Ideas and Ideals

Modern visual culture gives a wide variety of opportunities to represent values, characters, stories and images reflecting cultural diversity of the world and at the same time it is obligatory for the subject of communication to be tolerant, willing to participate in the dialogue, open to the perception of experience and appraisals of others. The authors consider issues of intercultural competence formation by means of animation. Special attention is paid to the animation as a part of modern visual culture. The article states that animation can form and develop cross-cultural competence. The authors define cross-cultural competence as a phenomenon actualized in the context of intensification of intercultural contacts in a globalizing society. Animation is a part of the modern visual culture providing various means for intercultural competence formation. Analyzing historiography data the authors consider the methods of portraying the ethnic element in animation as well as ethno-cultural values. The article presents the results of the conducted study of interpretations (made by high school students) of the animated images from other cultures, as well as their opinions on the ways of understanding other cultures in the context of intercultural dialogue and creativity. The authors point out the factors forming intercultural competence of high school students living in big cities and share the opinions of students (taken from their essays) on the opportunity of intercultural dialogue aiming at understanding people of other cultures.

The development of society is presented as a type of its complicacy. The complicacy is shown to have two major quality parameters – the direction and nature – unified by the concept of cognature. The direction of development is determined by the hierarchy of the problems society chooses and gradates, and the nature of development is given by the methods of problem solving typical for the society. The problems, in turn, are created by the needs of a subject (an actor) and the typical methods of problem solving by its dispositions. This theory is shown to be related to classical theories of Karl Marx, Max Weber and synergetic paradigms as well. The relevance of the theory is stipulated by the growing complexity of the global situation and the multiplicity of factors influencing it. The basic problematic level of the social cognitive science is identified. It consists of relations between cognitive constructs and social phenomena. The main task of clarifying how the interaction of made decisions created by cognature of a society assembles the social reality is worded. Practical application of social cognitive science is the methodology elaboration of appraisals of the decisions to be made, the projects to be implemented at all levels, starting with the individual level up to the global one taking into account the complicacy change. The fundamental principal underlying such appraisals is not diminishing the complicacy; every decision should be both adequate to reality and not diminish its complicacy because there are reasons to suppose that simplifying reality decisions work only till the definite point, after which entropy starts growing and it ends in catastrophe.

The history of Koreans living in CIS countries shows the unity of regular processes of transformation of their culture in different periods of residence in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and today the CIS. The author distinguishes three main stages of the history of CIS Koreans, in accordance with the main areas of their residence in different historical periods. The current stage is characterized by the final formation of the Eurasian community of Koreans, scattered all over the CIS space. At the same time they preserve the unified cultural markers, as well as common historical memory. Eurasian identity implies prevalence of supranational factor over the national one in ethno-cultural identity. In the case with the CIS Koreans the national factor isn’t the cornerstone of their life activities, that is reflected, for example, in their position not to insist on the forming of national regions or creating other territories on the national basis. The article deals with the process of transforming the culture of CIS Koreans, the impact of important historical events on the loss of elements of their traditional culture. Today, in the context of the Eurasian reintegration processes in the post-Soviet space the developing a new concept of a supranational identity is becoming urgent. This concept would be able to fully reflect the current processes. CIS Koreans are an example of the formation of the Eurasian identity.

The article aims to identify the details of the internal structure of the Russian civilization in the aggregate of its constituent elements: the East Slavic, the Finno-Ugric, the Turkic-Mongol, etc. We correlated the analysis of provisions of the civilizational and geopolitical concepts with the specific character of historical experience of the development of Russia as a local civilization. The author highlights three stages of understanding the ethnic diversity role in the development of the Russian civilization: 1) Pre-Eurasian (1703-1907), 2) Eurasian (1907-1968), 3) Post-Eurasian, or contemporary. The article reveals the structural-genetic role of ethnic diversity in the development of the Russian civilization. The development of civilizational processes is connected to the qualitative complication of civilizational self-organization mechanisms. It implies transition from civilizational symbiosis to synthesis, which is accompanied by strengthening economic ties among ethnic groups, and transformation of less developed economies into more developed ones (preserving mixed economy). We propose the model of civilizational synthesis in which the ethnoses are "structural elements", stable interethnic interactions are "connections", and civilization itself is "substance". Two stages of genesis of the Russian civilization are highlighted: 1) Slavic-Finno-Ugric symbiosis under the political dominant of the eastern Slavs (pre- and early- civilizational stage, VIII-XV centuries); 2) Synthesis of two compounds, Eastern-European (Slavic-Finno-Ugric) and Turkic-Mongol (nomadic) under demographic, political, and cultural domination of Russians (XVI-XX centuries).

In this work the approach interpreting money circulation as a kind of social interaction is presented. The prominent features of social interaction in their relation to money circulation are considered. It is shown that money functionality is provided with direct or indirect convention. The origin of convention is connected to the ingrained exchange practice and social communication. Money circulation is realized due to the collective intentionality acts, defined in the objects of money. At the same time, currency circulation can happen without material money usage. It is possible only in the case if the function of money obtains objectless existence in the form of a pure symbol. Money degenerates in its function being formed as the satisfaction of household and political needs, that is to say functionally, at the same time passing the step of its objective certainty. In such a way, the evolution of money circulation demonstrates the tendency of social interactions symbolization. This tendency raises a question concerning general process of social life from the real interaction to the reality simulation. Social interactions in such society acquire speculative character and they are directed to the support of themselves. Money circulation is a private case of symbolic content of social interaction. It is aimed not to the economic good, but to the social image of financial success maintenance.

