Social myth as a factor in constructing images of the future

The article defines the contemporary social myth as a value-laden phenomenon with the potential and significance, but which is used in different ways by actors – an indwelling by a myth, a creator of a myth and a critic of a myth. The process of myth-making is considered as launching the so-called work on myth, which includes both the activity of myth-makers and the functioning of the myth in the masses. The appeal to the project function of the social myth and the consideration of the degree of awareness of the myth by individual groups actualize the question of the myth as a factor in constructing images of the future. Taking into account the ideas of R. Barthes and C. Bottici, the author concludes that the myth already contains significant images that allow the future to become more concrete. Using the example of the state as the main generator of myths for a wide audience, it is suggested that all the trajectories of creating potential images of the future are confined to the myth of the hero. Conclusions are drawn about the demand for such images of the future, which are built around the figure of a leader correlated with a mythological hero, that the scale of the state is a suitable level for reasoning about the spread and limits of the influence of modern myth-making, and that the constructive potential of the myth is involved in creating images of the future.

Futures literacy in the loop

This article proposes a functional historicist explanation to explicate the core ideas and underlying logic embedded in the futures literacy concept.Futures literacy assumes a capacity to reflect on the past, sense and make sense of the present and use this reflective body of knowledge when anticipating the future.Arguably, futures literacy must be learned, sustained, and regained; it requires a continuous, anticipative, and recursive loop. Recursivity, where an effect in an initial period acts as a cause in the next period, retroacts between the future and present, regaining anticipation. Anticipation has causal effects in the way it structures our images of the future and the avenue we follow when striving to achieve this image. Such a causal structure implies both feedforward and feedback control and is contained in the logic of functional explanations used in sociology.

Theoretical Foundations and Methodological Problems of the Semiotics of History

The article deals with the theoretical and methodological problems of the semiotics of history. Semiotics is the science that studies the sign system. This system is used by people to transfer knowledge and information. Modern governance is semiotic. A separate fact can turn into a sign-symbol. The sign lives its own life in the virtual space, leaving the information space. The modern world is governed by language. The revolution starts with the language. Semiotics changes the epistemological regime. The code provides a communication system. Any code requires decoding. Cultural space codes are ambiguous. The semiotics of history actively interacts with the history of ideologies. The question of the truth of the nationalism doctrine cannot be solved by science, because it belongs to ideology. The name is the essence. In psychiatry, there is the concept of semiotic dementia, when the patient does not understand the meaning of words. Information is distributed among people, therefore it acquires its social significance when it is perceived by people, only under this condition it becomes knowledge. Knowledge helps to act. A prerequisite for this is correct information. Concepts of the information society can be distinguished in the format of semiotics of history. Images have a stronger effect on people than texts. Negative information spreads faster than texts. Virtuality creates the image of the desired world. The images of the future are not neutral. A certain image of the future is set by the present. No one can escape the human prejudice. The semantics of history develops in the general line of the linguistic turn in historical science. In this sense, the methodological and theoretical problems of the semiotics of history are associated with the linguistic problems of consciousness, caused by the imperfection of any language and the ways of its public use

Narrating the Facets of Time in Entrepreneurial Action

The current understanding of entrepreneurial action is grounded in time, but the different facets of this time remain to be sufficiently explored. We argue that entrepreneurial action has two temporal dimensions: world time and human time. World time reveals the prior contextual conditions giving rise to entrepreneurial actions that generate subsequent results. Human time reveals how entrepreneurs act on the basis of past experiences, attention to current conditions, and images of the future. Using a narrative framework to integrate world time and human time, we contribute to a deeper understanding of the different facets of time in entrepreneurial action.

IMAGES OF THE FUTURE OF RUSSIA AND YOUTH POLICY: A SOCIO-PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS

Авторы проводят анализ дискурса «образ будущего» в современной социально-политической мысли. Разделяя позицию З. Баумана о риторической манифестации власти о приватизации будущего, авторы обращают внимание на имманентно присущую природе политики функцию целеполагания, в том числе выработке и реализации коллективных целей, ориентированных на будущее. Анализируя молодежную политику в современной России, авторы приходят к выводу, что российское государство стремится адаптировать запросы молодых людей под собственные образы будущего великой и сильной державы, расставляя акценты на воспитание гражданственности и патриотизма. Авторы полагают, что для повышения эффективности государственного управления при разработке национальных проектов необходимо учитывать взгляд молодежи на будущее страны. The authors analyze the discourse «the image of the future» in modern sociopolitical thought. Sharing the position of Z. Bauman on the rhetorical manifestation of the authorities about the privatization of the future, the authors pay attention to the goalsetting function inherent in the nature of politics, including the development and implementation of collective goals oriented towards the future. Analyzing the youth policy in modern Russia, the authors come to the conclusion that the Russian state seeks to adapt the needs of young people to its own images of the future of a great and strong power, placing emphasis on the education of citizenship and patriotism. The authors believe that in order to improve the efficiency of public administration, when developing national projects, it is necessary to take into account the view of young people on the future of the country.

