The Ideals of Culture and the Civilizational Code of Russia

Abstract

The article attempts to assess the research potential of a civilization code's con­cept, which claims to identify the determining algorithm of social life and, re­spectively, the direction of development of societies and states. The analysis of the concept under consideration is based on a constructivist approach. From the standpoint of this approach, it is demonstrated that the supposed conditioning of the civilization code by the dominant ideals of culture is largely determined by personal historicity and responsibility for the past. The ideals of culture also cover the sensory world of subjects – they are fixed in moral norms and regulate the value orientations of participants of historical events. This aspect of the cul­tural conditionality of the social behavior of people, according to the authors, is actually fixed in the concept of the civilization code. At the same time, the work notes that the originality of the manifestations of shame and conscience among the adepts of culture determines both the relationship between them and their at­titude towards other cultures' representatives. Civilization is understood as a form of cultural manifestation with specific features that make it possible to talk about the general mentality of a given society, a given civilization. Meanwhile, there are risks of losing the potential of constructive ideals in a consumer society that presents ideals that focus, first of all, on the satisfaction of personal, egoistic in­terests. The authors believe that the main thing for Russia today is not to lose the potential of personal ideals that focus on the priority of common human, hu­manistic values that demonstrate the rise above egoism and respect for represen­tatives of other cultures.