Dynamics Of Nation Personal Meanings In Context Of Individualization Of The Sacred

Abstract

The most urgent problem of our time is individualization, during its development the individual realizes himself as a sacred meanings source of his own existence, which violates the balance of personal and collective meanings necessary for the strong identity formation. In this regard, a crisis of personal and collective identity is recorded. The purpose of this article is to substantiate the need to abandon the directed sacralization policy of personal meanings, carried out in parallel with the collective meanings profanation. To achieve this goal, the methods of phenomenology, historicism, psychologism and comparative analysis are used. To substantiate the main conclusions, the methodology of intersubjectivism is used. The connection between the process of individualization and the dynamics in the localization of the sacred meanings source, which traditionally were perceived as deities, spirits, forces, and priests and leaders as mediators, is explored. In the course of their removal, imaginary, artificially sacralized meanings are formed, the leading of which become national ones, in which, in the course of further individualization, the collective component is lost and the individual perceives himself as a sacred meanings source. The main result of the article is the hypothesis of deindividualization, the leading integration principle should be nation-building, which forms the idea of a nation as a sacred reality, joint immersion into which opens up the possibility for interpersonal realization of the sacred semantic balance. The results of the article can be used as a method in the nation study, national identity and nation-building processes.

Keywords: Atomized individual, identification crisis, nation-building, personal meanings, sacred space

Introduction

The most difficult problem of mankind in recent decades was considered the development of globalization processes, as a result of which there were transformations of the familiar reality, which negatively reflected on the formation of internal and external meanings of human existence. However, the events associated with the Covid-19 pandemic have materialized in the form of trends aimed at curtailing some aspects of globalization. So, the prevention of the disease explains the refusal of many countries to receive tourists, which results in the development of nationalist sentiments around the world. A modern researcher writes that “due to the relatively uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus in the United States, US passport holders were banned from entering at least 33 other countries” (Lim, 2021, p. 57). Another author notes the emergence in some countries of a ban on immigration for people professing Islam. He notes, "such prohibitions are contrary to international human rights doctrine" (Brock, 2021, p. 115). This phenomenon is causing numerous protests.

Thus, we can assume the end of an era in which the individual, in the face of the removal of the sacred boundaries of race, ethnos, family, remains face to face with the global world, locking himself within the boundaries of his existence, following the tendency outlined in the humanistic tradition. Moreover, with renewed vigor he “realizes their own intentions in creating their own sacred I” (Kharitonova, 2016, p. 189). The implementation of this phenomenon is manifested in the development of a theoretical direction substantiating the need for the existence of territorial states, which is accompanied with the sacralization of the corresponding territory, language, community, which forms a collective and personal identity. Thus, a modern researcher, pointing to the globalization attitude, according to which “the system of territorial states is fundamentally unfair and should ideally be replaced by another form of political organization,” argues the need for a territorial state, highlighting its three main values: “this is the right of ownership <... > ensuring justice <...> collective self-determination” (Stilz, 2021, pp. 6-7). However, among the provisions of this direction there are no indications of the identification principle that integrates the community - the nation. In this regard, it is necessary to develop a theory that takes into account the need to abandon personal sacralization in favor of the formation of the interpersonal sacred space of the nation.

Problem Statement

According to the direction, the main provisions of which are used in this work, the individual, in the course of constructing reality, closing in on his own individuality and perceiving his own personality as a sacred source, as a result, loses connection with reality. So, according to a professor at the City University of New York, Stetsenko (2020), subjectivity is

a process that launches <...> a chain of continuous socio-individual transformations in which people simultaneously, in a single process, jointly construct the world and themselves in such a way that each person makes his own contribution and turns out to be significant in the aggregate space of social practices. (p. 5)

According to the Russian philosopher F.T. Mikhailov, measures of human attitude to any conceivable content acquire their validity only in the acts of people's living appeal to each other (Kudryavtsev, 2021, p. 8). The adoption of these provisions contributes to the formulation of the main task of the article, which is to form an idea of the nation as a special sacred reality, a joint immersion into which opens up the possibility for the collective realization of personal meanings.

Research Questions

The leading hypothesis of this article is based on the idea of the need to update the process of nation-formation, the relevance of which arises due to the crisis of trust in the institutions of global governance. This is primarily due to the impossibility of developing a unified understanding of justice. As a result, a global confidence in the injustice of the surrounding reality develops. A modern researcher writes: “The world in which we live is unjust, and the existing political institutions are not able to adequately deal with the current injustice <...>. Ultimately, major institutional reform is needed” (Heilinger, 2021, p. 185). As such a reform, the author of this article sees the assertion of the need to abandon global identification, the consequence of which is the sacralization of individuality and the profanation of the collective.

