Ideas and Ideals

The paper discusses the most general social, philosophical and macrosociological ideas of Marxism. Marx and Engels used several arguments for their thesis on the socio-economic character of the "basis" when referring policy, state and entire spiritual and cultural sphere to the "superstructure". Each of these arguments is partly right but mainly misleading. The importance of material production for social processes and historical dynamics is not denied, but along with this factor there are always others, no less, and sometimes more powerful ones. Dühring argued rather naively in favor of his thesis of the primacy of power and violence. The Engels's counter-arguments are smart and sometimes sophisticated but should be revised. The analysis of social relations implicitly hidden in ‘property’ shows the fundamental nature of not only order, power and violence relations that reinforce property, but also the importance of normative cultural patterns and psychological attitudes. Technological progress loses the status of the main driver of historical dynamics and social evolution, it remains a very important factor, but only among other no less significant drivers of change. Social revolutions quite often eliminate the political forms that have become inadequate, but they are by no means the only, or the main, factors of such changes. The state is not at all an "instrument" of the class of exploiters (feudal lords, capitalists). The state and the state class (officials) are almost always an independent subject with their own interests, world vision, and resources. Marxism is firmly associated with the struggle for social justice, against class inequality, against the exploitation of man by man, against enslavement. As far as people continue to strive to improve their social status, class polarization, this or that measure of exploitation, social injustice always take place, and break through all attempts at restrictions and equalization. This means the inescapability of the demand for justice, which nourishes and will always nourish the high posthumous reputation of Marx, the emergence of more and more devotees of Marxism.

The paper estimates the modern ethno-social potential of the administrative territory - the Jewish Autonomous Region, highlighting the importance and system-forming role of the Jews. The first introductory article of the cycle presents the author's concept of the ethno-social potential of the territory. Ethno-social potential is an integral part of social and, more broadly, human potential. The concept is defined by the authors as the possibility and ability of representatives of various ethnic groups to use ethnically specific cultural and historical traditions and economic practices as resources for achieving the goals of social development of both individual ethnic groups and the entire local society. The authors describe the methodology of phenomenological social research. The main qualitative methods are immediate observation and interview. The results are based on the empirical materials of field research. The article outlines the historical and socio-political prerequisites of the formation and current state of the ethno-social composition of the Jewish region. The main reasons for the uniqueness of the region are, firstly, in several successive stages of the settlement of the empty areas of the Amur lowland by ethnically diverse populations. Secondly, the unique state status of the Jewish people in this territory does matter. The Jewish national district has been the first nationwide state formation of Jews for two millennia that defines a special nature of the interstate relations between Russia and Israel. The settlement of the territory continues in the post-Soviet period. This is also a unique experience for modern Russia. The constitutional status of the region is being discussed. Autonomous administrative territory is represented by the only subject of the Russian Federation. This provides a unique position of the region in the administrative-territorial system of the Russian Federation. The consequence of this is the impossibility of changing this status of the Jewish Autonomous Region without changing the Russian Constitution. The first co-author of the article (S.G. Kordonsky) proposed the original concept of “multinational Jewish people”, the methodological foundation of which is his “fan matrices theory”.

This is а translation of the interview with Saul Alinsky published in Playboy in 1972 and reprinted by the New England Review May 27, 2018.  American professional social organizer, he unilaterally created  the new field of social engineering and the new profession of radical-organizer. His two books became handbooks for several generations of organizers. Magazine Playboy sent Eric Norden to interview him. “I accompanied him from the East Coast to the West and into Canada, snatching tape sessions on planes, in cars and at airport…”

