THE ACTUAL FUNTIONAL FEATURE
OF CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT
IN THE MODERNIZATION PROCESS
OF THE RUSSIAN SCHOOL
(on the Example of D. Lerner, U. Rostow, R. Ward, D. Rastow, D. Epter,
M. Levy, A. Inckelese and G. Terborne’s Theories)
(on the Example of D. Lerner, U. Rostow, R. Ward, D. Rastow, D. Epter,
M. Levy, A. Inckelese and G. Terborne’s Theories)
Кострица Е.И.
Читинская государственная медицинская академия
Чита, Забайкальский край, Россия
The process of contemporary Russian modernization of the school transforms the actual technology inside of the establishments of secondary education thoroughly. The means and methods of teaching are being altered noticeably: the computer innovation is being introduced; the interactive transformation is being recited. The given issues are widely developed in mass media, therefore we are not going to limit our investigation with the narrow frame of pedagogy and teaching methodology, having enlarged it with discipline parameters. The Western scientific thought has got more progressive vision of the modernization issues of the secondary school, that’s why we have selected thу works of the Western scholars of modernization D. Lerner, U. Rostow, R. Ward, D. Rastow, D. Epter, M. Levy, A. Inckelese and G. Terborne in the condition of the material of the given article. Modernization of the secondary school is widely known to be directly dependent of the cultural transformation, occurring on the background of cultural environment (with actual modernization) regulating moral-ethical parameters of the social structures. Hence, due to the correlation of the category of cultural environment with actual modernization, it is necessary to determine the given theories of modernization: psychological, economic, anthropological, social-anthropological, futurological items.
Let us contemplate the given theories in detail. The explanation of the modernization process is perceived in the particular manner. Modernization is being become the occurrence of the newest history, being applied to the actual planetary transformation, therefore the term “modernization” is referred not only to the whole period of the social process, but only to its one stage, to the modern one. As the modern period of human history is started from the moment of capitalism birth, the modernization essence is connected to the global spreading of the value and achievement of capitalism. In the concrete apprehension the conversation is based upon rationalism, accounting, urbanization and industrialization. The above mentioned four components formulate the direction of modernization, being an objective planetary process.
Nowadays the modernization leaders are the USA and Western Europe, which completely have got accustomed to its influence and have achieved the tremendous economic result. Russia, in its turn, adapts the modernization process due to its own proper economic model, being at the initial stage of its modernization development. The universal modernization theory (in its respect) is aimed at giving explanation the way the countries, retarded in their development may achieve the episode, being characteristic of the developing countries and may resolve the internal problems without any interference into the stage order. Modernization is the manner of the entrance into the world unity, under which the obedience to the global capitalism system is meant. Hence modernization is likely to be regarded as the revolutionary radical transference from the pre-industrial to industrial or capitalist society, being realized by means of the complex reforming. D. Lerner introduced the psychological modernization theory, determining the process as the mental phenomenon. “Modernization is some mental shift and obtaining of the certain mind condition which is characterized with the progress belief, aptitude to the economic growth, preparedness to getting adapted to the transformation,” – D. Lerner wrote. Mental representation of the modernization process demonstrates the idea of the gradual mental exploration of positive and negative parameters of modernization for effective realization of the progress dynamics.
D. Lerner is the supporter of the concept of “creative rationality”, consisting of three interacting and interconnected components: “firm confidence in the existence, dependence and causes, which support constant and systematic, inventive scientific quest, analytical causative determination for the research searching for enlarging the knowledge circle, multiplication of instruments and technology, caused by the first aspect and praising it simultaneously; the preparedness for accepting the stable transformation on the individual and social levels under the adequate capacity for keeping individual and community identity”. The mentioned aspects contribute to the complete realization of modernization in its progressive shape. Unfortunately, the problem of personal alienation obtains the particular weight in the psychological reference in the context of Russian reality. The progress belief is supported by the scale extension of industry, as well as the production of new equipment. The given transformation is justified by the development of the scientific thought and scientific-technical achievement in varied branches of knowledge. Economic vision of modernization problems was regarded by U. Rostow, who marked five stages of economic growth in the modernization process: 1. the traditional society, 2. the preparing of the flight premise, 3. the “flight” stage, 4. the maturity, 5. the age of “accelerated consumption”. The starting point of the determined stages is the traditional society, and its final time scale was considered by U. Rostow to be the society of mass consumption. Every stage is the transferring stage of economic development. The fifth stage becomes the period of the creation of the society, in which the orientation of the mass cultural tendency is found. The gradual economic transformation was not relevant for U. Rostow.
