Methodologists, representatives of “DNA Russia” and “Sretensky Club” offered justifications for using the concept of “state-civilization”

Capital philosophers and political scientists continue to comprehend the concept of “state-civilization.” Its theoretical origins and possibilities for practical application were discussed on Wednesday by representatives of three structures – the Sretensky Club, the Moscow Methodological Circle (MMK) and DNA of Russia. The Public Chamber invited researchers to define and “ground” the concepts of “civilization,” “country,” and “values.”

The “state-civilization” doctrine owes its expanding presence in political discourse to President Vladimir Putin. In March 2023, it formed the basis of a new foreign policy concept. The corresponding ideological message, as Kommersant reported, will likely be included in the upcoming presidential campaign. Mr. Putin mentioned the civilizational concept both at the meeting of the World Russian People’s Council on November 28, and the next day at the III Congress of Young Scientists.

The organizers of the event in the Public Chamber immediately asked the guests to “ground” the flight of their philosophical thought and not so much to theoretically substantiate the civilizational paradigm, but to explain how to distinguish events, projects and ideas that correspond to it from those that do not, serving the interests of specific authors. “A project can serve the goals and objectives of the country if it has a conceptual justification,” explained moderator, executive secretary of the Analytics association Valeria Filippova. “And not just any kind, but including key concepts such as civilization, country and values.”

The philosophers did not argue, although they did not seem to be too inspired by the idea of ​​reducing the entire theory to the development of certain criteria for compliance with the country’s goals.

Thinkers were predictably interested in the deep foundations of the civilizational approach. For example, methodologist Elena Mundrievskaya focused on the ontological substantiation of the concept: “Civilization is the interaction of three forces: people, governance, culture and spirituality, functioning as a whole, according to a social, civilizational contract.” When civilization “begins to settle down on the territory,” the mechanism of “the country as a civilizational unit” arises, which retains “civilizational signs and mechanisms,” the philosopher pointed out.

Civilizational characteristics are embodied in values, which Oleg Efremov, a representative of DNA of Russia, spoke about in more detail: “These are the ultimate foundations of goal setting, a system of motivational preferences on the basis of which human behavior is formed.” The Russian value core, according to the researcher, is formed by faith, sovereignty, economy, house-building, conciliarity, service, freedom (only as “good will”), truth, justice, love, conscience, beauty, human dignity and compassion.

The priority of a certain value at a particular moment is dictated by the social situation, the researcher admitted: “When they sing “Get up, great country!”, the value of greatness becomes a priority.” However, a single hierarchy leads to distortion and dogmatism, and the dictate of a specific value leads to the dictate of the group expressing it (for example, sovereignty leads to the omnipotence of the bureaucracy, and economics leads to oligarchy), Mr. Efremov warned. When analyzing values, it is important not to be shy about reflection, he advised: “We need to subject values ​​to critical reflection and understand how effective they are. The same value is constructive today and destructive tomorrow.”

The criteria for the “constructiveness” of projects and events requested by the organizers were proposed by Alexander Shokhov (“Sretensky Club”): “If they contribute to the total valuable resource (of civilization.— “Kommersant”) grew up, that is, they work for development—this obviously corresponds to the values.” In the Russian tradition, the state was historically responsible for such development, embodied (assembled) not as a “system of institutions” with a purely service role, but rather as a “subject of management,” the philosopher pointed out. “If the state is a subject of governance, it must, on the one hand, ensure the functioning, and on the other hand, ensure development: the growth of that very many valuable resources important for civilization,” Mr. Shokhov summed up.

The philosopher calls for the “subjectivity” that Russia has suffered through to reach the next civilizational level. To do this, it is necessary to change the principles of financing scientific research (get rid of the grant approach) and develop our own school of management, different from the Western one, based not on standardization of processes and KPIs, but on personal responsibility for the result. Funded scientific programs will provide space for the emergence of new social elevators that are in demand by young people, and its own school of management will guarantee success, it followed from the speech of Alexander Shokhov.

The organizers were satisfied with the philosophers’ conclusions.

Summing up, Valeria Filippova proposed to further “concretize the ontology before applying it in specific practice”, organize a working group to check the compliance of program activities with “conceptual foundations”, and devote the next event to a specific task – solving demography problems.

Grigory Leiba