Reflexive elements of consciousness

РЕФЛЕКСИВНЫЕ ЭЛЕМЕНТЫ СОЗНАНИЯ

Рассматривается «микроскопический» подход к описанию исторических процессов, при котором отправной точкой для описания человеческих сообществ, служат правила межличностного взаимодействия. Доказывается, что в основе этих правил лежат рефлексивные элементы сознания людей.

С учетом многочисленных примеров из истории цивилизаций предлагается механизм разрешения между цивилизационных конфликтов.

Ключевые слова: рефлексивные элементы сознания, ситуационная модель, импринтинг, цивилизации, либеральное движение.

Problem definition

The following two fundamentally different approaches are used in description of historical processes: “phenomenological” and “microscopic” approaches. Under the “phenomenological” approach, the human community is considered as a whole, as an object having certain properties. Under the "microscopic" approach, we consider a society as a multiple-particles system consisting of a huge number of elements of the same type, interacting with each other under certain rules. As demonstrated by the studies of physical multiparticle systems, their combined properties are completely determined by the rules of interparticle interaction [1]. We believe that for the study of the human community as well, it is necessary to study the mechanism of formation of the rules of interpersonal interaction of people and based upon such rules it is necessary to obtain a qualitative description of historical processes.

Analysis of recent studies and publications

People at all times attempted to comprehend the processes occurring in the human environment. The vast majority of historical research works was performed within the scope of the phenomenological approach. The microscopic approach was used by historians much less frequently. An example of a successful study of this kind is the work of P.Ya. Chaadayev, who presented his view of development of Russia based upon specific moral characteristics of the people. The beginning of the author's studies within the scope of “microscopic” theory of the human community is reflected in the paper [1].

Functional Organization of Thinking

Every person lives in a “cage” of moral concepts, which form the key rules of interpersonal interaction. People whose frame elements of the “cell” are identical form a special layer of culture - a civilization. Each big community of people is specific in its behavior and vital human activity. A set of basic rules of behavior and perception of life adopted by them is usually defined by the term civilization matrix. The mechanism for the formation of civilizational characteristics of human communities is associated with the functional organization of human brain activity.

The process of human thinking is subdivided into the following three stages: a) a human brain is building a model of the situation; b) then the brain performs logical analysis of the model; c) the bran draws conclusions and gives commands to other organs of the human body.

Logical analysis and physiological response to brain commands are substantially the same in humans. In the overall assessment of the situation, however, differences may arise between individuals, between people of different sexes, different social groups, different peoples. Such differences occurr, first of all, at the stage of building a model of the situation” [2].

A model of a specific situation is being built on the basis of the circumstances occured and on the basis of a whole set of additional perceptions, concepts, attitudes, sets, instincts, that are not even clearly awared of but they are included in the work for building the model at the subconscious level. All these are some kind of prejudice, that is, the things that come first before the mind.

Example. We are afraid of a black cat running across our way. But why? Because the black cat fear attitude is automatically included in our model of this situation, and we have to spend additional efforts to reject this model. The reflective fear of bad signs attitude affects many people, and it is difficult for them to get rid of it.

The reflexive elements of consciousness associated with the public life of a person can be called constants of the local interaction of people, since such reflexive elements are rigidly fixed in the human brain at the level of reflexes (constants) and they significantly affect the human behavior, i.e. on individual's local interactions with other people.

Elements of reflexive nature are included in almost all situational models of people and play a vital role in the structure of such models. Mismatch of such elements in various individuals results in diverging models of the situation and, sometimes, to hard conflicts.

Formation of the constants of the local interaction of people proceeds in the following manner. A person is born as a specific individuality and is immediately included in the learning process (processes of information input, storage and retrieval). An important role in this process is played by the imprinting mechanism - mechanism of imprinting of information on the basis of the first specific example. A textbook example is a chick hatched from an egg and beginning to perceive a sweeping brush moving around as a mother.

Unusually strong psychological connections are immediately formed in a newborn child: Attitudes of the child's mother and father are fixed by the child, and all events occurring around are perceived as a sample. A toddler inprints demonstrated patterns of behavior, interactions with people, animals, and surrounding objects. Later on, the toddler will start to implement them. In this regard, it is important what the child sees, hears and feels from the first moments since birth” [3]. Family is the first and most important school for the formation of personality traits, its various reflexive reactions, inter alia, constants of local interaction.

