The category of "eternal" in the context of the problem field of value-oriented development

Ugrin Ivan Mikhailovich PhD in Politics Associate Professor; Department of Political Science; State Academic University of Humanities Researcher; Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences 109240, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, Goncharnaya str., 12 ivan_ugrin@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Brother, let's leave everything,

which is changing fast.

Otherwise we won't make it in time.

To think about what

It's the same for everyone.

Think about the eternal.

N.K. Roerich. "About the eternal."

Introduction

The geopolitical tension of the last decade, associated with the growing contradictions between the West, which is consistently losing its hegemonic positions, and Russia, which is consistently regaining its geo-civilizational sovereignty, is reflected in the confrontation between two projects of the future world order: globalist and multipolar. In November 2022, an important event took place, which became a significant milestone in the process of civilizational self-determination of Russia - the President of the Russian Federation issued Decree No. 809 "On approving the Foundations of State Policy for the preservation and strengthening of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values." In support of this decree, a civil movement was formed, which resulted in the holding of several Forums of civil initiatives "Russia 809", which indicates that this decree is not just another "regular" decree, "along with others regulating the actions of executive authorities, but expresses the deep aspirations of the people. In October 2023, a large-scale conference "Tradition and Modernity: the Axiology of Russian Civilization" was held (Moscow, GAGN, October 25, 2023), one of the main goals of which was to create a platform for discussing the traditional spiritual values named in the decree among scientists of humanitarian thought, of various disciplinary orientation (philosophers, cultural scientists, historians, psychologists, political scientists, philologists) ^[6] . One of the organizers of this conference was the author of these lines. The conference showed the relevance of the topics raised, the need for further expansion and concretization of measures to ensure the spiritual security of the country, which was agreed by the majority of the participants of the meeting. Unanimity, rarely seen at scientific events of this kind, was a distinctive feature of the discussion that took place. Unanimity, of course, does not mean unanimity. A number of acute problems of a philosophical and scientific order were raised, which inevitably arise when we turn to the topic of traditional and modern. Reflections on one of these problems and its possible solutions formed the basis of this article.

All-Russian spiritual and moral values

There is no doubt that a society that does not have certainty about what values it considers fundamental for itself, for its existence as a whole, will be subject to decomposition processes caused by the divergence of value-oriented orientations of its members and social groups. It is difficult to argue with the fact that "every culture is strong because it acquires its own version of the meaning of existence" ^{[8, p.103]}. If we do not have common values, then it is extremely problematic to coordinate around a common meaning and big goals. This is especially problematic for such a diverse society as the Russian one. And if there are no common goals that the majority of the country's population would share, then there is no vector for movement, which means that the development of society either stops or continues by inertia. Inertial development does not last long. If we are interested in development, the discovery and formulation of common values is not only justified, but also necessary. However, the question arises: how can this be done? Where is the authority that can take responsibility for this kind of wording? The role of the state has always been strong in Russia, and it has offered its own version.

The common values that the Russian state undertakes to protect and strengthen are traditional spiritual and moral values, which include life, dignity, human rights and freedoms, patriotism, citizenship, service to the Fatherland and responsibility for its fate, high moral ideals, a strong family, creative work, the priority of the spiritual over the material, humanism, charity, justice, collectivism, mutual assistance and mutual respect, historical memory and continuity of generations, unity of the peoples of Russia [Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 809 of 11/19/2022]. On the one hand, such an idea of all-Russian values is very meaningful. On the other hand, it is very vague. Let's try to understand what spiritual and moral values are.

Nothing that we consider to have the highest value for us is such, regardless of our choice, conscious or unconscious. For example, if a person considers a large cash account in a bank to be the highest value for himself, regardless of how we evaluate this priority, for him it will be an act of choice, testifying to how and how his soul lives. Perhaps it is fair to characterize this position as the position of a greedy person. But the presence or absence of greed in the human soul is the result of the volitional aspiration of the subject, who within himself can characterize this quality as prudence or foresight. In fact, this "greed" or "foresight" will not be the result of rational thinking, because the mind is able to make arguments both for and against having large bank accounts, and not the result of an instinctive urge, because the body needs food, not numbers in a bank account, but a form the life of his soul, whatever form it takes.

Where is the criterion that allows you to name the highest value of a particular person, spiritual or material? In a certain sense, a bank account is not material, it's just signs. Although it creates certain material opportunities. But we can also say that generosity (which in itself is elusive in the foreseeable world) creates certain material opportunities, because it causes a feeling of gratitude from the recipient, which can then be expressed in spreading good fame about the benefactors, and this resource, in turn, lead to new acquaintances that promote career growth.

