TRADITION AS A FACTOR OF INTEGRATION AND CONSOLIDATION OF UKRAINIAN SOCIETY IN THE CONDITIONS OF POSTMODERN: ARCHETYPIC APPROACH

Abstract

The article deals with the phenomenon of socio-historical tradition as a factor of the social integration and consolidation of the Ukrainian society. Tradition is defined as the process of reproducing, through social institutions, the experience of generations and the adaptation of this experience to the requirements of the present. It is argued that the adaptation of tradition to the postmodern modernity is a complex socio-historical and socio-psychological process, in the context of which a paradigm shift is taking place and a new — rational type of thinking influencing the social practices and social behaviour is emerging. By setting posterity to innovation, the postmodern blurs the great narratives of the tradition and denies the social experience of the previous generations. Under the influence of innovation, the social system is fragmented and constantly gravitates to the state of anomie. In these circumstances, tradition, its subjects and carriers become a constructive factor of the social consolidation, which takes place in the context of solving pressing issues of the innovative development. Tradition and traditional activity act as a kind of value-semantic forms in the form of new myths and myth-making, which counteract the loss of the national identity and social integrity. The theoretical basis of such activity, according to the authors, was presented by the French sociologist J. Durant, who proposed the concept of the imaginary as a mechanism for constructing the social reality. This mechanism, according to J. Durant, is both imagination, imaginary and imagined, and reality is the embodiment of a free play of the imagination, which is influenced by myths and archetypes. The imaginary exists in two modes: daytime (diurnal) and night (nocturne). The former functions in a dual form characterized by the hierarchy and patriarchy embodied in the heroic myth. Instead, the second is presented as a holistic mystical myth or death as another reality. According to the authors, the imaginary, as the embodiment of the collective unconscious, is associated with such archetypal properties of the social system as externality / internality (external / internal locus control), extraversion / introversion (social / social identity), executiveness / intentionality (female / male social roles). Accordingly, the past social and historical era of the modernity is connected with the functioning of the regime of the diurnal, archetypes and myth-making, which are closely linked to the realization of the external social control, patriarchy (social identity) and the growth in the social system of the number of women’s social roles. The postmodern modernity actualizes the nocturnal regime under which conditions the system increases self-control, blurs hierarchy and increases the number of the male social roles.