Innovative Trend In Globalization And The Problem Of The Future

Abstract

Synergetic philosophy of history approaches the problem of innovation, associated with the action of objective laws, through the disclosure of the essence of social forecasting. If for the long-term prognosis, the relationship of ideals, instead of their concrete content, appears essential, for the short-term prognosis the certain "synergetic balance" of the relative ideals spent by separate people ("choice synergetics") is important. Innovation activity is reduced to overcoming, firstly, the opposites between the subject and object, secondly, the opposites between diversity and uniformity of forms of transformation, and, thirdly, the opposites between freedom and responsibility (justice). All three contradictions in the conditions of innovation are practically resolved only when the absolute (universal) ideal is realized. The transformation of social reality is connected with a radical transformation of the environment and the person himself. Invasion into the microcosm, megamir, macrocosm, and the beginning of genetic engineering are all milestones on the way to the superattractor. With the increasing degree of synthesis of order and chaos in society, the threat of catastrophe is mitigated, although it is present as an important element of synergy of development. The threshold of death, which had previously taken place in the conditions of man's proximity to the animal, is already in the past. The movement towards superattractor is not programmed, it is quite controllable, it is connected with our aspiration to the ideal, when there is "listening to the solid core from the fragile shell" – the universal ideal from the multitude of private human ideals.

Keywords: Forecastfuturepatterninnovationglobalizationsuperattractor

Introduction

Synergetic philosophy of history (SFI), as an interdisciplinary concept, can serve as a methodology for the qualitative processing of social laws and in the future as a philosophical basis for the transition to their quantitative description. However, successful social forecasting has a very limited horizon of application for a number of essential features. Firstly, contrary to linear concepts of progress, no social regularity (trend) can exist without significant changes. Secondly, a long-term prediction of the social future is not possible because it depends, on the one hand, on changes in the environment and, on the other hand, on major future scientific discoveries. Thirdly, scientific discoveries themselves depend on a confluence of many circumstances. Thus, Darwin was prompted to publish his main work by a letter from A. Wallace (1823–1913), where he introduced Darwin to the idea of natural selection. The sudden desires of the people of the future can serve as special contingencies that make long-term predictions impossible. Popper ( 1993) wrote: "Man is not allowed to predict the future, he can not do so, at least because knowledge of the future would immediately have an impact on his present position" (p. 18).

Problem Statement

The main problem associated with innovation in society is the scientifically correct forecast. There is obviously a general methodology of social forecasting. SFI approaches this question from the point of view of the fact that the problem of innovations is necessary to be connected with the notion of social reality, which is subject to objective laws. Hence, any forecast should be based on the knowledge of these laws. Although social reality is not a kind of natural reality, because it does not exist as nature before, outside and independent of the consciousness of the individual and society, at the same time, like natural reality, is subject to certain laws. Between the social phenomena are observed repetitive links, which indicates the existence of objective patterns. Thus, for example, the law of supply and demand in the market largely determines the economic reality, respectively, the law of interclass relations largely determines the political reality. Lenin's formula is a well-known expression of the latter: "the top cannot, and the bottoms do not want to live the same way". Skillful use of the above mentioned regularity by the Bolshevik party led, finally, to the victory of the revolution in October 1917 in Russia.

The discovery of social regularities creates prerequisites for explaining and predicting new facts, new phenomena in society. At the same time, the main difficulty in predicting them is connected with the difficulty of their quantitative description. Therefore, it is important to first give a qualitative portrait of them and try to separate their essential characteristics from those of insignificant ones. This will protect us from the simple transfer of physical laws into the field of social phenomena (physicalism), which has been repeatedly reproached for by social synergy.