Scientific knowledge, striving for objectivity, cannot provide such a criterion that unambiguously separates the spiritual from the material, since these concepts do not have a strict definition, and value preferences, again, are always associated with a person's subjective choice. It is possible to evaluate a subjective choice either from one's own subjective positions (this is my opinion or belief), from either intersubjective positions (this is public opinion or collective conviction), or positions based on religious faith (this is so, because it is in accordance with the highest truth, independent of the research of the human mind). In this sense, when spiritual and material values are contrasted outside the context of some integral worldview - personal (subjective), ideological (intersubjective) or religious (based on faith as an intuition of certainty ^[24]) - this opposition turns out to be vague, the "red line", to put it mildly, is not obvious. Without a preliminary explanation of what is meant by spiritual and how spiritual activity expresses itself in the mental life of a particular person, which determines his behavior, ambiguity arises, always fraught with false interpretations.

The problem of the correlation of the moral and immoral in modern culture is no less confusing than the problem of the correlation of the spiritual and the material. It is well known that certain ideas about good and evil, about what is permissible or unacceptable, can differ dramatically from one society to another. Which of these ideas do we prefer? And why? If we adhere to the point of view that all cultures are equivalent and of equal value, then it is impossible to prefer one in favor of the other except on the basis of subjective or intersubjective experiences and experiences. Should the state in its policy rely on the subjective experiences of certain individuals, or the intersubjective impressions of individual groups, albeit socially significant, but still not constituting the whole society? Perhaps this problem is not so acute in a culturally homogeneous environment, but in modern communities it is difficult to find culturally homogeneous formations covering numerous countries in terms of population, and even more so, we cannot talk about the cultural homogeneity of a country as complex in its composition as Russia. This means that we cannot talk about morality as such norms of behavior that every Russian certainly accepts as due, because ideas about the good and evil of a particular person are formed under the influence of many factors: upbringing in the family, the regional environment, the influence of friends and mentors, information received through the mass media and many others. In a heterogeneous cultural environment, these influences are heterogeneous.

Both the content of the "spiritual" category and the content of the "moral" category are not obvious, and although the values themselves are listed, their semantic interpretations may differ significantly. For example, concepts such as justice and humanism can have many connotations, their distinct meaning becomes clear only in the context of a common value system, where the logic of the relationship of some values with others is traced. Consequently, "spiritual and moral values" as a concept taken by itself, without revealing its content, for most Russians will be an abstraction that does not provide clear guidelines, does not create a common field of meanings.

Values and traditions: the problem of the source

Probably, it is the concept of "traditional" that acts as the category that is designed to eliminate the emerging ambiguity about what is meaningfully meant when the protection of spiritual and moral values is postulated as one of the main guidelines of state policy. The traditional is the opposite of the innovative, which has developed in the past and has become stable due to the continuity of generations. According to the new philosophical encyclopedia, "tradition is a way of being and reproducing elements of social and cultural heritage, fixing the stability and continuity of the experience of generations, times and epochs" (V.I. Tolstykh) ^[14]. The concepts of heritage and succession are key to defining tradition and traditional. When we talk about traditional values, the main question that arises is, which tradition is taken as a source of values?

First of all, it is worth noting that among socially significant traditions there are religious and non-religious traditions. Among the religious traditions there are monotheistic traditions, which include Christianity, Islam and Judaism, which are widespread in our country. According to a public opinion poll conducted by VTSIOM in 2021, the share of Orthodox Christians among the country's population is 66% (the figures of sociological research on this issue sometimes vary significantly, so we do not consider ourselves entitled to claim that this is an accurate figure). Most of those who call themselves Orthodox do not participate regularly in church life, that is, they are non-churchly people. In this sense, adherence to the Orthodox tradition is more formal than real for them, since it does not entail certain obligations that are implemented in practice.

According to VTSIOM research, the proportion of people who profess Islam is 8% of the population. It should be noted that the leaders of Muslim organizations cite a figure of 20 million people, which is 14% of the population. As we can see, the figures also vary greatly in this matter. Anyway, there are about 40 peoples living in Russia, most of whose representatives traditionally professed Islam. Regions with a predominantly Muslim population include Ingushetia, Chechnya, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Bashkortostan and Tatarstan.

According to Alexander Boroda, President of the Federation of Jewish Communities (FEOR), about 1 million Jews live in Russia, of which only a little more than 200 thousand are active members of communities. According to the census, there are about 150,000 Jews in Russia. Given the close connection between Judaism as a religious and cultural tradition and the ethnonational identity of Jews, it can be assumed that Judaism is practiced in our country by from 100 to 200 thousand people. As a percentage of the total population, the indicator is low.

In addition to monotheistic religions, there are non-theistic religions, which include Confucianism and Buddhism, the latter is also traditional for our country, for at least five subjects of the Federation, namely: Buryatia, Tyva, Kalmykia, the Republic of Altai and the Trans-Baikal Territory. According to the Buddhist Association of Russia, the number of people professing Buddhism ranges from 1.5-2 million. According to VTSIOM research, there are about 1 million of them.

