2018. vol. 17. No. 3

In this paper, we argue that the priest has a unique structural position to initiate and promote gift exchange. Gift exchange is an important mode of economic integration, one that prevents both cutthroat competition and a parasitic dependence on a centralized hierarchy. In dwelling on gift exchange theory, we demonstrate why the promotion of gifts is largely suppressed nowadays: Marcel Mauss’ second imperative of the gift, that is, the obligation to receive gifts, becomes inoperative under neoliberal capitalism. We rely on Marshall Sahlins’ and Chris Gregory’s analyses to argue that gift giving can be de-blocked by introducing the position of the ‘excluded participant’ who takes part in the gift exchange system but is known to have no self-interest. His presence enables other participants to accept gifts without being afraid of falling into personal bondage. We analyze the Christian theological ideas of the function of the priest in reaching the conclusion that priests are predisposed to take the position of the ‘excluded participant’. On one hand, the priest in persona Christi acts neither on his own behalf nor for his own self-interest, while on the other hand, he remains a member and governor of the community. Historical sources confirm that generating the gift exchange has always been the key activity of priests in Christian communities.

The collapse of the Soviet bloc and the demise of grand secular emancipatory ideologies led to a growth of interest in the topics concerning religion and secularization. One of the vivid manifestations of this interest is a significant resurgence of research interest in political theology during the last three decades. The paper is intended to deal not so much with political theology in the narrow sense of the term, usually associated with the names of Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss or Walter Benjamin as to explore some cases in the history of thought revealing the political power of religion. The first case deals with Michel Foucault’s experience of Iranian Revolution. It argues that his exploration of the so-called “political spirituality”, a vague and widely criticized notion, discloses the problematics of political theology not as a historical inheritance or a marginal intellectual activity but as a living constituent reality pointing towards the limits of Western political mind. The second case is devoted to a widely known study of religion within post-secular societies done by a renowned German philosopher Jürgen Habermas. It claims that his idea of “postmetaphysical thinking” boasting to have done away with the “old prejudices” of classical metaphysics and theology does not suffice to ensure the peaceful coexistence of various religious as well as secular worldviews within the Western public sphere. Postmetaphysical treatment of politico-theological problems as irrelevant leads to their reappearance under the new guises: this is what happened to the “problem of evil” that plays a crucial role in the drawing up of the most part of modern political distinctions. “Evil” is dealt with in the third case, as a subject of political theories of radical democracy. Some proponents of radical democracy such as Paolo Virno, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt consider that part of political theology to be very important for their own projects of “non-sovereign” political institutions that will arise when the current crisis of modern political rationality is over. The paper comes to a conclusion with the idea that political theology should be considered not only as a radical opposite to a political philosophy or secular reason in general but also as an ever-present possibility that comes to reactivation in the moments of crisis.

The evolution of Thomas Hobbes’ political thought in the 1630s–1640s was marked by a considerable increase in an interest in the problems of the relations between politics and religion, and the state and the Church. This interest was expressed in his creation of the original conception of political theology, of which the most complete exposition is contained in his treatise Leviathan. In his concept of political theology, Hobbes saw an effective way to solve the theologico-political problem of modernity. At the heart of his political theology lays a new interpretation given by Hobbes to a number of doctrinal propositions of the Christian faith, which was designed to harmonize it with the absolute power of the temporal sovereign. Particular attention is paid to the consideration of those pragmatic strategies where Hobbes proposed to neutralize the explosive potential of the Christian religion for civil peace and the security of the state. It is also shown that the complete subordination of the Church to the State in the political theology of Hobbes served as a starting point for the impotent stage of the process of secularization of the Western world, which led to the separation of politics from religion, and the state from the Church.

The article offers an exposition of the range of topics discussed at the events of the Centre for Fundamental Sociology at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in 2017–2018. These topics were generally connected with the basic theme of the return of the sacred to the world of late modernity which seemed to be completely secularized long ago. Special emphasis is given to the role the state plays in this process of the political rehabilitation of the transcendent. The statement of the problem starts with the analysis of significant structural changes within the global discursive landscape, including the demise of the leading role of triumphalist globalization narratives which, until recently, dominated the sphere of values and symbolic meanings. Then it raises the question of the return of the state as an operator of worldly, secular salvation, which, through its institutions, ensures the inclusion of the social world into the transcendent one, thereby defining the circle of those to be rescued. A short historical-philosophical excursus then demonstrates the rooted-ness of the problem of borders of communities in solidarity united by certain transcendent values in the tradition of social science since the times of antiquity. The next section, appealing to the Aristotelian understanding of the political, proposes a participatory model of the mutual recognition for the members of a certain “We”-group structurally separated from other historically-contingent communities of fate. By conceptual means, the article offers an analysis of the attempts to overcome the inevitably discrete character of social ontology undertaken by universalist discourse through the return to cosmopolitan utopias such as projects of global citizenship, post-national inclusive politics, etc. Finally, the text proposes a reconstruction of the alternative line of argumentation usually associated with the names of Aristotle and Rousseau, but explicitly developed by Carl Schmitt. In this line of reasoning, homogeneity is postulated as a condition of the possibility for any community of solidarity. The article offers preliminary conclusions on the relevance of this topic to the theory of social order.

