SPOD, VUCA, BANI as civilizational characteristics of modernity

Aref'ev Mikhail Anatol'evich ORCID: 0000-0002-7397-7192 Doctor of Philosophy Head of the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences and Humanities; St. Petersburg State Agrarian University 196605, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Peterburgskoe shosse, 2 ant-daga@mail.ru Other publications by this author     Zykin Alexey Vladimirovich ORCID: 0000-0001-8312-4559 PhD in Philology Associate Professor; Department of Foreign Languages; State Institute of Economics; Finance; Law and Technology 196601, Russia, Pushkin, Srednyaya str., 6/1-28 zykinalex@mail.ru Other publications by this author     Karpichev Evgenii Vladimirovich PhD in Economics Vice-Rector for Educational Activities and Digital Transformation; Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Education of the Leningrad Region 'State Institute of Economics; Finance; Law and Technology' 5 Roshchinskaya str., Gatchina, Leningrad region, 188300, Russia karpichev2007@yandex.ru

Fominih Nataliya Yur'evna ORCID: 0000-0002-1534-7782 Doctor of Pedagogy Professor; Department of Foreign Languages No. 1; Plekhanov Russian University of Economics 36 Stremyanny Lane, Moscow, 115093, Russia shvidko72@rambler.ru

Russia is not just a country,

It's really a separate civilization.

Vladimir Putin ^[13]

The 21st century will be the century of humanitarian thought

or it won't be there at all

K. Levi-Strauss ^{[19; 20]}

– Do we live in an imaginary world?

– I'm afraid so.

T. Chernihiv ^[12]

The methodology of social philosophy as a logical continuation of the tradition of philosophy of history is based on the postulate of the need to study and establish the norms of social life in the specifics of social reality. Therefore, social philosophy as a branch of scientific knowledge primarily focuses on the problem of understanding the qualitative state of society, analyzing its essential characteristics and patterns. In studying the logic of the course of social processes, a formational approach to understanding the history of social existence is a priority for us, as well as a civilizational approach, where the main points are the cultural originality and spiritual components of the history of the human race, so thoroughly identified and studied by the outstanding Russian sociologist, social philosopher and culturologist N.Y. Danilevsky in the work "Russia and Europe" ^[7].

In this work, in the second half of the XIX century, he introduced the concept of "cultural and historical type" into scientific circulation as a definition of the civilizational state in its organic integrity and historical and cultural variability and continuity. A modern researcher of Danilevsky's work writes that the cultural and historical type correlates "with the Gumilev concept of a "superethnos" - an ethnic system consisting of several ethnic groups that arose simultaneously in one landscape region, manifested in history as a mosaic integrity" ^{[17, p. 59]}.

This integrity, according to Danilevsky, is based on the laws of the development of cultural and historical types, namely:

"Law 1. Any tribe or family of peoples characterized by a separate language or group of languages ... constitutes an original cultural and historical type, if it is capable of historical development at all…

Law 2. In order for a civilization peculiar to an original cultural and historical type to be born and develop, it is necessary that the peoples belonging to it enjoy political independence.

Law 3. The beginnings of a civilization of one cultural and historical type are not transmitted to peoples of another type…

Law 4. Civilization, peculiar to each cultural and historical type, only reaches completeness ... when the ethnographic elements that make up it are diverse…

Law 5. The course of development of cultural and historical types is most closely likened to those perennial unisexual plants, in which the growth period is indefinitely long, but the period of flowering and fruiting is relatively short and depletes their vitality once and for all" ^{[7, pp. 77-78]}. Danilevsky is a graduate of the famous Imperial Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, who trained state builders, but after lyceum studies he is a student of St. Petersburg University with a degree in biology – hence this combination of ethnocultural and political science terminology with natural science.

