Outcasts briefly. The word marginal: examples of use. Classification of marginal groups in sociology

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The word "marginal" came into Russian from German, there - from French, and in, in turn, from. From Latin, this word can be translated as "located on the edge." Outcasts are outcasts who find themselves outside their social group or at the junction of two different groups. If we are talking about one person, most likely, he was expelled from one group and not accepted into another. Bright - people who were forced to flee their country and turned out to be apostates in the eyes of its citizens, but at the same time failed to accept the traditions of another state where they moved.

Such a socially borderline state is perceived very hard. If we are talking about a group of people, most likely, the essence is in serious social, political, economic changes in society that led to the collapse of the usual society. Something similar often happens as a result of revolutions.

The word "lumpen" is again borrowed from German, and in translation it is "rags". Lumpens are people who find themselves in the lowest social strata and at the same time do not engage in any socially useful work. This is something that cannot be called a poor person who, by the sweat of his brow, tries to earn money, but achieves very modest results. Not at all - we are talking about criminals, vagabonds, beggars, those who trade in piracy, robbery.

Very often, non-working alcoholics and drug addicts, people who are supported by someone, although they can work and earn money, are also considered lumpen. It is also called the representatives of the lower social stratum, living off state benefits.

What is the difference between lumpen and marginal

As a rule, lumpens have almost no property: they either wander or live in other people's houses, and have only the most necessary things for life. Marginals, on the contrary, can even be wealthy people who are not recognized by society, since for some reason they have lost their former position.

Lumpens either use short, one-time earnings, or earn money illegally, or live at the expense of relatives or the state. Outcasts can be engaged in socially useful work.

An additional meaning of the term "lumpen" is a person who does not have his own moral principles, does not obey the laws of morality and recklessly or cowardly obeys the group of persons who has the greatest power at a particular historical moment. Marginals in such cases become victims rather than thoughtlessly acting force.

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Lumpens and outcasts

In every society, side by side with socially adapted citizens, there are people who have lost their social roots, who are alien to the moral code, they understand only the language of brute physical force.

Lumpens

Usually lumpen include people who have no social roots, who also do not have any property, and they live off one-time earnings. But more often, their source of livelihood is various types of social and state benefits. In general, this category should include homeless people, as well as citizens like them. To explain it more simply, a lumpen is a person who does not work, he is a beggar, a vagrant, in other words, a homeless person.

In translation from German, the word "lumpen" means "rags". These are a kind of ragamuffins who sank to the "bottom" of life, fell out of their midst. The more lumpen there are in society, the greater the threat they pose to society. Their environment is a kind of stronghold of various extremist-minded individuals and organizations. Marxist theory even used an expression like Lumpenproletariat, characterizing with this word vagabonds, criminals, beggars, as well as the dregs of human society as a whole. Under Soviet rule, this was a dirty word.

Outcasts and lumpen are not the same concept, although there is much in common between these groups of people. The very concept of "marginality" in sociology means a person who is between two different social groups, when a citizen has already broken away from one of them, and has not yet nailed to the second. These are the so-called bright representatives of the lower classes, or the social “bottom”. Such a social position greatly affects the psyche, crippling it. Often the marginalized are people who went through the war, immigrants who were unable to adapt to the conditions of life in their new homeland, who could not fit into the social conditions of their modern environment.

During the collectivization carried out in the USSR, in the 20-30s, rural residents massively migrated to the cities, but the urban environment was reluctant to accept them, and all roots and ties with the rural environment were severed. Their spiritual values collapsed, established social ties were torn. And it was precisely these segments of the population that needed a "firm hand", an established order at the state level, and it was this fact that served as the social basis for the anti-democratic regime.

As you can see, lumpen and outcasts are not identical concepts, although they have much in common. In modern reality, the word "lumpen" is practically not used, calling homeless people outcasts. Although this word can also be used to describe people who have housing, but lead an asocial lifestyle.

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Outcasts and lumpen

In modern culture, one can meet not only individuals, but even entire groups of people who do not fit into the established social structure of society. These are not always representatives of the social “bottom”, they can have a high level of education and a proper status. The difference between such marginal people and other people lies in a special world of values. Who are these marginals?

Marginality as a social phenomenon

Wikipedia calls the marginal one who finds himself on the border of opposing social groups or cultures. Such people experience the mutual influence of different value systems, which often contradict one another. In times, the synonym for "marginal" was "declassed element". So often called people who have fallen to the very bottom of the social hierarchy. But the understanding of marginality should be considered one-sided and not entirely correct.

