Mentality of the era of mass society: legal aspects in the ukrainian dimension

Abstract

The article actualizes the ideas of the developers of two important concepts for the social present: consumer society (mass culture, mass consciousness) and mentality. Based on these ideas, the main directions of understanding several well-established and powerful internal (cultural and psychological) factors that determine the development of modern Ukrainian society, its legal and political systems are outlined. For the author of the article, such factors are the national mentality and the process of massification of society.
 The author thinks of the mentality as a deep and mostly unreflected socio-mental formation, which manifests itself through the psychological guidelines and behavioral stereotypes typical of a certain community.
 The legal mentality is interpreted as a functional manifestation of the national mentality, determined by collective psychological phenomena that have legal significance. Massification is characterized as a trend in the development of society, which leads to the formation and domination of a simplified, stereotypical system of values and appropriate patterns of thinking and behavior. It is claimed that massification activates the psychological mechanism of emancipation of deep psychological (mental) guidelines.
 The prevailing mental guidelines, which are historically established in Ukrainian society (first of all, the anarchic individualism of Ukrainians), are comprehended. The manifestation of this guideline in normal and extreme conditions of society is considered. There is a certain neutralization of a number of mental guidelines in the conditions of war (in particular, the so-called “inferiority” complex). The key threats and risks associated with the action of the dominant guidelines of the mentality of Ukrainians in the conditions of accelerated massification of society and civilizational underdevelopment of state and public democratic institutions are described. The formation of a functionally full-fledged elite is considered as a key factor in the constructive implementation by Ukrainian society of the peculiarities of the national mentality. The important role of self-awareness (self-knowledge) in neutralizing the destructive action of national mental structures in the conditions of massification of modern society is emphasized.