Identity in a transitive society: the transformation of values

Abstract

The problems of the transformation of the values of generations that are socialized in the new socio-cultural reality and the possibilities for their effective study are discussed. The leading characteristics of the modern world are transitivity, transparency, heterogeneity and heterochronism, mobility and permeability of various kinds of boundaries, the contradictions of globalization, the combination of the civilization vector of the transnational culture and local cultural diversity. It is proved that the complex dynamics and diversity of sociocultural contexts supporting it, as well as the situation of value heterogeneity, where conservative and progressive trends, trunk and marginal currents of culture, very selectively fall into the visible field of analysis, must be taken into account in order to reveal the features of identity development in the modern world. Factors of methodological risk in interpreting the development of identity in a transitive society are the shift (lability) and the mixing (antinomy) of the value system, as well as the fact that more pronounced socio-cultural movements, clear trends and dominant discourses overlap and obscure in the eyes of observers latent, unobvious and ambiguous trends. It is that becomes the sphere of study and problematization of the epistemology of latency, where the notion of the heterogeneity of modernity, latent flows of culture and mixed trends makes it possible to avoid the errors of one-dimensional and linear extrapolations in studying the transformation of the values of succeeding generations. The methodology of latent change is focused on hidden processes occurring both in the depths of culture and in the diversity of its local layers, as well as the discrepancy between declarations and everyday cultural practices, analytical expectations and intrusive reality. It is argued that as a result of the generation change taking place in a globalized world, the movement from "survival values" to "self-expression values" is, although not a linear, but a strong and sustainable trend, and the development of transnational culture serves as a source of universal and postmaterialistic values, and support harmonious development of identity in the modern world.