Текст книги "Образ человека будущего, Том 7 (СИ)"

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An urgent need to educate a spiritual, cultural, moral and aesthetic personality is a chal-lenge in the context of our time. We speak about a man who should be ready for social, eco-nomic and cultural changes as well as for revolutionary and reform challenges in all spheres of the modern social life. As it has been mentioned by culturologists, «in case of necessity a person can merge his individuality into culture which is considered as a memory of the whole mankind. It reflects human spirituality development, which is a consequence of the particular cultural events in the past. A man addresses that culture as „a talking mirror“ and creates his personal image.» [Kruglikov, 1987: 181] The problem of educating a well-cultured person is extremely challenging. A number of factors, which inhibit the process, affects it. The following ones could be identifies as the most influential: lack of interest in the inner world exploring and improving, focus on personal everyday troubles, mass media hypnotic influence on conscious-ness and feelings of youth, current trends to commercialize, pragmatism and deprive society of spirituality.

Television is the most powerful tool for the mass influence. As Dario Salas Sommer men-tioned «it is the strongest and the most excellent hypnotist.» That is why to distract the viewers from the thoughtful life reflection and to change positive worldview they substitute true cul-ture and high art on the cult of entertainments and cruelty, depreciation of high morals and no-ble deeds as well as second-rate stories and characters. The «hypnotist»s" target is to «weaken» people"s pure intentions and high aspirations. The focus is on dealing with the everyday issues.

Personal culture is formed in the context of cultural diversity. It includes friendly envi-ronment, well-cultured people, self-education and considering culture phenomenon as a great value. These points show the way how to create an ideal personality. Level of an individual culture must correspond with the national scale and the culture level accepted in the whole world. An image of a Man of Culture reflects harmonized aspects of both external and internal worlds. Neither perfect, aesthetic appearance nor good communication skills and an ability to give a professional assessment to the works of art can be considered apart as a complete image of a cultured person. It is too little. It is also necessary to remember about human inner world, sincerity, integrity, honesty, justice and behavioral culture, attitude to the world and other peo-ple. At each historical stage there was presented a particular model of a well-cultured person. Immanuel Kant described a Man of Culture as a mystery, «an unknown object in itself.» As it is mentioned by Sommer we can describe a well-cultured person as a man who «believes that his inner spiritual world is the main value. Moreover, that evolution of his consciousness helps to fill his every wish, deed or though with goodness. It will allow people to come closer to the main purpose of human existence – self-improvement. That is only thing that can help us to change the world where we live for better» [Sommer, 2014].

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Today"s reality shows that instead of helping people to get noosphere and, particularly, a cos-moplanet level of consciousness when everybody lives in harmony with nature, the Universe and his own soul, when people are able to transfer higher cosmic spiritual energies into the human world which is aimed at forming the noosphere civilization, technosphere rules the real world. It maims human hearts and souls, inhibits emotions and feelings. That leads to increasing the distance from the true human culture as in general sense so in national aspects. Development of

Pedagogy of Noosphere is a current trend. This science has an important spiritual mission – to lay theoretical and methodical foundation for harmonization of human life and the Universe [Fu-ture Human Image, 2011; Future Human Image, 2012; Future Human Image, 2013]. Also, it en-courages next generations to realize the main purpose of the mankind existence on Earth planet. A cosmoplanet human has a highly developed spirituality which can be found through showing care about the surrounding, creating Goodness and Beauty, a strong desire to improve personal inner world. Vladimir Vernadskyi underlined that an individual existence full of positive energy would encourage human transferring from the biosphere stage to the noosphere one. Modern scientists pay much attention to the noosphere education problem. They stress the necessity to harmonize a Man and the Universe relations on the basis of culture centricity, aethetization, artistry, spiritual and value aspects of the content and methods of education. It conditions the ne-cessity to «pass through the filter of a bracing higher consciousness,» which will allow people to follow the Universe morals. As Dario Sommer states, «Everyone is connected with the Universe through invisible fibers and once been sending those vibrations will get back much intensified. Nature forgives nothing. The way you treat others is the way you will be treated. Therefore, if you want a better life you should sow the best seeds... As much you are ready to give so will get.» [Sommer, 2014: 236] In addition, it is worth revising the following moral Rules, which are the basis for the Universe and Man further harmonization. The author states: «Do not claim on what you doesn»t deserve. Do not feel hate as it will get back hundred times intensified. Do not commit perjury and contempt. Show respect to older people and support them. Always defense truth and justice. Do not do to others what you would not have done to you. Be free from negative emotions and thoughts. Follow the Universe rules and you will be rewarded. Live in harmony with Nature and you will get the highest goodness." [Sommer, 2014: 236] If people follow the mentioned, above recommendations it will be possible to get higher spiritual level and morals as well as better situation in the context of interaction culture between individuals and nations. It will give an opportunity to create an ideal image of humanity in people"s souls. In addition, the author identifies morality as «a cause-and-effect, vibrating and energetic connection between a Man and Space where the following rule works – everyone pays for what he does.» [Sommer, 2014: 235] If a person is considered as a Man of High Spirituality, it is obvious that he should have high morals and culture. He should live in accordance with his spiritual values. It is worth noticing that Sommer has introduced the «morals physics» term, which considers such aspects as consciousness and voluntary interaction with nature all around the Universe aimed at getting the highest sake. It supposes general human perfection and, particularly, aesthetic aspect. [Sommer,

