Philosophy. Philosophical anthropology.
Lugutsenko T. V.
Spirituality
deformations in culture of modern society
Processes of
internal and external man’s world which lead to rather limited, inferior,
formal manifestations of creating spiritual beginnings in different spheres of
culture are considered. The semblances of spirituality (forms of distortion of
this or that essential spiritual characteristic feature) are more often
connected with man’s spiritual retardation; they are susceptible to
manipulations wishing to solve their own problems very easily and quickly or
they are subjected to unconscious, passive challenge to modern condition of
technological consumption. All these semblances have been analyzed.
Key words: spirituality, quasi-spirituality, anti-spirituality,
proto-spirituality, psycho- spiritual world.
². Introduction. Today the condition of world
community is characterized as a crisis one, but in many researchers’ opinion the
sources of this crisis are first of all connected with deformation of man and
society’s measurements, with the loss of anthrop-social and socio-natural
existence unity, man’s incapability to understand deep senses and the highest
mission of his existence. Modern stage of man’s development is not only a new
millennium of his existence but it is a qualitatively new stage of socio-sphere
evolution; namely, it is a formation of global civilization, global culture and
it can be said that it is as formation of global spirituality.
A religious aspect in its dogmatic form is losing its previous
importance after active processes of life secularization. And although a number
of believers is not decreased their spiritual activity acquires qualitatively new
another motivation losing world-outlook deepness. Forcing out but not forced
out till the end the appearance of previous God as a world foundation of existence,
modern civilization hasn’t found adequate replacement to him. If earlier a
single ideal of spirituality within the framework of separate religious
traditions has been implanted, but today it has become obvious that none of
them can be a predominant force in man’s spiritual searches. Individual free choice
of a person plays greater and greater role, however modern technological
culture doesn’t create adequate conditions for his realization. Considering
spiritual crisis as a system phenomenon it is important to stress that it is
necessary to pay attention to its following main aspects such as:
socio-cultural, anthropological, ecophene which are developed in research works
of V.S. Barulin, V.D. Isaev, M.K. Mamardashvili and some others. Here it is
very important to stress that a man and mankind have received new possibilities
for their creative self-realization connected with STR (scientific-technical
revolution), with the achievements in educational system. However, it is
necessary to go over to new thinking, new consciousness, new way of life due to
which all these things could acquire constructive forms.
II. Research aim. It
is necessary to state that a modern man’s world-outlook in reality has
considerably changed. Individual has acquired substantial intellectual
resources having scientific-rational basis under the influence of educational
system. Under the conditions of liberalization of personality’s life the
attention is more and more paid to external factors of his existence: material
well-being, professional successes, and social status in the whole. External
freedom and financial self-prosperity, independence from unstability of ideological-political,
socio-economical, family-everyday situations are emphasized more and more.
The highest beginnings at best are
acquiring some abstract forms, and at worse in general they are losing any kind
of importance in consciousness of rather ego-centrical and pragmatic
individual. Inevitably he is looking for more harmonic reality, however,
spiritual demands and the highest spiritual sufferings are replaced and changed
by bright virtual cultural worlds of modern technological society. And it
manifests itself under those conditions when a man must understand and realize
profoundly what is happening and participate very actively in all occurring processes.
Not in vain a number of people involved into
“spiritual” processes and sometimes with rather doubtful content is growing. The
breaking tendency with spiritual past traditions presenting them as dead
conservative cultural structures which do harm to ongoing development of
techno-engineering society is strengthening. Centuries – old systems of values
and ideals are being destroyed under the concealment of modernization. Instead
of them chimeras of mass consumption culture, instant by their essence and
allowing increasing capital at spiritual man’s death are coming. At the same
time a spiritual crisis can’t be identified with spiritual catastrophe. It is
rather a factor of spiritual evolution, spiritual growth; it is a dangerous
signal about that it is necessary to change our existence, to correct those
tendencies which are obviously carrying a negative charge and are demanding to
be renewed. Internal individual world of a man in techno-engineering society has
come to the contradiction with profound natural dynamics of existence. Such a
situation demands not breaking and de-mounting of the past but it demands to
discover new constructive impulses under the conditions of our present time, to
find out those internal forces which have accompanied a man for the whole
period of history and moreover, such forces have expressed constructive man’s
potential, his spirituality in the highest significance under any certain
particular historical conditions. Strengthening negative tendencies in ‘near
by’ spiritual environment of culture which lately are being strengthened at the
level of individual and public consciousness hinder largely to express creative
potential. It leads to the fact that the highest spirit senses are being lost,
the threat of spiritual degradation is increasing, society and individuals are
sexually abused because in such cases lifelike direction is moving from the
highest ideal to the lowest one, bodily-material or even to perverted existence
in which all kinds of vices are flourishing; the cult of bait, unlimited
delights is claimed and so on.
