Sociocultural identity: judgments, definitions and modern problems

Aref'ev Mikhail Anatol'evich Doctor of Philosophy Professor, Philosophy and Social Humanities Sciences Department, Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education "St. Petersburg State Agrarian University" 196601, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Peterburgskoe highway, 2 ant-daga@mail.ru Zykin Alexey PhD in Philology Associate Professor, Head of the Foreign Languages Department, The State Institute of Economics, Finance, Law, and Technology 196601, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Pushkin, ul. srednaya 6/1-28, ul. Srednaya 6/1-28 zykinalex@mail.ru Other publications by this author     Vinogradova Svetlana Ayupovna Doctor of Philology Professor, Foreign Languages Department, Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education "Murmansk Arctic State University" 183038, Russia, Murmansk, Kapitan Egorov str., 15. svetvin@mail.ru

Fedorov Maksim Vasil'evich PhD in Law Associate Professor, Theory of State and Law Department, Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education "St. Petersburg State Agrarian University" 196601, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Peterburgskoe highway, 2 fedorov@spbgau.ru

The general philosophical categories "identity" and "difference" have entered the context of ontological knowledge since the epoch of ancient philosophy. At the same time, starting from Aristotle, there is a tradition of giving "identity" a more fundamental meaning than "difference". Identity or identification has entered into the content side of the definition of the concept of "identity". The Belarusian philosopher V.L. Abushenko writes: "There are three disciplinary different and autonomous, although correlated with each other, understandings of identity: 1) in logic (non-classical); 2) in philosophy (primarily non–classical and mainly post-classical); 3) in socio-humanitarian (sociology, anthropology, psychology) knowledge ... since the late 1960s - one of the central concepts of most culture-oriented discourses. Since the 1980s, there has been a clear trend towards the universalization of the concept of "identity"" ^{[1, p. 400]}.

An example of the definition of identity from the point of view of formal logic can be the classical dictionary of logic by N.I. Kondakov, one of the most authoritative publications of the Soviet era. Kondakov writes: "Identity (Latin idem – the same) – identity, equivalence, sameness, similarity of objects, phenomena or concepts" ^{[2, p. 165]}. The concept of identity includes the identity and equivalence of phenomena or concepts, their exact correspondence to each other on the basis of certain signs and characteristics.

In the ontological knowledge of identity, the emphasis is placed on the fact that identity describes, narrates and prescribes reality, its development in space and time. The Swiss philosopher of culture Carl Gustav Jung reflected in his analytical psychology on identity as a person's self in a philosophical and anthropological sense, that is, the unity of personality as a whole, as a representation of the summativity of personality. For him, the self is the essence of the integration of the Self and the personally unconscious. The self in relation to the Ego, according to Jung, is the ultimate goal of personal improvement or individuation. She is the archetype that makes up the center of the summative personality of conscious and unconscious psychic being. The St. Petersburg philosopher A.S. Kazennov writes today about the human self as the relationship between intelligence and being. Comprehending the problem of the place and role of the Hegelian dialectical method as a method of the highest order in the system of scientific methods of cognition, he emphasizes that "the emergence of the teachings of the method in the XVII century (p. Descartes, F. Bacon, B. Spinoza, E. Weigel – inserted by us, author) does not mean that earlier methods of thinking did not exist. They existed, but were not consciously formulated. Moreover, the ancient method – metaphysical – was developed by this time much better and in more detail in the writings of Aristotle and his followers. The new method was at first rather a set of categories and rules. But a new direction appeared in these rules – in them the intellect paid attention to itself, the human self took care of itself, took care of restoring order in itself" ^{[3, p. 9]}.

Socio-cultural identity, which focuses on the essence of the social subject from the individual to the nation, acts as "a stable socio-psychological state of the subject (individual, ethnic group, community, nationality, nation, etc.), expressing the subject's attitude to himself, others, the environment, manifested in behavior, way of thinking, dominant values, methods of communication (conscious and unconscious) with their own kind. In the course of the formation of ethno-cultural, socio-cultural identity, the formation of ideas about oneself as related to a certain type of culture, national mentality occurs… This process reflects the ability of a social subject to establish and realize its own specifics" ^{[4, p. 86]}. In other words, the focus is on the cultural and ethnic components of the social subject.

In 2010, on the basis of the A.I. Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University, an international conference "Cultural identification of youth in the context of globalization" was held ^[5], where such problems as the analysis of modern socio-cultural processes in the context of globalization, the comprehension of modern humanitarian practices in the context of cultural identification of youth, the study of the history of socio-cultural identity in the scientific literature were considered. However, the question of the modern Russian socio-cultural identity, which develops in the conditions of radical social and cultural transformations in Russian society, remained outside the field of research interest of the conference participants. This problem becomes the goal of analysis in the context of this work.

