Intercultural communication in the space of social interaction

Ibragimova Aigul' Rinatovna ORCID: 0000-0001-7223-2239 Postgraduate student of the Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education "Russian State Social University" 129226, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Vil'gel'ma Pika, 4 str. 1 aygulrinatovna@mail.ru

Introduction

One of the global problems of modern civilization is the ongoing degradation of intercultural communications between different peoples, countries, and within individual societies and states. One of the main reasons for this process is the dominance of the "subject-object" approach to the social interactions of individuals, various communities, ethnic groups, etc., which, wherever possible, should be replaced by "subject-subject" interactions.

Otherwise, there will be an increasing threat of losing the possibility of achieving mutual agreement and mutual understanding between various actors on whom the solution of urgent problems of concern to all mankind depends: environmental security, prevention and peaceful resolution of military conflicts, extremism, terrorism, etc. The researchers note that in the modern social space, the autonomization and mutual alienation of individuals, peoples and countries has reached the level of acceptance as a universal social and cultural norm of the "war of all against all" with unpredictable consequences for each person.

If the processes of social actions, as well as the phenomenon of activity, have been thoroughly studied in methodology and science ^{[14, 19]}, then studies of the processes of social interaction as a condition for overcoming this trend are quite rare. If such studies are conducted, then most often the processes of communication and communication are given out for interaction. This research situation has a negative impact on the practice of intercultural communication. First of all, this is a widespread gap between "word and deed", communicative activity and social behavior demonstrated by various actors within countries, at the international level and within individual societies. In this case, at best, imitation of intercultural communications occurs in the absence of real social interaction, at worst, the use of intercultural communications as an information cover for one or another aggression in a real social space.

Research methodology

The basis of the research methodology was the identification of various levels of social interaction as conditions for intercultural communication: micro-level, meso-level, macro-level and mega-level ^[8].

The microlevel is a manifestation in the interaction of informal relationships, attachments, drives present in family, friendly, intimate-personal relationships, within religious and ethnic groups. A distinctive feature of social interactions at this level is the minimization of the social distance between the subjects of interaction, in which the main content is the manifestation of emotions, feelings, attachments, but not functional-role relationships. In the context of intercultural interactions, this means the interchange of emotional states and feelings, which can be culturally normalized mainly in artistic, aesthetic and religious reality ^{[3, 7]}. And it is this resource for the development and improvement of intercultural communications that needs to be studied first of all.

The meso-level of social interactions is present in production, educational collectives, public organizations and associations. At this level, as a rule, informal and formalized social interactions are combined, which quite often leads to conflict situations related to the fact that one or another non-role personal attitude of team members to official role interactions may not coincide with the latter in its content and psychological attitudes ^{[2, 15]}. At this level, it is necessary to consider the possibility of intercultural communication. Accordingly, cross-cultural communications of different social groups, ethnic groups, societies also potentially reproduce possible conflicts between interacting due to the discrepancies encountered between official, legal, role relationships and informal expectations in interpersonal interaction. For example, one of the sides of communication, for example, members of a particular community representing a certain country, ethnicity, social group, have their own individual ideas about cultural norms, their own cultural expectations in everyday communication, but interacting with representatives of other cultures, they encounter institutional (role) manifestations of other cultural norms and values, what can cause a conflict. Accordingly, the fixation of such discrepancies and inconsistencies opens up prospects for relevant studies of intercultural communications.

The conflictogenicity of the average (meso-level) interaction arises in this case from the very fact of the separation of interacting into "their" and "strangers". Overcoming or minimizing this separation is an important research and practical task. Recognition of "otherness" in a representative of another culture, community, etc., on the other hand, there is a certain guarantee that there is no threat of suppression or absorption by some interacting others. Accordingly, it is necessary to search for a reasonable balance of common and personal interests in intercultural communications, which is another promising direction of intercultural communications in the space of social interaction ^{[12, 13]}. This direction involves a careful study by each person interacting with the culture of their possible opponent and the search for a common cultural space to overcome emerging tensions and confrontations.

At the macro level, functional-role social interactions already prevail and tend to institutional and legal relationships. Here, the law itself (domestic or interstate) largely dictates the internal logic of such interaction, the main content of which is the search for common interests on the terms of mutual compromise. Intercultural communications carried out at the macro level, ultimately, are designed to contribute to ensuring vital interests and security in a variety of aspects (environmental, informational, physical, etc.) for interacting and the whole society ^{[1, 5]}.

