CC BY
14Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 9 (2015 8) 1803-1815
УДК 303.425.5
Social Ethoses in the Modernization of Modern Russia
Aleksander P. Pavlov*
Siberian Federal University 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russia
Received 16.12.2014, received in revised form 26.02.2015, accepted 18.04.2015
The subject of the present paper is social ethoses of the Russian society as one of the most important institutions of modernization in contemporary Russia. The author analyzes the problem of preservation and reproduction of social ethoses and their integration in the modernization process, peers into the specificity and dynamics of ethoses, the reasons for their "decay". Social ethoses are regarded as historically formed imperatives and moral codes of behavior embodied in the behavioral styles of different people.
At the same time the author shows that ethoses cannot be reduced to a set of rules and regulations, as well as educational and training practices. Social ethoses are formed in the "root" (primordial) living conditions.
One of the main objectives of this paper is to examine these conditions, as well as their interaction with the societal (political) mechanisms in the modernization of society.
The author reckons that the success of the modernization depends not only on technological and economic factors, but to the same extent - on factors "responsible" for the actualization and reproduction of human potential qualities. It concerns, above all, special ontological institutional practices, as well as "ethos" environment in which the human potential is updated and reproduced in the form of work ethic, "participational" consciousness, trust in others, power, and finally in a taste for life.
In this paper the author does not seek to study the processes of modernization in Russia comprehensively. The author rather focuses on the nature and structure of social ethoses in Russia, the causes of their decay and methods of their resuscitation in the present conditions, taking into account the tasks of modernization. Special attention is paid to the study of the youth's ethoses as young people represent essential, qualified, intellectual resources to ensure success in the implementation of modernization projects.
Keywords: modernization, social reproduction, social order, human capital, social ethoses.
This work was supported by the Russian Humanitarian Foundation in the framework of RHF research project "The dynamics of social and cultural processes in the East Siberian region in the context of the modernization of modern Russia (on materials of sociological researches in the Krasnoyarsk Territory)". Project №: 13-03-00379/13, headed by professor V. G. Nemirovsky.
DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-2015-8-9-1803-1815.
Research area: sociology.
© Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected]
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Introduction
The problems associated with the modernization of the modern Russian society at the beginning of the new millennium draws constant attention of historians, political scientists, economists, philosophers, sociologists, both in Russia and abroad. There is no doubt that Russia is on the path of modernization. This process seems irreversible now. But it is also clear that the process is not as fast as the Russian authorities and ordinary citizens would like to see it. Russia still remains pretty much as a country providing raw resources. It cannot compete with developed countries in the spheres of high technologies, in manufacturing automobiles, mobile phones, etc. so far. An exception is the space industry and also the military one, but they carry out modernization with certain problems, too. To a large extent these industries still maintain their level of development thanks to the potential formed during the Soviet era.
Many researchers associate the reasons for lack of effective modernization with the persistence of models and methods of farming and management, "inherited" from the Soviet Union, with bureaucracy and corruption permeating all spheres of life. It is also important to note that the modernization in Russia is lagging behind. Russia has to catch up with developed countries in technological, technical, organizational spheres.
The current situation, due to the fall in oil prices, sanctions imposed by Western countries against Russia, the aggravation of the foreign policy in the whole world in connection with the events in the south-east of Ukraine have had an impact on the social and economic condition of the society.
On the other hand, new challenges only confirm the need to modernize the society. We should find new opportunities and resources for modernization, new paradigms of social reproduction.
Before I describe the capabilities and resources (this is the main goal), a few words should be said about the phenomenon of modernization.
All the variety of theories of modernization (our task does not imply their scrupulous analysis) is characterized by two aspects, two "foci" of their consideration. Firstly, the technical-instrumental, utilitarian and pragmatic one. According to this focus, the modernization is first and foremost the development of society on the basis of technological and technical innovation, good organizational solutions, the transformation of science into the productive force. Modernization is total, embracing economic, political and cultural spheres, the consciousness of people. The base of modernization has the following mental set: the world, the social reality, human life and people themselves can be changed, transformed, recreated with the help of rational projects. The subject, the initiator of such transformations is the state that uses its power and "discipline" mechanism to implement these rational projects. The most ambitious (and, simultaneously, odious) projects of this type of modernization in Russia are: reforms and the transformations of Peter the Great, collectivization and industrialization in the USSR. At the same time this "converting" function is performed not only by technology, but also by culture as a set of strategies, doctrines, social myths contributing to continuously produced and reproduced models of life organization, "pictures" of social reality, social orders.