The problem of the formation of civil society is relevant in the post-Soviet space for nearly thirty years. Formation and foundation of a civil society is a fairly long-term historical process, conditioned by certain economic, political, legal and sociocultural factors. Emphasizing that the formation of the economic and political and legal foundation of a civil society is of paramount importance, the author believes that the creation of socio-cultural conditions and the prerequisites of civil society is not less important, and represents a process that is considerably complex and time-consuming. One of the most important socio-cultural components of a civil society is civil culture, which is a subsystem of a complex integrated system of culture. The author notes that the basic elements of civil culture are legal, political and ecological culture. Using the data from sociological research, the author studies the state of civil culture in Kyrgyzstan and comes to the conclusion about the low level of general and civic culture of individuals and society as a whole, the lack of self-reliance and independence of civil institutions, the lack of mutual consent and trust in society. This hinders the process of the formation of civil society. In this regard, the need to use the historical experience of the political, legal and ecological culture of the traditional Kyrgyz society, which relied primarily on morality and integrity, is actualized. The author notes that the peculiarities of the existence of nomads living in extremely difficult natural conditions contain a considerable potential and resources for effective regulation and coordination of collective interconnections in society and in nature, which seems to be quite important for the formation of civil society. At the same time, it is noted that there is a need for a dialectical approach to the problem of the formation of a civic culture that involves the denial of negative manifestations of the past culture while preserving everything positive and conducive to the progressive development of the society.

The round table discussed a wide range of issues related to the history of the Komsomol, paying special attention to a historic change in the tasks and structure of the Komsomol organization. In the course of the conversation participants demonstrated different positions and approaches, as well as fundamentally different assessments of the Komsomol activity. They discussed the role of youth in the life of the state, the ways of assessments of historical events in general, and unpredictability of our history.

This is а translation of the interview with Saul Alinsky published in Playboy in 1972 and reprinted by the New England Review May 27, 2018.  American professional social organizer, he unilaterally created the new field of social engineering and the new profession of radical-organizer. His two books became handbooks for several generations of organizers. Magazine Playboy sent Eric Norden to interview him. “I accompanied him from the East Coast to the West and into Canada, snatching tape sessions on planes, in cars and at airport…”

The article substantiates the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of social reality. Various branches of social knowledge have been focusing on identifying the laws of social self-development and rational action. Both the external world and the sociological system of knowledge about it are of a pluralistic nature. There are different answers to the question: "What is modern society?" Today virtual social interaction is coming on the stage. Social nets have become a sphere of intense activity for the attention of target audiences, and network structures - structures of inequality. All phenomena of reality have certain social projections. The authors pay special attention to recording social projections of such areas of reality as history, geography, space, time and the appearance of such qualitative approaches in sociological research as temporality, spatiality and contextuality. Social history is the history of human relations. Social geography is the geography of the very space of people's interaction, which determines the choice of certain occupations and the way of life. Both social history and social geography become immediate phenomena of sociological theory and social practice. The authors demonstrate the growth in the importance of the organization of people’s life, its regionalization in connection with the increased need to manage these processes. The dominating characteristics of a particular regional space are living conditions and environmental conditions. These characteristics are differentiated both in different countries and within a particular country. These differences explain the continuing migration of the population from the less prosperous regions to the more prosperous ones. For Russia, the intra-country differences, which are valid for a long time, are of the utmost importance. Social management is presented as a special type of social interaction aimed at improving the quality of life of the population in various regional environments. The article shows “the scope” of dominating characteristics of the quality of life in the international research and in the regional studies within a country. Estimation of the country's human development potential will always be incomplete without assessing some vulnerability of some regions due to their geographical and historical conditions.