The article, within the framework of the logic proposed by M. Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, attempts to identify the core ethical category of the Russian Orthodox Church that could function in the same way as Beruf (profession/vocation) does for the analysis of Protestantism and its potential impact on the formation of the economy. The attempt to apprehend this category relies on Weber’s works that analyze the economic ethics of world religions. In particular, an effort is made to interpret the Weberian categorization of Russian Orthodoxy as a “specific mysticism”. The texts of F. Nietzsche and M. Scheler are used to decipher Weber’s thesis. The analysis of the texts of Weber, Nietzsche, and Scheler leads to the assumption that “humility” could be the category in question. In his works on the sociology of religion, Weber used “humility” to describe “mysticism” in the same vein as is “vocation” for “asceticism”. At the same time, Weber reinterprets Nietzsche’s doctrine of ressentiment to construct the typology of economic ethics of world religions. For Nietzsche, humility is often synonymous to ressentiment. In the Weberian interpretation, the thesis on ressentiment becomes a “theodicy of suffering”. In the typology of suffering, humility was associated with contemplation, or the withdrawal from the world, that is, with everything specific for mysticism as it was understood by Weber. M. Scheler also took notice of this and criticized the thesis on ressentiment, contrasting it with humility as the basic Christian virtue. An analysis of the texts of F. Nietzsche, M. Weber and M. Scheler on the ressentiment and ethics of Christianity made it possible to propose a typology of ethics that seems to be suitable for constructing hypotheses about the (potential) influence of Orthodoxy on Russian economic life.

The author of this article tries to reconsider the subject field of social-philosophical knowledge. He considers the principal difference of social philosophy from theoretical sociology, historical sociology, and political philosophy. On the basis of this differentiation, it is stated that social philosophy is a separate and coherent discipline. The author then considers several possible approaches to the study of society that could be characterized as “weak programs” of social philosophy. On such a basis, it is claimed that a “strong program” of social philosophy could be formed. This program must organically combine the following assumptions: the methodology of neo-Marxism, including the orientation towards the traditional for these current intellectual objects of analysis, and accurate and thorough studies, as well as a firmness and conceptual coherence, i.e., a level of analysis beyond the immediate empirical material. The author then considers one of the main challenges that social philosophy faces or must face in the nearest future. Social philosophy has to fulfill an important task: to say something sensible about the times we are living in, to determine changes in culture and economy, as well as to give an answer to the question of what comes instead of postmodernity, if such a thing ever existed. On the basis of the above-mentioned points, the following working definition of social philosophy is given: multiple (although not always) philosophical conceptualizations of social problems, phenomena, and complex notions, as well as theoretical attempts at interpreting our or/and another epoch, which, in the interpretation, first of all assumes a normative dimension, and secondly, is based on rich empirical material. This approach can also be explained through the notion of “the parallax of the fox”, which assumes that social philosophy deals with many things, but at the same time, tries to give a new look at existing problems and to determine its heuristic potential.

With the rise of the concept of “culture”, numerous attempts were made to integrate it into state policy, but failed. “Culture” then required a clear and unambiguous definition. A new effort, known as the “debate about cultural and creative industries”, was undertaken in a new historical context at the beginning of this century. This article tries to clarify the main arguments and positions in these recent debates, and to analyze the attempt of a new operationalization of culture by means of economic discourse in the critical perspective. This attempt was carried out under the new academic slogan of “creative industries”, with which politicians, international and national functionaries, as well as representatives of the academic community pinned their hopes on the invention of a new model of economic growth. One of the principal theses of the article is that this kind of operationalization is not realistic because “creativity”, like “culture”, is not amenable to any mathematization, commodification, or unambiguous interpretation. The policy of “creative industries” is considered through a tendency to a total commercialization of cultural production and its global standardization. The article analyzes different national models of its implementation, as well as the results. One of the most important outcomes of this policy is a growing distrust of the “archaic” forms of cultural knowledge that have been formed in and by national states: the statistical approach as well as its instruments are inappropriate and inadequate as state-of-the-art when the corporate sector almost completely defines rules and standards of a cultural production. This raises the question of whether the state needs a holistic view of culture and the exercising of control functions in this sector of production. In this perspective, the article raises the problem of whether the policy of creative industries is adequate and appropriate for the Russian Federation.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the specific role of ideology in the political reality of late modern society. The authors describe a notable contradiction between a steady interest of social science to the competition of ideas of the development of society and the growing doubts of the applicability of classical theories of ideology for describing and comprehending such a competition. The theoretical analysis of contemporary social theory shows that ideology can be described as an action-oriented system of beliefs, and that there are different views on the status of such systems in the political reality of late modern society. During the theoretical analysis, the authors conclude that the idea of the disappearance of ideology from the political process of late modern society has an important conceptual argumentation, but it does not find any cogent empirical evidence. It is more likely that ideology does not disappear from the political reality of late modern society, but it changes to meet new social requirements. Late modern society creates special conditions for the manifestation of ideology by diversifying the information field, reducing the role of political parties, discrediting many fundamental ideological projects, and reducing the class struggle. Altogether, these conditions make ideology change, but they do not make it disappear from the political reality. This hypothesis is correlated with the data of the sociological research conducted by the authors on the case of ideological competition in Russian society before the parliamentary elections in 2016. The analysis of the data of this research shows that ideology still exists in contemporary Russian society, and allows its description as a hybrid in the value kernel and local in its rhetoric system of beliefs. Thus, the authors conclude that it is possible to describe the political processes of late modern society with using the term “ideology”. The term “ideology” which does not lose its heuristic possibilities, but requires a “reconfiguration” of the methodology of social science.