Interests of individual and society

We will attempt to define reflexive reactions of people being essential for life of a human community.

Every person is an individual personality forced to live in a collective of people of his or her own kind. On the one side, he or she is a personality having own individual interests, and on the other side, he or she is a member of a collective having its own set of specific interests. Collectives are first of all, a family, a school form, a sports section, a work team, etc., escalating upstream to the level of a country. In each specific situation, a person has to decide what interests should be given a priority to: personal or public interests, and this is a very important dilemma. The choice process is ongoing, it occurrs every day, repeatedly, literally at every step taken. It is impossible to predict, for example, what a schoolboy, who is obsessed with a computer game, will do if he is requested to go to a shop to purchase a loaf of bread for a family dinner. And any person at his or her workplace has very often to decide whether to have a relax or to continue intensive work. Regularly repeated selection procedure generate statistics, and we can talk about an overall trend for each person: he or she is individualist rather than collectivist, and vice versa. This trend persists in a person at the level of reflection and plays a crucial role in the formation of situational models by a person and in his or her selection of a behavior strategy.

The ultimate case for a collectivist is a deliberately accepted death as a self-sacrifice for the sake of socially significant ideas. The world history knows many examples of this kind. It is even possible to introduce a mathematical concept- statistical coefficient of collectivity K, and in the case of extreme self-sacrifice of a person, it is possible to equate such coefficient to 1: K = 1. T K = 1. The opposite situation is a murder committed for the sake of selfish interests, then K = 0. For other people, the collectivity coefficient value is within the said limits and reflects the degree of their propensity for collectivist behavior. Each of us is a combination of individualist and collectivist. A proportion between these extremes is significant, and the numerical value thereof can be estimated using the appropriate test. Such test shall include a set of descriptions of difficult life situations and for each of them a big number of options shall be proposed for finding a solution, such options being differing from each other by some subtle nuances. The ratio of the number of positive answers to the total number of questions will give a value of the collectivity coefficient of the tested person. This is an interesting job for psychologists.

Personal collectivity coefficients of people, who are included in a community, form a system of random variables with a certain distribution, with some average value Kav and a median Km. Kave coefficient indicates how often the collectivistic model of behavior is used among members of such community. The said coefficient will reflect the general style of behavior of people, it will evaluate the degree of their cohesion. If Kavenumerical value exceeds the median distribution Km(the midpoint), then we can talk about the prevalence of the collectivist constant of local interaction in the given community. In the opposite case the personalityconstant prevails.

Civilization is a community of people who share the most important, basic reflexive elements of consciousness to determine the overall pattern of their behavior. A set of such basic elements forms a civilization matrix. The most important element of the civilization matrix of any community is the prevalence of the collectivist or individualistic trend in life of such community.

Two civilizations

The historical process of the formation of the Western and Slavic orthodox civilizations is reviewed in detail in the paper [1]. The Orthodox Christianity was a starting point in both cases. This religious movement originated in the Roman Empire remote provinces which were administered under strict and aggressive control from Rome. People did not see any chance to get rid of imperial oppression and poverty. The sole solution of the problem emerged in the mass consciousness - the hope for a miracle, for the coming of the messiah - the savior (holistic expectations). These expectations rallied the people, inspired them for active interaction. Step by step, joint funds were formed out of the assets contributed to the community, and such funds were substantial in quantity. Management of the said funds passed to the most prominent preachers of the upcoming messiah coming. That was how the people were divided into clergy and laity, bishops appeared, special attributes of the clergy were formed, and the church was born as a community of believers in the messiah comming.

The fundamental moral concept in the process of the formation of the Orthodox Christian church is compassion, compassion for every living soul, compassion for human misfortune. It is exactly compassion which is based upon in the moral values construction that has been developed by the church for several centuries. This is a basic reflexive element of consciousness, the most important constant of local interaction among believers.

The Christian Church has generated a fundamentally new perception of life, based on the prevalence of benevolent relationships between people. A real revolution occurred in the mindset of large masses of the population. The civilization matrix of Christians includes such concepts as compassion, mercy, love for one's neighbours, strive for justice and moral perfection. This determined the collectivist nature of the life of the Christian community. The collectivist constant of local interaction among Christians has become predominant. Christianity proclaimed the equality of all people before God, which in many ways contributed to the elimination of hard slavery, to mitigation of ethnic clashes.