The concept of "marginality" is also found in. Here it denotes the intermediateness of the social position in which it appears. The first mention of marginal individuals and groups appeared in American sociology, which described the adaptation of immigrants to social conditions and orders that were unusual for them, typical of life in a foreign land.

Marginals deny the values of the group from which they came out, and approve new norms and rules of behavior.

Beyond the usual life

Marginality in society increases when cataclysms begin. If a society is regularly in a fever, its structure loses its strength. Completely new social groups and strata of the population are emerging with their own way of life. Not every person in such conditions is able to adapt and stick to a certain shore.

The transition to a new social group is often associated with the need to restructure behavior and accept a new value system, which almost always becomes a source of stress.

Having left his usual social environment, a person often encounters a situation where a new group does not accept him. This is how the marginals appear. Here is one example of such a social transition. The average engineer who quits his job and decides to go into business is failing. He understands that a businessman did not work out of him, and it is no longer possible to return to his former way of life. To this may be added financial and other material losses, as a result of which a person is left out of life.

But far from always marginality is associated with the loss of a sufficiently high former social. Quite successful people are often referred to as outcasts, whose views, habits and value system do not fit into the established ideas of “normality”. Marginals may well be quite wealthy people who have achieved success in their field of activity. But their views on life turn out to be so unusual for the average layman that such people are simply not taken seriously or forced out of the social community.

The meaning of the word marginal

What does marginal mean? A marginal is a person who does not participate enough or is completely excluded from the activities of the institutions of society: economic, cultural, political. The social sciences believe that the marginalized are, in some way, the excess material of society, which needs strict control, monitoring, and requires elaboration. This is a negative phenomenon of society, indicating malfunctions, diseases within society. It is possible to define a certain norm of social participation in the life of society and its groups, and the lack of participation is a deviation from this norm.

Who is marginal? This is a person who, being placed outside the group, is perceived by its members as a stranger. He simultaneously combines remoteness and closeness with the group - he is in it physically, but, however, is not included in it as a member, does not share its biography, but is an alien who has stopped like a guest in it. However, the presence of such an outsider gives the group a chance to define what it is not, to recognize its own limits. He is also differentiated from the group and may have objectivity in his judgments about it, because he is free and can leave it.

The classical concept of marginal implies not so much exclusion from the group as being on the border between two groups. As a result, the marginal carries in his personality a cultural one that is not purely psychological, it is not a sense of deprivation and psychological inconvenience due to non-inclusion in the group. It is rather a practiced marginality. This conflict is recognized by the marginal in himself as belonging to several incompatible groups and the impossibility of himself completely with one of them.

Types of marginals

Each marginal can be more fully described through the features of its marginality and the reasons that led to it. Having asked the question to reveal the types of marginality, we can talk about the division into ethnic, economic, social and political marginals. What do these four subtypes mean?

Ethnic outcasts are those who have changed their life among the people of their nationality for life in new ethnic groups. This usually happens as a result of migration of the population, forced or arbitrary. A vivid example of a forced migrant is a refugee, such a person becomes a marginal involuntarily, leaves, saving his life, and it will be especially difficult to arrange it in a new place if the new ethnic group is significantly different from the native one. Here, the language barrier, and appearance different from the rest of the population, and involvement in a different religion, and cultural differences can also influence.

Ethnic marginality is the most difficult to overcome, it is associated with those factors that a person is sometimes unable to change - appearance, mentality, customs. It is this type of marginal who most often does not have personal qualities that predetermine their marginality, but becomes a marginal involuntarily. A slightly milder example of ethnic marginals are people who have moved to a new country, better off and with more opportunities than their homeland. These are migrants from low-income countries. And for them, overcoming marginality is also practically impossible, such people throughout their lives continue to feel ties with their native nation, but are far from it.

Economic marginals appear as a result of changes in the financial sector, this may be the loss of a job and the inability to find a new one, the loss of habitual sources of income, the loss of property. The level of economic marginality significantly increases in society during economic and political crises as a result of a decrease in the number of jobs, and sometimes a critical cut in entire areas of activity up to their complete closure.