A special research vector, both in the history of formation and in the life of modern Russia, is the identity of the Russian society. Now the most complex socio-cultural processes are taking place in our country, there is a radical transformation of the traditional values that have developed for centuries. Everywhere there is a decrease in the level of spiritual culture of the population of the country and, most sadly, the younger generations of Russian youth. There is no common understanding in society which model of socio-cultural development to choose. At the same time, today, already in the XXI century, Russia has a unique historical chance to abandon the former "patrimonial" model of the state that existed for centuries, in which the rulers own the country, and not just rule it. In the literature, this has been called "estate-service civilization" ^[6]. The modernization of the country requires significant measures in domestic and foreign policy, economy, social life in general, and most importantly in the formation and strengthening of Russian (Russian) identity and self-awareness. The XXI century for Russia is a period and an opportunity for the formation of a new self–consciousness and "the formation of a new identity" ^{[7, pp. 432-465]}.

Self–awareness and identity have one important property - constructability. Depending on which constructors are used to build and form identity, and how they will be used – political, social, administrative, cultural, etc. – this will be the result – the mass consciousness of a prosperous society and state with a stable future or the departure of Russian civilization from the historical arena. For a clear understanding of what and how to build, it is necessary to understand these concepts, to present their structure, features, connections.

Self–awareness is a person's assessment of his moral appearance and interests, ideals and motives of behavior, a holistic assessment of himself as a feeling and thinking being, as a doer. It is important to note that self-consciousness is peculiar not only to the individual as a social subject, but also to society, class, and social group when they rise to understanding and awareness of national interests and ideals, identification of themselves and the national idea. In self-consciousness, a person distinguishes himself from the surrounding world, determines his place in the cycle of natural and social events. Self-consciousness is formed at a certain stage of a person's development as a personality under the influence of a lifestyle that requires him to self-control his own actions and actions, taking full responsibility for them ^[8]. In theoretical and cognitive processes, the self-consciousness of the human personality is closely connected with self-knowledge ^[9].

In the context of globalization, the category of "identity" is the most important element of socio-cultural processes. The formation of identity in a socio-cultural environment occurs in conjunction with self-awareness, self-determination, self-actualization, personalization, etc. ^{[10, pp. 212-217]}. The identity itself accumulates a multitude of functions and is the subject of confrontation around political, economic, legal and other issues ^{[11, p. 20]}. Psychology issues prevail in this series, since it is Z. Freud in 1914 introduced the term "identification" into scientific use ^{[10, p. 212]}, and another prominent psychologist (Eric Erickson) in the 1950s popularized the use of the category "identity", as a result of which it became widespread in the works of researchers of other sciences [11. p. 20].

The study of identity, attempts to understand the essence of a person through it and present him as a constantly doubting, but an integral element of community, of course, began much earlier than the twentieth century. Thus, Plato, in his dialogue "Sipposion" on behalf of Socrates, says in the following way: "... they say about any living being that it lives and remains itself – a person, for example, from infancy to old age is considered the same person – it is never the same, even though it is listed as the same, but it is always renewed, certainly losing something, whether it is hair, flesh, bones, blood, or in general everything bodily, and not only bodily, but also what belongs to the soul: no one's habits and disposition, opinions, or desires remain unchanged, there are no joys, no sorrows, no fears, something always appears, and something is lost" ^[12]. Today, these thoughts have received an empirical continuation, a person as an integral element of society forms his identity not only by the way of acquiring some useful skills and qualities, but also by the way of losing or discarding social rudiments, which are views, habits, connections. An example of this is the active development of the information society, in which representatives of the younger generation do not see the need for live communication, increasingly locking themselves in and participating in virtual communication. In addition, young people often do not feel an identity with the historical merits and exploits of their ancestors. In this connection, the relationship and mutual understanding between generations is lost.

Sociocultural identity can say a lot about a person, but it cannot be argued that each representative of a particular community will have a pronounced tendency to realize social, cultural, national or any other form (type) of identity in which he was formed. Naturally, it is necessary to take into account the stages of formation of the subject based on gender, age, socio-economic and political-legal situation. Each generation strives to isolate itself, denoting the acquired experience, emphasizing its distinctive sides in the field of moral and political and legal.