According to the All-Russian Atlas of Religions and Nationalities study conducted by the Wednesday research service in August 2012, the proportion of people professing pagan beliefs, worshipping gods or forces of nature is about 1.7 million or 1.2% of the country's population. Over the past decade, this figure could have changed, but hardly radically. Interestingly, the Third All-Russian Congress of Shamans, held in Kyzyl in 2021, appealed to the authorities with a proposal to give shamanism the status of one of the traditional religions that make up an integral part of the historical heritage of the peoples of Russia. According to the congress, there are about 4 thousand shamans working in Russia, and their number is growing every year.

The share of non-believers in Russia in 2021 was 14% or 20 million people (according to VTSIOM). Many of the "non-believers" identify themselves as atheists. If we consider atheism as a clearly defined worldview position associated with a cultural trend originating in our country no later than the XVIII century, from the first Voltaireans who appeared in the Russian Empire under the influence of the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers, it is fair to say that atheism is also traditional for Russia. In the Soviet Union, atheism was part of the state ideology. It is obvious that in this capacity he had a significant impact on popular culture and the values of Soviet citizens. The Soviet cultural and philosophical tradition was formed, the element of which was atheism. To deny this is to deny one's own past.

Thus, we have counted at least five great traditions (in terms of religious preferences or lack thereof) that are widespread in our country: Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism, shamanism, atheism. The number of people who are more or less committed to them is more than 1 million people for each, so we very conditionally call these traditions "big". Here we omit the facts that along with the Orthodox there are other Christian denominations (Catholics and Protestants in our country, respectively, about 300 thousand and 150 thousand people), that the Old Believers (and there are about 400 thousand of them) do not recognize the Orthodox rites adopted by the ROC, that Islam and Buddhism are also heterogeneous, that shamanism and paganism they do not represent anything integral, although they have a number of common characteristics that have persisted in these folk beliefs for centuries, and Soviet atheism as such has practically gone into the "archive", and only a small part of atheists remain faithful to the provisions of classical Marxism. Moving away from these facts, which, of course, are important for an adequate understanding of the society in which we live, we will focus on the five named traditions from the perspective of raising the question of the existence of a common logic of meanings and a system of values.

Is it possible to say that the value systems, their internal logics underlying the great traditions of Russia are identical? It seems beyond doubt that there is not. For monotheistic believers, the highest value will be God, perceived as the absolute good, and all other values will find their place and their meaning through the discovery of their connection with this highest value. However, for a Christian, God appears in the person of a man, Jesus Christ, but for a Muslim this is not so, moreover, the very idea that a person, even a saint, can be likened to God, will be blasphemous for a Muslim.

For an atheist, there is no God, as the absolute beginning and creator of all things, and, therefore, he cannot be the highest value for him. Most modern atheists tend to one or another kind of humanism, one of which was Soviet Marxism, with some reservations. The highest value in humanistic thought is the person himself. The value of a person is also significant for a theist, but there it is understood in a completely different way, through the relationship between man and God, and in this sense secular humanism and religious humanism are two different things that we only conditionally combine with a common word.

For a Buddhist, the main goal of life will be to achieve the state of nirvana, and everything that brings him closer to this state is valuable, especially the truth (not scientific, but metaphysical), which a person learns in a mystical act of self-contemplation, and which makes him free from passionate desires that make the suffering of any living being inevitable ^[20].

For followers of shamanism, the cult of ancestors and the worship of otherworldly spirits will be very important. However, it is difficult to say unequivocally what will be the highest value for adherents of ancient pagan beliefs due to their extreme heterogeneity, but their logical incompatibility with Christianity, Islam and atheism is also beyond doubt.

Thus, the value systems underlying the great traditions present in the common space of Russian culture are different. However, it does not follow from this that there are no intersections between them, that a number of value orientations do not repeat each other, that there are no interface points through which it is possible to establish mutual understanding or, at least, dialogue between representatives of different cultural worlds. However, it cannot be said that there is one tradition dominating in the space of Russian civilization that consistently postulates a system of values verified by an independent observer. When we talk about a system, we mean that there is not just a list of values that is repeated in many cultures ^[10], but a certain harmony of these values, the presence of connections between them, which make it possible to understand the meaning of a particular value in the general idea of the good and how it can be realized.

