Paradox Man [in Contemporary Russia]

Scarce hardcover, 424 pages, NOT ex-library. Signs of gentle handling wear, book is clean and bright with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. Boards show short creases to edges. Issued without a dust jacket. -- The purpose of this book is to raise an unusual social problem: paradoxes of social consciousness and behavior. It is a result of a longer work dealing with paradoxes of consciousness and behavior as they have been massively displayed in USSR/Russia transition. Paradoxes always exist in the life of humankind. For the first time attention to them had been paid in the Ancient Greece, than in the Middle Ages and New History. Hence paradoxes of social consciousness are inherent not only to previous stages of historical development - science and social practice have been facing them in modern time. Sociological approach to paradoxes permits to reveal their manifestations in real life, in process of realizing these or other kinds of activity, for paradoxicality is inherent not only to process of cognition, but also to reality itself. But especially evident, sharp and outspoken this paradoxicality becomes for societies with an unstable development, those in a state of instability, amorphy, uncertainty with regard to vector of historical process. In these conditions paradoxes of consciousness and behavior become massive, universal, give rise to freakish combinations of Good and Evil, honor and intent, fidelity and treachery, reckless innovation and obstinate traditionalism. Readership: researchers of social and political life, of social consciousness and behavior, anyone with an interest in contemporary Russia. -- -- Contents: Introduction; I. Theoretical and Methodological Basis for Studying Paradoxes 1. Social Consciousness: Sociological Vision 2. Metamorphoses of Modern Social Consciousness: Methodological Basis for Sociological Analysis 3. Paradoxes of Social Consciousness: Question of Essence; II. Paradoxes in Context of Social Knowledge and Social Practice 4. Mythological Consciousness as a Form of Paradox Manifestation 5. Manipulation as Mechanism of Creating Paradoxes 6. Stereotypes and Paradoxes: Generalities and Specifics 7. Frustration and Paradox 8. Centaur-Problems as a Special Form of Paradox 9. Phantoms of Social Consciousness and Behavior; III. Types of Paradoxes 10. Paradoxes and Contradictions of Economic Consciousness and Behavior 11. Polarity of Political Consciousness: Differences and Commonalities 12. Paradox of Legal Consciousness 13. Paradoxes of National Self-Consciousness 14. Historical Consciousness and Historical Memory: State and Paradoxes 15. Paradoxes of Moral Consciousness 16. Paradoxes of Religious Consciousness; IV. Forms of Paradoxes 17. Elite: Cliques, Clans or Castes? 18. Centrists in Russia: All or None 19. Intelligentsia or Intellectuals? 20. Education and Quasi-Educated; V. The Situation of Paradox 21. Must and Cannot 22. Enemy or Opponent 23. Freedom or Boundlessness 24. Between the Past and the Future 25. Europeans? Asians? Eurasians? 26. Private vs Public 27. Good and Evil; Instead of Conclusion [Comments; New Interpretations of the Issues of Consciousness and Behavior; Is the Modern Russia Paradoxical?]; Index -- "What sort of creatures human beings are? Rebellious or conservative? Creative or conformist? Sociable or individualistic? Altruistic or egoist? Guided by reason or misguided by passions? Peaceful or aggressive? Good or evil? Philosophers tried hard to answer - they broke heads, but not the mystery. Toshchenko looked at human conduct at a time when the forces that make such choices for them but disallow them to make choices of their own fell apart or were dismantled - and found human beings just paradoxical - anything but logical and consistent, full of possibilities, fulfilled or lost. An opportunity for insight seldom available, and even less frequently put to such an excellent, and illuminating, use. [Zygmunt Bauman].…