Progressivism vs Modernity. What are Russian Traditional Values Opposed to?

Abstract

The article is devoted to finding an answer to the question of what the Russian traditional values affirmed in official documents are opposed to. It is substantiated that discourses about traditional values can create the illusion of Russia’s desire for the archaic – to confront Modernity itself. However, as shown in the article, the values presented as traditional Russian (life, dignity, human rights and freedoms, patriotism, citizenship, service to the Fatherland and responsibility for its fate, high moral ideals, strong family, etc.) are much closer to the basic values of Modernity than the most trendy progressive and left-liberal values and ideologies in the West, influencing identity politics. It is shown that in many Western countries Modernity, which places emphasis on the “autonomous personality”, came to self-denial: the “expressive individual” began to deny in general any obstacles to self-realization, including such basic values of Modernity as the desire for objective truth, moral universalism, etc. Accordingly, attempts to establish a set of traditional values can be seen as a resistance not so much to modernity itself or its values that emphasize scientific and technological progress and political utopias, but to the idea of the autonomous individual and its expressive individualism. Therefore, Russia may well choose a path that will differ both from pure traditionalism and from “alternative Modernity”, one way or another appealing to the idea of an autonomous individual.