Perhaps, in the context of talking about spiritual and moral values, "traditional" does not mean religious/anti-religious heritage, but those traditions and norms that exist at the level of ethnic cultures? There are 193 ethnic groups living in Russia, each of which is distinguished by its cultural identity. Can we talk about any one cultural tradition characteristic of all these ethnic groups? Of course, cultural exchange took place between the peoples of historical Russia over the centuries, which mutually enriched them, contributed to their development and harmony. However, we cannot say that one ethnic cultural environment has been formed, broadcasting one "moral" way of life. The Russian language is unifying for all of us. But the key features of the mentality of the Russian ethnic group were not transmitted, and could not be transmitted to other ethnic groups, say, the Yakuts or Chechens. Russian Russians do not detract from the importance of strengthening ties between fraternal peoples, because it was precisely thanks to the tolerance and respect that Russians showed towards other peoples that they managed to maintain international friendship over such a vast territory for centuries.

Ethnic cultures are very diverse, and we must be honest that some traditions that have gone irrevocably into the past, or even have not yet gone completely, not only do not need protection, but, on the contrary, require eradication, and this is due to the general process of developing the ethos of man and humanity as such. For example, the tradition of blood feud, which is still widespread among some peoples of the Caucasus (earlier, by the way, it was widespread among the Slavs). Or the tradition of tipshara ("dry trouble" with feelings), suicide by self-hanging or self-immolation in order to take revenge on the enemy and indicate their own innocence, common among the Chuvash and some other Finno-Ugric peoples of the Volga region. Fortunately, this traditional practice practically disappeared during the Soviet era, but some cases have been recorded in our time. Does anyone really consider it useful to preserve such a cultural heritage, to cherish such traditions?

The ratio of traditional and innovative in the context of talking about the values that unite a multi-component society should not be understood primitively, because the price for an erroneous understanding will be too high. There has always been and will always be dialectical unity in this relationship. Society is unable to reproduce itself without having traditional institutions and norms passed down from generation to generation. They ensure continuity and sustainability. But even without renewal, without an overdue transformation, society will not be able to respond to historical challenges, which means that its place will be taken by those communities that have turned out to be more adaptive and creatively wealthy. There is a place for creativity in historical dynamics, sometimes even for deep rebirth. Sometimes changes happen too often, sometimes they are too radical, which was typical for Russia of the 20th century, which experienced two civilizational catastrophes, two breakdowns of social life in less than 80 years. Then the fatigue of change accumulates, and a conservative reaction occurs. And this is natural. But there is no solution to the problem, because the reaction is always situational, it is not able to develop a development strategy.

Eternal values and unity of diversity

Developing a development strategy implies that we set goals that are significant not only from the point of view of adaptation to changing historical conditions, or, more simply, from the point of view of the survival of society, but also from the point of view of its transition to another level as a living reality or, in other words, gaining a fundamentally new quality of existence. What kind of quality should it be? It is determined by the values that are shared by the whole society. If we adhere to liberal values, then we will be talking about increasing the degrees of personal freedom of a person. If socialist values are important to us, then the question will be raised about a way to solve the problem of property in which social inequality disappears in industrial relations and the process of distributing the results of collective labor. If nationalist views are close to us, then the interests of the nation will be chosen as the leading priority. True, the latter are also understood in different ways, but it is obvious that they are not compatible with the loss of society's national identity, linguistic and cultural identity. Strengthening or consolidating such a peculiarity may be considered one of the main goals of strategic development.

This is how classical ideologies that arose in Europe in the Modern era solve this issue. But why should one of these ideologies be recognized as being right? Or even a partial one for all of them? Where can I find a criterion that allows me to get out of the confusion of values and development guidelines? If we believe that tradition should be taken as the basis of our value system, not one of the classical or postclassical ideologies developed in the course of post-secular discourse, then which of the many existing and existing traditions should be chosen as the reference, and why it? And wouldn't it be fair to talk about a liberal or socialist tradition?

In order to approach the solution of this complex of problems, let's imagine the socio-cultural reality in the form of a simple sphere. Let's draw three lines inside it, perpendicular to each other: X, Y and Z. The X line sets the spatial coordinates. The Y line sets the time coordinates. The Z-line defines the coordinates of spiritual ascent, understood as an exit into the sphere of metaphysical reality. If we talk about the traditional, remaining on the plane defined by the X and Y lines, then we will have to admit that there is an abundance of geolocal traditions, some of which originated in antiquity and have already ceased to exist (for example, the traditions of the ancient Egyptian civilization), some remained in relict form as echoes of bygone eras (for example, traditions African tribes), the third have reached our time and are widespread in their cultural area (for example, the Islamic tradition), the fourth are in the process of formation and it is still unclear whether they will happen to become traditions in the full sense of the word (such, in our opinion, include the Baha'i faith). Recognizing the diversity of traditions both in time and in spatial intervals, we cannot but recognize that the values that they postulate and transmit from generation to generation are also subject to changes over time, and sometimes radically differ from people to people, depending on the civilizational and ethnic characteristics of these communities. This is a well-known truth, which, it seems to us, does not require special evidence.

