Advocating values as a mission of education in the context of war

Abstract

The article examines of the role of the institution of education in ensuring the value-normative component of the life of modern society. In this regard, the situation of the contemporary global world is analyzed, which is characterized by a powerful trend of devaluation of values. The global crisis of normativity manifests itself in several main dimensions. First, the destruction of the role of the authority of the proper as a determining factor in human life. Second, the loss of effectiveness of the universal socio-cultural project of modernity. In contrast to it, the particularism of local cultural paradigms is asserted (the principle of irrefutability of value-cultural differences). Third, the growing role of violence in the world, which reveals the absence of an effective international legal order and the existence of international relations in a shaky and dangerous balance of power regime. To a large extent, the crisis of normativity is associated with the impossibility of the existence of planetary humanity as a real (i.e., based on unified value principles) community. At the same time, without certain regulations regarding interactions in the global world, the existence of planetary humanity and, even more so, the prospect of its development will become impossible. This gives rise to the need for a new, essentially different normativity. It should be based on the negative principle of restraints and allows for the implementation of the principle of global coexistence “together, but not united”. A new ethic of restraints is substantiated, in particular through the evolution of three paradigms of normativity. Its essential feature is the transformation of intersubjectivity into a moral imperative. The results of the analysis of the value state of the global world are extrapolated to the Ukrainian situation. The need for a systematic, purposeful humanitarian policy in the conditions of destruction and victims caused by the war is argued. The main vocation of humanitarian policy is the restoration of the human potential of Ukrainian society and the value orientations of its development. The mission of education in solving this important social task is substantiated. In order for this mission to succeed, profound transformations of the existing system of organizing education, in particular higher education, are necessary. The direction of these transformations should be a review of the role of the state in the field of education (transition from the regime of management and regulations to a productive educational policy promoting the development of educational institutions).