Dmitry Luchkin. From ethnic conflicts to a culture of difference or vice versa?!

Social sciences are dangerous because they shape the object of their knowledge...
A. Kristeva

In the history of mankind, culturally homogeneous societies have not yet existed, since the changes that all social systems underwent produced immanent differences, which in turn are one of the sources of social development. Unfortunately, there were no examples of parallel diversity of cultures in the life of communities. On the contrary, ethnopolitical relations, structured in paradigms, theories, concepts, models and techniques, which are described by researchers such as Huntington, for example, can be called “competitive diversity” 1 : it formed the “life” picture of ethnopolitical relations. But I feel, reader, that you cannot be convinced by such synthetic arguments. Be gone, Kant! - we are no longer able to leave our knowledge pure, but persistence in knowledge forces us to continue moving. So, go ahead...

It was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the concept of giving a voice fell out of favor, that the challenge of the day became to listen to the genuine, authentic voices of previously voiceless groups (the "we" groups) who wanted to be heard. Probably, already at the rise of the 1980s, it was revealed that for some it caused disappointment, disappointment with regard to change (in other words, these were “the aporias of cultural modernity that came to the surface” 2 ), which led to the further conservation of the views of both political subjects and and groups of their followers. Industrialism, experiencing a transition from political values ​​to political interests, rationalization of public life, consumerism in general and information consumerism in particular, a departure from patronage, was unable to fully achieve its own breakthrough. Returning to the “we” groups, however justified it may be to give voice to and then listen to previously voiceless groups, their voices have at times sounded like the voices of the dominant groups that they would have to oppose not only politically as minorities , demanding the legitimization of their cultural and social rights, but also in a normative, moral sense - as marginalized groups expressing, in contrast to dominant groups, the authentic truth.

Thus, the postmodern emphasis on difference and authenticity has led to the expansion of boundaries between groups , an increased sense of exclusivity, an increase in the importance of collective rights at the expense of individual rights, and an increase in ethnopolitical conflicts both in countries moving towards a postmodern society and in countries experiencing transition , since supporters of this approach are concerned not so much with the creation and institutionalization of culture and cultural objects as with the consequences of cultural differences.

Simply put, among all intellectual movements, postmodernism consolidated something that seemed to have exhausted itself long ago - the idea of ​​authenticity. Hopes for the leveling effect of modernity on cultural differences turned out to be false. The departure from a certain level, or rather the weakening of “cultural” repressiveness, intensively expressed in the functioning of the “cultural industry, which is a deliberate association of consumers from above” (T. Adorno), led to the opposite of the expected result.

Recognized by concepts and institutions, the growth of social significance of “we” groups, defined through ethnicity, religion, gender and lifestyle, in conditions of “competitive diversity” in which they articulate differences, claim or create stereotypes of claims to limited resources, was one of the reasons ethnopolitical “explosion” that we are currently observing.

There is no denying: ethnicity is still the strongest, most explosive, but also the most accepted and legitimate indicator of difference, because:

- it is extremely difficult for an individual to change the characteristics accompanying ethnicity (that is, some or all of the following: language, common noun, myth of common origin, attachment to a common territory, religion and a common value system, known group solidarity), on the basis of which outsiders can easily attribute individual;

- consistent and conscious ethnic groups are rewarded by the world community;

- according to international laws and practice, the existence of such groups is one of the necessary conditions for a nation.

But at the same time, one cannot deny the fact that categories like ethnicity, race, nation, represent social constructs, institutional and legitimate frameworks of perception and the delivery of which in the form of communicative and other acts can change, since “the conceptual mechanisms for maintaining the universe are themselves products social activity, like all forms of legitimation" 3 . Therefore, conflicts are both born and suppressed based on the comparison of the interests of “we” groups among themselves, as well as “we” groups and societies. Refusal of such a claim to power would mean the political death of the group. Due to the fact that “change (consolidation and maintenance) of group consciousness... is not a cognitive process, but a way of developing and preserving appropriate resources in the social field” 4 , it is conceptually and technologically possible for a political subject to regulate issues of ethnicity and cultural differences in general.