The current level of national identification is in the stage of a deep crisis that has arisen due to the weakening of interpersonal ties within existing nations. The reason for this phenomenon, according to the main hypothesis of the article, lies in the perception of the individual as a sacred overvalue, considered in isolation from the development of collective meanings. The peak of natural individualization is found in the establishment of a balance of personal and collective meanings, achieved in the formation of an intersubjective sacred space. However, the sacralization of individuality, which was clearly visible in the 20th century, occurs in parallel with the profanation of all forms of collective identity, which, according to Dugin (2021, para. 61) fits completely into the ideology of human rights, operating with an individual without taking into account his cultural, religious, social or national aspects. In addition, it points to the processes, the dynamics of which is developing in the direction opposite to the achievement of the specified socio-individual balance.

In this regard, as the integration basis of modern national identification, it is necessary to consider the development of personal meanings, in the joint implementation of which a collective idea of ​​the nation is built as an intersubjective process of the continuous formation of sacred reality. The main provisions of this hypothesis are confirmed in the works of Western philosophers who study the phenomenon of subjectivity. So, according to Heidegger (1998), realizing himself in history, a person as “superpowerful” proceeds from the impersonal power of sacred being to “keep this superpowerful force with him. But thanks to this; it becomes not more harmless, but even more terrible and alien” (p. 226). The event of an outcome from the impersonality of being is considered to be the starting moment of the individualization of the sacred. However, this does not mean the unconditional privatization of sacred power, since the realization of personal sacred meanings is possible only on the basis of their subordination to an external source of the sacred. Levinas (2000) formulates this thought as follows: “Freedom arises from obedience to being: it is not a person who owns freedom, but freedom owns a person” (p. 83).

Thus, the history of the realization of the sacred meanings of the individual was historically based on the localization of the source of sacred power: the leader, the emperor, the president, which can be considered as a belittling of personal meanings. At the end of XX - XXI centuries phenomenon "I" is shown the as a source of their own sacredness, which is seen as a belittling of collective meanings. In this regard, an indispensable condition for modern nation building is the rejection of "I" perception as a sacred source, which, however, should not be a return to the unconditional sacralization of collective meanings, but should be a mutual socio-individual dynamics.

Purpose of the Study

In connection with the designation of the sphere of application of the leading hypothesis of this article to the topical problems of modern social sciences, it becomes possible to formulate the goal of the work. It is to, after tracing the relationship between the development of personal meanings and the process of individualization of the sacred, describe the need to reject the perception of personality as an unconditional source of sacred meanings, which is a prerequisite for the implementation of national identification processes of our time.

Research Methods

This article shows how, as a result of the individualization of the sacred, the dynamics of a person's personal meanings takes place, which at a certain stage opens up the opportunity for individualization processes to acquire national qualities. However, at the present stage, the formation of the national is possible only through the directed deindividualization of sacred meanings. The implementation of this study, due to its interdisciplinary nature, is possible with the involvement of a complex methodology. Thus, the understanding of individuality as a consequence of the privatization of sacred meanings presupposes the involvement of the method of phenomenology. To consider the process of individualization of the sacred from impersonal being to the community, the personality of a priest or leader, the method of historicism is needed. Comprehension of the modern understanding of personality as a source of sacred power requires the involvement of the method of psychologism. Using the method of comparative analysis, the principles of sacralization of collective and personal meanings are compared. Awareness of the need to form the image of a nation as a balance of personal and collective meanings is possible using the methodology of intersubjectivism, understood in the sense developed by E. Husserl in the late period of his work, as a kind of sacred intersubjective reality, the commonality of which provides an opportunity for understanding. Husserl (1996) writes: “the objective world from the very beginning is a world for all, a world that “everyone” has as a horizon” (p. 218).

Findings

The main result of this study is an understanding of the deep relationship between the dynamics of a person's private meanings and his ideas about the localization of the source of sacred power. A retrospective examination of such representations in the form of a historical process reveals its dynamics towards individualization. The starting point for the formation of subjectivity, according to Heidegger (2001), should be understood as the existence of a person from the impersonal power of being, manifested as an awareness of one's own finitude in infinite being. At the same time, the isolation of oneself as existence should not be understood as isolation, since the existence of a person as a conscious being is conditioned with his orientation towards unconscious being. To understand this phenomenon, the concept of “Dasein” is introduced, which the author proposes to understand as the presence of being in a person: “das Dasein, d.h. das Sein des Menschen” [Dasein, i.e. the Being of Man] (Heidegger, 2001, p. 46). The dependence of Dasein, as a matrix of human existence from being, should be understood as the awareness of the latter as a source of sacred power, standing out from which a person does not self-construct as an independent source of power, but only localizes and accumulates the impersonal sacred diffused in being.

The accumulation of sacral power is facilitated with a general, timeless and extra-geographic concept of sacred power, for which Foucault (2004) introduces the concept of gouvernementalité. Awareness of his involvement in this power, which has a mysterious sacred source, historically gives a person confidence in his own necessity. By founding it in the world, it forms the basic personal meanings. This circumstance is facilitated with the further development of the process of localization of the sacred, manifested in the formation of toposes that localize the sacred in themselves and exercise their own power as having a sacred source. Here we can mention a frequently encountered historical example of the direct deification of a people, state, leader, etc., i.e., the perception of the sacred is mediated with the immanent sphere of being. According to Horuzhy (2018), sacralization was a phenomenon “essential and by no means necessarily personalized: sacralization could also encompass institutions, rituals, material objects” (p. 21). This phenomenon was historically accompanied with the desacralization of a person's everyday life as such an element of his existence, in which he is free from the power of the sacred.