The article touches upon the issues of several problems. Firstly, we attempt to determine the methodology of a sociological analysis of culture which is adequate for modern realities. Secondly, we will apply this methodological basis to the cultural specifics of modern Russian students in a transitive, transitional society. It is stressed that the formation of a global innovative society results in a permanent crisis with the destruction of the old sociocultural forms and the emergence of new ones, with the result that culture becomes not a “guardian of the foundations”, but an active “fermenting” power of society. In these nonlinear processes, a special importance is acquired by subjective culture. Based on F. Tenbrook’s ideas, an analysis of monostylism and polystylism of a student’s representative culture is carried out. It is noted that these processes of representation are contradictory and hybrid. Highly-valued by student youth, the values of independence, individuality, and freedom of the post-materialistic plan are represented primarily in the sphere of leisure and free-time activities. The presented typology of students’ lifestyles in the field of educational activity (“professionals”, “ritualists”, “public men”, and “conformists”) fixes a predominantly adaptive strategy of behavior based on the adoption of a paternalistic attitude on the part of the administration and the teaching staff of universities. The article is based on the materials of the authors’ interregional sociological research, conducted in the Southern Federal District in 2006, 2011, and 2016.

The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 spawned a request from both the government and the public for an appropriate pictorial representation to be evaluated in the categories of ‘high art’, a request which revealed the inability of the predominant aesthetics to be satisfied. The paintings on the subjects of the preceding Balkan Crisis of 1875–1876 easily appealed to the existing reserve of descriptive means in primarily appealing to Orientalist motives by using the international Oriental-artistic language. In this case, painters such as K. Makovsky or V. Polenov did not need to resort to some inversions in the “Turkestan Series” by V. Vereshchagin: the developed artistic language allowed the conveying of the desired content without loss. On the contrary, attempts to present pictorial representations of the Russo-Turkish War found that the old military art was no longer perceived as genuine “art”. Thus, in not being regarded as a proper fixation of “memorable events”, the prevailing new aesthetics was unable to convey the pathos and heroics desired by the authorities. At the same time, it was found that a strong aesthetic effect in military plots was achieved through “seriality”, the interpretation of similar plots as isolated and independent. However, this did not produce a significant effect, that is to say, painting as such was not self-sufficient since it required the assistance of the text, the sequence of images, etc. The problem was reduced significantly with the new aesthetics of the 20th century, and in the last decades of the 19th century, in connection with mentioned above difficulties of painting, historical plots acquired new value, providing new opportunities for the representation of heroic themes while simultaneously giving greater aesthetic freedom.

The Russian Revolution is the central theme of both A. Chayanov’s novel The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia and A. Platonov’s novel Chevengur. The author of this article compares the chronicles and images of the Revolution in the biographies of Chayanov and Platonov as well as the main characters, genres, plots, and structures of the two utopian novels, and questions the very understanding of the history of the Russian Revolution and the possible alternatives of its development. The article focuses not only on the social-economic structure of utopian Moscow and Chevengur but also on the ethical-aesthetic foundations of both utopias. The author argues that the two utopias reconstruct, describe, and criticize the Revolution from different perspectives and positions. In general, Chayanov adheres to a relativistic and pluralistic perception of the Revolution and history, while Platonov, on the contrary, absolutizes the end of humankind history with the eschatological advent of Communism. In Chayanov‘s utopia, the Russian Revolution is presented as a viable alternative to the humanistic-progressive ideals of the metropolitan elites with the moderate populist-socialist ideas of the February Revolution. In Platonov’s utopia, the Revolution is presented as an alternative to the eschatological-ecological transformation of the world by provincial rebels inspired by the October Revolution. Thus, Chayanov’s liberal-cooperative utopia and Platonov’s anarchist-communist utopia contain both an apologia and a criticism of the Russian Revolution in the insights of its past and future victories and defeats, and opens new horizons for alternative interpretations of the Russian Revolution.