In 380 A.D. the Eastern Roman Empire officially adopted Christianity. The transition to a new system of moral values proved to be extremely productive and resulted in the rapid progress in all spheres of human society. The abolition of the hard form of slavery made necessitated active improvement of tools and means of production, thereby the pace of technological progress rapidly increased. Byzantine Empire became a prosperous country. In the 6th century, under the rule of emperor Justinian, the what we used to call the “Roman law”, the institution of lawyers, was formulated and introduced into common practice. The country was managed on the basis of the legal system. The guild production system developed successfully, and Byzantine Empire accumulated enormous wealth. Cities were built up with beautiful buildings and were very well-maintained [4].

The example of a prosperous Byzantium clearly showed all its neighbors that the transition to the Christian understanding of life significantly improves its quality. New states were forming in the 9th century in these regions populated by pagan tribes. Many attempts were undertaken to introduce Christianity among the pagan tribes, but only Kar the Great managed to organize the truly massive process of baptizing people in the Western European territories. Following the successful trip to the country of Avars approximately in 800 A.D., 7 tons of seized gold were used for establishment of new bishoprics, construction of new churches in the territories under his rule, and for payment of fees to missionary priests invited from Bizantine Empire. An attempt was made to build a cultural, educational center in Aachen. [1] Prince Vladimir in 988 initiated baptism of the Eastern Slavs.

The process of superimposition of the Christian civilizational matrix on the established local cultures of various peoples was launched. The result of this superimposition was to depend on specific characteristics of those cultures and on the course of the historical events developed.

Barbarian tribes of Western Europe in 410 A.D. captured and plundered Rome. The barbarians brought destruction, violence, cruelty, accompanied by loss of the ancient culture. They lived in small national states within a certain ethnic group, and subsistence agriculture in such states was the basis of their economy. The tribes were always at sword's points with each other. Western Europe was simply drenched in blood in the Migration Period. Wars actively contributed to the destruction of the remains of the tribes' patriarchal tenor of life. The leader who seized a new territory put his personal rule in the first place and destroyed the existed clan system. All this gave rise to extreme individualism in the system of moral concepts of barbarians - a personality constant of local interaction of people prevailed in these territories.

Ancient Rus. Slavic lands were inhabited by hundreds of primitive tribes whose levels of historical development were different and who formed a dozen and a half of tribal unions. On these lands in the 9th century Vikings began to take complete control over and improved the ancient trade routes from Scandinavia to Asia: The Great Volga River Route and the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks.

The era of Rurik rule came. The prince was responsible for protection of the borders, cross-border trade, and for collecting tribute from controlled lands. “A power has emerged that little by little was destined to unite disparate tribes and clans into one whole. This power was the prince with his armed force. He ranks above all tribal disputes;... He becomes the prince of the whole earth, and for him all contolled clans and tribes are equal. It is dangerous to disobey him: he has a reliable force at hand - his faithful armed force, he will make to obey him using his armed force- in a word, a strong ruling power in the person of the prince emerged on the lands of the Eastern Slavs, such power did not exist before, and a state cannot exist without it” [V.D. Sipovsky, "Native Antiquity", 1910].

"The vast majority of the population of ancient Russia lived in unprotected settlements located in lowlands veiled from the eyes of the world." People lived on the vast lands they collectively owned, in severe climate and risky framing conditions.

“The average distance between settlements was 57 km”, i.e. economic zone of the settlement dwellers was about 50 square meters. The low population density prevented the problem of seizure of other people's lands, while the low labor productivity in subsistence farming did not enable the people to accumulate any valuable assets attractive for robbery. These factors ensured a fairly quiet coexistence of tribes and developed the principle of mutual tolerance among multilingual people.

Describing this era, Ivan Zabelin [5, p.10] noted as follows: “The ideal of parental care was the founder and organizer of our every day's life. Our society and our state was being built under this ideal. Under this ideal, our society was perceived to be a community of family members or relatives... Under the ideal of parental guardianship, a personality of a man or a women had no separate or independent significance... Our ancient community was in the proper sense a community of clans, or in its closer meaning, a community of households, houses, yards, rather than a community of independent individuals". “Because of our nation young age, such our primordial beliefs and ideals have been preserved even in more fresh condition than those of other nations of Europe,” wherein continuous aggressive wars actively contributed to destruction of such ideals and beliefs.

