Liberal values of ukrainians in the conditions of war: formation and transformation

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Liberal values of ukrainians in the conditions of war: formation and transformation

Yaroslav Balanovskyi

Candidate of Political Sciences, Associate Professor,

Associate Professor at the Department of Social and Legal Disciplines, Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University,

Uman, Ukraine

Olena Maksymchuk

Teacher at the Department of Social and Legal Disciplines Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University Uman, Ukraine,

Abstract

The article examines and analyzes the formation and formation of liberal, national values of Ukrainian society. It is noted that in the conditions of global turbulence and local wars, the values of peace and security acquire special significance for both individuals and societies and states. Perceptible difficulties of sociological practices under the conditions of wartime - in particular, the resonance of the general, total problematic of views on the world, which forces to carry out an inventory of tools for observing social reality, to revise and reevaluate them. It is known that war is a mechanism for constructing political identity, including as a legitimization of power, which spreads through all forms of communication. It is noted that the functioning of any society is based on the values characteristic of this or that society. liberal value ukrainian

The author claims that the value system was formed under the influence of a number of external and internal factors in the process of socialization and formation of a certain society in general and each individual in particular. It was determined that in the current wartime, scientists of Ukraine face new challenges, when it is necessary, after studying the previous state of the problem, to outline national interests and values in retrospect and the current state. It has been analyzed that the transformation of identities and value orientations during the war is a problem of study and sociological practices, which is progressing noticeably in the conditions of war. It has been investigated that such indicators as the level of education are significant indicators in the study and comparison of value orientations, because the modern stratification system in Ukraine is built partly on educational differentiation. Emphasis is placed on the fact that the war between Ukraine and Russia in the east of Ukraine is the biggest event that affected the lives, value orientations, and well-being of Ukrainians. This changed priorities, the feeling of security decreased, but the internal consolidation of society took place, Ukrainian identity began to significantly prevail within the state.

Keywords: civil society, Ukraine, theory liberal values, national values, transformation.

Introduction

In the conditions of global turbulence and local wars, the values of peace and security acquire special significance for both individuals and societies and states. War, as a social phenomenon, has two dialectically related sides: sociopolitical and military-technical. The inner content of the war remains unchanged: despite all the diversity of theories of the origin of the war, it was and will be. The functioning of any society is based on the values characteristic of this or that society. These values were formed under the influence of a number of external and internal factors in the process of socialization and formation of a certain society in general and each individual in particular. It is these levers of influence that determine the final system of values, beliefs and attitudes that determine the behavior of both an individual and society as a whole. As you know, it is the values that underlie the political culture of the state and to a large extent determine its foreign and domestic policy and form the national identity. The topicality of the topic is that in the current time of war, scientists of Ukraine face new challenges, when it is necessary, after studying the previous state of the problem, to outline national interests and values in retrospect and the current state. The need for scientists in such research arises, first of all, for the sake of forming a new strategy for the security and social development of Ukraine.

Analysis of recent research and publications. The analysis of research and publications, in which the solution of the specified problem was initiated, demonstrates that there are numerous scientific developments of such researchers as R. Aron, H. Kissinger, U. Lippmann, H. Morgenthau, J. Rosenau, K. Waltz, and others . [2]. The above-mentioned researchers point out that the category of national interest is quite abstract, because the parameters of this scientific term are determined by the picture of the world and the system of values that dominates a certain society or state, and politics is the most important means of realizing national interests. Ukrainian researchers I. Alekseenko, I. Kresina studied issues of national interests in the stream of ethno-state studies with a thorough analysis of national consciousness. V. Belevtseva, O. Dzoban, V. Nastyuk devoted their scientific research to the problem of protecting the national interests of Ukraine [2]. Among domestic scientists, the scientific achievements of the team of scientists of the Institute of Political and Ethnonational Studies named after I. F. Kuras of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, I. Kuras, O. Maiboroda, M. Mikhalchenko, Yu. Rymarenko, and others. considered issues related to the content and analysis of values and national interests in the course of studying certain socio-political aspects of nation-building. National interests and liberal values were of interest to such domestic scientists as V. Horbulin, A. Kachynskyi, B. Savchuk, S. Teleshun, L. Shklyar, and others -- from the point of view of security, legal, cultural aspects of ethnopolitics and ethnogenesis, etc. [2]. The thorough annual monitoring of the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, which, in its study, comprehensively covers the state of Ukrainian society deserves special attention. The contribution to the research of national interests and values of Ukrainian society by such scientists of the above-mentioned scientific institution as S. Dembytskyi, E. Holovakha, O. Zlobina, N. Panina, V. Reznik, A. Ruchka, O. Shulga and others should be especially noted. At the same time, it is worth noting that problems related to the terminological characterization of values, defining their essence, analysis and comprehensive assessment of awareness by Ukrainian society during the years of independence remain insufficiently researched [3].

