary, especially in a multinational Russia. The civilization of Russia, in addition to the Russian world (or Russian subcivilization), also includes the Turkic, Mongolian and Ugro-Finnish ethno-cultural worlds (subcivilizations) from the standpoint of classical Eurasianism.

The article examines the origin of the concepts of ‘politarism’ and its derivatives ‘political mode of production’, ‘political society’, which are quite often used in the Russian domestic socio-historical and socio-philosophical literature. It is shown that the immediate predecessor of this concept was the ‘Asian mode of production’ and its various analogues (‘Eastern despotism’, ‘the era of Asian kings’ etc.) in the works of K. Marx, which remained mainly in manuscript form. The fi rst discussion around the Asian mode of production (AMP), which unfolded in the USSR in the 1920s, although it was suppressed by harsh administrative methods, nevertheless brought a signifi cant revival to the Soviet social philosophy, which was already under the powerful pressure of the dogmas of the ‘historical materialism’ and the so-called fi ve-term scheme of socio-economic formations. A second similar discussion, which took place in the 1950s and 1960s, also played such a role, prompting, among other things, a signifi cant part of professional orientalists to large-scale and conceptual socio-historical generalizations. The activities and works of the recently deceased professor Yu. I. Semenov, whose name is directly related to the appearance of the term ‘politarism’ in Soviet and then Russian social philosophy, are specially considered. Y.I. Semenov’s original historiosophical concept, created and developed by its author in the conditions of his conscious opposition to the aggressive ideological environment and administrative dictate, has become a valuable component of the conceptual and scientifi c understanding of the historical process, retaining its heuristic signifi cance to this day. The concepts used by Y.I. Semenov and, in general, his very approach to understanding social and political reality deserve attention as one of the versions of non-dogmatic, creative Marxism, which occupies a noticeable niche in modern domestic and foreign academic discourse.

The article analyzes the problem of the relationship of two historical phenomena, which largely determined the appearance of an entire century and infl uenced the development of subsequent forms of culture. With the undoubted scientist orientation of positivism and Bonapartism in the middle and second half of the 19th century, the question of their kinship remains debatable. The author of the article opposes the hypothesis of the direct determining infl uence of positivism on Bonapartism. In order to substantiate this statement, the article considers the works of Louis Bonaparte, directly related to natural science topics. The work which was dedicated to sugar production in France essentially has political goals. Written by a political prisoner, it is directly polemical to government decisions made in France. Louis Bonaparte calls for focusing on the common interests of the country, taking into account the needs of producers, consumers and residents of the colonies of France. He gives a detailed description of the process of obtaining sugar from beets, mentions the introduced technical innovations. Political independence, in his opinion, requires the preservation and development of sugar production in the country. In his essay on the project for the construction of a canal connecting the Pacifi c Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean, he gives various considerations about the need for such an enterprise. In this work, Louis Bonaparte operates various geographical data, also seeks to show his acquaintance with hydraulics. He emphasizes the political importance of the project, as well as its commercial attractiveness. With positivism, the position of Louis Bonaparte brings together the idea of  progress, the call to rely in public life on science that has a practical application, criticism of speculative theories. He diverges from the ancestor of positivism in assessing the role of religion and republican institutions. Louis Bonaparte did not share the theory of the three stages of Comte and his encyclopedic law. Positivism and Bonapartism as special historical phenomena of one century have some related features, but do not fl ow from one another.

The article substantiates the distinction between social and sociality as two levels of social ontology. The concept of the invariant of sociality is introduced to denote the ability of a set of active agents of natural or artifi cial origin to form a stable homogeneous or heterogeneous unity by orienting each agent to the coordination and coordination of interactions. The analysis of the polemics between J. Habermas and K. Popper regarding the explanation of the mode of emergence of symbolic objects that are part of intersubjective life worlds allowed the author to clarify the peculiarities of interactions in digital communications. If the life world of an individual is constructed for him in the space of the technosystem, and is not a product of the cultural tradition of practices of a certain community, then the content of symbolic formations necessary for interactions with other individuals also arises in the information space organized and fi lled with the technosystem. The conditions of the possible transition of society to a post-social state are considered. According to the author, post-sociality emerges as a format of patterns of interactions between individuals in interactions with imaginary Others. These patterns are objectifi ed symbolic formations and are incorporated into the practices of interactions with the Other in three parallel spaces: a) in the space of direct interpersonal interactions, b) in the space of network interactions mediated by patterns of virtual origin, and c) in the space imposed by network platforms in the form of ‘digital twins’. These three spaces in the intersubjective life world are now being formed as regulators of the behavior of individuals not only in the interhuman, but also in the space of inseparable connection with the digital technosystem.

