Features of the Cultural Transformation of Ukrainian Society: A Synergistic Approach

Abstract

The article attempts to outline the essence of transformation processes in Ukrainian culture. Analyzed are both positive and negative phenomena in the cultural sphere of modern Ukrainian society. The analysis of culture from the point of view of a synergistic approach, which is based on the provisions of holism, the recognition of the integrity of culture as its immanent property, is supported thanks to and despite differentiation and integration, changes in instability and stability, qualitative changes associated with the emergence of new formations and the preservation of traditional foundations in culture. It is noted that the likelihood of the emergence of new cultural forms and institutions of culture is still not guaranteed to overcome social instability. The level of chaos and risk increases in a situation of changes in the external context for the socio-cultural organism and corresponding changes in culture in society. It is substantiated that the dialectical connection between «chaos and risk», a one-sided interpretation of sociocultural instability arises from an underestimation of the capabilities of culture, many of its components, such as anthropo-socio-cultural systems that self-organize. It has been proved that socio-cultural processes of self-organization allow a certain degree of influence on them, because at one of the stages of development, the «measure of chaos» and «measure of order» are violated, due to which the spontaneity, unstructuredness of changes contribute to the formation of «false attractors» that enhance negative processes and tendencies. Comprehension of the unity of all components of the sociocultural sphere in the integral system of sociocultural reality creates the preconditions for the regulation of contradictory cultural and transformational processes. One of these mechanisms of state regulation is cultural policy. Based on a comparison of the basic principles of cultural policy of Ukraine and the countries of the European Union, it was stated that the latter approve the concepts of «public-private partnership» and «distribution of efforts» between state and non-state sources of funding for culture. One of the main tasks of cultural policy was the desire for democratization, decentralization and development of the cultural life of the population as a whole. In Ukrainian society, the processes of self-organization in culture are activated, there are manifestations of a new social order — civil society and its socio-cultural institutions, a legal state based on democratic principles.