The purpose of the article. The purpose of the article is to carry out a theoretical analysis of the transformation of values, as well as an analysis of the problems of their formation and awareness by the population of Ukraine in the conditions of war.

Presentation of the main material

Studying the state of national interests and values is the basis that can help Ukraine, which is in a situation where there is an urgent request to find a new paradigm of stability. The multi-crisis state of Ukrainian society indicates that it is necessary to determine ways to overcome problems immediately in such spheres of life as spiritual, social, and material. The task is quite complicated, since the war affects all the indicated areas in every way. We are witnesses of extraordinary events, when very important changes are taking place before our eyes for the citizens of Ukraine and the world as a whole: the affirmation and strengthening of Ukrainian statehood, the establishment of the national consciousness of the population of Ukraine, in which structurally, national interests and values occupy a special place (this category is the leading basis, the basis of national consciousness), forming the basis for building a civil society. The scientific community now faces a scientific problem, the solution of which, through a kind of revision of national interests and values, can become one of the components of the completion of the formation of national consciousness, as well as the foundation of the national security concept and new strategies for the creation of a new Ukrainian society. Therefore, the study of Ukrainian liberal interests and values and their public awareness during the years of independence is quite relevant and relevant within the limits of both theoretical and methodological problems and practical tasks of domestic political science at the current stage of the development of Ukrainian society.

Compared to peacetime, mass consciousness undergoes observable changes. Various symptoms of the variability of mass consciousness with the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war (and as a result of its alleged influence) had to be noted more than once [4, p.327].

Ukraine's loss of control over part of its territories and population changed the ratio of preferences in the mass consciousness, achievable for observations since those years. At the same time, the influence of the war on the mass consciousness of Ukrainian citizens, whose thoughts, moods, and attitudes could be measured in the course of monitoring studies on the territory controlled by the Ukrainian state, was also not excluded. It is about the reaction of these citizens to the already mentioned annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the direction and support of separatist demonstrations in the South and East of Ukraine and the armed rebellion in Donbas in 2014 by the Russian security forces, and the direct participation of Russians in hostilities against the Ukrainian security forces [4, p.327].

The study of the impact of the war on the mass consciousness and values of Ukrainian society requires a separate analysis. At the same time, it should be taken into account that until 2022, the intensity of the impact of the war on citizens was different, depending on the region of Ukraine. In 2014-2021, the people of Donbas, where hostilities were localized, suffered the most from the war. In view of this circumstance, an empirical indicator was created that differentiates the interviewees into two categories [1, p.29].

Analyzing the long course of history, we see that values also changed over time, trying to meet the demands and trends of concrete realities of life. Since the second half of the twentieth century, Western society has generally promoted narratives of peace, tolerance, multiculturalism, and nonviolent interaction. Cruelty is condemned, human life is considered the highest value, war is the greatest evil.

This is the kind of rhetoric that has been present in the political and cultural discourse of the West for the past seventy years. It is these values that are inculcated in people in the process of preschool and school education, echoed by the mass media and the podiums of politicians. It was on these values that Ukrainian society was brought up and formed, starting from 1991. But starting from 2014, and from 2022 to an even greater extent, Ukrainian society faced those challenges that, among other things, called into question the existing social values, thereby creating internal dissonance and creating the need for a radical rethinking of the existing rhetoric [4, р.329]. It is Russia's military aggression against Ukraine that forces us to rethink the system of existing values. The question arises of how and what values should be formed in society in order to ensure its effective functioning in the conditions of military aggression on the one hand, and European integration aspirations on the other.

Such concepts as «values» and «value orientations» have been the subject of scientific interdisciplinary interest of sociologists, psychologists and political scientists for quite a long time. Sociologists mainly interpreted values as a social guideline, a so-called determinant of an individual's behavior. Psychologists mostly focused on the mechanisms of formation and manifestation of values. Political scientists analyzed more the consequences of the manifestation of certain values and value orientations on the socio-political situation in the country, and based on this analysis they made predictions of political processes.