The article deals with the history of the birth of the United States, presented in the form of the so-called “American Project (AP).” The creation of the United States has never been conceived in the form of any one document, plan or program of action, which may be called “a project”. The main reason that the experience of creating a new nation-country is conceptualized as a project is the intention of politicians and consultants to transmit this experience to another country. AP refers to state and political institutions and traditions embedded in the history of the country, principles and rights enshrined in fundamental documents, primarily the Constitution. The article details the understanding of AP, focusing on the social nature of this project, its characteristics and the history of its implementation. The design and redesign of states after revolutions, independence or the collapse of empires has become a mass phenomenon in the 20th and 21st centuries. A list of Russian projects is provided that compare Russia with America, look back at the American experience and draw lessons from it. The article analyzes the characteristics of AP, which make up its genome and can be used in the creation of new states: a) value-oriented project (“city on a hill”, natural rights of citizens); b) the formula of a republic (self-government) over a vast territory; c) moral and legal justifi cation for the necessity and legality of leaving the empire, where the rights of citizens are violated; d) sovereignty, divided according to the Constitution between the state and federal levels, the priority of society over the state; e) a system of checks and balances of different branches of government; f) built-in adjustment and development mechanism; g) compliance of the project with the subject of its implementation, his experience and ideals; i) two parallel and interconnected processes: the construction of a sovereign state and the construction of a new nation. The last characteristic is described in detail – the formation of a new nation in the process of creating the United States. Also analyzed attempts to compromise AP by protest movements and replace it with new state projects.The article deals with the history of the birth of the United States, presented in the form of the so-called “American Project (AP).” The creation of the United States has never been conceived in the form of any one document, plan or program of action, which may be called “a project”. The main reason that the experience of creating a new nation-country is conceptualized as a project is the intention of politicians and consultants to transmit this experience to another country. AP refers to state and political institutions and traditions embedded in the history of the country, principles and rights enshrined in fundamental documents, primarily the Constitution. The article details the understanding of AP, focusing on the social nature of this project, its characteristics and the history of its implementation. The design and redesign of states after revolutions, independence or the collapse of empires has become a mass phenomenon in the 20th and 21st centuries. A list of Russian projects is provided that compare Russia with America, look back at the American experience and draw lessons from it. The article analyzes the characteristics of AP, which make up its genome and can be used in the creation of new states: a) value-oriented project (“city on a hill”, natural rights of citizens); b) the formula of a republic (self-government) over a vast territory; c) moral and legal justifi cation for the necessity and legality of leaving the empire, where the rights of citizens are violated; d) sovereignty, divided according to the Constitution between the state and federal levels, the priority of society over the state; e) a system of checks and balances of different branches of government; f) built-in adjustment and development mechanism; g) compliance of the project with the subject of its implementation, his experience and ideals; i) two parallel and interconnected processes: the construction of a sovereign state and the construction of a new nation. The last characteristic is described in detail – the formation of a new nation in the process of creating the United States. Also analyzed attempts to compromise AP by protest movements and replace it with new state projects.

The article presents a refl ection on the conceptualization of the ideas of the migrant’s “home” and “homeland”. Rethinking the experience of conceptuali-zing these concepts seems appropriate due to its heterogeneity, which is due to the formation of the phenomenon of transnationalism at the end of the 20th century, refl ecting the emergence of transnational migration. Home and homeland are considered in the structure of transnational identity as its identifi ers. The theoretical framework of the analysis was the concept of the domestic researcher Z.L. Levin, which allows interpreting home and homeland as social, i. e. acquired identifi cations. The consequence of the reconstruction of the semantic fullness of the concepts of home and homeland is the transformation of identity and/or the formation of a trans-identity, involving a combination of elements of cultures, both the country of origin and the recipient country.

The beginning of the discourse about the home of the modern migrant falls on the 80s of the XX century when the issue of its loss to migrants was being considered. In the early 1990s, an anti-centrist line of research was formed, which is, in general, a complex of nomadic studies based on the concepts of globalization, transnationalism and cross-borderism. The idea of transforming the house is being formed. The house ceases to be a “fi xed structure” and loses the function of a geographical center, it becomes mobile, its topography expanding. At the same time, there is a group of scientists who deny the generalization of ideas about home and homeland. In general, when defi ning ‘home’, representatives of global discourse adhere to a number of its unifi ed indicators, the most signifi cant of which are terrain, sense of security, space, social relations of family and neighborhood. The analysis of the results of the modern conceptualization of home has shown the expansion of the semantic load of this concept and the identifi cation of new properties of home – mobility and plurality. If before the start of transnational migration, the concepts of ‘home’ and homeland were linked together by the formulation native home, then in the conditions of fl uid modernity, forming a plastic transnational identity of a migrant, these concepts began to exist separately. The concept of homeland, unlike home, has an ideological connotation. In the context of the mosaic of modern social processes and their political coloring, its conceptualization is in the process of development.