The paper studies the transformation of the conceptual apparatus of modern social sciences, characterized by a shift from a socially-problematic to a risk-prognostic analysis. The author shows that these conceptual and theoretical changes are conditioned by the internal logic of sociology development, which has gradually transferred in the analysis of social phenomena from the study of unfavorable effects of social changes and symptoms of social deviations to the reasons that cause socially problematic situations. An approach based on the personal responsibility of “problem” individuals and social groups for their exclusion from normal social life was formed within the framework of social psychology and it is defined by a medical-criminological model that affirms the existence of “universal criteria for normality” and, accordingly, standards of behavior. In the framework of this approach, which was clearly manifested in social Darwinism, the main focus of problem-oriented studies is focused on the external symptoms of social ailments and the “deviant behavior” of individuals and social groups, or factors of their unsuccessful socialization, interpreted as a source of social problems. Theoretical and practical analysis shows consistency of the modern turn in understanding social problems, which is characterized by shifting the focus of research to an institutional-systemic level that generates conditions for the reproduction of social deviations and deprivations. According to the author, the analysis of risks in a sociological perspective takes over the baton of the development of problem-oriented research in social sciences. Modern sociology of risks was formed within the framework of critical reflection on the ideas of U. Beck (who understands risk as a rational strategy for transformation of uncertainty into certainty) and it is represented by sociocultural, constructivist, neo-institutional, administrative approaches. What unites these approaches is that risks are treated as products of social interactions that are deeply embedded in social structures, dependent on the external context and the conditions for the formation of subjective perceptions of risks, and the degree of vulnerability of different social groups, determined by their place in the social hierarchy of society. The critical direction in risk theory focused on the problem of risks interconnection and a system-institutional arrangement of society, emphasizes disproportionate vulnerability to the risks of various social groups, based on socio-structural inequalities, as well as imperfection of organizational structures created to minimize risks due to their greater fitness to the established institutional design, than to the challenges that they face due to their specific activities.

The authors highlight the fact that nowadays people with the rational forms of thinking comprise the most part of the population (people, whose left hemisphere is more developed than the right one) and in addition to this there is a considerable deformation in individual profiles of functional brain asymmetry (IPA). In the authors’ opinion, in order to form a versatile personality, to develop universal and flexible thinking it is required to harmonize mental operations from the point of view of brain functional asymmetry, that allows to think of the prospects for actualization of psychological potential of an individual. One of these prospects, according to the wave model development can be an unlimited increase of life expectancy. In the Kemerovo State University since the late 1990s the studies have singled out 9 major types of individual profile of functional asymmetry of the brain (IPA), which are formed as a combination of asymmetry of motor and sensory areas. To coordinate the psychophysiological potential (IPA) with the mental models the following mental semiotic models are used: Frege, Vasilyuk and Anuashvili models which are compared with the phrenological and Cabbalistic models of the psyche. The authors consider mental development as a successive advancing through specific phases with different asymmetry and intensity of both hemispheres interaction. The article suggests a potential method of human abilities development by using the methods of brain gym (educational kinesiology). The article demonstrates the results of the study of the IPA distribution at school among students and teachers, as well as the results of applying special methods of IPA correction among high school students.

The article is devoted to the theoretical understanding of the social group "young people" in the context of public administration theory. The authors consider the approaches to the definition of youth in domestic and foreign legislation, sociology and public administration theory. They also study the impact of different factors on socio-demographic groups differentiation and the content of youth policy. The article analyzes different approaches to the youth policy development taking into consideration all parties concerned. The authors suggest their own understanding of the "youth" and "youth policy" concepts in the context of Russia innovative development. Referring to the new trends in public life and the formation of a generational paradigm, the authors refuse to set a lower age-related limit. The period of youth policy development and its implementation exceeds the duration of individual stages of a human life cycle ("childhood", "adolescence" and "youth"). It is also known, that at these bifurcation points the variety of development directions of a person, both positive and negative, sharply increases. Thus, special attention must be paid to the public management of transitional periods. The authors have developed principles of the youth policy formation on the basis of a matrix approach. The approach suggests that the solution of specific problems of youth need to be supplemented by the integration of the components of the youth policy into all policies, programs and projects at all hierarchical levels of government. The authors suggest interpreting of the youth policy as a priority activity aimed at preserving the life and health of youth, reproduction of the population, improving the quality of young people life and developing its potential for the benefit of society and future generations. The subjects of the policy are state authorities and local authorities, youth and other parties concerned.