The above thesis is gaining more and more popularity among modern scientists. Thus, Francis Fukuyama in one of his works emphasizes that identity is formed from the differences between the true inner self and the outer world of social rules and norms: "Throughout the history of mankind, individuals have come into conflict with their societies. But only now there is an opinion that the true inner self has a natural, natural value, and the external society systematically makes mistakes and unfairly evaluates it. It is necessary to change not the inner self, subordinating it to the rules of society, but society itself" ^{[11, p. 22]}.

Society itself is dynamic, it is not alien to changes under the influence of both internal and external factors. One of them is law. In our opinion, the statement of I.L. Chestnov is true that: "Law is a phenomenon of culture, its aspect, side" ^{[13, p. 15]}. It follows that the essence of law must be investigated in a socio-cultural context, and the starting point of the study can be the level of development of society in a certain period of time and the level of political and legal culture of the individual as a person.

In many ways, the identity of the Russian Federation today is expressed in relation to the rest of the states, and first of all to the so-called "collective West". As a result, in its organizational and managerial activities, the Russian state is based not only on socio-cultural identity, but also on state identity, national identity, political identity, social identity, legal identity. At the same time, legal identity acts as a socio-cultural phenomenon, a significant role in its formation is assigned to culture, which takes as a basis a generally recognized system of value and regulatory legal regulations ^{[14, p. 83]}. The legitimization of a wide range of new social relations, as well as the provision of existing and emerging legitimate interests creates prerequisites for the formation (modification, addition, termination) of legal identity.

It should be noted that legal science, in the process of studying the general laws of the emergence, development and functioning of the state, law and state-legal phenomena, regularly addresses the following categories: legal status, legal consciousness, legal culture, legal identity.

I.L. Chestnov emphasizes that the acquisition of legal status by a person turns the latter into a subject, identifies him with society as a whole or a certain reference group (ethnos, subculture, social class). Consequently, a legal entity with a legal status is subject to the influence of society throughout the entire period of stay in this status. "Therefore, the subject of law is constructed both by those who form legal statuses and by people who are forced to "play" according to the rules of these statuses" ^{[13, p. 18]}.

I.L. Chestnov, within the framework of the anthropological and cultural approach, points to the need to study law through the consideration of legal identity as the content of legal culture ^{[13, p. 16]}. This will make it possible to concretize the dogma of law, which requires a systemic nature due to the constant variability of the law itself, and its reproduction is conditioned by the context of the culture of specific individuals.

It follows that it is important to take into account the social role of legal culture in the process of legal identification of the subject. We consider it necessary to agree that: "... legal culture is always oriented by the state and society towards the formation and development of legal and political consciousness of people, their value-normative complex and thereby their behavior and activities in the legal sphere" ^{[15, p. 56]}.

Legal culture is an integral part of the general culture of mankind. The development of legal culture is not a one-time process that requires a large amount of human resources. The formation of a legal culture, like any other culture, goes through continuity and the assimilation of novelty. As a result, a cultural layer is created in which a person finds his place identifying himself with the norms of culture. This indicates the primacy of legal culture before legal identity. Law and identity in their general understanding were formed in parallel. Gradually, law naturally took a dominant position, identity, without losing its own meaning, merged into law, which today allows us to talk about identifying us as subjects of law with a certain set of rights and obligations. By establishing internal rules, the society thus formed its identity. Initially, the law exerted a more active influence on identity. Then many relationships arose based on the identity of a particular legal order. There are many supporters of the position that the regulatory framework of the Russian Federation today identifies our state as striving for strict regulation. This is a long-accepted practice in many states, it cannot be said that it has an absolutely negative character. To date, many institutions are indeed regulated. But the state systematically declares that one of the main tasks of regulation is the development of private initiative in the field of economy, culture, provision of services, etc. This is reflected in the legislation ^[16].

Today, legal identity, being an element of socio-cultural identity, has a significant impact on it. By defining their values, the subject forms their own identity. A person's need for socialization identifies him as an explicit subject. A person's desire for his own socio-cultural identity is most noticeable in other spheres of society's culture. Identity is a dynamic concept that is in constant formation at all stages of a person's life path.

It, identity (identity, coincidence), as we note, acts as a desire to acquire identity with the surrounding world, which is achieved in substituted forms (linguistic, ethnic, religious and other communities) through integration into the cultural and symbolic space of local formations. The analysis of the phenomenon of identity and the diversity of its meanings from the standpoint of the philosophy of culture and fundamental culturology allows us to conclude that identity is a kind of measure of being and a form of expression of material, mental-psychic and symbolic objects. This is a measure of certainty and a form of predication of the structural-process quantitative-qualitative and spatial-temporal certainty and identity of a thing (material, ideal, material-ideal) and the relations of things. Identity acts as a way of focusing and orienting a person's consciousness, his intentions, it serves as a navigator of consciousness ^{[17, pp. 152-153]}.