In order for the process of interaction to develop in this direction, it becomes relevant for all participants in the interaction to follow the relationship between morality and law, because then it becomes possible to avoid "double" legal and moral standards and discrepancies in the understanding of justice, reasonableness, expediency of a compromise, etc. In the context of cross-cultural communications, it remains relevant to observe the "red lines" for those interacting, which do not allow to bring this or that damage to any of the parties (social, physical, cultural, moral, etc.).

The mega-level of social interaction presupposes the emergence of intercultural communications into a spiritual reality in which communicants experience a state of solidarity on a planetary scale, for example, at the World Youth Festival. This level of interaction has been specially studied by us as a necessity in overcoming global conflicts and solving pressing problems for all mankind. A distinctive feature of intercultural communication in this case is the association of communicants according to the most stable socio-anthropological (for example, youth age) and mental characteristics (for example, belonging to a single world religion).

Results

The study of the levels of social interaction presented above shows that the main problems in intercultural communications arise due to the mixing of these levels in the process of a particular communicative act. So, for example, if social interaction is carried out at the micro level, and one of the communicants tries to realize his social activity at the meso level, then there is a destructive mixing of business and informal relationships, destroying the very possibility of achieving positive results in the communication process.

 A more in-depth study of various levels of social interaction allowed us to give the appropriate cultural and anthropological characteristics of the intercultural communications accompanying these levels. So, it turned out that the microlevel is characterized by a weak expression of reflection on the communication process. To a large extent, the latter is carried out in the form of involuntary impulses and manifestations of not always conscious drives. Here there is not so much reflection as reflexivity ^{[4, 16]}.

At the meso level, we deal mainly with various combinations of reflection and reflexivity. In some cases, reflexivity prevails and then "business" relationships in communications prevail. In other cases, reflexivity may prevail and then informal interpersonal relationships prevail.

The macro-level assumes the reflexivity of intercultural communications as a mandatory requirement, which is characteristic of institutional and socially significant social interactions. At this level, as a rule, tasks that are significant for the whole society and implemented mainly in the legal field are solved.

The mega-level of social interaction is most often an exceptional event for most members of society, with the exception of the interaction with each other of spiritual ascetics and people distinguished by special holiness, who spend most of their lives at this level, communicating with the world of the transcendent and "universal" ^[18]. For other individuals, this level is represented by various joint spiritual psychopractics and international cultural events that play an important role in the reproduction of universal spiritual values and their development in real social reality.

These levels of social interaction were also studied from the standpoint of situational analysis, which made it possible to identify the following socially significant situations for the processes of intercultural communication ^{[9, 11]}.

The microlevel is characterized by the presence of a situation of agreement between communicants, because in the foreground here is the mutual desire of interacting to establish, preserve and develop relationships based on mutual sympathy, personal attachments, which are more significant than interest in real socially significant results of interaction. Paradoxically, for all the selflessness of such interactions, there is a situation of "collective selfishness" when in the name of preserving "good" relations, one can even sacrifice the interests of the cause. Nevertheless, such a situation is extremely important for preserving the culture of feelings and emotional development of all members of society as an alternative and compensation for the technocratization and rationality of human existence. 

At the meso-level, one way or another, a situation of confrontation arises, which may not necessarily be of a conflict nature. Since here we are dealing with communicants as members of collectives and organizations, there is an inevitability of separation in the process of interaction into "friends" and "strangers" both between "their" and "strangers" groups, and within certain groups, communities. In this case, the inevitable confrontation occurs due to the very fact of the "otherness" of others in relation to certain communicants, which creates certain tensions and "inconveniences" in achieving mutual understanding and productive interaction. This situation also has cultural and anthropological significance as a possibility of cultural self-identification of individuals and groups due to the fact that only by comparing oneself with "others" one can fully realize one's own self-identity ^[10].

 At the macro-level of social interactions, a partnership situation arises, which assumes that each of the communicants is looking for a "common cultural territory" for all communicants in order to achieve a common result that is meaningful for all interacting. In this case, the art of compromise and the ability of communicators to own the moral and legal norms of social interaction that suit everyone come to the fore. Accordingly, a certain level of legal culture of communicants and their moral self-awareness becomes relevant, manifested not only in the legal space, but also in the norms of etiquette, generally accepted patterns of civilized behavior.

At the mega-level, a situation of coexistence is realized, which assumes some distance in the field of physical interactions, which is necessary to achieve a more complete spiritual closeness of communicants who are aware of themselves as subjects of a particular virtual reality. At this level of social interaction, the largest number of options is observed in comparison with other levels, since they can be created by any communicant at his discretion, without any external restrictions, depending on the nature of immersion in the virtual reality being formed. The latter can be created both by the communicants themselves (for example, a joint prayer), and set by the corresponding "screenwriters" and "directors" (for example, in the Internet space).

