Shamin S.A. Sacred as an Immanent Principle of a Nation Formation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/lp.jvolsu.2020.3.7
Sergey A. Shamin
Postgraduate Student, Department of Philosophy, Cultural Studies and Sociology, Novgorod State University
Bolshaya Sankt-Peterburgskaya St, 41, 173003 Veliky Novgorod, Russian Federation, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9684-7446

Abstract. The article examines the problem of understanding the consolidation principle of nation formation that is relevant to modern social philosophy. At different stages of scientific research, the initial sociobiological unity, the common imagination of the nation, as well as the political, economic and socio Cultural context were proposed in this capacity. However, the religious factor, which includes a transcendent sacred element perceived as the highest value, is not sufficiently studied in this regard. The article offers an understanding of the nation as a quasi-religious phenomenon of modernity, which presupposes the presence of a sacred element as an immanent consolidation principle. A condition for a nation formation and transformations in the understanding of its foundations are the characteristic features of the global secularization process considered in the article. In the development of this process, several stages are distinguished, the study of which reveals the dynamics in the localization of the sacred sphere of reality, which determines changes in the perception of the nation. The first stage of secularization is associated with the spread of Christianity, accompanied by the profanation of the entire field of natural reality and the actualization of the meaning of the individual. The formation of the next stage is due to the mixing of social and natural spheres, which forms a diffuse sociobiological reality associated with the strengthening of the role of the individual. At this period the idea of the nation as a sociobiological community, characterized by the personal legal and political responsibility of its members is formed. The allocation of the third stage of secularization is due to the profanation of the social sphere and the localization of the sacred in the private life of the individual, in this connection, the national consolidation principle is localized in the sphere of the individual imagination. The profanation of the individual sphere, leading to its decentralization, determines the sacralization of a certain context of everyday life, which is perceived as the basis of national identity. Thus, the adoption of the sacred factor as an immanent principle of nation formation and the study of the dynamics of its localization can bring scientific thought closer to solving actual problems of social philosophy related to the understanding of the nation and social identity as a whole.
Key words: nation, quasi-religion, sacred, consolidation principle, profane, secularization.

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