Cultural orders in space and time of the emergent state

Cultural evolution is not as hasty as it sometimes seems to us; in any case, modern cultural orders are quite thoroughly explained by the conceptualizations of the last century in the most expressive versions of both the sociology of conflicts and the sociology of compromises, which are in no way opposed to each other in the logic of analysis of reality but are autonomous and do not exclude complementarity. One type of order is focused on the morphology of the conflict of cultural epochs and states in the terms of Georg Simmel, on the interaction of the flow of life and forms of culture, initially fixing their correspondence but subsequently losing it, up to the complete rejection by life of the forms that weigh it down, the rejection of the form of culture in general. We are talking about the opposition of the individual and society, about the insoluble conflict between individual life, which sacrifices its manifestations in favor of socially approved patterns, and cultural form, which gives rise to the “tragedy of culture.” The second perspective, on the contrary, avoids dramatic states, and places the focus on consumption, which Michel de Certeau presents as a multidimensional space of possibilities for anonymous creativity thanks to the special tactics of the ordinary person to bypass the established order, inventing an everyday life that is acceptable to him. Of course, any “branding of creativity” takes it out of the space of secrecy and into the public eye, but it is unlikely to completely neutralize its inspiration from “micro-freedom” (in Certeau’s terms). There is also a third, broader perspective on cultural orders, which has been rooted in the sociological tradition since Sombart and Weber and refers to the “spirit of capitalism”, its value and ethical justifications, and today to the “spirit of digital capitalism” in the space of action of “ethics of decision”, “solutionism” (Oliver Nachtwey, Timo Seidl), the essence of which is the belief that any social problem can be solved by “the correct use of the correct technologies.” The models of modern cultural orders presented in the article help to more accurately understand their interaction with social and economic orders, including in the circumstances of war, when Ukrainian society is in an emergent state as a result of Russian aggression.