Research Questions

The leader of the St. Petersburg School of Social Synergy, Bransky ( 1999), made the following comments on how it is possible to create any concept of the distant future based on a qualitative description of the laws of social development:

If we now turn to the law of differentiation and integration of ideals, we will immediately pay attention to the independence of this law from the specific content, both future knowledge and future desires. For a long-term forecast, the relationship between ideals is essential, not their specific content. The latter is very important for short-term forecasts, much less important for long-term (local) forecasts and, paradoxically, not at all essential for global forecasts. ( Branskiy & Pozharskiy, 2001, p. 44)

Obviously, the point is that from the standpoint of the global process of social evolution, the law of self-organization of ideals correlates (is interconnected) with such an important characteristic of human history as its "meaning". Thanks to this law, the "meaning of history" does not depend on the peculiarities of the influence of many people on the local course of history, or on the goals that people set for themselves, or even on what changes await a person in the course of earthly evolution. Science does not directly "understand the meaning of life" or "the meaning of history", although it pursues a similar goal in secret, or rather, is motivated by such an idea, knowing that any discoveries "must be implemented". Such an idea is directly occupied by ideology. SFI interprets ideology as a doctrine of the ideal. "An ideal cannot be mixed with an idea, a goal, a value, a truth, or a mistake" ( Branskiy & Pozharskiy, 2009, p. 27). The ideal is the ultimate representation of an object in which negative characteristics are reduced to zero; such an object in any ideology is, as a rule, the image of the desired future.

As for the forecasts of the near future, it is necessary to take into account not so much the general trend in the process of self-organization of goals and ideals as the ratio of forces "here and now", in other words, a certain "synergetic balance" of relative (privately human) ideals, carried out by individuals. There is a certain "synergy of choice", when a person has to make a choice of one of the many possible scenarios that have opened up before him, guided by a certain value reference point. The set of scenarios at the bifurcation point does not depend (or weakly depends) on the will of a person, but the choice he or she makes here influences the character of future possibilities of choice, but already for new acts of choice in other bifurcation zones. There appears a pronounced innovative component of human freedom (and responsibility).

Historically, innovation activity goes through a number of stages: at the beginning we record the activities of individuals who carry it out in a spontaneous and free form, then there are ideological communities and, finally, science is established as an institution specializing in innovation activities. But before we move on to the essence of the innovation process in the aspect of modern globalization, it is necessary to analyze the relationship between the individual and the public, the individual and the general, the private and the public in the social development. This applies to things, organizations, people and, of course, ideals (values). The contrast between an individual and a significant ideal is not absolute, but relative: an individual view of things, of the future, can eventually become generally significant (popular), and the popular one – to lose its supporters, to get off the stage. Only through such a synergetic, unifying mechanism of the private human can it become meaningful, but, in this case, it does not always become universal, making up, so to speak, the value "golden fund" of all mankind. It becomes universal only when it starts to contribute to the world culture, forming its "column road", correlating with the values that have historically allowed any society to preserve and develop.

Purpose of the Study

All innovation activity in its deepest essence is, firstly, to overcome the opposition between the subject and the object. History shows that the discrepancy between the object (social and related to it natural reality) and the desires of the subject can be eliminated in two ways: the transformation of both the object and the subject, where one without the other is impracticable. To create a new person, we need a new system of education and upbringing, a new environment. At the same time, the meaning of history lies in such a transformation of social, including natural, reality, in which the distinction between the reality itself (the essential) and reality is erased, which it can be in agreement with the ideal (due).

The following contradictions which should be overcome in the course of innovations, secondly, opposition between variety and uniformity of forms of transformation, and also, thirdly, contradiction between freedom (possibility of an alternative choice that is characteristic for displays of individualism) and justice, more precisely, responsibility before the moral law in which the majority of people are interested that is characteristic for displays of collectivism. It is possible to solve these essential contradictions only if they are considered through the prism of relations of order and chaos.

All three contradictions in the conditions of innovations are practically resolved only when the universal (absolute) ideal is realized. Since the transformation of social reality is impossible without the transformation of the subject, and at the same time the natural reality, it follows that the radical humanization of the environment is impossible without a radical invasion of nature in general and human nature in particular. The bold invasion of the microcosm, the megamir (the conquest of near space and the exploration of Metagalactica), the macrocosm (the transformation of the Earth's spheres) and the beginning of genetic engineering – all these are milestones on the way to superattractor (full of order and chaos syntax). The global problems associated with such activities, especially genetic engineering, threaten the very existence of mankind. However, they are connected more likely not with radicalism of transformations, but with their specific character, caused by pressure of private human ideals. It is the latter that does not allow to remove the above mentioned contradictions, leads to their aggravation, makes, for example, technical progress a driver of the global environmental crisis.