Civilizations, according to the teachings of Danilevsky of the XIX century, carry out several categories of cultural activities, namely, spiritual and religious activities, scientific and artistic and aesthetic activities, practical activities, including in the field of politics, and finally, socio-economic and moral and social activities, so mobile and changing at the present time. These are the main civilizational characteristics that, according to Danilevsky, are inherent in the socio-cultural existence of mankind. In this regard, it should be noted that in the 20th century, leading European civilizationist researchers (Spengler ^[41], Toynbee ^[35]), starting from Danilevsky's idea of cultural and historical types (for them these are "local civilizations"), however, never indicated the author's name in their writings -the primary source of the concept of local civilizations. This indicates the rejection of Russian philosophy and sociology, which is characteristic of the theoretical thought of the West. Danilevsky's civilizational theory, his socio-philosophical, historiosophical and cultural views are relevant today due to the need to form project-based "predictive" thinking among younger generations and, first of all, among student youth.

Project thinking is an important educational competence that is required to assess the risks and consequences of modern technological development of society, to adapt our students to living conditions in a digitally based society. And here the interdisciplinary approach to the study of modern civilization, which was brilliantly implemented by Danilevsky more than a century ago, becomes so important. At the same time, the methodological function of philosophical knowledge is actualized as a socio-cultural function. The historian of Russian philosophy writes: "Two sides are revealed here. The first, axiological– presupposes the presence of a consciously chosen goal, guideline, ideal... knowledge of the categories of epistemological function: "good", "evil", "sublime", "base", "life", "death", etc. The other side ... of philosophy is the function of socialization, i.e. a person's entry into society, finding his place in society" ^{[34, p. 6]}.

In terms of value-socializing for the formation of a person as a person, it is social philosophy, ethics and cultural studies that occupy the leading theoretical, methodological and practice-oriented place, and the interdisciplinary approach implemented by philosophy allows us to build a clear coordinate system for studying modern civilizational characteristics, which became possible using the theoretical and methodological apparatus of convergent humanitarian knowledge ^{[10, pp. 157-168]}.

It is now more obvious than ever that the processes of Westernization and globalization are unifying the social system as a whole, and civilizational characteristics have become the most difficult to analyze. Therefore, methodological guidelines of a socio-cultural nature are becoming so relevant, taking into account the mental characteristics of ethnic cultures, the socio-psychological state of mass consciousness, and the spirit of the people as a whole.

Understanding culture as a system of "supra-biological programs" (Markaryan ^{[22; 23]}, Stepin ^[33]), as well as based on an informational and semiotic understanding of its nature (Lotman ^[21], Karmin ^[16], Thagapsoev ^[11]) and the nature of language as a living organism (Herder ^{[4; 5]}, Humboldt ^[6]), inorganic changes in modern society are of particular concern. As we emphasize, they primarily touched upon the axiological component of the life of both society and individual existence. It should also be noted that the ambivalence of the corpus of scientific knowledge in general and the complexity of the convergent approach within the framework of interdisciplinary methodology highlight the difficulty of finding convincing answers to modern sociocultural challenges ^{[10, pp. 157-168]}.

In social life, saturated today with technological changes and political instability, the usual models of perception of reality are insufficient for understanding and adapting public consciousness to new realities. Terms such as SPOD (Strongly Projected Onto the Digital), VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) and BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible) began to symbolize the evolution of our perception of the modern world and, following the classics of the civilizational approach to human history, give reason to talk about a completely new coordinate system in the development of society. In this article, we will consider this possibility and its significance, and also take the liberty to identify and substantiate the socio-cultural features of the modern type of civilization.

The world of the second half of the 20th century, compared with modernity, was less complex and traditional in the spirit of the culture of the modern era, described as SPOD-the world. SPOD is an abbreviation that makes it possible to describe the "old world" within the framework of subjective concepts ^{[9, pp. 81-92]}. In this model, the world was stable, predictable, ordinary and definite, that is, traditional. This means that sociocultural events developed slowly, in a probabilistic manner, and were more linear and transparent.