2014: 6]

What system of values does our society believe in and suggest follow? The information space is weakly controlled. It affects a personal value system, an ability for critical thinking as well as spiritual, moral and aesthetic ideals. The TV guide"s analysis makes us to ask the following question: What has happened to those television programmes which consist of spir-itual, cultural and art contents? We mean high quality arts: cinema, theater, painting, music, literature. Also, it is important to become familiar with museums around the world, meet out-

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standing scientists and people of culture, as it will help to rich a higher level of spiritual life, to broaden the worldview, to observe examples of a bright human spirit and greatness. Then the second question has arisen: How idealization of successful in business and «cool» TV characters can help us to form highly educated and well-cultured individuals and society? If we want our country to become harmoniously developed in the context of accelerated changes, we should think about the following: Who are those examples for young people to follow? Dario Salas Sommer reflected on the mentioned above in his «Morals of 21st century» book. The author asked: «Are there Pythagoras, Socrates, Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Shakespeare within those people? Socrates was convinced of talking too much. Nero killed Seneca because he could not stand the truth. Jesus Christ exposed an imperfect world and was crucified. All those stories illustrate that at all times perpetrators could not hear the truth. That is the reason for destruction and defamation of true prophets by people who try to imitate goodness.» [Sommer, 2014: 30]

We can find further development of the mentioned above thought in works by Pitirim Sorokin. The author has mentioned that the basis of an existing culture is always those values, which are important for a particular society [Sorokin, 1992]. In this context, it is important to notice that every historical stage forms a unique architecture of social life. It identifies a particular system of values, which all members of the community have to share. In turn, that system determines the content and the purpose of human existence. Dario Som-mer has rightly underlined that a real human value is in his own content, but not because of the assessment by others. «We should please our Lord, not the crowd. We should under – stand that only following the way pointed by our Creator we can get full self– realization as humans» [Sommer, 2014: 41]. In his «Morals of the 21st century» book, the author draws our attention to the fact that modern people have not been still reflecting a Perfect Human Image programmed by the Almighty. They rather look like a bridge between a wild animal and a true Man. Current image is not completed. That is why «people should realize their eternal unimportance, rebuild their capacities and complete the true Man»s Image. Every person has enough spiritual power to break out of imperfection through constant moral and spiritual improvement" [Sommer, 2014: 47]. The author underlines the importance to become people with a strong will and a firm character, but being sympathetic and united. [Sommer, 2014: 215] To get that purpose, as the author believes, it is necessary to come back to the traditional human values: hard work, honesty, integrity, readiness to sacrifice, tolerance, goodness, love, justice, solidarity, friendship and altruism. It is also important to remember about spirituality as a particular practice, which allows people to develop the highest virtue and get self– improvement through formation of a personal consciousness. As Sommer has identified the mentioned above qualities are the basis for a Completed Human Image. His classification consists of 23 points. Let us consider some of them. «A Completed Man» cannot be influenced by the crowd. His «I am» perception is developed and mature. He is thankful to God, his family and country. He feels hate to anybody. He is patient, kind, sympathetic, obtains the highest human qualities. He is not able to cause harm consciously. He assesses himself objectively. He controls his consciousness and stays open-minded. He evaluates himself according to the current development level, but does not depend on other"s appreciation" [Sommer, 2014: 41 50].