Another aspect of the modernization analysis may be called ontological. A number of foreign scientists adheres to this approach, in particular, the well-known Israeli scholar Eisenstadt (S. Eisenstadt, 1998). The existential discourse in modern sociology and related lines of thinking aimed at exploring different modes of social existence and existential dimension are close to Eisenstadt's approach (E. Tiryakian,
1962). The point of this view on modernization (as well as on the dynamics of the society in general) is that modernization is an element of a larger process of the society reproduction, affecting both societal fields (connected with the society as a coherent institutional system) and the underlying primordial spheres of human existence. Modernization definitely has a certain autonomy in relation to other mechanisms of reproduction. But in any case, it cannot ignore them. Failures in the reproduction of society and in the very modernization are conditioned by reasons lying outside the modernization.
It should be emphasized that under the society reproduction it is not only meant the reproduction of the people's living conditions (material, cultural, regulatory, technological and so on), but also the reproduction of the identity medium, within which the actors form. The actors are active participants in social processes, including modernization.
Any society is not only a societal system in the spirit of the Parsons's doctrine that is the functional unity. The societal society is governed and reproduced through legitimate norms and institutions (T. Parsons, 1997). But the society is "richer" than a societal system. It includes non-system primordial settings, which, due to their spontaneity cannot be fully controlled by society. Social crises, a slowdown in development of society or, on the contrary, its vital dynamics happen due to these very latent mechanisms and structures that work closely with the societal system, being not directly included into it.
I am talking about such a complex and poorly understood phenomenon as ethos.
The concept of ethos has no clear categorical status. Most often, this concept refers to the structure of vital needs (M. Sheler), historically formed social mores, habits (N. Elias), lifestyle (M. Ossovskaia), practical norms and values (A. Prigozhin), institutional imperatives (morals)
conditioned by the nature of knowledge (R. Merton). "Ethos is a unity of values and norms. And we do not mean "declared or set norms and values, but those which guide people in actual deeds" (A.I. Prigozhin, 2006).
Ethos is a synthesis of the daily, spontaneously occurring mores and attitudes and the very moral standards and thus acts as a sphere of "really necessary" as opposed to "perfectly adequate" set of moral imperatives established and controlled by the social system (V.I. Bakshtanovskii, Iu. V. Sogomonov, 2001).
Ethos is the thing that allows an individual to feel the limits of their true being. This is "house" in which the individual must always return. The house is more than the physical area. This is a natural togetherness of being-with-others, based on the received and "default" rules of the living together practice. The German sociologist Max Weber regards ethos as a certain value direction of human activity. This value orientation is determined by religious beliefs of individuals and communities (M. Weber, 1990).
From our point of view ethos is what brings people together in a natural way, without any coercion or conviction. The specifics of this concept is primarily in the fact that it is a specific historical formation, rather than analytically isolated cognitive model, the "ideal type" like "social class", "stratum", "caste". This very ethos forms the ontological resource: the resource of will and desire of the majority of society members to live in the community, to support and protect its order, as it is perceived as the individual's own order. "People of ethos" are not just social agents, realizing someone's will. They are social actors, creators of their own lives. "Social ethos" is understood not only as a set of ethic norms, customs, traditions, behavioral codes, but also as the institutional conditions for their actualization. It includes special "ethos" space (community, school, university), special forms of solidarity
(friendship, brotherhood), specific social agents (informal leaders, teachers, mentors, friends), specific behavioral rituals (initiation).
What happened to the social ethos in Russia? Before answering this question it should be recalled that modern Russia "took possession" of the USSR's set of problems: highly inefficient management system ("vertical" one) and underdeveloped civil society. The worst legacy has been the destruction of traditional ethoses, especially the village one. Along with them many social landscapes (villages, towns, rural settlements) have been destroyed, degraded; previously they focused social and cultural life, now the population age and leave, especially young people. A significant proportion of young people do not associate their future life with the "home village".
