Traditional Values as a Post-Secular Construct in the Post-Soviet Context: the “pillars” of the “Russian World” vs. Ukraine’s “Revolution of Values”

Abstract

“T raditional Values” proved a construct, a noticeable marker of the post-secular age, one that is in demand in the post-Soviet context. The hybrid nature of these traditional values made them serviceable as a secret “weapon of mass destruction” in the hybrid Russia- Ukraine war. Non-critical use of this construct is dangerous, as it activates the religious unconscious, and quickens destructive collective reactions. It is for precisely these reasons that the author offers a deconstruction of the social- philosophical framework that legitimizes these values, and the very way they are produced in society. The article argues that the demand for tradition turns out to be the demand for the manipulative effect from the use of tradition. The same goes for religion in general – post-secularity is not interested in religion per se, but in those potentialities of religion that are able to endlessly magnify the effect of manipulating social consciousness. So the patrons manage to mobilize society by manipulating its traditionalist demands, but offering pseudo-morphosis, rather than a holistic and authentic tradition. In the case of the post-Soviet space, and the Russian-Ukrainian antagonism, we see the clash of two value-worlds: the Russian society, united around “traditional values,” and the Ukrainian society, joined by “European values.” In the former instance, values are seen as “pillars” of a closed society, in the latter – as expressions of dignity and freedom as the condition of an open society. However, in both instances the values confessed stake a claim to traditionality, or are inscribed into a tradition that a particular society perceives as its own, defining and continuous, normative and even sacred. As the author shows, the orthodoxy of “traditional values” is fairly problematic, so their religious and public- theological use must be supplemented with a critical philosophical analysis.