Conservative Elements in the Artistic Images of the Future of Russia

The concept of future is an integral part of the present of any culture. The focus of this article is how strongly the expectation of the future is associated with innovations, what is the meaning of the conservative features present in the images of future, which conservative elements are thought to be part of the images of future. The author analyzes the images of the future of Russia on the basis of such material as fictional prose, postcards and films of the last two centuries, and identifies several parameters of life, which are transferred into the future from the present and even from the past.

Conservative Images of the Future in Russian Cinema

This article is devoted to the study of conservative images of the future in Russian cinema. By examining the film plots and analyzing the visual series, the author attempts to identify the most common elements of the images of the future – conservative elements that ensure their recognition.

Literary forecast genre in modern criticism

The article deals with the problem of the genre, which is studied in the theoretical-critical and historical-literary aspects. The results of the comparative typological analysis of texts containing judgments about the future of literature give ground to talk about the literary forecast as an independent genre and thus update the existing classifications. The genre carriers are the topic, problems, tasks of the critic, as well as the structure of the text, the image of the literature. The future of literature as the main theme of forecasting determines the procedure for specific critical world modeling. Tasks of the critic are to offer scenarios for the development of literature; evaluate contemporary literature from the perspective of the future. The structure of literary forecasts includes reflection on the task; finding of a “fulcrum”, allowing to create the image of the future; a picture of the future (or the present in the future perspective); the ending. Critics verbalize fear of forecasting. The fears of critics are connected not only with the uncertainty of the future as a subject of comprehension, but with the unacceptability of the status of a prophet, which is being outlived at the turn of the XX–XXI centuries on the wave of postmodernism and the crisis of literary centrism. Creating images of the future, critics draw on the figure of the reader, their requests, life in its socio-cultural dynamics, unfinished tendencies. The genre analysis is supplemented by a study of the content of literary forecasts, which allows to get an idea of literary critical thinking at the turn of the XX–XXI centuries, the diagnoses which criticism gives to the modern literature. Criticism of the turn of the XX–XXI centuries demonstrates an enduring trauma from the loss of its former status (of both criticism and literature), from the loss of the position of intellectual prose and poetry. This perceived “lack” in the present defines the picture of the future.

“Image of the Future”: Conference Overview

On February 19–20, 2021 at the Orel State University named after I.S. Turgenev with the support of the Government of the Oryol Region and the Center for Strategic Initiatives "Co-society", the first International Scientific and Practical Conference "Image of the Future" was held. Vision of the future is an integral part of life of both an individual and society as a whole. Fear of the future or hopes for it, confidence in the possibility of influencing the perspective configuration, interest in what awaits us ahead or indifference to tomorrow — all this enters in social reality that surrounds us. Today's decisions and actions depend on how tomorrow is seen. The image of the future is a form of the presence of the future in the present, research interest in it is due not to the desire to find out what tomorrow will be, but to the desire to identify the options for the possibilities of the present. Despite the noticeable presence of the “image of the future” word combination in journalistic and scientific discourse of modern Russia, national studies of this phenomenon are just beginning. The goal, set by the conference organizers, was to unite and coordinate research on the image of the future both at the level of theoretical and methodological developments, and in the study of practical aspects related to functioning of individual and collective images of the future, their influence on current social reality.

Opportunities of Digital Technologies in Leveling Financial and Socio-economic Exclusion Problems

The article reflects the current problems of society, in the direction of using digital technologies. The authors pay special attention to the possibilities of attracting digital technologies in the process of levelling financial and socio-economic exclusion among people with disabilities. The authors analysed modern methods of obtaining information when a person does not just receive educational services, but programs his brain to further produce it in a particular area. The authors came to the conclusion that the prevailing global goal of hedonism, with the inability to build images of the future, leads to the fact that society becomes less tolerant and counts on quick and easy success. Therefore, the rules of digital hygiene should become the legislative norm of the life of a modern person.