Discussion

The study of intercultural communications in the space of social interaction may have prospects, provided that the fact is taken into account that the communicants themselves are a phenomenon of "homo sapiens" that distinguishes them from other biological individuals. At first glance, such a reminder looks superfluous if one does not take into account the widespread behaviorist approach in the study of social interaction and intercultural communications that has developed in science. Ultimately, this approach is based on the well-known "stimulus-response" scheme, which does not take into account all the diversity of the inner life (experiences, thoughts, emotions, etc.) of people in the process of interactions and communications.

Hence, the substitution of the research object "interaction" by the object "communication" and vice versa occurs to a large extent. The gap between "word" and "deed" as common in modern society was noted above. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that this gap is inevitable because the "word" as the main cultural unit of human communication by its nature reflects mainly the inner life of the individual (his consciousness, feelings) and it cannot be fully presented in the corresponding "deeds" and "deeds". If this were not the case, then we would not be dealing with people, but with "machines" that do not have their own individual internal programs and plans, or with animals that often have poorly realized instincts.

The research task is, on the one hand, to identify the phenomenological differences between social interactions and intercultural communications, on the other hand, to find the interrelationships between them and the possibilities of their harmonization (but not assimilation to each other). It is the absence of these interrelations and the necessary harmonization that generates the main problems in intercultural communication as such ^[17].

Here are some fairly illustrative examples of such problems. Public communications of political figures in which they proclaim their commitment to democracy and at the same time show authoritarianism in their real actions; demonstration of the leaders of some countries of their desire for peace in various debates and manifestation of militarism in international politics; declared fight against corruption of those who are corrupt themselves, etc.

In order to identify the possibilities of the necessary correspondence of real social interactions and intercultural communications, it is necessary to study the internal attitudes, motives, value orientations, etc. of interacting people. To do this, it is necessary to investigate the "external", manifested and "internal" plans of both communications and interactions.

It should also be borne in mind that in reality, social interaction may not be accompanied by intercultural communications, as the latter do not find embodiment in interaction. For example, conducting military operations without any attempts to establish cross-cultural communications with the enemy or empty promises to someone that are not backed up by their actual fulfillment. In each of these options  we are dealing with "extrahuman" interaction or communication. To prevent this from happening, it is necessary, as noted above, to try to identify external and internal plans of social interaction and intercultural communications. We refer to the internal plan as the "ideal" space of interactions and communications, which is the result of cognitive activity, faith, self-knowledge and aimed at developing by communicants and interacting their own ideal norms and patterns that they are guided by in society. In this case, the "physical" space is represented as one or another interactive and communicative activity observed from the outside ^[6].

The combination of ideal and physical space is present at one or another level of social interaction is different. At the micro level, the ideal reality has a significant instrumental significance, included in the process of transformation and improvement of intercultural communications in the system of social interactions. Example: works of art performed to establish greater psychological closeness of lovers representing different cultures, ethnicities, social groups, etc.

At the meso-level, "ideal" and "physical" reality can mutually negate each other and do not correspond to each other. An example is waging wars not just as an attempt to seize the enemy's natural resources, but as a clash of worldviews, values, ideas, where the conquerors demonstrate themselves as carriers of a more progressive ideology, culture, etc. in comparison with the conquered peoples. Moreover, the latter lose if their ideal resource (for example, the lack of ideology) turned out to be insufficient in a military confrontation.

At the macro level, the "physical" is subordinated to the "ideal" as a desire for the proper, which is present in cross-cultural communications and social interactions. Example: patriotism dictating the latter's own logic and corresponding real behavioral activity, as well as physical existence.

At the mega-level, the "ideal" acquires considerable autonomy, but if it is not implemented in various intercultural communications in the process of social interaction, then there is a real danger of degeneration of the content of many phenomena of ideal reality.  An example is a church service that is not accompanied by the necessary spiritual enlightenment (intercultural communication) and thereby makes the main cultural codes of the corresponding creed inaccessible to believers.

Conclusion

The conducted research of the problems of intercultural communications in the space of social interaction shows that it is the mixing and non-discrimination of the communicative and behavioral space that is the main cause of many modern social conflicts and confrontations. In the modern information society, virtual communications are increasingly dominating, creating an imitation of any social activity. To get away from this imitation, it is necessary to conduct a comprehensive mutual study of the cultures of communicants involved in intercultural communication, which includes not only the development of relevant "cultural texts", but also the study of the processes of real social interactions in their relationship (or in the absence of such) with the processes of communication.