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THE FORMATION OF THE "POLYIDEOLOGICAL" SOCIETIES
Gagik Harutyunyan
"Noravank" Foundation
19 January 2009
Everything that happens in the world today is characterized by the
expert community as a system crisis. This wording is reasonable,
because considerable changes, accompanied by economical recession,
expansion of terrorism, creation of new seats of instability, take
place almost in all areas of life activity. It should be mentioned
that the forecasts of these developments are contradictive. The current
situation contains risks for all the actors of international community,
whether they are superstates or "common" countries.
Threat and chance. The emergency situations suppose coordinated
strategy and centralization of all resources of state and society. In
this context one of the main criteria of efficient activity of any
country, including Armenia, is the approximation to fast-changing
situation. Such an approach doesn't suppose only "respondent", passive
attitude over external and internal challenges: initiative is one of
the main components for appropriate response to the situation.
It's significant that in Chinese hieroglyphs notion "crisis"
is denoted by two symbols, one of them meaning "threat", and the
other - "unprecedented opportunity". It's also remarkable that in
Japanese hieroglyph, denoting "crisis", the third symbol is added20-
"attention", which seems to be equivocal: one should have not only
clear view of "surrounding environment" (external and internal), but
also fit that environment appropriately. This oriental philosophy of
language thinking nowadays is actualized, systemized and practiced on
a wide scale in different conceptions of national security of leading
states (particularly in the United States).
However it should be accepted that the distinct understanding of the
system changes is not a simple task even for state structures with
considerable intellectual resources.
Ideology crisis. The main attention in the comments on global crisis
is paid to the difficulties which occurred in financial and economical
sphere.
Meanwhile, economical as well as political developments are caused by
the crisis in the ideological sphere. As a result, liberal ideological
propositions which are inherent in Western society and integral forms
of management cede their exclusive positions. This is evidenced by:
The essential growth of the role of the state and its interference in
the issues of "free market" regulation, The bankruptcy of the biggest
western companies, adherent of liberal strategy, Their nationalization
and transition to state control.
Particularly, today international community is going over "Capital"
by Karl Marx, which seemed to be buried in oblivion. For instance,
this previously ignored writing is republis hed with the unprecedented
edition of 300.000 exemplars.
At the same time the current situation differs crucially from that
of the 90th of the last century, when crisis led to the fall of the
Soviet system, and, as a result, there was an attempt to proclaim
socialist-communist ideas. The peculiarity of the current period is
that ideological revaluation does not suppose the oblivion of classics
of liberalism. One is getting impression that any ideological and
economical model and method is applied to solve problems aroused at
present if only they are efficient. In other words, the well-known
approach works: "All methods are good except bad ones".
National and universal ideologies. Meanwhile the foregoing principle
has been used in China since the end of the last century. They seem
to have found the formula of harmonious combination of socialistic,
liberal and national postulates. It should be mentioned in this
context that national ideologies, in contrast to universal theories
(liberal, socialistic), as a rule, are less materialized. The
methods of management, conditioned by them, having their own national
peculiarities, are not dominant.
May be the only exception is Anglo-Saxon civilization for which
liberalism is prevailing national feature, i.e. Anglo-Saxons always
followed their own national ideology postulates. In our opinion, this
has determined great achievements of that civilization in all areas
of life activity.20The other point is that in modern globalizing,
narrowing world mutual influence of ideologies takes place on
synergetic (reciprocally intensifying) principal.
As a result, new dynamic conceptions which can be particularly
efficient for active subjects of global community are formed.
In historical discourse the situation is different with Russia
where the ideological field of society has always been far from
being concordant.
Alongside with the nationalist and liberal ideas men, socialistic
concepts are also cordial to a vast sector of Russian society (it is
supposed that the mode of life of Russian village communities is a
national-ideological basis for socialism). It is known that in Russian
history the clash of ideological concepts brought to revolutions
(socialistic revolution in 1917 and "liberal" revolution in 1992)
with their negative consequences and artificial domination of one
of those concepts. In all appearances on this ground present Russian
authorities somehow try to combine different ideological trends. It can
be supposed that present system crisis should promote to stir up the
processes directed to the ideological harmonization of that country.
Conclusions. The build-up of "polyideological" societies is conditioned
by the aspiration for the adequacy to system crisis and the logic
of globalizing world. Taking into consideration the fact that the
USA, China and Russia are the leading actors and the developments
t aking place in these states influence global processes, we can
suppose that the tendency of creating "polyideological" societies
may become regularity.
In the foregoing context our society should also try to be adequate
to newly formed realities. Particularly we should accept that some
national ideas and ideological systems prevailing in our society need
renewal and modernization, which firstly supposes the development of
theoretic thought in that sphere.