Moreover, there is the certain "heritage" of the raucous 1990-s. This includes the enormous polarization of society in terms of levels of life and incomes, high levels of marginalization and social degradation of society. The number of hardcore poor people is very difficult to calculate, since this category includes not only those who are below the poverty line (simply beggars), but also huge masses of socially maladjusted, readapted, resocialized people. In the context of exaggerated social inequality the level of social deprivation is very high. The feeling of blatant social injustice, the consciousness of the impossibility of radical changes in their destiny generate mistrust in the authorities (particularly at the regional level), social passivity, and lack of initiative activities.
The social structure of the modern Russian society is distinguished by amorphous character, looseness, lack of genuine solidarity and civic responsibility. However, there is the historical memory of the Great Victory, which somehow still brings people together. But this is not enough.
A society without roots is scattered, "atomized" and vulnerable to all kinds of socio-
political and other manipulations, enhanced by the modern media, the Internet.
Over the last ten - fifteen years the social reality, people's lifestyle have changed beyond recognition. The modern world is developing on the basis of fundamentally new algorithms and requires new ways of manipulating huge volumes of heterogeneous data, the use of human resources, situated and distributed in social enclaves and sectors on the basis of "horizontal", "network" principles of human life organization.
Well-known Russian scientist A.S. Akhiezer, keeping in mind the tradition of Russian philosophical thought (N. Berdyaev), proposes to consider the Russian society as bipolar. The social order is produced and maintained by the "constructive tension" between polar alternatives (algorithms) of existence. These alternatives, which, in essence, have been the methods and forms of social construction in Russian history, have never been combined. According to A.S. Akhiezer, Russia has a characteristic inversion of the development that can be represented by the phrase: "either - or". One of the parties always wins. But almost never the development has seen the "middle" compromise (A.S. Akhiezer, 1997). Historical examples of such intransigence can be the church schism in the 17th century, Peter's reforms in the 18th century, the civil war in the 20th century.
In all cases, there has been a deep explicit or implicit dilemma: either reproductive, recursive procedure based on tradition, or the order the basis of which is a radical rejection of tradition, and political, socio-economic and cultural trends in the direction of innovation, renovation and modernization. A characteristic feature of Russian history: the choice between these alternatives has always been under the supervision of the political elites. Transformations have often been initiated "from above". This is clearly seen on the example of the modernization process in the 20th century.
Example
Today we see both synchronic and diachronic ruptures in society. This is due to the fact that the instrumental-utilitarian modernization is emancipating from other forms and methods of social reproduction. These breaches lead to social silence, people's insensibility to social problems (unless, of course, they do not address their immediate interests).
Synchronic ruptures are manifested in the destruction of solidarity relations, in the absence of dialogue between people and social groups. People do not feel the responsibility to the society, the state, the social environment. Synchronic ruptures can be seen in the Siberian region.
Even in the 21st century the Siberian region is considered as a raw material appendage of Russia. This is an extreme place of residence, especially in rural areas, where the level of social disadvantage and security is extremely low. The massive outflow of Russian-speaking population from the region is therefore quite understandable.
Those who were in the "century construction projects" during the 1990-s would be shocked at the sight of grandiose ghost monuments of former short-sighted approach to the development of Siberia. But the Baikal-Amur Mainline, Kansk-Achinsk Fuel and Energy Complex are social and cultural landscapes, which have not been built and simply disappeared. These disappearing landscapes may include unique Akademgorodoks, which have lost not only the role of research centers, but also their role as a special ethical environment with the atmosphere and the spirit of living thought, creative freedom, healthy competition. What benefit to the modernization could they bring today?
In Siberia there have always been original, patriotic intellectuals, with long historical traditions. These traditions were maintained and enriched in the Soviet period, especially after
the war. The region has always enjoyed a lot of great writers, scientists, artists. They live there even now. However, their role in the preservation of cultural and social identity has weakened substantially.
Diachronic ruptures create as many problems for the modernization as synchronic ones. They are the loss of continuity of generations, forgetting about the many positive USSR initiatives. Blanket criticism of the whole USSR experience, the destructive processes of "primitive accumulation of capital", the privatization processes adversely affected the dynamics of Russian society in the 1990-s. Many skilled professionals, scientists either left the country or changed their occupations.
Every territory has its own specifics of self-identity (V.G. Nemirovsky, 2011).