In this article, we discuss the modernization hypothesis in consideration of the causes of democratization related to economic development. The modernization hypothesis was formulated in the mid-twentieth century in the midst of specific economic and socio-political conditions. Since then, both societies and representations of their developments have changed. Current research disregards these transformations; therefore, with this work, we aim to fill the gap. We make clear how the neo-liberal turn influenced representations of economic development and democracy. Realization of the neo-liberal economic policy resulted in important social changes, particularly the rise of inequality and the wave of populism that endangers liberal democracy. At the same time, the modernization hypothesis is based on presumptions that economic development leads to income equalization and the creation of the broad middle class. Our analysis reveals that empirical surveys tend to confirm the relationship between economic development and democracy. However, economic growth does not necessarily entail more equal income distribution. The rise of populism indirectly confirms the rightness of the modernization hypothesis and suggests an important role for class dynamics. Democratization necessitates not only the establishment of liberal institutions but also the transformation of the social structure via convergence of incomes.

The increasing spatial fluidity of the population in general and the inclusion of a wider range of people in international migration in particular is recognized as one of the most visible manifestations of globalization. However, processes contributing to the movement and global relations at the same time generate physical and socio-political immobility, alienation, and dissociation. The phenomenon of (im)mobility is considered from a political point of view. Making use of the institutional approach, the author defines (im)mobility as a process caused by international and national political institutions’ activities, on one hand, and stimulating the emergence of formal and informal political practices, on the other hand. Government regulation of cross-border migration is reflected in the demands of the valid grounds for the legal entering the territory of a state, the development of distance forms of mobility management, the establishment of financial mechanisms, and the imposition of restrictive migration measures. The isolating practices of modernity meet up with postmodern digital practices. Herewith, political barriers prevent the movement of potentially dangerous individuals and groups, and those not representing a danger to the community, violating human rights and fundamental freedoms, which are so-called mobility rights. Initiatives performed bypolitical parties and public associations prevent mobile citizens from accessing not only political leadership, but also their participation in political agenda setting.

This article reviews the new research of the Russian philosopher and culturologist and National Research University Higher School of Economics professor Olga Zhukova. Zhukova proposes new philosophical approach to Russian cultural history analysis, based on the major ideas and stories of Russian social and religious thought. The author creates a broad review of the Russian historical development and reveals key features of the formation of system of values. Zhukova examines the Russian culture as a complex structure of religious, political, and artistic traditions. The monograph illustrates the formation of the Russian philosophy with its accent on historical and cultural problems. In analyzing the social and spiritual transformation that accompanied the transition of Russian society from a traditional to a modern culture, the author continues the study of national culture that was started by Russian philosophers of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Zhukova forms an inconvenient reconstruction of national culture and implements historical and philosophical concepts of the Russian thinkers. This article presents a critical analysis of Zhukova’s research. Besides a review of Zhukova’s culturological concept, the author explores the ideal model and the practice of the editorial and publishing business. The monograph is analyzed not only as a study of scientist and researcher, but also as a result of publishing office work. The article displays the “areas of responsibility” of the author and editors and publishers.

A review of Y. Plamper’s book The History of Emotions could hardly reflect its content of the process of the emergence of the history of the discipline of emotions, and the rich variety of problems and themes in the field of emotion research. Therefore, the topic of this article concerns the meaning of this monograph for the sociological study of emotions. We tried to highlight the points of the intersection of the history and the sociology of emotions, including the sociological explanation of the so-called “emotional turn” in social sciences and humanities and in everyday life of contemporary society. The main theoretical and methodological opposition — social constructivism versus universalism/naturalism — pervades all sciences researching emotions today, and a researcher’s destiny depends on the choice within the framework of this opposition. Plamper’s book allows the making of that choice, while inciting researchers to a synthetic approach. The book helps to refine and enrich the sociological study of emotions on the basis of factual evidence and new terminology. One of the most important tasks of both disciplines is the explanation of the changes of the emotional culture of modern societies, which, according to the author of the article, involves an “explosion” of interest in emotions in theory, research, and everyday life. Perhaps a new “sentimental age” has begun as an unintended consequence of the rationalization of all spheres of society. The combination of a rational attitude to emotions and, at the same time, the special attention to feelings, the explosions of collective emotions, and the persistent searching for authentic feelings are features of the emotional culture of our time.

Lawler S., Payne G. (eds.). (2018). Social Mobility for the 21st Century: Everyone a Winner? L.: Routledge. 184 P. ISBN 9781315276588