Yury V. Ryzhov

Taganrog Institute of Technology, Southern Federal University, Russia

Spiritual security and problems of identity

This work was supported by RFBR, project number 10-06-00110-a

In modern world cultural issues are powerful factors of social development. Its importance in the formation and development of human life seen through the action of personal and subjective factors (installation of consciousness, spiritual needs, values, etc.) that affect behavior, shape and style of communication between people, values, patterns, and socio-cultural identity much more.

The changes occurring in the last decades, making current research on identity in terms of economic, political and spiritual transformation of Russian society. One aspect of the problem considered in this paper, is the spiritual security of person, culture and society.

The concept of spiritual security recently entered the scientific fields. It is usually described as a qualitative description of the state of society in the aspect of his moral and spiritual and ideological consistency, building basic goals and values, the balance of individual, group and societal interests, the functional coherence of political institutions, ideology and culture .

Today, there are the following main threats to Russia's spiritual security: the institutional crisis and the weakness of the socialization of society, social and cultural divisions and the crisis of intergenerational relations, the absence of a single ideology, the demographic crisis and adverse events in the area of family relations, the growth of social inequality and social polarization, and intellectual decline social potential of the Russians. Promotion of the negative phenomena of the spiritual and social life in the media leads to the gradual formation of a new system of values which, in turn, leads to a new spiral of spiritual crisis.

It is important to distinguish two levels of human identity - a socio-cultural and spiritual ones. The content of the socio-cultural identity is the awareness of man's real place in nature and the social world. It implies a boundary between "us" and "strangers", the definition of the persons with whom the individual is really (origin, social status, etc.) is connected and consciously identifies itself, and at the same time, the persons to whom it is actually opposed, distinguishes itself from that. The socio-cultural identity is primarily self-determination in social space. The issue of socio-cultural identity of people, thus, is a matter of those groups (communities, groups) and group characters, with which they identify themselves. The socio-cultural identity is always particularistic; it unites or separates people.

If the socio-cultural identity indicates man’s real position in the world, the spiritual identity is an effort to implement its own project of the perfect man and the ideal society. It involves the isolation of a person within their own socio-cultural community, its cultivation, emergence as a single unique individual. The man is individualized, finds his own identity to the extent that, as is expanding its spiritual outlook, the region responsible judgments to generic functions, a new concept of life. The spiritual identity of man is the cause of his own choice and it is beyond the scope of its socio-cultural life, claims to universality, absoluteness. Its object is to find the ultimate meaning of the infinite indestructible life. It unfolds itself in the long term, which is universally significant for man.

Spiritual security can be viewed from sociocultural perspective as a spiritual identity. One of the most important social institutions is religion that influences the formation of social, cultural and spiritual identity, and that accompanies human society throughout its history. Speaking as a factor in defining the ideological guidance to people, religion is a form of social control. For millennia, the role and place of religion in society have changed, at various times one or another of its functions were basic, or, conversely, went by the wayside.

Nowadays, there was a contradictory situation in the field of religion. Religion can be a mean of preserving the socio-cultural identity of the people or the foundation of globalization processes. It can unite nations and peoples, contributing to intercultural dialogue, and at the same time it can be a serious destabilizing factor, i.e., it can perform as integrating and disintegrating function.

The integrating function of religion is due to socio-cultural nature of this social institution, which was originally serving as a philosophy and attitude of individuals and groups to integrate them into social communities. With the development of common values of society and worldview attitudes of large social groups, religion is not so much an embodiment of the sacred canons, as the cultural and historical tradition, which has absorbed the basic values and norms of the people, their customs, especially the mentality. Traditionally, there are some identifications of a particular religion with a particular nation, and vice versa. Regardless of the type of world view (religious or secular), the majority itself correlates with a particular denomination.

However, along with an integrating function of religion, there are cases where the religious factor, either directly or indirectly, becames the cause of destabilization in society. Contemporary socio-cultural transformations lead to increased mobility and, consequently, cause a massive momentum values, stereotypes, norms, and this can not affect the identity. The ideas about the group and correlation of the individual to the group are changing on the dynamics of the value orientations. At the same time the social conflicts of politics and ideology are moved to the area of religious and cultural differences. New, alien cultures lead to a reaction against them by adherents of the traditional norms. In addition, religion can act as an independent source and social contradictions. The weakening influence of religion on people's minds, the regress of the religious ideal representations of patriarchal (traditional) society, the loss of the sacred meaning of religious ideas in the modern era of world views’ competition could lead to negative attitude of religion to modern trends of development of society.

In our opinion, religions can be a powerful factor for both identity and spiritual security even in modern secularized society. It appears that this factor needs further investigation.