The 21st century is known as a period of rapid changes in the environment, society, culture, economics, interpersonal communication sphere and a Man"s inner world. Alvin Toffler, the author of the «Future Shock» book, discusses in his work the following question: "What do

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people feel in times of changes?" In his opinion, they experience an unprecedented acceler-ating and that is why people might look for another world escape. «Their souls can»t catch up with the changes. The world seems to be hostile and scares by its immensity. When new cul-tural standards appear, people get a «cultural shock.» The author underlines as well that every culture has its own pace of development. That"s why cultural shock should be considered as a particular phenomenon in the context of a certain period which has appeared as a result of overlapping a new culture level on the old one [Тоffler, 2002]. As Professor Pavel Gurevich notices, it is important not to become a slaver of transience. It is necessary to be prepared for changes, train adaptability in the context of decreasing fear of changes. The proper training should include development of observation and critical thinking skills. It will give an oppor-tunity to assess the particular events and phenomenons in the context of their accordance with the purpose and potential value for future.

Unfortunately, most often we face anti-values. It provokes such negative emotions as pes-simism, disappointment, irritation. They affect human ideals in general and, particularly, nega-tively influence on our young generation. In this situation, it is extremely important to support humanitarian aspect of social life. Today the process of youth education is focused on master-ing competencies. The whole system gives the top priority to the professionalism. However, it is a well-known fact that «professional improvement can»t be substitute for the complex human development process, as these two aspects do not usually go together." We speak about education, which depresses upbringing. Moreover, it is dangerous for a person. Particularly, it is pity to notice that youth upbringing activity as a part of teaching has been excluded from HE teachers" working plans. Following Anton Makarenko ideas, it is worth to say that people create their image all his life. Therefore, we can definitely state that a person should been ed-ucated and increases his culture level all his life as well.

It is important to notice that a principle of culture centricity has become as one of the current trends within the education content and methods modernization process. It supposes development of a humanitarian culture, which should make «the most complicated mechanism of a human soul» (Dmitry Likhachov) to start working through forming the universal value system, establishing positive dialogue as well as through emotional and spiritual development of youth. It is supposed that culture will become the content of pedagogy. Correspondently, the basis for the education content filling includes different texts within certain cultural con-texts as well as different kinds of art, which represent an ideal of a particular historical stage. [Kashekova, 2014] These ideas have a strong potential to become implemented into modern educational process. Culture and arts will help to develop visual and verbal thinking skills, stir creative imagination, get high ground thoughts, arise Beauty in human souls, develop emo-tional culture and an ability to sympathize. What is the power of culture as an educational tool? Philosophical determinations of the «culture content» term give the answer to the mentioned above question.

Among a great number of the «culture» term determinations, we can choose the following: «Culture is a fundamental source for the world recovery which feeds human minds and feel-ings. People can percept the world model and interpret the answers to the main questions in the context of human existence through culture. It lives by its own life. Therefore, it is necessary to safe the culture as we do with a human life. Culture encourages high tension of a spiritual energy, intellectual excellence and human desire to harmonize himself with the environment» [Arnoldov, 2007]. In addition, we can enlarge «culture» tem description and add the follow-ing: culture is a perfect performance. It includes the best examples of morals and aesthetics

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of human behavior and deeds. Culture is a filter through which a person percepts the world. Culture phenomenon can be subdivided into the following subgroups: internal, external, spir-itual, political, ecological, artistic, aesthetic, communicative etc. It should be considered as a part of an ideal creation and as an ideal based system in the context of human existence, where an ideal is considered as moral purity and consciousness improvement (Dario Sommer). The ideal is the center of a life sense idea and human spirituality. In the mentioned above context the following words of Fyodor Dostoyevskyi are relevant: both Man and nation cannot exist without the highest idea. The value system is a fundamental basis for a perfect existence. In turn, culture and arts are the most important tools for this. Arts draw our particular attention. We cannot imagine an Excellent Man who lives apart from it. The world-known Canadian culturologist Paul Shafer rightly admitted that studying arts should serve as a basis for general education. Arts «fill people with a spiritual fullness,» «teach to express thoughts and feelings through images,» form spiritual, moral and aesthetic ideals, emotional culture and a feedback to Beauty and Hatefulness, high art taste and aesthetic perception. Arts reflect advances and a culture level of a particular historical period, dominated aesthetic and artistic preferences and ideals. It can also show preferable examples of possible future. The art world teaches an indi-vidual the most difficult thing to do – live among real people through getting such experience that he did not have in his real life before (compassion together with the characters). It is urgent to implement into pedagogical practice the following idea of an American scientist D. Kagan.

The main point is that educational process has some features that allow us to consider it as a particular form of art. In addition, it has characteristics, which help us to identify it as an art image and, in some way, as an artwork. That is why any form of educational process should be considered as an energetic art performance, an act of human interaction and as a picture of art. This process encourages formation of general cultural knowledge, visual thinking, value con-sciousness, humanitarian worldview. The value of art in the context of looking for the purpose of human existence is in an opportunity to unify people around the highest spiritual ideals.