To do this, culture should be understood, first of all, as a form of communication. Of course, we should not forget that one of the most important functions of this form of communication is to draw dividing lines between different “we” groups, but this should not be the main emphasis in resolving and preventing ethnic conflicts. Culture serves as a communication code that outsiders can learn and use; this code is used by everyone across ethnic and cultural differences - thereby it is recognized and, accordingly, becomes a meeting place open to different groups.

Here, in turn, a pressing question arises about the processes of particularization and unification of political techniques, practices and communities within one society. Normatively, for this purpose, institutions should be created that can provide areas of interaction between different “we” groups and at the same time preserve their cultural identity. So, the main tasks of these institutions will be: the creation and preservation of common institutions; organizing and providing opportunities for cultural exchange; maintaining and forming blurred border zones between cultures for their mutual penetration and dissolution.

The strategic goal in this case becomes: to establish a centralized institutional discourse and centralized institutions endowed with law to indoctrinate a culture of “integrative diversity” through the information weapon of mass communities - propaganda. Otherwise, society destructively destroys itself.

By propaganda I mean mass information concentrated in content and enhanced in the number of channels [usually through the prism of the disposition of an opponent, enemy, adversary]. The goal of propaganda is a construct that motivates a position and (or) action, and is created in the public consciousness through the purposeful organization of information flows for the full-scale orientation of the recipient [sometimes without taking into account his opinion] based on the correlation of a political subject (his image and (or) actions) with the opposition . The absence of propaganda does not mean the achievement of freedom, and vice versa. Acquaintance and encounter with it is just a test for society or an individual of the ability to critically construct aggregated social knowledge. Propaganda is always a more or less veiled attribute of a culture that is inherently repressive.

Due to the fact that “information as content cannot be mass, the channels of its distribution can be mass” 5 , from a technological point of view, propaganda is information of political significance, which is potentially accessible to everyone; from a conceptual point of view, it is the most multidimensional text. The main tools of propaganda are commentary and reactive assessment, or rather, their large-scale replication in response to the information urges of the environment. Structurally, propaganda can be considered as “mass communication that carries social information as content, including the processes of exchange of this content, as well as the semiotic and technical means used in these exchanges and the technical channels of these exchanges” 6 .

Due to the fact that propaganda is part of political culture and institutions of socialization in general, the theorization of propaganda is extremely contradictory - the measure of social and political engagement plays a large role in this process: “political epistemology and epistemology can be based on a self-recognized logical circle and produce paradoxes of the political existence or on the assertion of its own reliability and produce dogmas to strengthen the natural dogmatism of the overwhelming majority of people involved in social and political processes" 7 . Theoretically, propaganda is justified to the extent that all theories are ideological, and dogmas are confirmed by concepts; Moreover, knowledge in this area does not find its final home in the study of “communication that potentially deals with opinions” 8 . This is a hint to the media teams.

The strategic goal setting when carrying out propaganda is to, by highlighting the opponent, his image and references from the circle of the target audience, to consolidate groups of followers or, as Bourdieu put it, “to serve simultaneously the esoteric goals of the internal struggle and the exotic goals of the external struggle” 9 . In this case, this image can be used to demonstrate the absurdity and danger of the destructive actions of “we” groups. Similarly, an instrumental approach to texts will be built - they will be determined by the need to achieve the above-mentioned strategic goals - to consolidate “we” groups by focusing attention and creating constructs of a “culture without differences” and highlighting the negative in the bearers of interests articulated on the basis of differences.

