“The Duty” of the Soviet Man: a Reconstruction of the Concept (on the Material of Kinotext)

“The Duty” of the Soviet Man:
a Reconstruction of the Concept (on the Material of Kinotext)


Ivanov D.I.

Cand. Sci. (Philol.), Assoc. Prof., Prof. of the Institute of Russian Studies, Xi’an International Studies University, Xi’an, China Ivan610@yandex.ru

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For citation:

Ivanov D.I. “The Duty” of the Soviet Man: a Reconstruction of the Concept (on the Material of Kinotext). Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2020. No 2. P. 105-114




Abstract

The article offers a socio-cognitive analysis of the subject component of the film construct, based on the original author’s theory of cognitive-pragmatic programs (CPP). The sociocognitive mechanism of recoding the basic concept of “duty” in the consciousness of a Soviet person is investigated. It is necessary to find a universal mediator component, because of the aggressively destructive nature of the totalitarian CPP, creating illusion of neutralizing the destructive orientation. The “order” of a program must be perceived by the carrier of the CPP as a requirement of its own conscience, as an internal “order” of a manipulatively transformed “duty”. As a result, four basic interrelated projections of the CPP are formed: 1) “duty-fear”; 2) “duty-manipulation”; 3) “dutysubmission”; 4) “duty-self-sacrifice (self-destruction)”. Each carrier of a CPP passes through four of these basic stages of cognitive-ideological “adaptation”. Passing through them, the subject is in an illusory state of freedom, believing a) that he himself decides who he is (level of self-identification); b) sets a goal for himself (goal setting level); c) decides in what way he will achieve his goal (modeling level of instrumental-operational strategy). Each transformed form of “duty” – CPP/stage of cognitive “adaptation” of a carrier of a CPP has two interdependent modes of incarnation: a) program (stimulusorder); b) subject (automated standardized reaction). Each of the four strategic cognitive-pragmatic sets (CPS) (“duty-fear”, etc.), combining CPP and its carrier, has a complex structure (target stimulus, order, reaction; self-identification stimulus, order, reaction; instrumental stimulus, order, reaction). As a result, the subject’s consciousness is fully controlled by the viral-manipulative mechanism of the CPP, since their general purposeful activity, at any degree of its “programmatic” destructiveness, is perceived by the subject as the embodiment of his own will.


Keywords
political consciousness; cognitive-pragmatic program (CPP); cognitive-pragmatic sets (CPS); manipulation; self-identification; duty; fear; self-sacrifice
Content No 2, 2020