The Dynamic Concept of Mentality and Variable Diversity of Russian Habituses

Abstract

Nikolay Rozov — Leading Research Associate, Institute of Philosophy and Law, Siberian Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Address: 8, Nikolaev St., Novosibirsk, 630090, Russian Federation. E-mail: rozov@nsu.ru

This paper is an attempt to solve the following tasks: 1) to develop an overall vision of the national mentality dynamics, to connect micro-, meso- and macro-levels, to explain the variability and diversity of basic mental types and properties; 2) to reveal the diversity of basic habituses, i.e. types of consciousness, identity, behavior, political culture in modern Russia, to reconstruct the mental components which underlie them; and 3) to reveal the social mechanisms of the formation and maintenance of this diversity, to study the relationship between typical habituses, rituals, and institutions with the cycles of Russian history.

The variability and variety of mental components and habituses (P. Bourdieu) can be explained through the participation of individuals in interactive rituals (I. Hoffman and R. Collins) as a basic way of ensuring the provision of communities and social institutions. The typology of Russian habituses includes five nests: outsiders, smart insiders, honest statesmen, dissidents, and selfless creators. The main frames, worldviews and attitudes as the basis for these habituses are reconstructed. It is shown that the habituses of each nest are characterized by their typical rituals, as well as communities and institutions. The following links between institutions-rituals-habituses and the Russian socio-political cycles are discovered. When elites are emancipated from coercive control and begin to appropriate public resources, coercive institutions weaken or dissolve, institutions of social security and resource reallocation degrade, and institutions for mutual support are relieved. In accordance with the revealed principles of social and mental dynamics, the niches for honest statesmen, selfless creators and reformers decline, but the niches for smart insiders are expanded. The state loses ‘high value’ attributes and becomes something like a ‘profitable environment’ for its insiders.

At the same time the state becomes alienated from the ordinary people. It becomes an enemy and a source of trouble for a growing number of radicals. In periods of counter-movement, national mobilization starts, the coercive institutions rise again, and resource reallocation institutions improve. The institutions of mutual support are attacked but they fall only in extreme cases (the Collectivization, the Great Terror) and typically escape underground. The social niches for honest statesmen, conservators, reformers, and selfless creators expand. Smart insiders never disappear, but they are forced to adapt to strict control. Russian mentality, with its diverse habituses, appears as having a single deep foundation that consists of the specific basic frames and worldviews, the formation of standard practices and policies. It forms the well-known features of the Russian national character, but also serves as an important part of the mechanism that generates the Russian socio-political cycles.