Such a problem can be considered in the context of Tricia
– tome [Latin] (it means to be divided into three parts, namely “spirituality –
quasi-spirituality – anti-spirituality”. Nowadays there are disputes in
research literature about child’s spirituality, but nobody begins to deny that
fact that a child needs in mother’s warmth, caress, kindness, he possess a
potential to be not only beloved but to express undetermined love. Already at
early stages of his life way a child shows his different abilities and it goes
without saying they are connected with psycho-spiritual man’s world (with an
ability to perceive and express the beauty, to survive the state of internal
fight between good and evil and so forth).
The same individual
proto-spirituality demands thorough attention from the parents and teachers’
side because it is quite natural that a leading vector of spirituality from
initial impulses aspired to harmony and perfection is deviated. At a certain
stage of man’s psyche development all necessary conditions are formed in order
to transform non-differentiated proto-spiritual individual’s state into more
developed and differentiated personality’s structures (intellect, will,
requirements, motives and so on). Originally incorrect interpretations of
initial spiritual aspirations at the level of man’s psyche are inevitable under
the conditions of such differentiation. Thus
psycho-spiritual development is often lack behind the psycho-somatic and
intellectual development. Finally it causes the different spiritual
deformations in society culture which externally look like as samples of
spirituality, they are perceived as free creative personality’s self-expression,
however they don’t relate to spirituality at all and moreover they distort its
essential characteristics. Unity is replaced by local manifestation of the
highest spiritual qualities: morality and love have conditioned character;
there is no rising direction to the ideal, perfection and serving to the
highest good; understanding and wisdom are substituted by information chaos;
there is no unselfishness in activity motives; spiritual freedom and compassion
are substituted by ostentatious complicity and piety; there is no sincerity in
expressing of the highest feelings and so on. Consequently, the highest
spiritual in quasi – spirituality
(pseudo-spirituality) can be substituted by emotional connected with life
maintenance (emotional comfort and ostentatious well-being). In a given case
quasi – spirituality
(pseudo-spirituality) can be characterized as limited, insufficient, inferior
manifestation of man’s spirit in different kinds of activity. Spirit “is
flickering” in a man, his aspirations are touched down, the consequences of
spiritual potential realization are rather doubtful. Thus, quasi-spirituality
is not worth its full value, it presents itself some kind of substitution,
imitation aspiring to the status of spirituality. In philosophy quasi-spirituality
is manifested in speculative theoretical structures which haven’t any practical
meaning and they wash away subjected field of spirituality. In education its
essence is opened in ostentatious moralization, in abstruse spiritual theorizing
and formalism to realize, to achieve the goals of bringing up. Religiousness in
quasi-spirituality is often degenerated into confessional formalism which is
presented unconsciousness execution of church rituals (“maybe it helps!”),
ostentatious asceticism, religious pragmatism and so forth. Sometimes going to
a church is becoming a peculiar spiritual entertainment. Some aspects of
quasi-spirituality is seen in neo-religious cults (neo-Christian, new-oriental),
they haven’t vividly expressed de-structural direction but at the same time
they lead to decreasing of social adaptation and neurosis induction. Neophytes sometimes
change motivations considerably; they begin to feel in themselves some kind of
force, and the feeling of selected people is arising. In mass media the
disclosure of profound spiritual sources is substituted by circulation of
pseudo-occulted imitations, by propaganda of primitive mysticism and
spiritualism, extra-sensory, UFO-logy (unknown flying objects), indigo- mania
and so forth. Quasi-spirituality is directly connected with spreading of legal
psycho-tort (delinquent) sub-culture including club culture, corresponding
music and cinema in itself. Quasi
–spirituality is also manifested in different forms of psycho-tort “art” based either
on changing the customer of “art” object into changeable state or on the
demonstration of these or those phenomena of reality into particularly another
phenomenon key. In every day life
quasi-spirituality is expressed in extremes of “right, proper” way of life, expansion,
in external respectability and conventionality, fascination with extreme,
meditative practices having no spiritual ethical basis. Quasi- spirituality is
acquiring greater and greater force in the activity of a whole number of public
organizations propagating ephemeral projects and systems to revitalize internal
and external man’s world; it is more and more important in the structures of
multi-level marketing with its presentations of super-compounds transforming a
man.
III. Results. Given spirituality semblances (distortion forms of this or that
essential characteristic feature of spirituality) are connected more often with
spiritual backwardness, susceptible to manipulation wishing to solve their
problems easily and quickly or with an unconscious, passive challenge to modern
conditions of technological-consuming society. It is also necessary to note
that socio-cultural oppositions (good and evil, beautiful and ugly, true and
false) in real life are not equaled, “non-weighted”: one of them is life-stated,
and another one is destroyed-lifeless. That’s why the approach to an organized
pole of antinomy is vitally, spiritually, but the approach to a des-organized
pole is lifeless, and in the whole it is without a soul, lifeless and
destroyed. If finally the second vector predominates so the processes of
degradation and breakup of a personality, culture and society in the whole are
activated; negative potential, negative energetic in spiritual environments (“dissent”
of man’s spirituality”) are growing. However, profound mechanisms of
anti-spiritual manifestation could rather be revealed till the end due to the infinity
and complexity of existence spiritual measurements.
