Freedom as a Problem of Legal Consciesness: Social and Philosophic Aspects of the Problem in the Global World

Abstract

Special aspects of freedom manifestation in the modern society are studied in the article. The author proves that it is closely connected to the level of legal awareness and involves socio-philosophical level of analysis. In particular, it is proved that the idea of freedom in Russia has mental and historical aspects that have formed the modern complex of problems in the legal sphere. In the modern global society there appeared a need in a profound and detailed study of the characteristics of freedom and unfreedom in social and philosophical aspect. However, it is useless to count on successful solution of the problems of legislation improvement without formation of legal consciousness among the whole population. Freedom has always coexisted with legal nihilism. The point is that legal nihilism in its numerous manifestations and forms, from underestimation and lack of respect to right until its absolute ignoring and denial is antipode of legal culture. Legal nihilism is always state nihilism, as the denial of right also essentially includes denial of state as legal organization of public authority. Legal nihilism has widely spread in many countries, including Russia. Despite the fact that the problem of freedom deprivation was not the subject of the Russian conventionalists' direct attention, they identified its characteristics and characterized its main ideas. Laws, in their opinion, develop from the mental source that represents a complex and multifaceted formation, represented by the laws of natural being, including the laws of mental activity from the conscious to the unconscious. In the global world new tendencies that concern freedom and its deprivation appear. Studying the essence of human freedom, it is possible to talk about certain similarity between the international mission of Russia, designed to disseminate the truth and justice all over the world (based on Orthodoxy and autocracy under the tsars - Russian God-bearing people, on the basis of social justice in the Marxist-Leninist understanding in the spirit of proletarian internationalism during the Soviet era). Finally, the parallels between the tsarist and Soviet regimes that also suggest themselves to the public and political sphere are obvious. Globalization has also caused the growth of international intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, which are aimed to protect man both in everyday situations and in the period of his imprisonment. Migrants, foreign tourists and high-class professionals (lawyers, journalists, engineers, architects, scientists, who tend to have cosmopolitan attitudes and way of life) are referred to the other types of transnational factors, which have a growing impact on the problem of deprivation of freedom. It is not just complexity of deprivation of freedom of man who has, for example, dual citizenship, but also different ideas about the necessity of deprivation of liberty as educational function of society.