Of course, the prevailing custom, accepted norm or folk belief, which we can also consider as part of the tradition, are not always directly related to the basic values of the geolocal culture. But, firstly, they are indirectly related, and, secondly, value systems are fully reproduced only within the framework of large traditions that include philosophical thought. The pluralism and plasticity of the "traditional" seems to be something inescapable, irremediable if we remain on the plane of space-time coordinates. And in this case, the desire to protect "traditional values" will be equivalent to the desire not to release a handful of water from a clenched fist. No matter how you try to grasp and define the "traditional" by itself, it will always slip away, leaving uncertainty.

However, if we turn our attention to the third line of coordinates, and discover another dimension in which there is an "eternal", not conditioned by spatial and temporal constraints, the imaginary insolubility of the problem of irreducibility to a conceivable unity of the diversity of cultural forms, ideas and ideas about the good, finds its solution. The eternal does not contradict the multiplicity represented in time and space, in different epochs and among different peoples, but remaining outside this plurality of the "traditional", it always remains itself, revealing itself in a particular culture to the extent that it is able to contain the content of eternal meanings and values that are associated with human nature as beings not only biological and social, but also spiritual. The eternal is not thought of as fractional and plural. Different and unique things can exist in eternity or be attached to it. But behind this set there will be a single one that embraces it, but not as a whole, but as a whole. In our opinion, the realization of this unity is the solution to the problem discussed in this article.

Realizing this unity, the unity of higher values such as truth, goodness, beauty, justice, freedom, creativity, and accepting this unity not as a proven hypothesis, because we do not solve this issue with the help of scientific means of knowledge, but as intuitively perceived reliability ^[24], we understand, first of all, the value of the traditions themselves. Their value lies not in the fact that they set forms and norms of cultural life that cannot be revised or adjusted, "correct" ideas about the ideal, but in the fact that they reflect the experience of introducing a person to the eternal and reveal in these norms, ideas and ideals the content of the spiritual experience of generations. A blind rejection of tradition is a rejection of the life experience of previous generations, and therefore a rejection of the spiritual wealth they have passed on to us. But the blind inertial repetition of the traditional way of life is a rejection of the possibility of multiplying this wealth through the creative transformation of human existence. Not relying on tradition as an unchangeable given is necessary, but also not denying its significance, but respecting traditions with an aspiration to a better future and reliance on eternity. And in this support, genuine love will be found as a transformative force. As N.A. Berdyaev deeply notes: "Nothing can be loved except eternity, and no love can be loved except eternal love. If there is no eternity, then there is nothing. An instant is full-fledged only if it is attached to eternity, if it is a way out of time, if, according to Kirchhardt, it is an atom of eternity, not time" ^{[1, p.47]}.

The introduction of the category of "eternal" in a consistent way sets the idea of the essence of human existence itself. There is an eternal beginning in man. Its unfolding takes place in time. Eternal values, which direct a person to comprehend and reveal this eternal principle in himself, as well as in other people, make it possible to build a hierarchy of life orientations, not denying transitory values, but defining their proper place for them. So at the beginning of the article, we raised the question of whether a large cash account in a bank can qualify as a spiritual value, questioning the evidence that it is not. If we look at this question using the category of "eternal", we will find a satisfactory answer to it.

No matter how long a person lives, sooner or later, he will cease to exist as a person with this body and this social status. Whether he disappears forever, dissolving into emptiness, or moves to another world as a flesh-free soul, all the accumulated monetary savings will remain here in this world and will no longer be of any value to anyone. Money itself, as a means of realizing what is intended, can serve various purposes. And many goals (although not all) in this world cannot be achieved without money. So if we understand the value of money as correlated with higher values, it becomes a subordinate value. For example, for a charity project to be successful, it is necessary to raise a large amount of money, and this will show the value of money as a means to translate into reality the higher value of charity, rooted in the spiritual (eternal) nature of man.

In the same case, if having a lot of money is valuable to us in itself, we lock ourselves in our guidelines on the transitory, on what we will inevitably lose. And if the spiritual is understood by us as something that aspires to the eternal, and the material as something that drags into the temporal, then the ranking of values as spiritual and material acquires certainty. So charity, as a value of a spiritual order, does not give or in any case does not guarantee a person to receive any temporary benefits (such as prosperity, reverence or health), because it assumes that a person commits an act of helping someone in need without expecting anything in return. But, without guaranteeing anything in the temporary, transitory world, when it is realized, it brings a person a sense of spiritual joy, that is, it introduces a person to something that cannot be found in this material world, but, nevertheless, is really felt by the soul. And, conversely, if a person achieves material well-being at the expense of other people, depriving them of vital resources, he, of course, thereby acquires material benefits, which, we note, sooner or later will leave him, but thereby deprives himself of the joy of being involved in the eternal, makes his soul poor.