That was how the early formation of the Slavic Orthodox civilization is seen. Its social, national life was based upon the key rules applicable within a family, a patriarchal life rules. The basic concepts of the family life maintained at the level of reflex are as follows: A high level of friendliness between people, a desire to resolve internal conflicts, respect for elders, responsibility for the younger family members. “The clan feeling, the clan idea was the creator of our unity, our people's power, the creator of all our national virtues and all our national misfortunes, both for the governmental and public” [5, p. 21]. Among the population of the East European plain, the collectivist constant of local interaction of people prevailed.

In Russia, the seeds of Christianity ideas were sown in the fertile ground. The collectivist beginning of life received a powerful ideological and religious basis, the position of the state as a family was substantially reinforced.

The formation of the basic moral concepts of people was significantly influenced by the historical path traveled by the peoples. The early history of Kiev Rus kingdom was associated with the city of Kiev, however, the endless raids of neighboring tribes caused the people to move to the northern, quieter regions. Vladimir became the center of Slavonic world, and thereafter Moscow became such a center. Slavic tribes divided into Northern and Southern populated regions.

An important role in the history of Russia was played by the Tatar-Mongol yoke. The Mongols laid the country under tribute, but they did not intend to live on the occupied lands, they did not threaten the fundamental principles of the existing culture. The way of life of the North-Eastern lands turned out to be undisturbed. This situation reinforced cohesion of the population, got the people accustomed to combat life in conditions of a besieged fortress, developed their understanding of the need to build a strong state. All there trends were determined by the wise policy of Alexander Nevsky, who, in contrast to the Western expansion, adopted the Golden Horde orientation for the population of the North-East regions of Russia.

Ihe turning point in the history of Russia was determined by the Monk Sergius of Radonezh, who devoted his life to the moral education of the people, to the struggle against feuds waged between princes. His influence, according to V.O. Klyuchevsky was determined by the two facts laying the foundations of the Russian statehood: 1) the people overcame the fear of the conquerors and came to battle on the Kulikovo field; 2) by “the united efforts of the monk and peasants” the Upper Volga Great Russia was established. Under the influence of Sergius of Radonezh a large number of monasteries were established to the North and North-East from the Volga river, in a heavily forested land populated by few and scattered settlements of Finno-Ugric tribes. Russian peasants feared to settle in those places. “The hermit went there like a brave scout.”

Ultimately, these three circumstances (the preservation of many elements of the patriarchal style of life due to the natural and climatic conditions; the transformation to the adopted Christian religion; the long experience of living in conditions of besieged fortress) resulted in the final formation of the Slavic orthodox civilization. A key sign of civilization is the higher level of collectivist perception of life, which is fixed on the reflexive level of consciousness. In the people's lives, the most important constant of local interaction is collectivist constant. Life experience taught Russians at reflexive level that in the event of an external threat, only cohesion, a full unity can eliminate the catastrophe, and the people came to the Kulikovo battlefield. This basic rallying reflexive element of the people's consciousness repeatedly saved our country in subsequent centuries. And for today it remains to be the most important element of the civilizational matrix of Russians.

The Slavic tribes living in the South part of the East European plain had a different historical destiny. For many centuries they were significantly dependent on their closest neighbors; they were severely oppressed by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Attempts to break out of the Polish control were accompanied by severe repressions. Those repressions gave rise to the strong strive among the people for independence, self-determination, for the national statehood. Among the broad masses of the people, this strive was fixed in minds as a reflective element of consciousness. As a result of the uprising headed by Bogdan Khmelnitsky, such independence was obtained, but to retain it, it was required to apply to Russia with a request for accession. The living conditions of the people have improved substantially but the people's aspirations to complete state independence prevailed to a certain extent. This strive manifested itself, for example, during the civil war. The events of the civil war demonstrated that no integrated clear-cut platform for state unification was formed among the population of the Ukraine. All actions were limited to local minor actions. Further, it was the Soviet government, who started to resolve the problem of the Ukrainian statehood. The Ukrainian SSR was formed, the industrial regions of Novorossiya, the lands of Subcarpathian region and the Crimea were attached to the Ukranian Soviet Socialist Republic, the culture of the Ukrainian language and literature were given a higher status and were supported and developed by all means in multiple aspects. Such a policy was pursued in line with the objectives of the government in the aspects of family, the elder's care for the younger generation. At the moment, the younger ones got up and pouted their lips - “I don't want to” (the main character of A. Pushkin's Tales of the Fisherman and the Fish behaved the same way - she wanted and obtained more and more valuable things rom the Goldfish and finally she lost everything).