Point of view
Modernization in Russia in the early 21st century has its own characteristics. First, modernization processes are carried out in the absence of full-fledged dialogue and consensus between government and society. This is partly due to the poorly developed civil society and democratic institutions in Russia; the weakness of the Russian political elite; the incompetence and unprofessionalism of political and economic management. The main reason is the gap between the modernization and other mechanisms of social reproduction, especially those that foster and sustain the ontological foundations of the social order, making it possible to use them as social stabilizers, ties, activators and catalysts of the processes of modernization.
Secondly, a serious obstacle to the modernization is "decay" and partial degradation of the social ethos, which began during the Soviet era. In the process of collectivization and industrialization in 1920-30s, as well as a result of "reform" in the agriculture sector in the early
1960-s the peasants' ethos and associated way of life, the peasants' world, their houses were virtually destroyed. Work ethic of peasants followed. Social ethoses of towns and cities have had a similar fate. Active amateur corporations (such as cooperatives) have been expelled and replaced by disciplining corporations; solidarity activities, based on the brotherhood and mutual relationship (Russian charities) have given way to political and ideological solidarity activities (the Communist Party, Komsomol (the Young Communist League)).
It should be noted that the Soviet intelligentsia positively fulfilled the role of consolidation force in the society. One cannot neglect the ideological factor that especially in the first decades of Soviet power made up performed solidarity and consolidating function. Yet in the Soviet Union the world of ethos has actually been driven out by disciplining structures and schemes.
During the tumultuous 1990-s stratification, based on political and ideological criteria, was complemented and actually replaced by "virtual" strata, solidarity, continually reproducible through the modern media and the Internet. But people themselves reproduce their own "stratification", their ethoses, which are often dysfunctional and delinquent in their nature (corporate solidarity of criminal clans, based on some "thug life concepts"). Sensing their incompleteness in a social chaos (perceived not theoretically, but quite significant and worldly) a personality seeks to create a special virtual stratum corresponding to the virtual community. In it this personality finds and completes the own Self-concept, and the Face" (Bliakher, 2003, p. 133).
The third important point is that in Russia in terms of "ethos" weak resources the modernization can be implemented only as "the modernization from above". But this modernization must not be an imitation, or exemplary actions. Of course, the project of "Russian Silicon Valley"
("Skolkovo") is remarkable, but perhaps it is more important to revive and restore the ethoses and schools of scientific communities, construction departments, research institutes and others. According to R. Merton, "institute of science is only a part of a larger social structure, in which it is not always integrated" (R. Merton, 2006 a). The fact that particular ethoses of science (as well as other social ethos) may enter into a disagreement with emanating from the societal system universal imperatives does not always please the ruling elite. The controlled ethos, which are always supervised (for example, the community of scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences), would seem more convenient for the ruling elite in terms of their possible use in modernization projects, in overcoming corporate secrecy and conservatism. In the end, opposition between ethoses and the political societal system can be highly destructive. Take, for example, the ethos of corrupt bureaucratic or criminal organizations, which were almost the main joint solidarity formations in the 1990-s, in terms of disintegration and decay of traditional social and professional ethoses (those of scientists, doctors, teachers, workers, etc.).
On the other hand, the ruling elite's distrust in particular solidarity and ethoses actually means escaping any dialogue with the communities that they represent. They become a kind of "sediment" of society. The virtual strata convert in impersonal structures in the form of "public sector", "cubicle rats".
The loss of dialogue between ethoses and societal system causes ontological gaps in the society. The diachronic gap manifests itself in violation of the temporal dimension.
There is an artificial ontologization of the present this at the sake of an ontologization of the past and the future. Only what is here and now is actual. And this declaration of "here and now" is becoming the main goal of modernization. This
leads to the loss of "roots", traditional identities, impossible without references to and recall of the past and the future. The modernization as a "making modernity" process may not be complete without diachronic (historical) references. It can only rely on the societal resources, the resources of the political system, which are closed on themselves.
Synchronic rupture is no less obvious. It is revealed in the atomization of society, in stratified polarity. Most Muscovites do not know and are not very eager to know what is happening outside the Garden Ring of Moscow, as well as an ordinary resident of Krasnoyarsk is little interested in the life of the Siberian hinterland. Small particular solidary communities live their lives, which are little related to the life of the country as a whole.