U. Rostow was confident in the necessity of the radical transformation in economy of the countries. “The additional impact is necessary for leading the society out of the limit of the preparation stage. The political revolution, transforming most of the important institutes: technologic innovation…or favourable external surrounding in the reference to the price of the growing requirement”. After having passed the preliminary phase, the country, being eager to gain self-supporting economic growth, must create the correspondent structure for the impact realization: capital and resources must be mobilized for acceleration of ideal weight of the production investment to ten per cent of the national benefit. In the reverse case the economic growth will be unable to lead to acceleration of the population people. Hence, U. Rostow uttered three alternatives of root transformation, presented in the political-economic environment: the political revolution, the technologic innovation, the transformation of the external environment. The political revolution transforms the state system of all the countries including Russia cardinally and formulates the separation. In case of the realization of technologic innovation the prior position is occupied by the performance of tehnologic process, contributing to the creation of condition for industrialization, increasing the level of the production potential. Transformation of the external environment causes the creation of the effective model of state functioning. The financial support for structure reciting of these models in this innovation is necessary, that’s why U. Rostow determined four stations investment introduction in Russian history: “1. confiscation and tax enterprises, 2. banks, capital markets, state obligation, fund markets, 3. inner trade, 4. direct foreign investment ”.
In Soviet Russia the production investment was gained by means of confiscation and tax payment, in modern Russia the industry investment is realized in four determined vectors, contributing to state cooperation. The anthropological model of modernization was demonstrated by such scholars as R. Ward, D. Rastow, D. Epter. In the range of anthropological theory R. Ward characterized the instrumental-technologic variation of modernization in which the particular attention was paid to transformation of the instruments and ways of revealing and supervision of the environment technology progress and industrialization: “Modernization is relied upon the “systemic” constant and purposeful application of the human energy for “rational” supervision over natural and social human environment”.
R. Ward determined the modernization society as the monolith, capable of supervising the natural and public surrounding and formulating the proper value system. Modernization stands on the level higher than any other anthropological model and possesses the complex nature and representation. Due to R. Ward’s position, contemporary political modernization gained the following traits, being absent in the traditional modernization model: the differential and functionally specialized system of the management organization; the accelerated degrees of integration inside the management structure; the prevalence of the national and aristocratic procedure issues of political decision; the great volume, the wide scale, the extended efficiency of political and administrative decision, the widely spread mass sensation of proper equilibrium with history, territory and national-state identity, the concern and involvement of the population into the political system; the distribution of the political roles in accordance rather with the principle of the status achievement, the judge and regulation technology, which are mainly based on the aristocratic and impersonal legislative system. D. Rastow was accepted to be considered to remain the follower of the concept of instrumental-technological interpretation of modernization, the scholar accentuated the attention to the close human cooperation. Modernization was directed to diffusion of the thing, determined as “the global culture”, based on the advanced technology and the scientific spirit, the rational life outlook, the circular aristocratic approach to the social relationship, the sense of justice in public affairs, and despite of all this, the confession of the political reality of the national state as the main general unit, as it was settled by one expert. The political state description permitted to reveal political modernization, reinforcing the total idea in basic aspects of economic, cultural and social organization.
D. Epter underlined the industrialization significance in the course of modernization, connecting its realization with spreading and usage of industrial roles in the non-industrial area. Due to D. Epter’s view-point, industrialization was the key aspect of modernization, possessing more dynamic and concessive traits. The principal peculiarity of industrialization was concealed in the transformation of the traditional institutes and customs in the establishing of new parts and social structures in the mechanic alteration of industry. Mechanic alteration of industry was connected to such transformation, as the Research Technical Progress (the RTP) and the mental readjustment and demonstrated the tendency of progressive social development. The social-anthropological theory of modernization was represented in the works of M. Levy and A. Inkelese. Sociologist M. Levy revealed the problem of identification of the comparative traits of modernization in the analysis of two key models of the social structure: the traditional society and the modern one. According to M. Levy’s concept, the society was accepted to be considered modern (actual), as it was the product of the modernization transformation, while the patriarchal traditional society did not respond to the actual transformation of modernization. Particularly that was why, social differentiation inside of the determined system tended to be hybridization, which would lead to degradation of the social systems.
M. Levy gave the following definition of the modernity society: “The society is considered to be more or less modern depending of the factor of the application of the non-animated source of energy, of machinery for multiplication of the effect of the proper effort among its members”. Modernization explanation, as the process of the energy consumption, being accompanied or being separated from the technical progress. Modernization depended on the degree of total consuming, presented in the society. M. Levy supposed the proper form of modernization to be determined by the degree of the usage of the energy source in the living and non-living respect. M. Levy was assured the world to be free from societies, lacking the industrial traits and the energy resource. The scholar revealed the dynamics of modernization realization, in which two types of energetic structures were present, they were the relatively modern societies and the non-modern societies.