In the definition of values as goals to which an individual or a social group strives, there is an assumption that it is these values that can motivate certain actions, directing and filling these actions, because it is values that can act as the criterion of what is desirable, or at least justified in one or another situation. Thus, value priorities can be considered determinants of attitudes and behavioral reactions [4, p. 330].

Any person, group or society has not one value, but a whole set of values, and it is important not only to have the «right» values in one's arsenal, but also how high this or that value is located in the value hierarchy. From the point of view of state formation and the formation of national values in society, it is important to realize that each individual, in addition to group, collective values, which he acquired in the process of formal socialization, will also have his own individual values, which were established under the influence of other factors and with the help of other agents of socialization. This is the family, and the economic situation of a particular individual, and friends and the closest environment, and belonging to a certain religious group, and character traits, and perhaps a book read that made a strong impression, etc. All this experience and all these variables lead to the fact that all values are somehow ranked, key and secondary values are distinguished. This process takes place at different levels, both individually and at the level of micro- and macro-groups. [4, p. 330].

The study of values and value orientations is the focus of attention of various disciplines. In sociological science, the focus of attention is directed to the study of how value orientations are formed in individuals at the micro level and in society at the macro level; how moral attitudes, ideas, beliefs at the stage of primary socialization (when the main role is played by the family) and secondary socialization (when the mass media, environment takes over the main role) through social interaction are assimilated by individuals. Bern emphasizes that individuals do not produce our beliefs and fixed ideas on their own, they only take them from significant others. In addition, it is also important for sociologists what are the mechanisms of the spread of values, the trends in their reproduction and formation not during the period of socialization, but under the influence of socio-political, public phenomena or events in the state and the world.

In the 70s, Milton Rokich proposed an approach to the study of values, dividing them into 2 classes: goal values and instrumental values. First-order values are responsible for what is important to an individual in the perspective of his whole life, such as life principles, or the attitudes «family is more important than work or career» or «the feeling of freedom is more important than the approval of my actions by the environment». Values of the second order - whole means - are those attitudes that an individual uses in everyday life. The first category is called terminal values (recognition by others as gaining respect; effectiveness as expanding one's education, outlook, intellectual development; the well-being of others), the second category is instrumental values, for example, upbringing as having good manners, independence as the ability to make decisions independently) [9]. He also emphasized that values are not a product of the individual's conscious mental or other activity, they are perceived by the individual at the cultural and social levels, based on what is desirable in society, and psychological mechanisms, because each individual is in his own vital situation. Other characteristics of values as a concept in sociological science were described by A. Rose: values can be realized by an individual or not, that is, implicit or non-implicit; values are taken over by individuals, assimilated through what is transmitted from the outside; the individual is at the same time the structure that perceives values externally, and at the same time the one who spreads them; a carrier of values may have values that conflict with each other; not all values have the same power on human behavior [9].

If we consider values as determinants of transformations in society, this can most likely happen in developed industrial societies. This transformation can change the main priorities of values for generations as a result of changing the conditions under which an individual was socialized, and in turn, changes in values and priorities of representatives of new generations can lead to changes in long-term trends in political parties. People pursue different goals in a hierarchical order, giving maximum attention to those things that they believe are the most important unsatisfied needs at the moment. In other words, the hypothesis of the value significance of what is missing. An example can be Maslow's pyramid with the following interpretation: the lower the level of needs, the less secure a person's standard of living. If a person seeks to satisfy the minimum needs, only physiological ones, it means that the person has experienced food, material, economic deprivation. According to Maslow, an individual's goal can express both material and symbolic things, from the desire to possess a certain physical thing as a symbol of a certain status to the desire to be recognized or loved. In childhood, every child experiences situations that relate to the limitations of various types of his needs [7, p. 121].

At this stage, Ukraine is classified as a country with a mixed type of values, as there is a stratum of people who have more pronounced post-materialistic values, the share of people with a mixed type is more numerous, and the share of people with pronounced materialistic values is decreasing.