Fourthly, particular attention should be devoted to the decaying ethoses of the villages and small towns. In addition to the apparent problems of these territories, which still exist, and sometimes, in an exacerbated form, like poverty, unemployment, lack of life and professional prospects, unsettled life, there are some underlying problems, which we can define as the ontological deprivation. The term "deprivation" is widely used by psychologists, sociologists, signifying the individual's state of mind and consciousness of any life losses, downsides, accompanied by disrupted social and interpersonal relationships. Sociologists often use the concept of "relative deprivation", which is defined as "the perception of the figure (actors) of discrepancies between their value expectations and value capabilities" (Garr, 2005). But in contrast to the relative deprivation, which is a certain position of a person in the society, the ontological deprivation means the actual exit from the society. This situation is reminiscent of the type of social behavior which is called "escapism" by R. Merton. Describing people "running away" from the social reality, the American sociologist carefully observes as such:
"they are in a society, but they do not belong to it" (R. Merton, 2006b). V.G. Nemirovsky made a great contribution to the understanding of the problem of the ontology of social chaos with his analysis in a series of works of the state of Russian human alienation in some latent structures of the individual's value orientations (V.G. Nemirovsky, 2004, p. 39-49).
There is a number of examples of ontological chaos and deprivation in the countryside and in small towns: imbalance and decentralization of living space, lack of the comfortable living environment (farmhouses, parks), weakening of the influence of social and cultural centers (clubs, libraries).
The scope of this paper does not allow detailed consideration of this problem. It requires a separate special study.
Fifth, the case studies of socio-cultural dynamics in Russia show that the successful modernization depends not only on the social, economic and political circumstances, but also on the ability and willingness of its members to use these circumstances as a resource for social progress, mobility and success, i.e. there is no direct link between the circumstances and the use of these circumstances. In particular, V.G. Nemirovsky's research shows that the behavior and choices of life and professional orientations of the inhabitants of the Krasnoyarsk Territory are affected by their social well-being, which is linked indirectly to their socio -economic situation. Remarkably the scientist thinks that in the mass consciousness of people there are two separate hierarchies of individuals' self-assessment: social and economic (V.G. Nemirovsky, 2014). Based on this idea, we can make a number of important conclusions regarding the theme of our research, which are partly confirmed by empirical research.
Firstly, the person's social status of cannot be reduced to the "objective circumstances" of
life. A simplified and naturalistic interpretation of the original the principle of social (historical) determinism ("social being determines social consciousness") seems not plausible.
Social status is the position of a man in the society, the human relation to being, the social environment, to those vital resources at his/her disposal. A man acts in a society not according to "circumstances", but to the basis of the social codes, explicit or latent programs produced in the primary (primordial) institutional practices. The key point here is the ontological nature of social behavior, the choice of a person, which permanently get involved in co-present worlds, shared with other ones. The keywords characterizing the individual's position in the society are "participation", "co-being", "co-presence", "well-being".
Social codes are the core of the institutional and behavioral complex, which in our study will be called as the social ethos. It is important to state that all social codes (not to be confused with the "sociocodes" introduced by M. Petrov) can be divided into two types: "symbolic" and "personal".
A symbolic code means that the algorithms of behavior and thinking are incorporated in some symbolic matrix, which is included in institutional practices, public relations, finally, in the corpus structure of man (M. Foucault, M. Merleau-Ponty, Yu. Lotman), and most importantly - in the social chronotope: spatial and -temporal organization of human community life. The codes are initially set. Social codes resemble the patterns of human behavior, rooted in everyday routine practices. "In most of our everyday actions we are controlled not by the standards and examples, but practical schemes, i.e. "principles, prescribing the procedure for action" (S.A. Azarenko, p. 408).
They stifle initiatives, limit the space of choice, behavioral risks. But symbolic codes
perform an important function of a social stabilizer, without which there can be no life strategy, including the strategy of modernization. These codes define symbolic routes of behavior via establishing symbolic boundaries, "mark-ups" of the necessary and permitted. They identify the symbolic centers, foci, which man should seek in order to be successful and prosperous, and the symbolic capital that is needed to achieve this goal. So, young people understand that to achieve success you need to get university education.
Personal codes are "meaning" codes, i.e. algorithms are not defined strictly by outer symbolic matrix, but are directly included in the human life program. The matrix specifies only common value and symbolic boundaries of behavior. On the basis of the personal code, the human himself creates the life and professional strategy.