The eternal good, which is revealed through eternal values, is not rigidly fixed in language, because it is inexpressible, although meaningful ^[23]. But its content is clarified by the time and place, in the given circumstances, and not in general and for all at once. This makes it clear not only the presence of many traditions, but also their importance for the historical and spiritual life of peoples. The life of the spirit appears in different forms, needs different symbols, and is regulated by norms that differ from each other ^[20]. But on top of diversity, in a different dimension from it, there is a unity that simply exists, regardless of whether it is discovered by man or not. The movement of consciousness and will towards the eternal good through the knowledge of what is truly valuable is the return of a person to himself, to his real self. And this is the return of society to its authenticity when such a movement acquires the character of a social phenomenon. And since this process is a process taking place now, in the present, and at the same time withdrawing from the temporal dimension, it does not require us to appeal to "one of" cultural traditions or even to all at once, it requires us to discover the eternal meaning in those actions that we perform in given historical circumstances, in proportion the collective response that we give to the historical challenge, with something that is not in itself in history, although it determines its course in incomprehensible ways.

The sacred eternal is reflected in traditions, but in different ways. And therefore, such a return to the traditional will be correctly understood as a return to the experience of the eternal, and not the experience of reproducing the past. This is how traditional values are understood, that is, as values whose source is not in any particular historical cultural tradition, but in eternity itself, there are spiritual and moral values that connect the past and the future, and do not tear apart the historical canvas.

The understanding of Christian values as eternal values was characteristic of representatives of Russian religious philosophical thought, such as V.S. Solovyov, E.N. Trubetskoy, N.A. Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov, P.A. Florensky, S.L. Frank, I.A. Ilyin ^[3], who sought to creatively comprehend the Christian tradition and, having revealed the eternal content in it, bring it into new meanings and offer an original reading of a number of ethical, epistemological and political-social issues. The words of P.A. Florensky are indicative in this regard. "And from the depths of the soul," writes the Russian philosopher, "there rises an unbearable need to lean on the "Pillar and Affirmation of Truth.".. – not one of the truths, not a particular and fragmenting human truth, tumbling and fluttering like dust driven by the wind on the mountains, but the Truth of everything - integral and eternal, the Truth of the one and Divine, bright, most luminous Truth, that "Truth", which, according to the ancient poet, is "the sun to the world"" ^[22]. That Truth, which, according to the words of the Savior, is the Way and the Life in which the Good and the means of obtaining it are revealed.

The idea we have outlined also fits in with the idea of an Eternal Tradition, the consistent supporters of which were Rene Guenon, Ananda Kumara Swami and Matjioi ^[13]. An eternal Tradition is not a tradition that can be understood as a cultural heritage passed down from generation to generation, it does not exist in time. She's from another world. But in this material, tangible world, it manifests itself, moreover, it is the source of the great religions and cultures of the world, but not the source that would have been in ancient times, somewhere and sometime, but the source that constantly pours out through those who are attached to It, are involved in Eternity, here And now. This is wonderful explains T. B. Lyubimova:

"With the word "origins", a modern person will most likely remember about antiquity, about history, "where this or that tradition came from." However, we are talking about an initial Tradition, not in the sense of its origin in time. According to the doctrine that we are considering, this is an eternal Tradition, it does not originate in time and in a certain place, but outside these conditions of existence, in the unconditional" ^{[13, p.82]}.

However, modern man, who does not understand the depth and significance of the traditional as "eternal", confuses everything, and even trying to figure it out, put everything in its place, but relying in this endeavor only on formal logic and research methods of positive science, he still misses.

"The deplorable mixing with various external forms of culture, rituals, habitual elements of lifestyle, thinking, expression of feelings with a genuine intellectual and metaphysical tradition, which does not depend on the circumstances of place and time, is characteristic of modern man. This is typical not only of the ordinary way of thinking, but researchers also often mix the two planes, sometimes reaching the point of absurdity, calling the most unstable and ephemeral things like fashion. Nevertheless, the Tradition is somehow present in the symbols, always remaining timeless, supported by people who are considered initiates. We can only imagine the teachings of these thinkers in the aspect indicated in the title. Matjioi, R. Guenon, A. Kumaraswamy believe that the East has managed to preserve the principles of Tradition to a much greater extent than the West. There are fundamental differences between the ways of Eastern and Western thinking, therefore, the explanation schemes and research methods (comparative, historical) familiar to Western Orientalists lead to false interpretations of traditional doctrines and symbols" ^{[13, pp.87-88]}.