– Steady – in the "old world", changes occurred slowly, and social structures remained relatively unchanged for long periods of time. This created a sense of stability, stability and reliability in the public consciousness ^[39].

– Predictable – events and their results were easily predictable based on past experience and generally accepted norms and rules of social existence. The spiritual culture was dominated by a set of traditional values. People could plan their actions with confidence that the result would meet expectations ^[8].

Humanity understood that the world of society and culture was more predictable and orderly. New phenomena and technologies did not appear so often, so there were traditionally familiar patterns of behavior and thinking in society. At that time, there were clear boundaries, norms and rules that regulated interactions between people and determined their behavior. The changes were slower and the situations were more understandable and predictable ^[39].

However, scientific and technological progress continued to move inexorably forward. Thanks to him, technologies began to develop so quickly that their generations were replaced with increased speed. The growth of computing power, digitalization, the Internet and the development of information technology have led to a historic "explosion of information". The scientific literature has formed the concept of "information society" as a post-industrial society. This led to the emergence of the so-called VUCA world ^[15], which replaced the old SPOD world due to the growing complexity in the very structure of society that arose in the 1980s of the XX century ^[42].

VUCA is an acronym consisting of English words ^{[15; 25]}:

V – Volatility

U – Uncertainty (Uncertainty)

C – Complexity

A – Ambiguity (Ambiguity) ^[45].

Theoretical and methodological attempts to analyze the civilizational characteristics of modernity are revealed, for example, in a study entitled "Which world replaced VUCA" from the BITOBE blog. The peculiarities of changes in the social world and the business environment after the introduction of the VUCA concept are revealed ^[44]. The author analyzes the evolution of this paradigm, originally developed to describe modern military combat conditions, and then adopted in business to characterize states of instability and uncertainty. In addition, the article examines the influence of VUCA on the strategic thinking of companies, and then society as a whole ^[44]. It is indicated that the VUCA concept allows organizations to adapt more effectively to dynamic changes in the surrounding socio-economic environment and form more adaptive strategies ^[32]. At the same time, the increasing role of crisis situations, such as the 2008 financial crisis, in the development of the VUCA concept is emphasized. The general conclusion says that during periods of instability and turbulence, such models become especially relevant and useful for making informed socio-economic decisions ^[18]. However, by the twenties of this century, the civilizational characteristics reflected by the abbreviation VUCA (instability, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) began to lose their relevance.

Digitalization as a content and a basic attribute of the fourth industrial and technological revolution is literally changing the civilizational foundations of existence before our eyes. The global economy, including almost all industries, is literally riddled with the stigmata of digitalization. For the most part, humanity perceives it as an absolute blessing and in every possible way promotes even the slightest elements in all spheres of life. This often happens without understanding the cultural-forming results of such processes and their impact on the existence, life and health of each human individual, as well as ethnocultural phenomena that give rise to a civilizational identity. Man, as the highest intelligent creature - "the question is open" - becomes subject to thoughts and desires to translate his activities into digital formats, without thinking, unfortunately, about the dangers and consequences, trying to "dissolve into the figure" as quickly as possible.

Acting in the socio-cultural paradigm of digitalization, a person, as a subject of social action, is more open to the state, society, large corporations operating in all sectors of the economy, and therefore is the most predictable. A person's behavioral reactions, priorities, tastes, and thoughts are becoming more and more accessible for calculations. Mass consciousness is becoming a subject field for both theoretical research and practical actions to study the market of goods, works and services, and at the same time to improve and constantly create new mechanisms of influence on human instincts and desires, consciousness as a whole. The main purpose of the entire corpus of actions is to force the object to buy certain things, use certain services, and continue to create a comfortable environment based on his own (personal) understanding and preferences, as it seems to him.

