Fatalism of Post-Totalitarianism

Current post-totalitarian situation in Ukraine has unique and deep specific features which it is difficult to overcome momentously. An adult population of this country has acquired specific, quite a stable system of socio-cultural orientations.

Western society did not experience and does not know of such post-totalitarian state, though many Western countries, e.g. Germany, Italy and Spain, have gone through such a period. They came up also against a problem of the transition from the philosophy of global ideas to the philosophy of organizing (arranging) the everyday tranquil life. But in those cases there was no such a wide gulf between these two models of life awareness and life activities. There was still "a living memory of everyday life philosophy" in those cases.

The present-day situation of socio-cultural orientations of people in Ukraine is determined by the fact that the following basic factors have been absent in the model of everyday life organization:

· the 300-year bondage by Russian Empire. Russia has destroyed spiritual, cultural and material space of the Ukrainian nation. Russian Empire destroyed the statehood of Ukraine, wiped out the Ukrainian language, culture and mentality, set up the allegiance and servility towards the Russian Empire, Russian language and culture, set up all Ukrainian things to be of less significance, set up the serfdom etc.

· the 75-year Soviet and Communist, anti-humanistic and anti-Ukrainian genocide against Ukraine

· Chornobyl disaster has inflicted the deep, large-scale and long-term, tangible socio-psychologic blow upon the consciousness of huge masses of suffered people, it destroyed the picture of the world, deprived the people of their health and future, destructurized their mentality, social and cultural orientations

· Paradoxial conditions of pursuing reforms, beginning from 1991 -- construction of new Ukraine is carried out on all levels under the leadership of ex-Soviet and ex-Communist nomenclature with desperate efforts of still weak and separated democratic forces

· "New Russia" seeks to form the new Slavic Empire, seizes external and internal, economic and information space of Ukraine, "New Russia" counteracts by all means the formation of new Ukrainian consciousness, supports and develops in people the fatal faith in "safety together with Russia" and kindles "the fear of the West" that would transform Ukraine into "the appendage of capitalism" under the NATO diktat. And all this takes place against the background of passive positions of Ukraine.

From one side, there is a high level of population education (9.1 study years per one person at the age above 15 years old, and 95% of engaged population have the secondary and higher education) and a high level of Ukrainian science, from the other side -- practically, a serf system of collective farm agriculture with a fatal syndrome of "the symbiosis of slave and feudal lord" of the rural population.

From one side, there is an orientation of the majority of population towards the sovereign state, from the other side, there is an Empire syndrome and the strong, practically, fatal dominant of longing for an Empire center -- more than one third of adult population seeks to be integrated, seeks to establish a new form of uniting Ukraine with Russia and former republics of the ex-USSR.

From one side, there is a high intellectual and industrial potential, from the other side, there is a lack of the will of real state and social structures which would extricate actively Ukraine from this deep crisis (stagnation and blockade of reforms).

From one side, there is a freedom of choice, pluralism, existence of more than 40 newly established political parties, from the other side, no one of them gathers even 7% confidence of population (sociological studies, May 1996). At the same time, one third of adult people believes in some phantom, a new political structure that should appear soon and extricate Ukraine from crisis.

From one side, practically, 70% of adult population consider that only radical reforming the society would improve their standard of living, from the other side, more than a half of adult people want to retain the old model -- regulation of economics, prices, salaries and wages and employment by the state. At the same time, 80-90% want to obtain from the state the guaranteed free goods: medicine, education, housing etc.

From one side, there is a high level of interethnic toleration in all Ukrainian regions that provides the peace and harmony for Ukraine, from the other side, there is a mixed regional picture of socio-economic, political and confessional orientations.

From one side, there is an emergence of factors of new consciousness (a greater part of population supports private property, entrepreneurship, freedom of choice, freedom of speech), from the other side, the population has fallen now into a fatal abeyance: one third of it is oriented internally (they hope for themselves), the second third is oriented externally (everything depends on external circumstances), and last third is ambivalent one.

The post-totalitarian situation in Ukraine forces us to analyze different kinds of fatalism in socio-cultural orientations of individual/socium with the use of phenomenal and nominal approaches. Because the situation is of uncertain (bifurcate) character, all forms of fatalism appear on the scene of social life and become important.

1. Traditional fatalism -- a blind belief that one's destiny is determined by one's fate and there is no place for the will, mind and feelings of individual/socium and it is necessary to be conquered by fate.

2. Fatalism of rational (competent) person -- an analysis of the situation on the basis of intellect and experience allows a person to come to the conditions that it is the best to pass a course of events into the hands of fate, "let it be in such a way, as it could be", because I do not see better variants.

3. Fatalism of ignorant person -- I give myself into fate hands, because I do understand nothing what takes place.

4. Fatalism of passive person -- what will occur, let it be, let anybody, but not me, make a decision instead of me.

5. Fatalism of doomed person -- psychological and/or physical health forces a person to be in drift.

Slave fatalism -- person's striving to pass his/her fate or solution of his/her problems into the hands of master, sect, party, power.

Patrimonial fatalism -- persistent striving for following the norms and traditions of family, kin or clan.

Ethnic fatalism -- persistent striving for ethnos norms/traditions. It is proposed to determine the depth and scale of fatalism in socium, following such a scheme:

For example, for the present-day Ukrainian society the most characteristic structure of fatalism is such one: {F21; F22; F23}.

Revealing the causes which lead in a fatal component is carried out on the base of the analysis of value-normative basis that has such a structure:

The value-normative basis is the corner stone of the everyday life model. Conversion of the post-totalitarian society into the democratic one is particularly the decrease of an irrational part (and thus, a fatal one) in the value-normative basis.

Any transformation arouses a resistance to the reforms – the fatal factor resists to the rational one. The strength of different kinds of resistance by their size can be sequenced in such a way:

The strength of fatal resistance to the process of reforms has "revolt points", and it looks graphically during the time of its development in such a way:

The t1, t2, ... points (periods) are the events of social and political revolts (strikes, demonstrations, disorders, coups, or hidden splashes of the officials' resistance to the reforms. In these two points the fatality factor is of great importance.

Democratization of post-totalitarian society is the transition of individual and social consciousness from fatal irrational models to rational models of deliberate choice in everyday life.

Self-appraisals of socio-psychological state and orientations of “samosels” --

December 1995. The Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The number of interviewed persons is 100.

1.	Residing in the zone more than 5 years	93
2.	Out of them those who has resettled never from the zone	52
3.	Residing here, because here everything is native	98
4.	As far as possible from the society, politics and authorities	80
5.	Residing here, because we want to be independent people	72
6.	We want to remain in the zone for ever	99
7.	We have suffered strongly and seriously from the disaster	100
8.	The disaster has broken our life, we do not have the future	70
9.	Residing there where all is radioactively contaminated -- air, earth, water, plants	97
10.	Having the bad housing conditions	20
11.	Having the bad material conditions	99
12.	Having the chronic diseases	90
13.	We feel ourselves psychologically bad	70
14.	Do not have medical servicing	99
15.	Observing the strange changes in the people, animals and plants	98

	Society as a whole	Separate social groups	Individuals
Rigid fatalism -- high and stable fatality level is set up for a whole period of life	F₁₁	F₁₂	F₁₃
Flexible fatalism -- fatality level is changed due to a life situation	F₂₁	F₂₂	F₂₃
Blinking fatalism -- fatality level is raised in separate moments of life	F₃₁	F₃₂	F₃₃