Therefore, the attitude towards positive science among the supporters of Philosophia Perennis, which is identified with the Eternal Tradition in its intellectual dimension, is very critical. Rene Guenon, emphasizing the superficiality of scientists' knowledge, writes the following on this topic: "This (Eternal Knowledge – I.U.) remains completely incomprehensible by modern scientists, who willingly boast that with the help of their profane concept of science they have made science independent of metaphysics, as well as from theology, while in fact they have only deprived science of any real value in terms of knowledge. At the same time, if there is an awareness of the need to reconnect science with the field of metaphysical principles, it goes without saying that there is no reason to stop there, and it is very natural that there will be a return to the traditional concept according to which some private science, whatever it may be, is of less importance in itself than the possibility of using it as an "auxiliary tool" for the transition to higher-order knowledge" ^[4]. The Eternal Tradition asserts eternal (metaphysical) truth, eternal (universal) good and eternal (non-local) values.

In this sense, traditional and eternal values are one and the same thing. But the term "traditional", as indicating belonging to an Eternal Tradition, for most of us who have been educated in the canon of Western rationality, is unlikely to be recognized in this sense without special explanations. Given the need to use the most transparent terms in official state documents, it seems more appropriate, if, of course, we share such a metaphysical perspective on common values, the use of the term "eternal". Moreover, the concept of Eternal Tradition, as a translation of the corresponding term by Rene Guenon from the French language, is also inconvenient because, like any complex translated term, it must go a long way before it becomes (or as a result of this path it will not become) organic for the Russian language. Organicity and tradition are also related things. Everything is resilient, durable, and has the quality of organicity. And, by the way, the word "tradition" is Latin in origin, and "eternity" is native Russian, Slavonic. Eternal values are an organic, natural phrase for our language, and language, in the very logic of its formation, has its own truth.

Value-based policy and development paradigm

If a person responsibly asks about the meaning and value of his life, this very question turns him to existential meanings, destroying the causal chain of existence and exposing the depth of being, which cannot be reduced to one obvious visible reason ^[1]. What is true of an individual will be true of society. Eternal values are those values, adherence to which leads society out of the vicious circle of historical fate. Historical fate is the inevitability of the tragic nature of the historical process, the paradigm of which is set either by uncritically borrowing models of life from one's own historical past, or by designing artificial models of development based on the alien experience of other civilizations. The eternal is timeless. For the eternal one, the question is not how to preserve the traditional, and not how to accelerate modernization, but how to bring into line the given in the mundane experience of existence with the experience of the supramundane reality, or, in other words, the created (co-created) and uncreated (uncreated).

Historical development in the presence of such value orientations does not occur through the denial of the past, not in the hope of realizing another utopia, referring to a beautiful but impossible future, but also not through conservation, "freezing" of the traditional, no matter how significant it may be. Such development presupposes the transformation of reality in the light of a higher image, which opens to the human eye in the experience of communion with eternal existence. The very act of such communion is a spiritual act in the sense that it implies a way out of one's own limitations as a person confined within a series of temporary events. This is his difficulty, and this is his strength.

A value-oriented policy, understood in this sense, is a policy aimed at protecting the spiritual (eternal)the nature of man, which, however, is revealed only through the efforts of man himself, and is not the result of the actions of political mechanisms and institutions. A sober perception of the political sphere, taken in its relation to other spheres of human activity, can protect against hobbies with utopian projects and hopes for building a "paradise on earth" by political means. The social ideal is necessary, but not as a direct guide to action to implement a perfect society right here and now, no matter what, but as a reminder of the highest meaning and absolute content of history, at a particular moment of which only a partial approximation to this ideal is possible, that is, the embodiment of relative truth, improvement as a dynamic process, and not perfection as a complete given. In this regard, it would be appropriate to recall the reflections of P.I. Novgorodtsev, who conducted a fundamental study on the topic of the social ideal.

"While recognizing the necessity of the concept of the absolute ideal as the initial and guiding principle of social philosophy, we must at the same time recognize that it is erroneous and false to think of this ideal as entirely feasible in the conditions of ordinary reality. It is necessary to have such an ideal in front of you in order to contemplate the progress of social forms in the light of it, in order to have a criterion for distinguishing eternal shrines from temporary idols and idols, in order to know the direction in which to go. It is necessary to have confidence that this ideal is not an abstract norm presented to the human mind, but a living force possessing a higher reality, that human affairs can commune with this higher truth and be imbued with it. But we must remember that the complete realization of the absolute ideal in the world of human relations is a way out of ordinary conditions, is a miracle of universal transformation and, as such, lies beyond human power and beyond philosophical foresight. As a miracle and mystery, it cannot form the subject of social philosophy: it is available only to the believing consciousness" ^{[15, pp.59-60]}.

Understanding the limitations of political means as such, we must also recognize that without the state as one of the central institutions of society, the protection of a person as an individual with an ideal perspective for his development is impossible. Environmental, military, economic, geopolitical, humanitarian, and information threats that a person faces in the modern world inevitably arise before him, and it is not possible to cope with them independently, outside of organized interaction with other people. The State, as an institution that organizes interaction and a space for people to live together, must be responsible for countering the threats that society and man face. But what should be the strategy of this counteraction?