In this regard, it should be emphasized that the meaning of history is not in the "survival of mankind" (as environmentalists and pacifists believe), which, in fact, reduces our behavior to the level of animal survival strategy, but in the implementation of the universal ideal, which can serve as the only and proper human strategy. Therefore, the core of innovative activity is the rule of leadership of the universal (absolute) ideal.

There is a question connected with struggle with fear before the future. Toffler defined the phenomenon of "futurological fear" ("futuroshok") as fear of the uncertainty of the future. "Paradoxically, the man of the future may suffer not only from the lack of choice, but also from the paralyzing excess of it. He may be a victim of this superindustrial dilemma: super-choice" ( Toffler, 1997, p. 62). The fight against such fears is again connected with two trends described above: 1) general rationalization and triumph of the global order, and 2) general irrationalization, aestheticization, individualization, fraught with a variety of approaches, and, consequently, leading to chaostization, increasing risks of choice under uncertainty. As Taleb ( 2010) writes, risks are partly related to "our blindness in relation to chance, especially the large-scale one" (p. 15). The future becomes confusing, vague, uncertain, a person has a feeling of losing not only order, but even the meaning of existence. The idea of superattractor, which returns the desired meaning, can become the core of a new ideology; it overcomes the contradiction between the unity and diversity of forms of transformed social reality by the fact that the superattractor itself is formed in the process of successive alternation of differentiation and integration of social institutions, ideals and values. It follows that the super attractor appears as a result of the formation of some unity in an infinite variety, which serves as a synthesis of all the individual features that have universal (!) meaning. After all, it is represented by a set of unique opportunities for the future, removing its uncertainty, but not from the perspective of the near (foreseeable) future, which is impossible, but from the perspective of the global future. In the process of communization of the private human individual does not disappear, but only what does not have a general human meaning disappears. Superattractor carries out synthesis of infinite set of the individual features having universal value. Synthesis of unity and diversity of the transformed social reality, achieved in superattractor, eliminates fear of totalitarian unity, alien to diversity, and fear of anarchic, chaotic diversity, excluding the unity.

Research Methods

From the point of view of SFI, the methodology of social forecasting should be based on the principle of growth in the degree of synthesis of order and chaos, or, in other words, the principle of synthesis of tendencies to order (rationalization of the project of the future) and to chaos (irrationalization of the project of the future), which is the guiding rule (selector) in the selection of possible speculative models of the social future. Such tendencies, based on the analysis of modern research, are reduced, according to Branskiy and Pozharskiy ( 2004), to universal technicalization and universal aestheticization. The consequence of the contradictory interaction of these trends is such an important factor in global development as the limit of innovation, when creation can go into the process of destruction. On the basis of SFI methodology represented by the principle of growth of the degree of synthesis of order and chaos in the process of forecasting and, consequently, in the process of social innovations, it is possible not only to combine the utopian and the pragmatic in one project, but also to overcome (rationalize) the utopian by consciously taking into account the mentioned tendencies that permeate all social processes.

Findings

Social relations cannot be considered in isolation from the global vector of social development, and any changes in the history of an individual are related to the entire history of society. Thus, there is a close connection between social synergetics and akmeologiya, a section of human development psychology that investigates the regularities that provide the possibility of achieving the highest level of individual development (akme). The form of synthesis of order and chaos, in which the social system is able to reach the peak of sustainability and development, can be considered as the ultimate perfection. Study of patterns of achieving maximum perfection by the social system and the individual through self-organization – this is the main goal of synergetic acmeology developed by the St. Petersburg School of Social Synergy ( Branskiy & Pozharskiy, 2001). Ancient Greeks by the word ακμή (akme) denoted the period of age in human life, when the highest maturity of his abilities, their "top", "peak" is shown. Moreover, the fact of the existence of outstanding people convinces us of the possibility of self-realization at a high, "top" level. On the contrary, social and individual histories and destinies also show that declines and "lowlands" in the destiny of the individual and society, or κατα(kate), also occur.

