War, Evil and Culture

In thinking about the cultural order, which includes values, norms, narratives, rituals and symbols the concept of negativity has not received sufficient attention. By negative we understand those phenomena in social life that are aimed at the destruction of the cultural order, which threaten society and the individual with misfortunes or even destruction. The challenge arises to consider how culture responds to phenomena that negate cultural values. Does this mean that the destruction of the cultural order is accomplished through an attack against values in general, from anti-value positions, or is this destruction inherent in the cultural process? The majority of cultural researchers understand the negative as something that deforms the cultural order, some deviation from the cultural constructions of goodness. Modern war of Russia against Ukraine forces us to recognize the insufficiency of the understanding of badness and negativity as a certain deviation, an excess, subsequently overcome by cultural institutions. From the standpoint of modern social science, which perceives culture as consisting of values worthy of all respect, it is difficult to explain the support of the majority of the Russian population for this aggressive and unjust war. The idea that it is not the values of evil, but the absence of values that creates an aggressive society, does not fit well with the participation of a large part of the intelligentsia in militaristic propaganda. Therefore, we must agree with J. Alexander’s position that evil is a necessary component in a culture of goodness, that every value has an inherent anti-value. To preserve cultural order evil must be encoded, transformed into a narrative and adapted to core cultural values. Cultural order reestablishes itself when there are existing well-developed narratives about how evil arises and develops, where it can be expected to appear, what constitutes the struggle between good and evil in, and how good can triumph over evil. In the connection with Russian invasion, we can observe the emergence of new narratives designed to explain the evil perpetrated by the Russian state. One of the dominant narratives is the narrative of the ;evil; nature of Russian culture and language, which pose a threat to the civilized world. To understand the processes unfolding in contemporary society, namely the full-scale war raging on the European continent at the beginning of the 21st century, it is necessary to rethink traditional notions that a pragmatic, reflective individual cannot commit an act that is evil and inhumane in its consequences. In the connection with the Russian invasion, we can observe the emergence of new narratives designed to explain the evil perpetrated by the Russian state. One of the dominant narratives is the narrative of the evil; nature of Russian culture and language, which pose a threat to the civilized world. The implementation of this narrative is embodied in ritualized processes: the destruction of monuments associated with Russian cultural figures, the renaming of streets, etc.

References:

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