It must be admitted that we live in a world that already largely depends on numbers ^{[24, pp. 170-172; 38; 43, pp. 10-21]}. All trends in the global economy are aimed at this. People prefer virtual technologies in everything, even in monetary settlements. We perceive this transformation almost unconditionally, people like it and it becomes a determining factor of public consciousness, since it has become widespread. A person chooses for himself something that creates more comfort in life, satisfies the ego, introduces him into the illusory world of branded and luxury goods. Tolerance is being filled with new content from the previous religious tolerance in the field of religious feelings, to the recognition of the idea of gender reassignment and the requirements of a "culture of abolition". Modern communication formats are moving further away from interpersonal mutual communication to computer games in virtual reality. All these small, but significantly changing steps of humanity, rapidly strengthen people's understanding of their own genius, exclusivity, significance, ultimately leading to selfishness bordering on self-destruction of personality. Thus, there is an active, but hidden from the eyes, effect on the subconscious of a person, whom the world ideologists and actors of these processes gradually accustom to tangible, but often invented (imposed) comfort, at the same time eliminating the ability to think critically, primarily in relation to oneself.

Admittedly, a significant part of humanity is trying to resist. Having to become more and more transparent and defenseless for the business world and the authorities, we are trying to protect ourselves and "go into the shadows." The limit of dreams is becoming nothing more than a cryptocurrency, the origin and movement of which is very difficult to trace, the rejection of the impact of advertising, the ability to order products and buy medicines on modern marketplaces. The imbalance (artificially imposed and actually existing) inevitably leads to socio-cultural antagonisms. A return to traditional religious and family values is becoming more and more in demand in society, a revival of a common understanding and the rule of law (law) is taking place, a transition to the ideology of a multipolar world and rejection of the phenomenon of globalization itself is planned in geopolitics.

However, due to these antagonisms, the world became less stable, less predictable and full of contradictions. The civilizational characteristics of modern society are changing against the background of the global economic crisis, trade conflicts, sanctions and military conflicts, deglobalization, pandemic, changes and restructuring of logistics networks, the fourth industrial revolution and the transition to a new economic order. All these factors only increased the complexity and diversity of the modern world ^[15]. What was previously described as instability in the VUCA world is now defined as fragility. This means that all systems, methods of action and social institutions can suddenly collapse, be destroyed or stop working ^{[27, pp. 78-81]}. Society, the state, energy and logistics systems, businesses, groups and products are all at risk of disaster at any moment ^{[32; 45]}.

As Jamais Cascio rightly points out, the world of VUCA is outdated. In his opinion, many tools, models and techniques created by experienced business strategists for successful functioning in the VUCA environment need to be adapted and revised. A new era has come – BANI:

– Brittle (fragile),

– Anxious,

– Nonlinear (non-linear),

– Incomprehensible.

Nonlinearity is one of the "showcases" of synergetics as the original theoretical and methodological tools for understanding physical reality. Having arisen in the depths of natural science at the end of the XX century (primarily in theoretical physics), synergetics relatively quickly entered the humanitarian and social discourse. The nonlinearity or multi-vector nature of socio-cultural development according to the synergetic paradigm was naturally and organically synthesized in the subject field of social philosophy, linguistics, and fundamental cultural studies. Belarusian colleagues write about her that the synergetic worldview "in the context of natural science is considered by many authors ... as the newest scientific revolution (V. Kron, J. Kuppers, N.N. Moiseev, H. Novotny, etc." ^{[26, p. 902]}.

At the level of self-determination, this theoretical integrative direction constitutes itself as a concept of nonequilibrium dynamics (I. Prigozhin) or the theory of self-organization of nonlinear dynamic environments. Nonlinearity is considered as a purely dynamic indicator, namely, as an internal potential of self-organization. If it is applied to the socio–cultural and political sphere, then this is the principle of decentralization and self-government. In the economic and political sphere, non-linearity indicates the complexity of objects and is an indicator that complexity is treated not as an exception, but as a general rule. Complexity in the context of the philosophy of nonlinearity is the ability of the world of phenomena to a state of self-organization ^{[28; 29, pp. 43-54; 30, pp. 55-62]}.