The subject of the information message is an event or action (the word is considered as a communicative action), that is, a certain fact, real or virtual. A fact is constituted “as a certain subject-related, communicatively defined and modularly expressed invariant” 10 . It should be remembered that a fact “acquires its status on the basis of an intersubjective convention” 11 , that is, it is constructed with a high degree of reliability under the influence of the power of nomination. Moreover, we can say that due to the fact that “the positions and relationships of subjects are determined by facts, legally qualified norms or the will of the ruling subject” 12 , political communication or management of information connections is power itself, presented in the form of a mechanism of general social interaction, where each is necessarily connected with each other (the “relation of relations” according to Foucault). Society cannot abandon these connections, since it exists discretely (including due to the appearance of “zero points” in communication between “we” groups) and is ontologically recreated at the moment of communicative and other acts. In turn, the political subject cannot but claim dominance through the management of these connections, since he will then not be able to retain and use power.

The channels for sending propaganda are the mass media in the form of positions and specific actions of a political subject, while “the media act as an indirect subject of politics, since they demonstrate their own political preferences and produce political events at the same time... since it is the media that is the main producer and designer of modern culture, including political culture" 13 .

The high significance of the media lies in the ability to construct facts that underlie relations between political subjects. The difference between propaganda is that it uses labeled information, which requires maximum combination of the position of the political subject and the media (although there are phenomena of noise and interference and even some independence, “coherence of desire”). Therefore, to build a society of “integrative diversity” of culture, a long-term strategic policy regarding the media is necessary. However, I do not deny the role of educational institutions and socialization techniques in general - I have never seen more dangerous propaganda than ex cafedra. Still, the media are not omnipotent - as we all recently saw: sometimes contact between the media and the public completely disappears. But that's another problem.

Regarding the functions of propaganda, we can say that they will consist in “from a political perspective to stimulate activity in the direction necessary for a political subject, from a social perspective - to maintain patterns of status distances, and from a cultural perspective - to maintain acceptable patterns of interaction” 14 .

Thus, propaganda turns into the dominant element in the creation and maintenance of political culture and culture in general, setting the framework for communication and knowledge through the development of interaction codes. The second general function of the propaganda of “culture without differences” is to ensure the preservation of society through the means of “symbolic power that creates real things with the help of words, which for this purpose must use only adequate concepts in order to capture the maximum of ideological influence” 15 .

In social reality, there is a constant clash between various fields of symbolic power, “striving to realize their own idea of ​​the legitimate division of society into social groups” 16 . Therefore, the third general function of promoting the “integrative diversity” of cultures is to ensure the consolidation of society by distinguishing the destructive behavior of “we” groups for society and demonstrating the identity and cultural solidarity of the entire society. I know how dangerous the weapons I mentioned here and now are, but I know for sure that the problem itself is even more dangerous. In this lies both our tragedy and our salvation, since we cannot exist next to this - we only live by this.

Notes:

1 K. Zürcher. Multiculturalism and ethnopolitical order in post-Soviet Russia: some methodological remarks / Polis , 99.3. P. 106.

2 J. Habermas. Modern - an unfinished project / Questions of Philosophy , 92.4. P. 50.

3 P. Berger, T. Luhmann. Social construction of reality. - M., 1995. P. 178.

4 V. Dubitskaya. Television: mythological technologies in electronic media. - M., 1998. P. 9.

5 P. Bourdieu. Sociology of politics. - M., 1993. P. 4.

6 Ibid., p. 39.

7 V.P. Makarenko. Description theory and political metatheory / Socis , 96.5. P. 53.

8 J. Deleuze, F. Guattari. What is philosophy? - St. Petersburg, 1998. P. 15.

9 P. Bourdieu. Sociology of politics. - M., 1993. P. 197.

10 V.P.Makarenko. Description theory and political metatheory / Socis , 96.5. P. 52.

11 Ibid., p. 53.

12 A.A. Dyagterev. Political power as a regulatory mechanism of social communication / Polis , 96.3. P. 114.

13 N. Kostenko. Media in elections: value guidelines of the Ukrainian political press / Polis , 99.6. P. 81.

14 Ibid., p. 84.

15 P. Bourdieu. Sociology of politics. - M., 1993. P. 176.

16 Ibid., p. 174.