Moreover, it can be implemented through spiritual and moral deeds, ethics of human behavior, aspiration to beauty, overcoming «emotional still» aimed at creating an aesthetic world picture.

Conclusions

Culture and arts are the catalysts for appearance of excellent humans who have good souls, thoughts and deeds, who feel an urgent necessity to live in accordance with their conscience, to give people joy and happiness. The purity and light of these people are comparable with those perfect images, which are brightly represented in arts and nature. It comes to mind the follow-ing literary abstract, which is an excellent illustration to the mentioned above: «I saw a lily which was in dark swamp water. Everything around was rotted. However, the lily stayed pure like angel»s clothing. Then some waves appeared in the dark pond. They waggled the flower but any sport appeared on its surface." So people should become like those flowers. We have to remember that «we aren»t so civilized, conscious, kind and fair as we suppose. Actually, we are in the very beginning of our long walk to excellence. Our feeling of greatness and power is based just on the advances of the scientific and technological progress. But it isn"t helpful indeed for true human improvement" [Sommer, 2014: 19].

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 References

Arnoldov, Аrnold. Society and Culture. Modern Portrait. Мoscow: МGUКI, 2007. Future Human Image: Whom and How to Educate in the Rising Generations? Edited by Oleg

Bazaluk. Volume 1. Kyiv: Condor, 2011.

Future Human Image: Whom and How to Educate in the Rising Generations? Edited by Oleg Bazaluk. Volume 2. Kyiv: Skif, 2012.

Future Human Image: Whom and How to Educate in the Rising Generations? Edited by Oleg Bazaluk. Volume 3. Kyiv: ISPC, 2013.

Kashekova, Irina. Modernization of Contents and Methods for General Education on the Cul-ture Centricity Basis. In Pedagogy of Arts. ╧4, 2014. http://www.art-education.ru/AE

-magazine.

Komenský, Jan Amos. Selected Works in Education. In two volumes. Мoscow: Pеdagogika, 1982. – Vol. 1.

Kruglikov, Valery. Space and Culture of a Man of Culture. In Culture, Man and the World Picture: collection of articles. The USSR Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy, 1987: 167-197.

Sommer, Dario Salas. Morals of the 21st century. Moscow: Kodeks, 2014.

Sorokin, Pitirim. Man, Civilization, Society. Мoscow: Politizdat, 1992.

Тоffler, Alvin. Future Shock. Мoscow: AST, 2002.

Future Human Image. Volume 7, 2017 127

Divided Universities: The Postcolonial Experience of

Contemporary Ukrainian Higher Education

Denys Svyrydenko – Doctor of Philosophy, Professor

National Pedagogical Dragomanov University

(Kyiv, Ukraine)

E-mail: [email protected]

The paper considers the problem of Ukrainian divided universities, which appear at the result of Revolution of Dignity, annexation of Crimea by Russia as well as formation of quasi-republics of the East of Ukraine. Most of educational institutions form these territories were evacuated (students and teaching stuff), but «twin universities» appeared using campus and facilities of migrated ones. Author demonstrates the heuristic potential of using the interdisciplinary approaches for understanding the essence of this situation applying metaphors like «university cloning», «university mitosis» and so on. This approach is strengthened by the ethical judgment through the basic axiological values of modern «idea of university» (freedom of thinking, academic freedom, institutional autonomy, will of knowledge and truth etc.) collected at Magna Charta Universitatum.

From these positions, migrated universities comprehend as an active bearer and translator of «idea of university». The «twin universities» have a lot of formal arguments to be comprehended as authentic ones, but author stresses on the fact that these institutions don"t fit the universities axiological criteria: these universities rejected ones" own tradition; teachers are ready to work in censored conditions and manipulate the knowledge; teachers and students risk to became subjects of violence; the autonomy and academic freedom are absent. Author also appeals the historical facts on the example of Cambridge University origination that let make the optimistic conclusion concerning the perspectives of migrated universities.

Key Words: divided university, idea of university, Ukrainian higher education, postcolonialism, quasi-republics, Revolution of Dignity, university cloning, university mitosis, Magna Charta Universitatum

Introduction

There is a well-known fact, that Ukraine as a national state passes the complex processes of modernization trying to overcome one"s post-totalitarian «heritage». These processes started at the beginning of the 1990s as a result of USSR break-up. Political and cultural transformations at Ukraine have two opposite poles (the European-oriented and Russia-oriented ones). During more than twenty-five years, Ukraine tries to build independent, democratic national state and stop being the «little brother» for Russia. The intensiveness of these processes differs from the political courses of the Ukrainian presidents.

