M.E.S., I.Kuntuova1, C.Ph.S.,Zh.
Kantarbaeva2
1 KazNTRU, Kazakhstan
2 KazNU, Kazakhstan
Problem of Self-identification of Youth
Young people with their views,
opinions, attitudes to the surrounding reality represent a socially significant
part of society in a number of indicators, such as socio-labor, political
activity, cultural orientations, the reproduction of labor, the qualitative
component of the population. Interest in the problems of youth is multifaceted
and wide.
Each new generation, entering social
life, not only inherits social norms, attitudes, values, but also changes them.
Thus, it contributes its own contribution to the social-generational evolution
of society. Young people are least integrated into social, economic, political
structures, the most dynamic, socially-problematic and contradictory,
especially subject to situational circumstances. It is distinguished by
internal contradictory tendencies of the entire process of social
self-determination and development.
On the one hand, this is the desire to fully realize oneself in public
life, on the other, the loss of social ties, and the rejection of an active
life position. The desire to form and adequately express their personal
potential blocks infantilism, passivity, social helplessness in solving their
own problems. At the same time, young people objectively have a significant
innovative potential, is the bearer and active force of social change.
Youth is the interpreter of cultural and historical formations. Young
people not only gradually join the ranks of the older generation, but they
themselves take an active part in the social processes taking place in the
country. And on what interests, views, values prevail in the youth environment,
the further socio-economic, political and cultural development of society and
the state as a whole depends. Especially acute and relevant this issue is at
the present stage.
The opportunities for self-determination, self-development and
self-realization of the young generation acquire an important constructive and
creative significance in the strategy for the further development of the
country. The complexity and versatility of the topic requires a philosophical
analysis of the problems under study. On the basis of a comprehensive
socio-historical approach, it is necessary to identify and study the process of
development and changes in the status of youth in society, to understand the
various major contemporary phenomena that have influenced the reassessment of
the values and vital positions of modern youth.
Taking into account the modern achievements of social and philosophical
science, young people can be defined as a young generation of people, depending
on cultural and historical formations and passing through various stages of
social self-determination, which reflects the process of social maturation,
that is, the content and direction of the person's life, aspirations and traits,
whose age limits range from 14-16 to 25-30 years.
The youth acquires their characteristics, forms personal qualities and realizes
their essence in the process of social self-determination with the search and
finding of the meaning of life, the choice of the life path, ideals, values, as
well as moral principles, awareness of one's possibilities, The surrounding
world. The social space of self-determination must be viewed as an integral
characteristic of youth. On the one hand, it reflects the process of social
maturation, determines the content and direction of life, aspirations and
character traits. On the other hand, it reveals the interaction of young people
with the surrounding world, social reality and is accompanied by the
establishment of social ties.
The essence of youth as a social group is revealed in the process of its
realization of the function of reproduction of the social structure. Inheriting
and reproducing existing social relations, each new generation ensures the
preservation of the integrity of society and participates in its improvement
and transformation based on its innovative potential. Thus, both the development
of youth and society as a whole is carried out.
The positive orientation of changes in the quantitative and qualitative
characteristics of youth in the course of its formation as a subject of social
reproduction testifies to the social development of this socio-demographic
group.
Its criterion is the acquisition and change of young people's own social
status and the formation of civil identities in the process of reaching young
people with social maturity and social subjectness. This process is immanently
connected with risk; it does not do without trial and error in choosing the
life path, ways of self-realization of young people. Youth's life activity is
carried out in social conditions, which also conceal various threats and risks.
Modern societies are dynamically developing systems that overcome the stages of
modernization one by one. The fundamental socio-economic and sociocultural
changes that take place in them are directed toward increasing uncertainty and
ambiguity of phenomena and processes. An exhaustive cognition of reality
becomes impossible.
The possibility of predicting not only the distant, but also the near
future is diminishing, which introduces uncertainty and instability in the life
activity of young people entering social relations. A breakthrough to desired
status positions in a rapidly changing social reality is inevitably a risky
thing for young people. Thus, risk can be considered as one of the essential
properties of youth as a socio-demographic group and a significant factor in
its social development.
Both achieving and finding other ways are risky. First of all, this is
determined by the limited opportunities provided by society for the vertical
mobility of young people. Awareness of the restrictions stimulates young people
to take decisive and risky actions, the outcome of which is poorly predicted in
conditions of instability. Success contributes to the social self-determination
of the young man. However, failing to realize themselves in society, young
people face an alternative: to be on the sidelines of life or to follow the
path of violation of legal and moral norms. The state of uncertainty is
growing. Then the risk appears again, but already with an attempt to overcome
uncertainty, and is expressed in adverse consequences in case of failure, the
probability of which is very high. The escalation of risk for many young people
leads to threats to career, family, stable life.
Young people from different social strata have unequal chances at the
stage of a life start. The impact of risk is also felt in other, later, stages
of the social development of young people. In transitional conditions, the
younger generation more often denies the experience of the elders than it
assimilates. And in families where intergenerational relations are violated and
where the family loses the function of the lifebuoy on the waves of
uncertainty, the risk of a lag in the life start and the risk of unrealized
opportunities for young people are aggravated. Similar risks arise in
low-status families that are not able to provide material support to their
children.
In a broad social context, these trends indicate a deformation of the
reproduction process already in the first link - at the stage of continuity.
Self-affirmation and self-realization of youth through denial can have both
positive and negative consequences. So, undoubtedly a positive moment was the
rejection by the majority of the young generation of outdated, obsolete values
and relations typical for the era of authoritarianism (although experience
shows that the risk of reproduction of these relations in the new conditions
has not been overcome). On the other hand, the indiscriminate denial of the
past destroys the historical consciousness of the younger generation, leads to
value-normative uncertainty, relativism and nihilism as its extreme form.