The value-oriented approach implies that we mean the guidelines for the spiritual improvement of man, in the language of Christian philosophy, the realization of God-human perfection, which is inherent in each of us as a primordial image. Its direct implementation is a personal responsibility of a person, while the responsibility of the state is to create conditions (socio-economic, political-legal, military-geopolitical, information-cultural) in which this realization becomes achievable without a person leaving this society, in which law and law, social stratification and economic relations do not they will come into antagonism with the aspirations of the human spirit.

Value-oriented development will not be effective if we assume that it is feasible only in one of the spheres of human activity. A person as a whole person only remains whole when the values by which he is guided permeate his entire life. Of course, eternal values, as belonging to the sphere of the ideal, are not fully feasible, completely, in an imperfect reality, but by setting an ideal perspective, they justify the improvement of man and the world for himself. And so a person, overcoming his own limitations, rises above himself in the past through becoming different. According to P.S. Gurevich, "being out of place and time, a person makes it possible to experience himself and at the same time experience his immensity and timelessness as standing outside himself. He is placed within his boundary and therefore crosses it, because like every living thing, he does not keep within his boundaries. A person is arranged in such a way that he always strives to become different, not what he is at the moment" ^{[7, p. 143]}.

Just like human development, the development of society, if viewed through the prism of a single sphere, will look torn, one-sided. A value-oriented policy cannot be effective in isolation from value-oriented business and value-oriented education and science. The restructuring of all spheres of society's life in a new way is a long and difficult process. However, before raising the question of a new paradigm for the development of society, it is necessary to understand the nature of that civilizational turn, the commission of which, with the necessity caused by the military confrontation between Russia and the West, arose as a historical challenge to Russian society.

Cultural and historical types, according to N.Y. Danilevsky, the pioneer of the civilizational approach in science, naturally tend to expand ^{[9, pp. 356-357]}. This creates a situation of confrontation, intense struggle for space. Cultural and civilizational clashes and confrontations do not always turn into a "hot phase", into military clashes. As well as not all military clashes are of a cultural and civilizational nature. But some collisions become fateful. In an interesting perspective, this thesis is illustrated by the following thought of N.Y. Danilevsky: "If storms and thunderstorms are necessary in the physical order of nature, then direct clashes of peoples are no less necessary, which tear their destinies out of the sphere of close, narrowly rational views of political personalities (who, of necessity, judge the needs of the historical movement from the point of view of the interests of the moment, with a very incomplete understanding of its essence) and are transferred to the direct leadership of the world-ruling historical craft" ^{[9, p. 352]}.

The peculiarity of the process through which Russia is currently going through is that ITS is not only a struggle against the Kiev regimes, which have corrected all possible legal and moral norms, and not only a confrontation with the elites of Western countries, which support this regime with all available means (so as not to endanger their own security) but also a popular awakening from the illusions of "Westernism" ^[11], a painful way out of the historical trap into which Russia drove itself when it decided to become part of Europe, an "advanced civilization". Russia can exist, remaining itself, only if it finds support in itself, in its culture, in its statehood, in its economy, in its people. It has not been included before, and will not be able to enter the area of another civilization now ^[21], since it itself is, in Danilevsky's terminology, a separate cultural and historical type.

Ukraine was also once part of the common Russian civilizational space, but it has always had a duality, an "interstay". And therefore, Russia's fascination with the West has had a particularly acute effect on Ukraine. In the context of civilizational theory, the tragedy of Ukraine is also the tragedy of Russia, a consequence of the cultural split that went not only through the territory, but also through the souls of people. And now it has come (or is it just coming?) the realization that the values of the post-liberal West are unacceptable to us. But turning away from him, what course do we choose?

Are we going back to traditional Russia? But then which one: tsarist, imperial, Soviet? Or are we returning from the distortion of meanings and devaluation of spiritual values generated by the complex process of modernization to the eternal eternal truth and eternal eternal values, based on which we are going to build our world (our civilization)? In our opinion, it is precisely this formulation of the question, which does not deny the importance of other cultures (including European), but deepens the content of the native, and in this metaphysical depth allows us to find space for metacultural synthesis, will allow us to develop the right development strategy in an era of global change. Fortunately, it seems that such a vision does not contradict Presidential Decree No. 809 in any way, but only adds meaningful clarity to the concept of traditional spiritual and moral values.

^[1] On the basis of this practical and philosophical principle, Viktor Frankl developed a special method of psychological counseling, called "Logotherapy" ^[25]. In Russia, developing the ideas of V. Fraknl, Oleg Gadetsky created his own direction in psychology, which was called "Value-oriented psychology" ^[2]. Both schools have shown their high efficiency.