The aim of the study is to introduce the essential anthroposocial foundations (identified and analysed in the article) of the professional knowledge sharing in the space of collective work culture of the Russian firm. Interrelated anthropic origin and microsocial order are given as such foundations. The main theme of the article is the anthroposocial foundations in the system of socio-cultural labour relations regarding the professional knowledge sharing in the firm. The study is a theoretical analysis of the socio-economic nature of professional knowledge sharing at the microlevel. The contribution of the author is an introduction of the concept of “anthroposociality of knowledge sharing” into scientific use. Anthroposociality of knowledge sharing is defined as a complex socio-cultural and socio-economic phenomenon, the origin, the centre and the result of which is a human-employee (anthropic foundation) who shares personal knowledge with the other members of the intra-firm professional community in the process of joint work in accordance with microsocial order (social foundation). From a scientific perspective such an understanding will give the economists the opportunity to take into account the personality of an employee in relation to the microsocial order established in the firm in the development of proposals to improve knowledge sharing efficiency. In practice, it will allow to minimize the problems associated with the reluctance of employees to share personal knowledge.

The key issue of the article is the ability of Europe with all its post-Christian values and neo- liberalism handle the present situation that has been created due to “great migrations”. The aim of the article is to show the metamorphoses in the spheres of religion, ethics, and politics (started in the era of Reformation and Enlightenment) and to describe problem-solving scenarios, concerning migration and the EU migration policy. As a result of this process, the European countries created a union based on transnational secular values (peace, freedom, stability, prosperity, common economic market, multiculturalism and human rights). In this union all kinds of issues are presumably solved through dialogue and consensus, and not on the basis of the biological law – the right of the strongest. However, Europe is facing the problem of “great migrations” with terrorism as its possible implication (Paris, Brussels, Nice). The problem of migration and the ways of its solving remain unclear for the EU. Arguably, the current situation coupled with the present neo-liberal migration policy of the EU will most likely lead to drastic changes in the demographic and cultural face of Europe. As a result, in the coming decades, the European identity and the system of values inherited from Enlightenment will likely be gradually superseded by more conservative values of the migrants. The neo-liberal views of the European establishment can be considered the main cause of this coming transition. Only delicate migration policy will help find the way out of this dead end without lapsing into the radical right (nationalism) or the radical left (neo-liberalism).

Justice as a theme and a subject of research is, in fact, a cluster of concepts, which organize a specific multi-actant historical process. It deals with certain forms of human self-understanding and methods of turning less equitable social relations into more equitable ones. One of the basic problems here is to clarify and to explicate existing forms of understanding of Justice, and then to organize a communicative space for an ongoing process of discussions on the national and even transnational level. While doing so the social life might have been reorganized in the mode of strengthening respect to the competing ideas of Justice, which are revealed as the result of those discussions. On the other hand, Truth within social sciences could be understood as a matrix of openness of the world-as-a-whole, i.e. as a sort of collective optics which allows to identify things as things, facts as facts, events as events, and, therefore, generates collective forms of in-the-world orientation, common for a given nation, or a given historical moment, etc. But altogether this produces deep conflicts between scientific knowledge and “folk” estimates of social and historical reality because historical and social “facts” themselves are still not defined.

The existence of the fictitious and hidden competences in the structure of educational standards is the problem of the Higher Education Reform implementation. The object of research is reconstruction of a number of the competences which are absent in the regulating documents, but they are important for subjects in professional socialization and they are really incorporated into it. During methodological study of the project of reconstruction of the young specialist model we assumed that the existence of the hidden competences is not a secret for students; and also – that many competences, declared in educational programs, have a fictitious character for them. This assumption became a basic hypothesis for the empirical research "Professional Socialization in the Conditions of Competence-Based Reconstruction". Readiness to use official position for personal enrichment, ability to join false conventions, to manipulate interlocutors, to strike up useful acquaintances and to derive benefit from them (in P. Bourdieu's terminology – to create and use social capital), ability and readiness to use gaps and contradictions in the legislation are referred to the hidden competences. The research has revealed that these competences are real and pressing for all levels and social subjects comprising the system of higher education.

In the interview Prof. Shadrikov speaks about the recent educational reform in the Russian Federation. Its shortcomings are discussed, and the problem how it should be organized. The modern pre-school, school and higher education should be tailored to age and take into account the uncertainty of the cultural characteristics of different social groups and individuals. The difficulties of developing the contents of education and training are also under analysis, which is a very serious challenge in the new informational environment. The need is emphasized to get away from the fiscal targets and not setting the task to save, but rather to achieve high quality education. The situation with the standards is also touched, especially in the area of higher education, and the important conclusion is given that the standard is proposed in the terms of competencies yet the results are checked in terms of knowledge, and this situation determines the discrepancy between the opportunities provided by well-developed standards, and the real possibility to implement them. The situation in higher education connected with the realization of Bologna process, from which in recent time only two-level educational system is borrowed, yet everything else, basically the spirit of the Bologna process, is thrown away and forgotten, including the good financing and development of national education systems.