In today's Russian society symbolic codes clearly dominate. This creates a certain interference with the use of human capital, especially of the youth, in order to modernize, because, as it has been said, the symbolic matrix codes are not productive in terms of developing initiatives. Most young people (not to mention the older generation) are traditionalists. On the other hand, the requirements of the modernization of society, declared by the state and permeating all educational and communicative structures of society, are made as the imperatives of development, initiative, etc. We see a situation when the declared requirements aimed at young people to be proactive and independent in their decisions, the requirements corresponding to personal-individual code, are in conflict with an implicit focus on the traditional matrix schemes of acting.
This leads to the birth and spread of a new type of social code that will be call imitational. Imitational code is a code based on the illusion of acting, on the illusion of initiatives. This type
of social code does not need the real initiatives, personal forms of creative freedom, and actually devalues and dilutes traditional symbolic codes of behavior and those institutions that support them.
The social situation of a person is to be seen in his/her biographical dynamics. The position of an individual in the society may change throughout the whole life. These changes are caused by the human life cycles (childhood, adolescence, adulthood), social "jump ramps", "lifts" (original, start opportunities). But they also depend on the awareness of the value of cultural capital (P. Bourdieu), which is owned and which an individual would like to own, since the capital is seen as a condition for success.
Modern Russian education is in deep crisis. Any university lecturer can confirm that the quality of knowledge of school graduates, now university students, has fallen sharply in recent years. What is worrying is not even low basic competence in the field of humanities and natural sciences of many school graduates, but, above all, the lack of personal competence: a set of personal qualities that allow a young person to make decisions in life and professional situations. All factors mentioned above create barriers to the effective use of educational resources in the modernization practices, as the modern school education fails in preparing future professionals, adequate to modern conditions.
In order to make use of school educational resource effectively, as it may be the most important resource of modernization, it is critical not only to change school curricula and improve the quality of education. Special attention must be turned to ontological conditions for the realization of life trajectories of schoolchildren.
The life trajectory is the institutional chain of ethoses, which forms a modular (network) model of education and the corresponding educational strategy of a young man (A.P. Pavlov, 2014). Its
essence is that this very young man is a generator and a selector of the necessary information.
The effectiveness of this model of education is that the young people looking for the right information, arrange educational and status priorities themselves, prioritizing education in their life strategy.
The life trajectory of the individual is some line, a set of human life points through which he/she passes in the course of his/her life, it is defined by both objective factors (environment, surrounding objects and phenomena) and subjective ones (personal preferences). To understand the nature of the life trajectory it is crucial to identify discrete points, the moments of transition from one phase of life to another. These discrete points are points of choice of ways of life in the new conditions of individual and social life; they are the focus points of the reasons' complex (both objective and subjective, biographical and societal reasons). These reasons lead to changes in the life paths, in the life trajectories.
Life trajectories should be considered in diachronic and synchronic aspects.
Diachronic (time) characteristic includes basic life phases (periods) of social life of young people. These are, above all, the age-phases which are at the same time the phases of formation and development of a young man.
Diachronic analysis involves the study of sequential change in the main institutional phases of life: kindergarten, school, college (vocational) education, university.
Synchronic characteristic is a characteristic of the young man's relationships of institutional phases of life with other biographical circumstances and events: the influence of the social environment, marriage, military service, etc.
The ontological chain of ethoses means a gradual, sequential institutionalizing of the young man's ontological resource. In addition, each unit
is a "bifurcation point", a "crossroads", meaning "the ontological transition" to the subsequent phase.
Today, there is a demand for highly qualified specialists in various sectors of the economy. On the other hand, as shown by sociological studies, the chances of children to receive high quality education are related to the cultural and educational status of the previous generations in the family, and this effect "displaces" the material conditions' effect (O.I. Shkaratan, G.A. Iastrebov, 24). We believe that in addition to improving the quality of education, it is necessary to create the optimum material, infrastructural conditions for families of high cultural resources to convert them into the resource of the younger generations' development.
But we can and should go further. It is necessary to consolidate these families into informal corporations, united by common ethical rules and institutional obligations, which may be called ethoses. Of course, they should not be closed. The requirements for members are not to be "a mousy person", the ability to multiply and use their intelligence as a resource for success and status growth.