IV. Conclusions. The analysis of spirituality reveals new perspectives to understand the
nature of spirituality and its place in the vital man’s world, gives the
possibility to reveal deep reasons of man’s consciousness which cause the
cognitive processes, gives a new paradigm understanding of both a personality’s
unity and harmony, integrity of subject-objective relations in a
spiritually-practical ontological turning of modern philosophy under the
conditions of cultural-civilization environment transformation.
The List of used literature
1.Kagan M.S. On spiritual (the experience of category analysis) / M.S.
Kagan // Questions of philosophy. – 1985. – ¹ 9. – P. 45.
2.
Lugutsenko T.V. Spiritual dominants in cultural epochs / T.V. Lugutsenko //"Current
questions, problems and perspectives of humanitarian knowledge development in modern
information environment: national and international aspects": Collection
of scientific works (International scientific – practical conference of May
17-19, 2011) Chief editor Zhurba M.A. – Rubezhnoye – Lugansk: V. Dahl EUNU,
2011. – Part 1. – P 116 – 118.
3. Lugutsenko T.V. Spirituality as subjective reality / T.V. Lugutsenko
//"Religion, religious, philosophy and humanitarians in modern information
environment: national and international aspects": collection of scientific
works (International scientific – practical conference of December 27 – 29,
2011) / chief editor Zhurba M.A. – Rubezhnoye - Lugansk: V. Dahl EUNU, 2011. – Part 1. – P.30 – 32.
4. Lugutsenko
T.V. Culture as a system of spiritual carrying out / T.V. Lugutsenko // "Philosophical
problems of a man" (materials of a scientific – practical conference of November
24-25, 2011) /Lugansk: Publishing house of V. Dahl EUNU, 2011. – P. 294 – 295.
5. Lugutsenko T.V. Intercultural dialogue in the
context of understanding different cultural values / T.V. Lugutsenko // "Achievements
of socio – cultural and humanitarian sciences in contemporary Ukraine":
Materials of the second All – Ukrainian scientific conference April 28, 2012:
3parts. – D.: Partnership "Innovation", 2012. – Part 2. – P. 113 – 116.
6.
Yatsenko A.I. Values and ideals / A.I. Yatsenko. – K.: 1977. – 187 p.
Ñâåäåíèÿ îá àâòîðå
1.Ëóãóöåíêî Òàòüÿíà
Âàëåíòèíîâíà – äîêòîð ôèëîñîôñêèõ íàóê, ïðîôåññîð êàôåäðû ïðèêëàäíîé
ôèëîñîôèè è òåîëîãèè èíñòèòóòà ôèëîñîôèè è ïñèõîëîãèè Âîñòî÷íîóêðàèíñêîãî
íàöèîíàëüíîãî óíèâåðñèòåòà èìåíè Âëàäèìèðà Äàëÿ
2. Äîìàøíèé àäðåñ: 91051, ì. Ëóãàíñê, êâ. Æóêîâà, äîì.
17, êâ. 73.
3. Òåëåôîí: 050-731-64-85
4. Ýëåêòðîííàÿ ïîøòà: telfira@yandex.ru
Information about the author
Lugutsenko Tatyana Valentinovna is Doctor
of Philosophical Sciences, professor, the chair of applied philosophy and theology,
Institute of Philosophy and psychology, V. Dahl East-Ukrainian National
University
1. Home
address: 91051, Lugansk, kvartal Zhukova, dom 17, kvartira 73.
2.
Telephone: 050-731-64-85
3. E-mail :
telfira@yandex.ru
Ðàññìàòðèâàþòñÿ òå
ïðîöåññû âíóòðåííåãî è
âíåøíåãî ìèðà ÷åëîâåêà, êîòîðûå ïðèâîäÿò ê ïðåäåëüíî îãðàíè÷åííûì,
íåïîëíîöåííûì, ôîðìàëüíûì ïðîÿâëåíèÿì ñîçèäàþùèõ äóõîâíûõ íà÷àë â ðàçëè÷íûõ
ñôåðàõ êóëüòóðû. Ïðîàíàëèçèðîâàíû ïîäîáèÿ äóõîâíîñòè (ôîðìû
èñêàæåíèÿ òîé èëè èíîé ñóùíîñòíîé õàðàêòåðèñòèêè äóõîâíîñòè) ñâÿçàíû ÷àùå âñåãî
ñ äóõîâíîé íåðàçâèòîñòüþ ÷åëîâåêà, ïîäâåðæåííîñòüþ ìàíèïóëèðîâàíèþ, ñ æåëàíèåì
ëåãêîãî è áûñòðîãî ðåøåíèÿ ñâîèõ ïðîáëåì èëè ñ íåîñîçíàííûì, ïàññèâíûì âûçîâîì
ñîâðåìåííîìó ñîñòîÿíèþ òåõíîãåííî-ïîòðåáèòåëüñêîãî îáùåñòâà
Êëþ÷åâûå ñëîâà: äóõîâíîñòü, êâàçèäóõîâíîñòü,
àíòèäóõîâíîñòü, ïðîòîäóõîâíîñòü, ïñèõîäóõîâíûé ìèð.