A number of modern researchers of civilizational characteristics consider BANI as the "dark" side of VUCA (the VUCA model originated in the 1980s of the XX century among the American military. They used this abbreviation to describe the conditions of military operations at the end of the XX century.) ^[44]. Others see it as a "continuation of the classifications" of postmodern philosophy and practice with its focus on the theory of "bio-power" ^{[36; 37]}. For others, this world order is a symbol of the next "horseman of the apocalypse" in the New Testament Christian paradigm, whose arrival portends a gloomy ending for the entire civilization as a natural result of the development of modern society.

In our opinion, the most accessible abbreviation of BANI is described in the article "How did we get from VUCA to the BANI world and what should we do in it?". The quality of brittle highlights the point that the socio-political world, on which we have ceased to rely completely, has become infinitely fragile. Traditional political systems, methods and governance structures that seemed reliable and durable in the past may suddenly fail. Although initially they seemed extremely stable, but in fact they are prone to destruction. Stress and anxiety are the norm in both the VUCA macrocosm and microsociums, turning into constant anxiety, and sometimes even a feeling of fear. The modern world fills us all with constant tension, which contributes to the formation of conflict situations. The uncertainty of the future makes people feel helpless, and this makes it difficult to adequately analyze the surrounding social reality and make the right decisions.

People are increasingly dependent on news and the continuous flow of information, but often this information is distorted or fake, which only increases the feeling of anxiety and uncertainty. Social psychology analyzes these states both at the level of society and at the level of the individual.

The majority of the planet's inhabitants are in a state of anxiety:

1. Waiting for the next disaster or disaster.

2. Become less active to avoid making wrong decisions.

3. They feel despair because of missed opportunities.

4. They experience unbearable emotions when others make decisions that affect them or society as a whole, over which they have no control. Psychologically, this state of constant anxiety increases the risk of occurrence and intensification of mental injuries, nervous breakdowns.

The next pair of abbreviations BANI is N and I, where N is nonlinear. In a world where the links between causes and consequences are nonlinear, clearly not deterministic, establishing direct relationships between actions and their results is extremely difficult. Events have a systemic effect, affecting simultaneously all aspects and all participants of communication ^[32], and I – incomprehensible - incomprehensible. In such a world, we face serious difficulties in understanding and predicting change. People lose the ability to understand and appropriately identify the causes of events, as they often go back in time or are hidden in places incomprehensible to individual and public consciousness. As the complexity of the surrounding world increases, it becomes more opaque and confusing for the massive consciousness ^[45].

In the world of modern civilization, the presence of a large amount of information does not guarantee its correct understanding. Futurist Cascio recognized that the excessive flow of information is one of the serious problems of our time, making it difficult to make the right decisions. To solve this problem, he proposed the conceptual model of BANI, which allows us to systematize the challenges and risks of our time and develop appropriate counteraction strategies ^[31]:

– Gaining strength and the ability to recover quickly after shocks will allow you to resist fragility;

– Focusing on the present moment, rather than diving into anxious thoughts about the future, will help reduce mass anxiety;

– In order to effectively respond to non-linear situations, it is necessary to develop flexibility of thinking and abandon rigid schemes;

– The incomprehensibility of complex socio-cultural phenomena requires maximum transparency and openness to intuitive understanding, for example, through the development of holistic "transcendental" thinking. Therefore, new terms and concepts were introduced to describe the current complex, changeable and often incomprehensible civilizational reality, which requires new approaches to its perception and theoretical understanding ^[1]. One of such concepts is the new concept of the world – SHIVA – the world as a futurological position, which describes the possible dynamics of changes in the context of globalization and technological transformations as a vector of development into the future. Synonymous with this future, however, is the rejection of the previous system of values, norms and relations, which is unacceptable from the point of view of preserving and strengthening ethnic, cultural and civilizational identity.

The evolution of ideas about the characteristics of modern civilization – from the concept of the VUCA world to the concept of the BANI world – can be traced in the scheme "The path from the VUCA world to the BANI world and adaptation strategies" ^[14].