Another specific historical detail. For many centuries the southern Slavic tribes lived in very difficult relationships with their neighbors, and they were forced to continuously search for the optimal form of interaction with them. This undoubtedly instilled in them certain survival skills and some specific civilizational features.

Let' us review the background of the Poltava battle. The Narva battle was won by the Swedes under the personal leadership of Charles XII. Further on, owing to the titanic efforts undertaken by Peter the Great, Swedish generals lost several strategic battles with Russian troops. In 1709, the powerful Karl XII decided to personally lead the campaign against Moscow and to finally “deal with it”. The global community had no doubt that he would succeed, and preparations were initiated even in Moscow itself for the upcoming evacuation of archives. Kiev, who voluntarily entered into the unition with Russia by way of accession did not like the prospect of being defeated together with Russia. The Ukranian government in Kiev started to find a way out of this situation and came to the simplest solution - to go over to the side of the expected winner and to even derive certain benefits for that. Implementing these decisions, hetman Mazepa by his unrealistic promises of military assistance decoyed the army of Karl XII into the ambush in the Ukraine, and the Swedish generals withheld from their initiall planned frontal assault on Moscow. The promises were not fulfilled, the Swedes got into a disadvantageous strategic position and were defeated by Peter the Great, i.e. in fact, Mazepa was the benefactor of Russia. Strategic decisions of questionable nature were repeatedly taken in the history of the Ukraine. The following behavioural stereotype was established: the most important in one's personal life is successful adaption to circumstances, without excessive scrupulousness. This setup towards the quest for a "freebie" became one of the basic reflexive element of consciousness for a substantial number of people and is still quite often manifested in everyday life.

A similar historical situation was repeated in the 90s as well. All of a sudden Russia lost its former power, the media published discussions of the prospects for its complete disintegration - and once again the idea emerged in the Ukraine to come over to a new guardians: EU and NATO countries. The prevailing sentiment among the Ukrainian people was as follows: we want to have benefits at the expense of the EU countries. It's just enough to join them - and we shall prosper. The adaptive reflexive element of consciousness has worked.

Therefore, the mentality of the population who associated themselves with the Ukrainian language has a specific civilization matrix, which was formed with a specific set of basic concepts. Within the framework of these concepts, the relative situational models are being built, which result in the current tragic events in the Ukraine. This is clearly shown in the television disputes of experts. The starting point for the Ukrainian experts is the country's independence, but this starting point very specific: they are too sick and tired of Russia acting in the role of guardian. How to achieve independence? Ah, well, we shall adapt to the situation, we shall fool other neighbouring states.

The current evaluations of the Poltava battle events are interesting. The Russians, with their desire for cohesion, see the actions of the hetman Mazepa as a dirty betrayal, while the opponents who have always wanted independence for the Ukraine, Mazepa is a hero. Different initial settings result in different situational models and in different conclusions drawn from them.

Today the Ukrainian society is split into the following two parts: active minority in the military and political terms, and a passive majority, comprising 73% of the country's population. An interesting question is why this majority is politically completely unorganized? Option of the response is as follows: this is a manifestation of the reflexive element of consciousness - a person has to adapt to a difficult life situation, rather than to merely attempt to counteract it. This is the lesson learnt from the many centuries of life experience.

The overall way of life of the Western civilization is featured by the words individualism and consumption. Individualism is a priority of personal interests, the implementation of the principle of "each person pursues his personal interests", when a person breaks through the thickness of life's problems, not relying too much on relatives and neighbors. As a result, environment with a high level of competition is formed. The main content of human activity is active participation in hard competition. The one who is stronger, is right. “Let the loser cry” - this is the core principle in life of the society, which was learnt at the reflexive level. The highest ideal is a victory over all possible competitors, and even a global domination. Tough protection of national interests often led European states to the idea of the physical destruction of competitors, i.e. to fascism. A brief evaluation of the civilization is expansion, economic and military one. Over the recent five centuries the high level of aggression among people and states has resulted, on the one hand, in high rates of development in the economy and culture of Europe, and on the other hand, in continuous wars, endless shower of blood.