The movement towards superattractor, which is directly expressed by supermenez, is based on a certain social resource, which is essentially a priority. If we compare resources among ourselves and ask whether they are equal in importance in the life of a person and society, we will have to recognize their different priority. Among them, one resource stands out, namely, people are the source of all resources, including themselves; other resources do not produce anything themselves. Hence the conclusion: people have the highest substantive priority in the life of society and people. However, people produce products not only out of themselves. The second in priority is the information resource, information, the carrier and producer of which is the consciousness of the person. The third in priority is the organizational resource. Fourth in priority are things or material and technical benefits. Already these considerations show that all social production, and, consequently, all innovation, is ultimately focused on supermenezy, on human improvement and the formation of superpowers.

The emergence of superman implies superpowers. The subject area of acmeology is quite wide, but the aspect of maturity development from the point of view of abilities is more important. Development as an ideal in the broad sense of the word is a criterion or standard for the acme of man and society. Ability is the integrity of skills and abilities, the system connection of which raises the ability to a very high level of use. According to Kuzmina ( 2013), the ability is supported by "creative potential", by the foundation of personal development. Ability to solve problems of different levels and profiles, to make successful choices and to satisfy developed, mature needs of an individual and society.

The global akma "crowns" the process of increasing the degree of synthesis of order and chaos, the unity of the noosphere (the sphere of the mind) and the aesthetics (creation according to the "laws of beauty"). But, as we know, the movement towards the akma passes through temporary kata (crises), which can be more or less prolonged. The question arises: is there a tendency to build a global kata on the basis of local kata? Is there a really achievable limit that should be avoided with all its might – in the form of total chaos, destruction of the present essence, degradation and destruction of society, of humanity in general? Local recessions cannot be avoided because there is a limit to innovation associated with destructive human activity, based on a struggle of interests and a clash of ideals, but is it possible to avoid global decline? If the role of local kata fits perfectly into the picture of reality created by social synergy and synergetic acmeology, does the global kata fit into this picture? It is obvious that social progress is not guaranteed: any "challenge" requires an adequate "answer". What if mankind cannot give a successful answer – and so time and again – to the challenge with a consistent decline in the level of acme (ability), in the conditions of degradation of human nature and human spirit? Transition to a global catabolism (downward movement) may turn out to be irreversible and everything will end in global cataclysm. As Pozharsky ( 2013) writes, the point of the kata corresponds to three processes in the society: suicide – suicide, genocide – extermination of peoples, and the omnicy – extermination of all living things. In the local sense, as history shows, this has happened more than once in relation to certain civilizations. Moreover, humanity has been on the brink of an abyss, on the brink of extinction. What has changed in us and can we call these changes fundamental, as long as they guarantee the anthroposociogenesis from such catastrophes? Historical anthropology describes the fate of Neanderthals who, unlike homosapiens, have not made the right choice (followed the evolutionary path of unilateral development, the development of muscles), have not overcome the evolutionary crisis, have not been able to find a "response" to the "challenge" and have disappeared ( Vishnyatsky, 2010). We are facing a typical local catastrophe in the form of a certain ethnos-population, the homo branch. What served as a catalyst for the Neanderthal catabolle – still requires careful study (sharp change of climate, impoverishment of the food niche, etc.?). Again, the question is based on the presence of a superattractor, that our innovation activity should acquire a stable orientation to supermenezes.

Conclusion

“Where there is danger, salvation comes”, existentialist M. Heidegger quotes Gelderlin. The problem is also how tight the kata is, how deep this lowland is. The level of chaos and disintegration is determined by a strange attractor and for each case it is different. This is a principle of growth of the degree of synthesis of order and chaos (akma and kate). This principle has the nature of the law, expresses something repetitive, i.e. has a direct relation to reality. With a sufficiently high degree of synthesis of order and chaos in the society, the threat of kata becomes more and more leveled, although it is present as the most important element of synergetic development. We are talking not only about the evolution of the akma, but also about the evolution of the kata. The threshold of death, which took place in the conditions of human intimacy to the animal is already far behind – in the past. The degree of fall, the level of "bottom" is now completely different than before. The elevation of the degree of synthesis of akme and kate is controlled by a global akme – in accordance with the anthropological principle. However, the movement towards superattractor is not programmed, it is quite controllable, it is connected with our aspiration to the ideal, when there is "listening to the hard core from the fragile shell" – the universal ideal from the multitude of private human ideals. The innovative formation of this hypersubstantiality – an extremely complex spectrum of unique opportunities for the emergence of superman and superhumanity – indirectly determines the trajectory of global social self-organization.

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