Looking at the case of Ukraine and the Russian Federation, we see a clash of different value paradigms and systems that were formed in the political and cultural discourse of these two states. The peaceful and non-aggressive Ukrainian society, in which, especially during the years of independence, the pacifist values of the Western world were promoted, in which the general focus on democratic development and European integration prevailed, is forced to respond to the open aggression of its neighbor, which, starting in 2014, decided to «assert itself» on the territory of Ukraine and demonstrates the priority of all those «militant» values that were described above. And here, at the state level, Ukrainian society faced another challenge: how to ensure the preservation of the territorial integrity of the state (in fact, to wage an open defensive war), while at the same time maximally preserving the «pro-Western», pacifist value system that was so cherished in society and which necessary for Ukraine in the long term (we mean Ukraine's European integration aspirations, the need and desire to live in classical Western Europe, where an aggressive, militaristic society is not positioned as successful). This question became especially acute after February 24, 2022, when in order to contain and repulse a full-scale armed aggression, it is necessary to involve almost the entire population, when it is impossible to provide protection only by personnel military and volunteers [6].Analyzing the change in value orientations of Ukrainian society, they turned to the results of the World Value Survey for 2022 [6]. In the analytical report on Ukraine, the section «political culture and political regimes», the following figures are presented: «Comparing the results of the 2012 and 2022 survey, the assessment of different political systems has changed. A democratic political system is in the lead, with ratings of «very good/good form of government», but the indicators have decreased from 85.3% in 2012 to 81.9% in 2022. The idea of a strong leader who does not have to worry about parliament and elections is second in terms of popularity, two-thirds of respondents (67.9%) support this system, but this is less than in 2011 (71.3%) [4]. There is a significant decrease in support (from 64.6% to 46.2%) for a political system in which decisions are made by experts, not the government, while an increase in support for the military government is noted (from 12.7% to 21.1%). On the one hand, these figures can cause some concern, because we see a general tendency towards a readiness to abandon democratic, pacifist values and an ever-increasing readiness for military rule. At the same time, we see in the same analytical report that the indicator (on a 10-point scale) of the importance of living in a country with democratic governance increased from 7.83 points in 2012 to 8.20 points in 2022 [6]. In our opinion, this indicates that Ukrainian society has not changed its value paradigm and has not abandoned the ideas of democracy, altruism, well-being and the general pacifist discourse. Rather, there is a phenomenon described by Ronald Inglehart (by the way, the founder of the World Value Survey), that throughout history survival has been a priority for humanity, and when humanity faced similar challenges, such values as group solidarity, traditionalism, rejection of «otherness» and willingness to obey strong leaders [6]

So, faced with aggression from the Russian Federation and feeling a direct threat to its own survival, the Ukrainian nation somewhat restructured the hierarchy of its own values, while not abandoning previously formed pacifist values. This restructuring is a reactive phenomenon that will not have long-term roots in the system of values of Ukrainian society [7, p. 120].

Starting from 2014, and especially from February 2022, we are observing the following phenomenon in Ukrainian society. Bound together by a common threat to physical survival, each individual reacts to that threat individually (again, in a way that is most consistent with his or her individual hierarchy of values), and thus plays his or her own role in working together to preserve the state and nations. Part of the population is ready to take up arms and physically interact with the aggressor; we can assume that for this population group, the values of power and self-affirmation are the highest in the hierarchy. The other is that they focused on rear assistance, humanitarian support, ensuring the well-being of forced IDPs, the army, and the local population; for these people there is self-transcendence [3].

We can also conduct an analysis according to the individual hierarchy of terminal and instrumental values. It is the instrumental values, being more stable, that determine the form of participation and individual ways of responding to the challenge. The challenge itself (in the case of Ukraine, the war with Russia) caused a temporary change in the hierarchy of terminal values, in particular, the emergence of such a value as national security. In our opinion, attention should be focused on the issue of national security during the formation of society's values and value orientations.

In a situation of military operations, in times of concentration of powers and resources at the highest levels of state administration, there is, as can be assumed, little room for liberal values. Liberal values and ideas mean the desire for freedom, democracy, and humanism. Liberalism is based on the recognition of the priority of the rights of the individual, which is a higher value compared to the collective, the nation, society and the state. This worldview establishes the recognition of the sanctity and inviolability of private property, the guarantee of individual rights and freedoms.

Liberalism as a political and economic concept adds to this the need for the separation of powers, such an organization of economic management, which puts the freedom and natural abilities of a person in the first place, etc.

Considering the modern understanding of the ideas of liberalism and democracy, it is appropriate to establish the relationship between these concepts. Usually, the terms liberalism and democracy were perceived as interrelated. That is why the phrase liberal democracy appeared. Nowadays, when the process of renewal of not only liberal, but also conservative, social-democratic concepts has taken place, the problem of their relationship with the concept of democracy is again actualized and takes on new features.