Traditionally, psychophysiological identity, personal identity and moral and social identity are distinguished in the structure of identity ^{[18, p. 328]}. For our research, it is the socio-cultural identity that is of particular importance, which, in turn, has the following constituents: gender, ethnicity, culture, forming gender, ethnic, cultural identities, respectively. Each determines certain qualities of the individual, the peculiarities of the behavior of the individual and society as a whole. Having a certain arsenal of techniques and methods of formation, influence and change of identity, you can easily manage and manipulate society. Identity in this vein is a chronotope in the broadest sense. The chronotope in the natural-being understanding is characterized by a regular "connection of space-time coordinates" ^{[19, p. 347]}, and for socio-humanitarian knowledge it is more appropriate to say that this is "an essential relationship of time and spatial relations" ^{[20, p. 234-407]}.

Cultural identity defines norms of behavior, a system of relationships – culture as a set of material, spiritual and artistic values, as well as cultural self-awareness, which allows ethnic groups (peoples) to avoid imitation (unification), to form and define their own characteristics. We emphasize that in the history of Russian philosophy, the emphasis on identifying the priority of Russian spiritual values, which constitute a feature of the Russian mentality, was characteristic of the theory of the early Slavophiles of the XIX century (conciliarity as intra-church unity, commitment to the communal spirit and practice of mutual support, etc.) ^{[21, pp. 37-39]}. And the criticism of the Western cultural model of "Eurocentrism" with its idea of unification became the merit of the late Slavophiles. The great Russian sociologist and philosopher of culture Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky wrote in this regard: "the universal not only does not exist in reality (highlighted by us), but also wanting to be it means wanting to be content with a common place, colorlessness, lack of originality… Another thing is the universal, which must be distinguished from the universal; it ... consists only of the totality of all the people, existing in all places and times" ^{[22, p. 103]}.

The key factors influencing and forming an ethnos and a nation, that is, according to Danilevsky, the components of the "all-human" are: the conditions of the natural environment, the type of economic activity, the genetic fund, the type of social structure, material, spiritual and artistic values. Ethnic and cultural identities are realized and realized in the process of interpersonal and intergroup interaction (communication), in which the leading instrument (means) is language. Within the framework of the philosophy of culture, linguoculturology today occupies one of the leading places, and its origins lie in the system of philosophy of language of the great German thinker V. von Humboldt. According to Humboldt, language acts as the basis of the "spirit of the people", that is, its mentality, spiritual culture as a whole. Language, Humboldt wrote, "is the 'national spirit', it is the 'very being of the people' and the reality of culture, because only through language can a person know culture. ... "The spiritual originality and structure of the language of the people penetrates so deeply into each other that, as long as one exists, the other can be deduced from it. Mental activity and language contribute to the creation of only such forms that can satisfy both of them" ^{[23; 24, p. 360]}.

Language, therefore, is of key importance for the construction of identity (we use this term because, as mentioned above, we tend to a constructivist approach rather than an essentialist one in understanding identity), the opposite is also true. The connection between language and ethnic, religious, racial, gender and other identity is obvious. In the case when a certain group, which does not have a separate language, recognizes itself as an ethnic entity, both a social and cultural problem arises. In this community, the processes of differentiation from the language of another state, people are initiated, as it was, for example, in Norway, when the Danish language began to be perceived as a "Danish caftan on the body of a Norwegian peasant." With a common genetic connection between the Norwegian and Danish languages, it was necessary to clearly and clearly replace the Danish language with Norwegian, despite the fact that at that time it was Danish that functioned in society as the language of literature, religion and communication of the urban population. It was in Danish that Henrik Ibsen and other literary figures wrote. Norwegian was rather the language of rural settlements, the language of the village and functioned in the form of local dialects. But the changes were necessary for the self-identification of the Norwegian nation. This was the beginning of those processes in Norwegian society that have not ended to this day. On the one hand – the emergence of bokm?l, a book language based on Danish, but in which multiple reforms were carried out to bring it closer to Norwegian dialects, on the other – the emergence of Nynorsk, a new Norwegian language, an artificial product of Ivar Osun, created by a talented philologist based on Westland dialects. The result is two standards, two equal state languages. The main thing is that they are both Norwegian and contributed to the formation of the Norwegian national identity.