This schematic table demonstrates the transformation of the VUCA world into the BANI world, emphasizing that the problem of its complexity not only exists, but is also ontologically aggravated, thus becoming the subject of interdisciplinary analysis. As we have already noted, the complexity of the world is the core of the philosophy of synergetics. The macroeconomic paradigm is associated with philosophical and cultural reflection, systemic methodology and socio-psychological thoroughness, which is synergetic in effectiveness. The question arises: what will be the fundamental civilizational characteristics of the future world order? What awaits us in the future? The world can become even more uncertain, chaotic, extreme, dysfunctional and unpredictable. But most importantly, how do people adapt to such a world? How to overcome the emerging challenges of reality? ^{[40; 3]}.

As a result, all of the above-mentioned modern civilizational risks and challenges according to Arnold Toynbee, as well as the growth of basic (priority) human security needs, led to practical steps in the context of socio-cultural changes, and one of them was the emergence of a new paradigm in the field of education and at all its levels, the distinctive features of which are:

1. the unconditional increase in the role of scientific thought, which has become not just a source of new ideas, but due to the emergence of a new factor of production – information – the transformation of science and scientific knowledge into the defining productive force of society (K. Marx);

2. understanding education as a necessary and leading condition for the success of an individual, and indeed for human existence in new civilizational conditions;

3. The urgent need and timeliness of project training, since the requirements for solving new civilizational problems are not reduced to division into separate sciences, but entirely to complex problems. This situation was predicted by the Russian cosmologist philosopher V.I. Vernadsky at the beginning of the last century: "The growth of scientific knowledge in the twentieth century blurs the lines between sciences. We specialize not in sciences, but in problems."^[2] The integrativity of scientific knowledge is a symbol of modernity.

Of course, today every pedagogical article suggests that modern education is becoming available anywhere and at any time, however, the question rightly arises: is society ready to learn under such conditions? Especially if we are talking about a significant part of the adult population of the planet, accustomed to a strict schedule and a traditional classroom-based form of education?

Based on the above, we consider it necessary to highlight the Challenges of our time presented to the education system:

1. The focus of education is primarily on the development of metacognitive strategies that will allow students of all ages and generations to know, study and gradually manage their cognitive activity. The continuity of education and self-education of the individual is an urgent task of today;

2. Revision of static curricula and standards in favor of organizing project-based learning based on solving real complex problems;

3. the struggle for the attention of students against the background of countless offers on the global educational market and the leveling of the role of formal education. Competitiveness is becoming a determining factor both at the individual level and at the institutionally defined level.

As a final conclusion, we note that, firstly, the considered problem of the civilizational characteristics of modernity - society as the basis of being – is one of the most important in the subject field of social philosophy and philosophy of culture, it is a tool for the formation of modern cultural codes of nations and ethnic groups, taking into account the synergetic paradigm. In any case, the current state of society cannot be analyzed within the framework of a single disciplinary approach and even ontology.

Secondly, the civilizational approach to the history of mankind, which was formed in Russian - and not only - theoretical thought, now does not lose its relevance, but postulates the basis of project thinking as a super-task of modern pedagogy and, possibly, a new didactics. The convergence of knowledge, which is so persistently talked about, but with difficulty they try to apply, letting in "their" fields of scientific knowledge, has not yet reached a new model (method / / paradigm) of analyzing modern processes. In our opinion, science, which was actually founded by Great Philosophers, can hardly discuss modern socio-cultural paradigms.

Thirdly, the systemic complexity of the civilizational structure requires the use of an interdisciplinary approach in understanding and practical solution of the linguistic and socio-cultural challenges of today, which was the basis of this work. Given the stagnation in which society finds itself, it is impossible to give an adequate and complete analysis, as well as explain the current complex processes, within the framework of only one discipline.

In general, we are ready for discussion - the transition to a new world formation or to a new type of civilization is an open question…