All these facts resulted from the Christian civilization matrix superimposed on communities with individualistic principles of life. A tense struggle occurred between antipodes, and such struggle resulted in very complex and bloody historical processes. Christianity was introduced by the authorities using harsh methods, on the basis of the education in the spirit of law-abiding mentality, which is traditional for Europeans. The feudal legal system emerged - division of people into a multi-level hierarchy of sovereigns and vassals under their control. Further attempts to combine the collectivist and personal principles of life in the West gave rise to strict regulation of all rules of communication for people. The legal constant of the local interaction of people was established, and it became the basic one for Western civilization. From the dilemma of living by the law or by unwritten rules, the formalized law was expressly chosen. We note that among the Orthodox Christians the top priority is given to moral concepts of justice and mercy.

All the main strategic objectives of states are a manifestation of the basic reflexive elements of consciousness that dominate in their societies - a collectivist or personal principle. For example, in the United States they see the solution to the problem of the global security exclusively from individualistic approach, they wanted security for themselves only, without necessarily taking into account the interests of other countries, and their ultimate objetive is tight control over the whole world.

Slavic orthodox civilization with its clearly expressed collectivist perception of life ensured peaceful coexistence of numerous nationalities for a millennium. In Russia all the inhabitants of the planet are perceived as members of one global family. This approach generates high level of friendliness towards other countries. Active participation of the USSR in the destruction of the global colonial system, the creation of the foundations for advanced industrial development in China, India, in many other countries, the active industrialization of the border republics of the USSR, the formation of scientific, cultural, and theater centers - all these clearly demonstrate the friendliness, which is organically inherent in our civilization.

In the 90s the dominating sentiment in the country was in favour of friendly rapprochement with the West and the expectation that our friendly-minded neighbors would n surely help us in resolving our pressing problems. Therefore, the most important agreements with them were not executed in writing to emphasize the level of our trust. The individualistic-minded Western partners, however, regarded the situation as follows: ah, well, our competitors want to surrender. In the dialogue with the Wester partners, the manifestation of Russian friendliness is perceived by them as a manifestation of weakness and usually they arrive at the conclusion that its is necessary to increase pressure on Russia, to demand more and more trade-offs from the Russian leaders.

Among the weaknesses of the collectivist way of life is its conservatism, impaired rates of development. The community existence in Russia gave a fairly stable level of survival, but constrained the personal initiative. Major local reforms in the country - modernizations or upgrades - most often occurred as a result of external influences. So, today as well as in the past, Russia has embarked on the path of intensive upgrade of its economy and armed forces in response to the intensified aggressive behaviour of the Western partners.

Concepts deriving from family life, such as fraternal peoples, fraternal countries, are often used in our political terminology. The attitudes of the Ukraine and Belarus to Russia remind very much the attitude of the offended younger brothers to the older brother, who should bear the whole responsibility for everything happened. Many facts evidence that civilizational matrixes in all our fraternal countries substantially coincide.

Modern world

The differences between the concepts operated by people from different civilizations are very clearly manifested in the television discussions of experts from different countries. Each participant of such meetings within the scope of his own situational model is deeply convinced that he is right, but most often his evaluations sharply contradict the views of the opponents. A stubborn confrontation of views is ongoing, but no compromise decisions are being formed. Nikolai Zlobin, a political scientist from the United States, constantly uses one and the same argument - how can Russia claim anything if the Russian economy accounts to 1/10 of the US economy? After all, the one who is stronger is always right. In one of the TV shows Zlobin repeated that he simply does not understand what a multipolar world is. Indeed, in his perception, a hard competition is underway among states and he is unable to imagine that good-neighborly, respectful relations between them could be established.

The initial setup is fixed on reflexive level - in the competition everyone should move ahead only, towards the victory. But if possibilities are limited, and the opponent offers you good neighborly relations, then what? The answer is as follows: this is provocative trick of the opponent, because, by definition, he is always aggressor. Such model is always adhered to by the Polish experts.