The extreme activating of democratic activity at 2013-2014 initiated the political crisis in relations with Russia. The most tragic aspects of this crisis are following: the annexation of Crimea by Russia; the inspiration and support of terroristic organizations at the East of

╘ Svyrydenko, Denys, 2017

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Ukraine, which caused the origination of temporary uncontrolled territories at Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

From the one side, these territories are supported by Russia that let them imitate the independent political and cultural activity at the form of quasi-republics (DPR – Donetsk People"s Republic and LPR − Luhansk People"s Republic) or annexed Crimea. From the other side, origination of these political subjects was promoted by the specific worldview orientations of the territories citizens. Mentioned regions had industrial economics. They are territorially close to Russia. Most of people lived at the Soviet Union and can be characterized using metaphor of «homo sovecitus.» Thus, the majority of these regions" people feel the nostalgia for USSR transformed to respect of Russia.

As a result, these people do not share the Ukrainian national idea and European values. This situation fits the logic of postcolonial interpretation of mentioned Ukrainian territories: «The intersection of imperial and local cultures creates different kinds of practices and ideas. While some of them articulate the colonial values, others destroy them. Meanwhile, not always the local holds authentic meanings as culturally productive practices. In some cases, the imperial brings development to the local. For example, the modernization of a large part of former modern colonies took place due to the interaction with metropolises» [Gomilko at el, 2016:

180].

The quasi-republics originated at the result of military conflict, which takes place up-to-date. This conflict caused large-scale migration processes. The millions of Ukrainian people become the subjects of migration trying to escape form the direct military activity at their cities. The Ukrainian politicians also understood the need of saving the social and intellectual capital of the regions. At the result, most of the scientific and education institutions performed the migration procedure too. However, this migration had a special nature: the institutions migrated without facilities and resources; the stuff of migrated institutions was not full too (sometimes, the majority of the institution stuff stayed at the territory of «new republics» sharing ones" ideology or at the result of life occasions) and so on. The Ukrainian national state strived to grant the facilities for these migrated (evacuated) institutions trying to save their potential as well as help Ukrainian citizen to avoid possible violence. The institutions at uncontrolled territories saved ones" institutional status becoming a part of new social order of quasi-republics.

Ukrainian philosopher Roman Dodonov describes the contradictions of universities migration in a following way: "The question about evacuation of 18 Ukrainian universities and

10 academic institutes form the zone of counter-terroristic operation raised at the beginning of 2014/15 academic year. Most of them relocated ones" studying process to own affiliated branches within the bounds of Donetsk" and Luhansk" regions... At the same time, almost every evacuated university had one"s «duplicate»: many students and teachers declined to leave the bounds of their own city factually bearing with the military occupancy and re-subordination to «governments» of self-proclaimed republics" [Dodonov, 2015]. For the situation described by Dodonov, we can find many descriptions in modern discourse of philosophy of education. There are some of them: «divided universities», «cleave on two universities», «evacuated universities», «in exile universities» and so on.

At the research author is also going to discover the heuristic potential of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methodological approaches for understanding the essence of the universities multiplication at the social and cultural landscape of modern Ukraine. Author hopes to find the correct methodology, which would help to understand the logic of classification of these

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«coupled» universities and substantiate the possibility to interpret one of them as an authentic university on the theoretical basis.

Author substantiates the idea that it is important to provide the clarity in problematic situation and answer parallely the questions alike «Is modern university a sum of teachers and students?», «Is modern university a lifeworld (sum of practices, places like campus)?», «Does idea of university work for both types of divided universities?» According to author"s point of view, it would let estimate, which one of the paired universities can be comprehended as authentic. It also would let make some prognostic conclusions depending the future of

Ukrainian higher education modernization processes.

Theoretical and methodological approaches of research

Modern philosophical discourse is characterized by the wide series of methodological approaches for discovering the complex educational problems of globalized world. The multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methodological approaches demonstrate ones" heuristic potential at this context. Education is a social and cultural phenomenon that has productive connections with economic, spiritual and other spheres of human life. Thus, approaches of philosophy of education sometimes can be productively augmented by the methods or concepts of other sciences.

We understand that using of methodological approaches of other sciences should be predicted by the proper theoretical estimation and substantiation. The same position demonstrates William Spady, saying that using interdisciplinary approaches scientists laments the lack of conceptual clarity, methodological rigor, complexity of design, breadth, and analytic sophistication that characterizes most existing work, their recommendations regarding new and more thorough research approaches also lack a definite theoretical basis [Spady, 1970: 64].