The dominance of the Christian teaching, in which the entire natural sphere is cut off from the sacred source as having a created character, is of key importance here. The church and political power are now the conductors of sacred power, which are perceived as sacred toposes, the correlation of oneself with which provides an opportunity for strong self-identification. Thus, a chain of dependencies is formed. The personality realizes itself through the relationship of itself with the immanent power topos, which, in turn, realizes its power as received from a transcendental source.

This chain is broken in connection with the Reformation as with a leap in the development of the process of individualization of the sacred, in which immanent toposes are desacralized - intermediaries between the personality and the source of sacred power. The person gets the opportunity to communicate directly with the sacred. However, the transcendental nature of the latter acts as an obstacle to the implementation of direct, unmediated communication. In this regard, the transcendent is removed as an unnecessary superstructure over the immanent basis, and imaginary topoi, which is artificially assigned a sacred status, begin to form in order to connect with the sacred source. The most influential of these toposes is the concept of a nation. At the heart of the nation-formation are two factors: “1) the invention of the ideal timeless homeland of society on the basis of a mythological interpretation of space; (2) the claim to sacred knowledge (through the sacralization of space), which is in reality profane” (Radkevich & Shabaga, 2021, p. 139).

Thus, a nation, having a constructive character, turns out to be necessary to accelerate the natural process of individualization of the sacred, since the individual, being included in the pseudo-sacred national environment, is increasingly recognized as a source of national sacred power. The first half of the 20th century turned out to be the time of the greatest development of this trend. Thus, Professor Svetlov, while investigating the sacralization of man, understood the phenomena of “fighting against God and atheism as the" religion of man-godhood”. He believed that this phenomenon is an attempt to exalt a person, “belittling” God” (as cited in Bokov, 2021, p. 47). So, the implementation of accelerated individualization through the artificial sacralization of the nation, by the end of the XX century, forced the individual, in view of the profanation of collective meanings, to rush deep into himself in search of personal hierophany. At the same time, the internal desire for identification with objects of the external environment is forcing the modern European person to a fantasy identity. An example of this is a phenomenon widespread in Europe. “Furry are fans of anthropomorphic art and media. A unique part of fandom is the creation of individualized furzons - anthropomorphic images of animals representing themselves” (Reysen et al., 2020, p. 1). The danger of this phenomenon lies in the immersion of a person in a fantasy reality up to the complete loss of connection with reality.

In this regard, an individual, removed from participation in the development of his own national identification by means of imagining himself as a source of sacred power, finds himself in a situation of deep identification crisis. As a way out of the current crisis situation, this article proposes a rejection of the policy of sacralization of the individual and the transition to the construction of a nation as a sacred reality, necessary for the free development of personal meanings.

Conclusion

So, the process of the formation of a self-aware personality is directly dependent on the perception of the source of sacred power, correlating oneself with which gives a person confidence in his own necessity and rootedness in being. The separation of oneself as a finite personality from the infinite and impersonal sacred being was followed with the historical process of accumulation and concentration of sacred power, through the formation of toposes, realizing their own power as emanating from a transcendent sacred source and acting as intermediaries between the reality of the sacred and profane everyday life.

The process of individualization of the sacred is accompanied with desacralization of collective meanings, which, at a certain moment, is realized in the phenomenon of the Reformation, which necessitates sacral toposes - intermediaries and the construction of imaginary toposes - identities, which are artificially assigned a sacred status. Further, the individual imagines himself as a source of sacred power, immersed in profane immanent reality. This fact leads to a global crisis of national identity, leaving the individual with the global problems of mankind, the most important of which are global climate change and the Covid 19 pandemic. Thus, the atomized individual finds himself in a situation of deep personal and socio-cultural crisis.

The main conclusion of this work is the proposal to abandon the construction of sacred personal meanings, since this process determines the individual's perception of himself as a source of sacred power and leads to profanation of collective meanings, such as national, ethnic, family, etc., which introduces the individual into a state of identification crisis.

Modern nation-formation, according to the main provisions of this work, should be based on the formation of the idea of a nation as a sacred interpersonal space, in which the jointly directed dynamics of personal and collective meanings is carried out.

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28 December 2021

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Shamin, S. A., & Malenko, S. A. (2021). Dynamics Of Nation Personal Meanings In Context Of Individualization Of The Sacred. In D. Y. Krapchunov, S. A. Malenko, V. O. Shipulin, E. F. Zhukova, A. G. Nekita, & O. A. Fikhtner (Eds.), Perishable And Eternal: Mythologies and Social Technologies of Digital Civilization, vol 120. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 651-657). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2021.12.03.87