Other issues of author
ON THE ELECTIONS AND POST-ELECTION PROCESSES IN ARMENIA [24.03.2008] On
the problems of information security [21.03.2007] US-Iran: possible
developments [01.03.2007] New "Cold War" and transformation of
"deterring strategy" [04.12.2006] The factor of NATO [24.11.2006]
Rise of the UN role (In the context of Russian-Georgian relations)
[08.11.2006] Russian-US: a new stage of relations [20.10.2006]
Gagik Harutyunyan
"Noravank" Foundation
19 January 2009
Everything that happens in the world today is characterized by the
expert community as a system crisis. This wording is reasonable,
because considerable changes, accompanied by economical recession,
expansion of terrorism, creation of new seats of instability, take
place almost in all areas of life activity. It should be mentioned
that the forecasts of these developments are contradictive. The current
situation contains risks for all the actors of international community,
whether they are superstates or "common" countries.
Threat and chance. The emergency situations suppose coordinated
strategy and centralization of all resources of state and society. In
this context one of the main criteria of efficient activity of any
country, including Armenia, is the approximation to fast-changing
situation. Such an approach doesn't suppose only "respondent", passive
attitude over external and internal challenges: initiative is one of
the main components for appropriate response to the situation.
It's significant that in Chinese hieroglyphs notion "crisis"
is denoted by two symbols, one of them meaning "threat", and the
other - "unprecedented opportunity". It's also remarkable that in
Japanese hieroglyph, denoting "crisis", the third symbol is added20-
"attention", which seems to be equivocal: one should have not only
clear view of "surrounding environment" (external and internal), but
also fit that environment appropriately. This oriental philosophy of
language thinking nowadays is actualized, systemized and practiced on
a wide scale in different conceptions of national security of leading
states (particularly in the United States).
However it should be accepted that the distinct understanding of the
system changes is not a simple task even for state structures with
considerable intellectual resources.
Ideology crisis. The main attention in the comments on global crisis
is paid to the difficulties which occurred in financial and economical
sphere.
Meanwhile, economical as well as political developments are caused by
the crisis in the ideological sphere. As a result, liberal ideological
propositions which are inherent in Western society and integral forms
of management cede their exclusive positions. This is evidenced by:
The essential growth of the role of the state and its interference in
the issues of "free market" regulation, The bankruptcy of the biggest
western companies, adherent of liberal strategy, Their nationalization
and transition to state control.
Particularly, today international community is going over "Capital"
by Karl Marx, which seemed to be buried in oblivion. For instance,
this previously ignored writing is republis hed with the unprecedented
edition of 300.000 exemplars.
At the same time the current situation differs crucially from that
of the 90th of the last century, when crisis led to the fall of the
Soviet system, and, as a result, there was an attempt to proclaim
socialist-communist ideas. The peculiarity of the current period is
that ideological revaluation does not suppose the oblivion of classics
of liberalism. One is getting impression that any ideological and
economical model and method is applied to solve problems aroused at
present if only they are efficient. In other words, the well-known
approach works: "All methods are good except bad ones".
National and universal ideologies. Meanwhile the foregoing principle
has been used in China since the end of the last century. They seem
to have found the formula of harmonious combination of socialistic,
liberal and national postulates. It should be mentioned in this
context that national ideologies, in contrast to universal theories
(liberal, socialistic), as a rule, are less materialized. The
methods of management, conditioned by them, having their own national
peculiarities, are not dominant.
May be the only exception is Anglo-Saxon civilization for which
liberalism is prevailing national feature, i.e. Anglo-Saxons always
followed their own national ideology postulates. In our opinion, this
has determined great achievements of that civilization in all areas
of life activity.20The other point is that in modern globalizing,
narrowing world mutual influence of ideologies takes place on
synergetic (reciprocally intensifying) principal.
As a result, new dynamic conceptions which can be particularly
efficient for active subjects of global community are formed.
In historical discourse the situation is different with Russia
where the ideological field of society has always been far from
being concordant.
Alongside with the nationalist and liberal ideas men, socialistic
concepts are also cordial to a vast sector of Russian society (it is
supposed that the mode of life of Russian village communities is a
national-ideological basis for socialism). It is known that in Russian
history the clash of ideological concepts brought to revolutions
(socialistic revolution in 1917 and "liberal" revolution in 1992)
with their negative consequences and artificial domination of one
of those concepts. In all appearances on this ground present Russian
authorities somehow try to combine different ideological trends. It can
be supposed that present system crisis should promote to stir up the
processes directed to the ideological harmonization of that country.
Conclusions. The build-up of "polyideological" societies is conditioned
by the aspiration for the adequacy to system crisis and the logic
of globalizing world. Taking into consideration the fact that the
USA, China and Russia are the leading actors and the developments
t aking place in these states influence global processes, we can
suppose that the tendency of creating "polyideological" societies
may become regularity.
In the foregoing context our society should also try to be adequate
to newly formed realities. Particularly we should accept that some
national ideas and ideological systems prevailing in our society need
renewal and modernization, which firstly supposes the development of
theoretic thought in that sphere.
Other issues of author
ON THE ELECTIONS AND POST-ELECTION PROCESSES IN ARMENIA [24.03.2008] On
the problems of information security [21.03.2007] US-Iran: possible
developments [01.03.2007] New "Cold War" and transformation of
"deterring strategy" [04.12.2006] The factor of NATO [24.11.2006]
Rise of the UN role (In the context of Russian-Georgian relations)
[08.11.2006] Russian-US: a new stage of relations [20.10.2006]