Another well–known example is the awareness of their separate ethnic identity in the republics of the former Yugoslavia. The construction of a separate ethnoidentity led not only to the division of the Serbo-Croatian language into Serbian and Croatian, but also to the emergence of a separate Bosnian (Bosnian) language, which is an ethnolect of Serbian, and even the Montenegrin language (although the literary standard of the latter is not established). Sometimes the influence of ethnic identification leads linguistically to the desire to include elements in the native language that do not genetically belong to it: borrowings from the languages of neighboring peoples, which are considered preferable for various reasons. As the latter, you can specify the Ukrainian language (mov), where borrowings from Hungarian and Polish are significant. We also point out that in recent decades borrowings from European languages in Ukraine have increased significantly ^[25].

It should be noted that not only the influence of ethnic self-identification on the development of language is possible, but also vice versa, language has its effect on the identity of an ethnic group. Let's take for example the situation with the Hebrew language of the Jews. In this case, it is not so much about ethnic identity as about religious identity. Jewish identity could be built in Yiddish, in the Ashkenazi language, or in Ladino. However, the situation was different and there was a restoration of a language that had not been used for twenty–four centuries - Hebrew, the liturgical language of the Jews. This difficult task was solved precisely for historical and cultural reasons, and Hebrew has become the spoken language of modern Israel. This is a unique situation in culture, because there is no other natural language that has been restored from a dead language to a full-fledged living language used by millions of native speakers. The religious factor of the constitution of Jewish identity has become the main focus, and the language of ancient worship has become the national and modern spoken language of the population of Israel.

An example of a similar kind can also be the linguistic situation in India and Pakistan, where after gaining national independence, the genetically common languages Hindi and Urdu were significantly divided, since, being related Indo-Aryan languages, they serve the Hindu population of India and the Muslim population of Pakistan. In the Urdu language in Pakistan of Indo-Aryan origin, a large number of units from the Arabic and Persian languages can be found. The religious self-identification of the people as a carrier of Islamic culture served as an impetus for the development of borrowing processes from the languages of another subgroup of Indo-European and even from an absolutely unrelated language of the Semitic-Hamitic group of Afrasian languages.

Realizing the importance of the linguistic side of identity construction, it should be noted that in the conditions of historical and cultural processes of modern Russia, the identifying function of language is of serious importance. "Language can inspire native speakers with a sense of patriotism similar to the national patriotic feeling associated with the idea of a nation. Language, being an inviolable entity opposed to other languages, occupies a high position on the scale of values, a position that needs to be "defended" ^{[26, pp. 57-58]}. The formation of modern Russian socio-cultural identity takes place in a multinational, multicultural and multi-confessional country. The knowledge of the Russian language in these conditions, regardless of place of residence, ethnic origin, religious affiliation, is a constructive, constitutive and integrating factor of identification of both the individual and society.

The task of the study of socio-cultural identity is to search, analyze and systematize examples of conscious external interference in linguistic structures as culture-forming and in their substructures for the management of self-consciousness as an individual and society as a whole, as well as their influence on the processes of formation and formation of identity. For this purpose, modern information and humanitarian technologies have been formed. However, it should be noted that at present, humanitarian technologies have become the dominant technologies designed to influence human consciousness based on specially organized knowledge and symbolic information. It is with their help that it is possible to seize consciousness, subdue it, and, consequently, influence self-consciousness, which gives ample opportunities to control not only human behavior and actions, but also society as a whole. the problem of controlling the consciousness of society and the ways of modern manipulation of it has become one of the most important in the social philosophy of the late XX – early XXI centuries ^{[27; 28]}.

It is also important to note that in the XXI century, with the development of science and the formation of a post-industrial (information) society, a new (special) the type of such technologies is convergent. He combined the full power of engineering, technical, biological, information, cognitive and humanitarian technologies – NBICS (nano-, bio-, information, cognitive and socio-humanitarian technologies). Convergent technology is entirely aimed at man, at the world of his spiritual values! With its help, it is possible to form the flesh, appearance, and spirit of a person who, according to the fair remark of Professor L.M. Mosolova, will differ from a person of the present time due to symbiosis with the IT environment and biotechnologies ^{[17, p. 7]}. This will naturally change not only society, but also cultural and cognitive spheres, science itself, scientific knowledge as such.

We point out as a conclusion that in the modern conditions of the development of the civilizational process and against the background of the growing importance of information and humanitarian technologies for the formation of self–awareness and socio-cultural identity, they are becoming the dominant measure of being - the basis of modern society. Socio-cultural identity by its nature covers the most important part of social existence, namely the spiritual-psychological, political-legal and moral atmosphere in society. In Russian society today, awareness of the importance of socio-cultural identity has become one of the ways to establish one's own civilizational specificity and originality, awareness of the self of the Russian person.