Ultimately, the identity is deformed.
Identity is a phenomenon that arises from the dialectical relationship
of the individual and society. It is the result of identification, which in
turn is a process. Identity includes various aspects, and identification
describes such aspects. The first is the result that has become, defending and
defending oneself, the second is adaptation, the process of constant choice,
acceptance of norms, traditions, attitudes. Identity is the main element of
subjective reality. Like any subjective reality, it is in a dialectical
relationship with society, is formed by social processes and, once
crystallized, maintained, mutated by social relations.
The social processes associated with this are determined by the social
structure. Conversely, identities created through interaction of the organism,
individual consciousness and social structure; react to the latter, supporting
or modifying. The society has a history in the process of which specific
identities arise; but this story, however, is created by people endowed with
specific identities.
According to modern research, identity is a transforming structure, it
develops throughout life, passes through overcoming crises, can change in a
progressive or regressive direction, that is, be "successful"
(positive) or "negative" (the individual rejects any interactions).
Scientists agree that identity is social in origin, as it is formed as a result
of people's interaction and assimilation of each language developed in the
process of communication, and changes in identity are caused by social changes.
In the context of modern global changes covering all spheres of life and
human activity, the issue related to the identity of the younger generation
requires close attention and detailed study. This praxeological significance is
combined with the methodological necessity of concretizing the concept of
"identity" [1]. Crisis problems of the modern world order, having a
direct impact on the system of the relationship between the individual and the
society, define new vectors for the development of society, civilization,
culture [2]. In the current situation, the question of young people's awareness
of their role and place in public life, as well as adaptation and
self-determination in the world of rapid changes and transformations becomes
topical. It is no accident that the problems of modern youth become paramount
because it is the main link linking the past and the future (K. Mannheim
"concept of generations").
This is a kind of conductor of progressive ideas of knowledge,
experience accumulated by previous generations, it is a universal mechanism
that translates national traditions and ideals. Youth is the cultural and
intellectual future of any state. Unfortunately, the modern model of life, the
dynamics and inconsistency of socio-economic processes, hamper the formation of
a stable identity of the younger generation.
In this situation, it is difficult for a person to orient, make the
right choice. Particular difficulties are experienced first of all by the
younger generation, since young people are a specific social group that is the
most vulnerable, subject to derivational processes in the context of the
socio-cultural crisis that arose as a result of the absence of a single value
matrix that promotes self-determination and the search for one's own self. The
social uncertainty characteristic of the modern world order objectively forces
young people to independently search for new significant (reference) patterns
and modes of action. In the conditions of liberalization, life strategies
become a personal affair of everyone without a real reliance on collective
forms of protection, individualization intensifies.
The formation of identities is extremely contradictory. The integrity of
identification structures is lost and stability is strengthened their fragmentation
[3]. The lack of a clear personal position of the spiritual community of
individuals makes them alienated from society lost from society. To find a way
out, a young man must work out new identification strategies, both individually
and socially.
Hence a new contradiction arises: the usual mechanisms of identification
are destroyed during the abolition of previous institutions, the cardinal
vector of development under the influence of globalization processes has
changed, life values and stable cultural patterns have lost their
relevance. As a result, the identity program has undergone a significant
change-it becomes blurred, unclear. Identity problems are closely related to
the intensive development of information processes that, on the one hand, facilitate
contacts in the media space and the effective use of information, on the other
hand, the quality of information and communication impedes the construction of
identification procedures.
This is due to the fact that the information presented by electronic
sources differs in accessibility and diversity but at the same time with
redundancy and fragmentation that "inevitably leads to superficiality –
first of perception then, perhaps, of thinking" [4]. Plunging into
information spaces where the reality of what is happening is conditional, but
the convincing subject loses the qualities of authenticity and acquires the
qualities of a "virtual personality".
This is the next contradiction associated with the search for identity:
building communication in the Internet space, a person gets the opportunity to
try on a whole set of different masks to enter any image, but the individual
integrity and uniqueness of the subject itself is destroyed, the multiple
"I" appears, and self-identity is lost.
In the context of the ongoing socio-cultural changes, the phenomenon of
the subcultural identity of youth is actualized. Due to the rapid development
of mass media, the proliferation of interactive forms of communication, the
number of subcultural associations that perform a number of specific functions
increases:
1. Adaptation of a young man in modern society;
2. Self-realization of the innovative potential of modern youth;
3. Choice of identity, etc.
Subcultural identity is significantly different from traditional forms
of civil professional, ethnic, national, etc.), has specific forms of temporal
existence, has greater mobility, is marked by a temporary, complementary
character. Actually, therefore, modern mass movements do not become the basis
for the all-round self-determination of individuals; at best they only support
partial identifications, often external, "visual" rather than
ideological ones.
It becomes possible to change their identities more often, to experiment
with them to select in the cultural supermarket what is appropriate and that is
available developing tactics of protection from market abundance" [5].
In such a complex socio-cultural environment, where there is a constant
mixture of styles, different forms of behavior, norms and values, there arises
the difficulty in identifying oneself as a person. This process is especially
difficult for young people [6]. In this connection, the need for a critical
analysis of the orientations of the sociocultural development of society, as
well as the transition to a morally reflective model of human vital activity,
based on such concepts as self-esteem, responsibility, self-actualization,
self-report, tolerance of forecasting the results of activities becomes more
evident.
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