The flaw of the Ukrainian liberalism of the past era was the underestimation of the national in the system of worldview foundations of society and the role of the state in relation to other socio-political institutions. At the same time, a key place was given to the concept of democracy, especially certain principles of direct democracy in the organization of state power, regional and local self-government. The programmatic ideas of the liberals seemed unrealistic for the Ukrainian lands as part of the imperial states with a totalitarian political regime. These ideas have always been perceived as a kind of utopia in Ukraine and have never had widespread support. Under modern conditions, liberalism is becoming a fashionable outlook and political-economic concept in Ukraine. Currently, about ten Ukrainian political organizations declare that they have adopted liberal ideas. But the problem of modern Ukrainian liberalism is the use of morally and politically outdated concepts of classical liberalism. For Ukraine, as well as for a number of countries of the postcommunist world, the «implantation syndrome of political systems» is characteristic. A certain part of the democratic forces of Ukraine, which is oriented towards the liberal models of the Western world, consciously or forcibly proposes to graft these worldview foundations of the donor countries on the post-Soviet soil. At the same time, the literature that is republished and promoted in Ukraine is mostly encyclopedic manuals of the beginning and middle of the 20th century.

In general, Ukrainian society has experience of fighting for democratic values and strives to build a free and democratic state. However, a long democratic transition, a difficult and exhausting war can lead to a growing distrust of democracy and a tendency towards authoritarian rule. In times of war, people may perceive an authoritarian regime as a reliable means of providing protection against an external threat. After all, quick, extra-parliamentary decisions and centralized leadership are often more effective in mobilizing resources and manpower to wage war than the lengthy procedures of representative democracy. Of course, the ability to make the necessary decisions without the complex procedures of democratic governance can be crucial in military conflicts. At the same time, a prolonged war can lead to permanent restrictions on personal freedoms, the use of censorship, settling accounts with political opponents, etc. In the future, the country's descent into authoritarianism will inevitably lead to isolation in the international arena from the democratic world [4, p. 330].

It is during martial law that one can see the key aspects of what characterizes classical political authoritarianism. This is primarily an asymmetric shift of power towards the head of state and executive structures. Along with this, there is a significant limitation of local self-government both through control over the formation of budgets and through direct intervention in the local power structure. An important feature of authoritarian rule is the lack of effective control over the activities of the government by society (through legitimate representative bodies such as parliament; through the judicial system and mass media). Actually, under authoritarianism, the government keeps information processes in society under control, motivating it by the need to maintain information security. All these restrictions are certainly necessary during wartime, but the temptation to leave them after the end of the war depends on the willingness of the population to support such a configuration of political governance. After all, the social condition for the transition to authoritarian rule is the predominance of authoritarian orientations in society [4, p. 334].

In the monitoring study of the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, there is an indicator that reflects authoritarian attitudes, namely the question «Do you agree that a few strong leaders can do more for our country than all the laws and discussions?». The dynamics of the answers to this question show that the level of declarative authoritarianism in the mass consciousness in the 1990s did not reach half of the population and was balanced by those who were undecided. And since the mid-2000s, the number of «authoritarians» has increased to almost two-thirds of the population. And even after the Revolution of Dignity, the distribution of groups did not change significantly. Only at the end of the 2010s, this share decreased somewhat, but it still remains decisive [8, p. 501]. At the same time, in recent years, a steady layer of people who do not agree with the statement about the advantages of authoritarianism over pluralism has been noticeable. It makes up about a quarter of the population. Even in the midst of a full- scale Russian-Ukrainian war, the results of a study by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Razumkov Center in 2022 reproduced similar distributions.

Conclusions

Significant indicators in the study and comparison of value orientations are such indicators as the level of education, because the modern stratification system in Ukraine is built partly on educational differentiation. Education is often related to professional status and income level. Age and age category is also a significant indicator - due to the fact that the modern world is developing very dynamically, and the experience of past generations both in terms of economics and the concept of public order, in terms of norms and rules, is very different, which reinforces the difference in the life experience of generations. Also, when studying value orientations, the gender aspect is investigated, but in the context of pro-materialistic values of the economic bloc, there were no significant differences, so it can be concluded that gender is not the influencing factor in the formation of these values. Another indicator, which is ambiguous, but which, when combined with indicators of annual income and level of education, is appropriate and interesting, is subjective class belonging. The biggest event that affected the life, values, and well-being of Ukrainians is Ukraine's war with Russia in the east of

Ukraine. This changed priorities, the feeling of security decreased, but the internal consolidation of society took place, Ukrainian identity began to significantly prevail within the state.

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