The researcher compared the given opposition with “the two local structures on the opposite endings of the continual existence”. M. Levy made the accent on the important modernization factor, being connected with the relatively modern and non-modern societies. Modernization was represented, as the universal resolution of the majority of the global issues: “Models of relatively modern societies, having been achieved once, possess the universal tendency of penetrating into varied social context, which representatives have already got involved into the contact with them…These models penetrated all the time. As soon as the penetration has been begun, the preceding foreign models are being inevitably transformed, and this transformation is always held according to the direction, having been marked by one of the models of the relatively modern societies”. Modernization was the progressive stimulus, determining the social institutes with such speed, that the tendency of the social transformation became the actual phenomenon in the light of the total globalization transformation. A number of parameters being used in case of the identification purpose, the degree of comparison between the relatively modern and relatively non-modern societies was set forth by M. Levy in the result of the comparative analysis of the two given structural elements. A. Inkelese determined the place of the modern man in the modernization society, having counted six features of the individual in the world: “The discovery in the reference to the experimental life (the modern human is ready to deal with new types of activity and to invent new production technology); the extension of independence from the authority (the modern man is ready controlled by the tribal heads and kings (tsars)); the belief in science (the modern man believes that men can conquer nature); the orientation on the mobility (the modern man is very ambitious and is aimed at rising on the social staircase)”; the usage of long-lasting planning (the modern man plans his (her) life beforehand and knows what he (she) will have to quit in the next five years and so on); the activity in the field of the public political life (the modern man takes an active part in the life of the society)”. The tendency of the exploration of the new types of activity and invention of the new technology were vital. The open nature in the reference to the experiment was being realized in the process of the research-technical searching and personal improvement. Personal freedom of the modern man did not depend upon the influence of the environment. The scientific belief contributed to the full-scale progress of the modern man in the condition of contemporary modernization. Mobility orientation was the impulse for the breakdown in the personal development in the structure of the society. The usage of long-lasting planning assisted the prospective forecasting of these or those events in the personal existence. Activity in the sphere of public political life was correspondent to the participation of the modern man in the public life.
The futurology modernization concept was clearly described by the Swiss scholar G. Terborne: “Modernity may be understood as the epoch, being turned into the future, being represented as something, being different and better in its comparison to modernity and the past”. The scholar recited “the principle of the binary code”, permitting to realize the management with “time semantics” by means of determining the contrast between the present and the past. The Dichotomy “the Present-the Past” expressed the vulgar model of the culture development code. G. Terborne wrote in that key: “The epoch “modernity” is ended as soon as people quit localizing behaviour or activity forms on the axis “tradition-modernity”, “deviation-progress”, when the difference between the past and the future loses its actuality in the discourse due to the society and the culture. The ending of the modernity epoch was marked by the devaluation of such notions as progress, development, emancipation, growth, enlightenment, etc.”.
Contrast traits had to be in the position confrontation for the best realization of the innovatory stereotype and the social variation always. The epoch of modernity in contemporary Russia was apt to many difficult situations, as the policy of contrast resistance of negative traits of modernization, which might disturb national identity, as well as the process of Russian cooperation with other countries of the world. G. Terborne determined the theory of the four “doors” or “ways in/through modernization”: the way of endogenous modernization in Western Europe; the way having been passed by the new societies of Northern and Southern America and Australia, having appeared as the result of Continental migration; the way through colonization of the traditional societies by the Europeans by means of the imposed opening by colonization; modernization, imposed outside under the influence of Western Civilization (Japan, Russia, the Near East, Turkey, China). The fourth modernization way, being characteristic of Russia, demonstrated the particular dependence of the given process from global and planetary transformation of globalization, meanwhile modernization realized the prospect, having been introduced by globalization.
Библиографическая ссылка
Кострица Е.И.
THE ACTUAL FUNTIONAL FEATURE
OF CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT
IN THE MODERNIZATION PROCESS
OF THE RUSSIAN SCHOOL
(on the Example of D. Lerner, U. Rostow, R. Ward, D. Rastow, D. Epter,
M. Levy, A. Inckelese and G. Terborne’s Theories)
// Научный электронный архив.
URL: http://econf.rae.ru/article/5740 (дата обращения: 06.05.2024).
Прочитать публикацию в формате PDF