Reflective elements of the people's consciousness play a crucial role in the course of political and ideological struggle in the society. Indeed, such a struggle is waged under slogans, certain concepts, proposals, repeatedly quoted by the media and literally “knocked” into people's heads. These slogans become indispensable elements in situational models of people and result in actions for which people's minds are programmed. For example, currently the myth of the Russian threat is being actively propagated in the West, and a huge number of people perceive such a threat as an indisputable fact.

The Western world is chanting “Russia is aggressor” and thereby tries to camouflage the substance of the global conflict, the conflict between civilizations, between the individualistic and collectivist forms of life on the planet. The individualistic approach enabled Europe to achieve rapid economic and cultural growth over several centuries, though in the mode of severe violence and a shower of blood. It is a well known fact, however, that any positive quality in excessive value transforms into the opposite quality. The things played out that way: extending human rights to all sorts of minorities, overhyping their interests by putting them on top, a policy of tolerance, i.e. extreme patience towards nonstandard behavior of people, entailed a huge number of hard-to-resolve problems in the public life of European countries. These problems destroy traditional Christian foundations of life. It should be noted that the most important condition for the existence of the western economy is the availability of foreign markets, to which it is possible to send high-tech products of western countries with a great benefit generated by them. Rapid technological progress covers the increasingly big number of countries worldwide with sales markets shrinking, and the rates of development of the leading European countries are falling significantly. The whole world is now scared by the prospect of the global financial crisis, i.e. the global crisis is evident, a shift in priorities in organizing people's lives is approaching, the dispute between the "individualists" and "collectivists" is transforming into a new stage. Such transitions have been observed repeatedly in the past as well, for example, in the history of ancient China.

The collectivist and individualist in the Confucian philosophy of ancient China are synonymous to justice and benefit, accordingly. “The love of justice and profit is what people have in paired combination. Even the emperors Yao and Shun were unable to destroy the common people's desire for profit, but they were able to ensure that his desire for profit did not conquer his love of justice. Even the emperors Jie and Zhou were unable to destroy the common citizen's love for justice, but they were able to make sure that his love for justice did not prevail over his desire for personal benefit. Therefore, if the justice prevails over personal benefit, then this is the age of edifying; if the personal benefit conqueres the justice, then it is the age of chaos. When a supreme authority considers justice to be important, then justice conquers the personal benefit; when the supreme authority considers the benefit to be essential, then the benefit conquers the justice [6 p.63].

It follows therefrom that these two approaches to the formation of public life were repeatedly substituted by each other in the history of China. And the cause of such alternating substitution is clear. The total pursuit of profit in the age of chaos used to entail finally a very high level of social injustice in the society and uprisings of the offended people. The age of edifying relived the most part of the internal conflicts in the society, stabilized its life. This age, however, is featured by internal instability, its existence is largely dependent on the position assumed by the ruling elite. Collapse of the USSR is a vivide example here. The communist movement caused Russia to transit to the age of edifying. The social security of the working people began to be built within the scope of the planned socialist economy. Such economy made enabled the government to resolve in the best manner such problems as organization and management of the national defense, space exploration, healthcare, mass sports, mass summer vacations of workers, cultural institutions, and construction of mass housing. The key disadvantages were as follows: low rates of economic development and the failure to resolve many everyday problems for people. Apart from the aforesaid, communism ideas were transformed into religion and a fierce battle was initiated with all kinds of renegades - dissenters and dissidents. The country was very tired by the aggressive propaganda of the far-fetched communist perceptions of the reality. The government also failed to raise the efficiency of the extremely rigid planned economy. Shortages of food and clothing entailed the growth of separatist sentiments in the regions. All these factors undermined the authority of the CPSU. The communist party abandoned its leading role and announced the country's transition to the free market-driven economy. From the age of edifying the country passed into the age of chaos with its harsh problems and social injustice. The example of China demonstrates that the CPSU instead of abandoning all functions of the country's leading force, could have retained a part of them for the common good of the people. However, the party's elite failed to resolve this task as well.

The whole mankind is now undergoing the period of radical change in the organization of life. The world is faced by the problems of the lack of free space and overpopulation. Continuing conquest wars waged by some particular governments for satisfaction of individualistic demands pose a deadly threat for the existence of the whole mankind. The collectivist principle must prevail, and Russia becomes the leader in the promotion and implementation of the collectivist principle in the world.

References

1. Zhelifonov M.P. EESJ # 7 (47), 2019 4, p.13, info@eesa-journal.com.

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