It should be stressed once again: these congregations are not purely professional scientific and educational corporations. They are more extensive multifunctional, organizational complexes of young people's life activities, aimed at the formation of the young man personality. Young people gain life experience by consistently passing the stage of life's journey, enshrined in ethoses as special conditions of their existence, adequate to their inclinations, interests, needs, psychic and physiological peculiarities of their age, cultural traditions, etc. This allows effective implementation of an educational resource as the most important resource for modernization, as in their seventeen-eighteen young people know what they want in life, they can build their plans
and strategies to make independent decisions in difficult professional and life situations. Only such young people can be thoroughgoing actors of the modernization processes today.
Conclusions
The modernization in Russia today is a slow process, which rarely features lasting positive breakthroughs showing overcoming the underrun of our country from the developed countries in the technical and technological areas, in the development of knowledge-intensive industries. By all means, there are objective difficulties associated with the fact that Russia has embarked on the path of modernization in such conditions when the developed countries are already far ahead in their scientific and technological development. By the early 1990-s we had "inherited" backward and money-losing economy, extremely inefficient management, powerful party and economic bureaucracy from the Soviet Union.
But the problems of modernization are not only and not so much in these factors. In the process of modernization the human potential, especially of the youth, is used inefficiently. We agree with the authors that treat the issue of the human capital formation as complex, including not only the educational and economic aspects, but also a wide range of social, psychological and ethical aspects of the actors' socialization in the modernization process call attention to the social and cultural barriers to the modernization (V.G. Nemirovsky, A.V. Nemirovskaya, K.R. Hamidullina, 2012).
The author assumes that the human resource of the modernization cannot be formed by purely educational and educational means. Moreover, the quality of education in Russia leaves much to be desired. Furthermore, the financial investment in education and science has had a weak impact so far. In our opinion, this is due to the fact that
society has not yet formed a healthy social and cultural environment and institutional and ethical systems forming it, such as amateur corporations
and communities, through which the human potential, being adequate to the purposes of modernization, can only be actualized.
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Социальные этосы в условиях модернизации современной России
А.П. Павлов
Сибирский федеральный университет Россия, 660041, Красноярск, пр. Свободный, 79
Предмет предлагаемой статьи - социальные этосы российского общества как важнейший институт модернизации в современной России. В статье анализируется проблема сохранения и воспроизводства социальных этосов, их включённость в процессы модернизации, исследуются специфика и динамика этосов, причины их «затухания». Под социальными этосами автор понимает исторически сложившиеся моральные кодексы и императивы поведения, воплощенные в стилях поведения людей.
При этом автор показывает, что этосы не сводятся к набору норм и правил, а также образовательных и воспитательных практик. Социальные этосы формируются в «корневых» (примордиальных) условиях жизни людей.
Одна из главных задач данной статьи - изучить эти условия, а также их взаимодействие с социетальными (политическими) механизмами модернизации общества.
Автор показывает, что успех модернизации зависит не только от технологических и экономических факторов, но в не меньшей степени от таких, которые «отвечают» за актуализацию и воспроизводство человеческого потенциала. Речь идет, прежде всего, об особых онтологических институциональных практиках, а также «этосной» среде, в которой актуализируется и воспроизводится человеческий потенциал в виде трудовой этики, «участного сознания», доверия к окружающим, к власти, наконец, просто вкус к жизни. Автор не ставит цель всесторонне изучить процессы модернизации в России. В центре внимания автора - природа и структура социальных этосов в России, причины их затухания и способы реанимации в современных условиях с учётом задач модернизации. Особое внимание в работе уделяется изучению этосов молодежи как важнейшему квалифицированному, интеллектуальному ресурсу, обеспечивающему успех в реализации модернизационных проектов.
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Ключевые слова: модернизация, социальное воспроизводство, социальный порядок, человеческий капитал, социальные этосы.
Работа выполнена при финансовой поддержке Российского гуманитарного научного фонда в рамках научно-исследовательского проекта РГНФ "Динамика социокультурных процессов в Восточно-Сибирском регионе в контексте современной модернизации России (на материалах социологических исследований в Красноярском крае)", Проект №: 13-03-00379,
Научная специальность: 22.00.00 - социологические науки.