This article systematizes practical tasks that can be attributed to the implementation of the ideas of posthumanism. The reader’s attention is drawn to the erosion process on the external boundaries of human society. There are many lawsuits that recognize animal rights. There are several aspects to this process. The fi rst is the recognition of the rights of wild animals and partial bans on their keeping in captivity and the introduction into legal circulation of the category ‘non-human person’. The second is to reduce the number of laboratory animals subjected to lethal experiments in order to obtain new drugs and develop new methods of treating people. Previously, this activity was considered morally justifi ed. Currently, it is under the close attention of animal rights activists and is controlled in the legal sphere. The third aspect of the problem is the emergence of ways to take into account the rights of pets. If previously pets were equated with things, now there is a shift towards external control over the relationship between pets and their owners. Many countries have laws protecting the rights of pets. The fourth aspect of the problem is that new relationships between human society and the world of microorganisms have formed. If previously this world was predominantly interpreted as hostile and predominantly pathogenic microorganisms were studied, in recent decades microorganisms that have a benefi cial effect on human health have begun to attract signifi cantly more attention. Finally, the fi fth aspect is the emergence and solution of new problems on the external border of humanity and the virtual world created by people. Previously, this world existed in the form of fantasies, religious concepts, art, folklore, etc. But the boundary between this world and real people was not fully realized. In recent years, artifi cial intelligence, intelligently operating mechanisms and much more have appeared in this virtual world, which makes this world equal to the human one.

The development of technology has changed the position of animals in the modern world in various aspects. However, only the achievements of artifi cial intelligence in the fi eld of natural languages indicated the possibility of reaching a new level of understanding and relationship with animals. Modern technologies have made it possible to isolate and fi x animal sounds and collect a huge array of audio and video data, and the experience of translation, even in the absence of parallel texts, has indicated the potential for using artifi cial intelligence to analyze animal sounds. Despite numerous diffi culties, including those associated with the difference in the worldview of animals and humans, there are already precedents for translation from the language of animals. The article analyzes the possibilities of using artifi cial intelligence in conditions of limited data and its current use in the fi eld of animal communication. If for domestic and farm animals, researchers rely on the interpretation of meanings or emotions, then for wild animals, scientists compare sounds and behavior, and rely on the potential of artifi cial intelligence in solving unstructured problems. Although a number of recent studies report high reliability of “translation” from the language of animals, the very possibility of testing the effectiveness is diffi cult. Nevertheless, the accelerating emergence of new solutions that facilitate the recognition of the voices of specifi c animals, the classifi cation of sounds and actions of different animals, etc., indicate the possibility of a qualitative leap in the understanding of animals in the near future. Success in the fi eld of interpretation of animal sounds can lead not only to progress in a large number of areas related to the animal world, but also to a change in the status and position of the animal. At the same time, the achievements raise ethical questions related to the possibility of using new technologies to the detriment of animals and people.

The image of the modern and future school in perception of high school students is examined in the context of understanding the system of their values and life views. Empirically the paper is based on the results of the fi eld research undertaken by the author in September-October 2021 among the 9–11 grade students of St. Petersburg schools, followed by further investigation among the same target audience in January-February 2023. New questioning of the students was accompanied by the questioning of teachers, which allows us now not only to analyze the data in dynamics, but also to compare the views of students and teachers. Theoretical background of the research is based on the current sociological and psychological academic discussion about the concepts of happiness and meaningful life.

We argue, that during the recent year and a half the image of modern and future school has signifi cantly changed and this change bears the value-oriented character. First, the move from the values of life stability and comfort towards the values of personal and professional growth and achievements has been identifi ed, i.e. from the consumer values to the values of development. Second, high school students demonstrate almost entire indifference towards the values of common good. And, third, the teachers’ perception of the teenagers’ values is signifi cantly different from the reality in two important aspects: fi rstly, according to the teachers the students are much more oriented on consumer values, than it takes place in fact. And secondly, in the teachers’ perception students prioritize successful learning of curriculum disciplines much less than they actually do. According to teachers’ opinion friendship and communication are much more important to students than studies as such. This in fact may mean the attribution to the students the system of values, spread among the teachers, which causes major diffi culties in identifying the optimal combination of teaching and upbringing.

         The article analyzes the European utopias of the XVII century on the ba­sis of the actor-network approach. The assemblage point of a utopian society is directly the idea of a social order, which is formed on the basis of scientific knowledge embodying instrumental reason. The study of man, societies, and natural phenomena allows the authors of utopias to offer a more rationally or­ganized, ordered, from their point of view, social world that provides satisfac­tion of the needs of both the individual and society. The social order based on scientific knowledge is conceived by the authors of utopias as a marker of civili­zation, thanks to which the utopian society as another (‘alien’) social order is en­dowed with positive characteristics. The authors believe that the construction ofthe utopian ‘social’ takes place within a closed network in space and time, which prevents the threat of the collapse of order, isolating cultural influence from the outside, as well as guaranteeing the immutability/stability of a given algorithm of social relations in a chronological perspective. The authors identify the func­tioning in utopias of the regime of everyday life reproduction, excluding mo­bilization, orienting the inhabitants of utopia on the values of everyday work, moderation and harmony. The article shows that the construction of a society based on scientific knowledge determines the features of social stratifi cation in the form of a meritocracy of knowledge legitimized by natural religion. The au­thors believe that the ‘assembly of the social’ based on egalitarian principles ex­tends mainly to economic processes, while the public sphere is designated in the form of an aristocracy of intellectual labor. The expert community carries out total regulation of the activities of archaic/primitive by nature social institutions. The authors think of the collected models of utopian society as universal, po­tentially suitable for all communities experiencing problems with building a so­cial order.