An example is the closure of factories that successfully operated during the Soviet period and their disbandment during privatization and sale. Thousands of specialists found themselves without the opportunity to apply their skills and earn money with it, and only a few were able to find a job in their profession or retrain. Inflation, depreciation of savings are monetary reasons for the appearance of economic marginals. Also, in situations of dire need or scams that escalate during periods of crisis, many people lose their homes and other large property, and can even in extreme cases go into the category of lumpen, becoming people without a fixed place of residence.

The concept of social marginality is associated with the incompleteness of movement between two social groups, usually vertical - movement in the "social elevator". However, having started moving in order to establish his better position and occupy more advantageous positions in his society, a person may not achieve the desired, “rolling down” to an even lower level. Or stop at the border, being unable to either reach the desired level or return to the previous group. This includes all the processes of marginalization associated with an unsuccessful change in social status - for example, the death of a wealthy spouse. The social marginalized is losing its habitual way of life.

The political marginal is another common type, which is associated with a political crisis that has grown to the limit with disbelief in certain forces in politics, and a decrease in civil society. The change of regimes, the change of statehood and social norms arising from legislation and power - all this gives rise to another category of marginals, psychologically hung, for example, between the USSR and already individual countries of the post-Soviet space. The more regimes change, the fewer promises politicians keep, the higher the level of political marginality in society.

Examples of marginals

It is interesting that some psychologists, philosophers, sociologists consider the marginal type of personality to be the most civilized, developed type, advanced, mobile and mobile, open to changes and everything new.

What famous people exemplify marginality well? Perhaps the most striking example is Jesus Christ, the God-man in the Christian tradition. Even being already born in a marginal environment - in a barn, and further throughout his life, he not only does not strengthen himself in some social group, but, on the contrary, destroys many norms of that society: in his youth he teaches in the temple, in his youth he disperses money changers in it, earns low-paid labor, takes fishermen as apprentices, communicates with harlots, and even dies among robbers. And, however, he becomes one of the most influential personalities not only in the Christian, but even in the secular environment, laying in it the foundations of ethics, high moral standards.

Another interesting example is the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. He loved life in the countryside, denying many privileges of the nobility, wrote revolutionary books for the consciousness of not only those times, but also today, interpreted Christian norms, but was persecuted by church ministers, laying the foundation even for a separate trend, Tolstoyism. And not only Tolstoy - all the really great writers, poets, playwrights who have become classics today, at one time left one or another social group, felt this cultural duality at least, which pushed them to write the works we love today .

Nowadays, marginality is getting a new round due to the spread of the Internet, which helps to overcome any borders. An increasing number of people work as freelancers, maintaining loneliness, unwillingness to intensive social contacts, denial of socially accepted norms of life.

05/06/2018 74 488 2 Igor

Psychology and society

Often on television or in the media we hear and see the foreign word "marginal". Its meaning has undergone significant changes, starting from the time of its formulation by the American sociologist R. Park and ending today. To explain the actual meaning of this concept in simple terms, it is necessary to trace the history of the use of this term and identify the main types of marginals in the history of mankind.

Content:

Who is marginal?

For the first time this term was used in psychology in 1928 by Robert Park in the meaning of a person occupying an intermediate position between rural and urban residents. This is the one who previously lived in a village, a village, and then moved to the city, while his cultural values, acquired while living in the countryside, did not fit into the requirements and foundations of urban civilization. His behavior and habits turned out to be unacceptable for the urban social environment. Today, outcasts are called not only people who do not fit into the urban environment.

This term has become quite widespread. Sociological science classifies as marginal the person whose behavior goes beyond the generally accepted norms and rules of any social group. It sits between two conflicting groups. This leads to an internal conflict of a person. The marginal is part of two different social groups, but does not accept either of them (does not live by their laws and is not guided by the norms and values \u200b\u200baccepted in them). From a psychological point of view, the marginal physically belongs to a particular social group, but psychologically, morally, emotionally is outside of it.

The meaning of the word "Marginal"

Marginal (from the Latin "marginalis"- extreme or "margo" - edge) - a person living in a social environment, but not accepting the worldview, principles, norms, values, moral ideals, way of life imposed by it. We can say that he is on the edge of the system, outside the laws and orders imposed by the social structure. In modern Russian, there are many synonyms for the word "marginal": outcast, white crow, informal, individual, asocial, nihilist. Example: bum, hippie, goth, hermit monk, ascetic.

Also, people from the lower strata of society, even Karl Marx designated the term "Lumpen". In modern times, the two concepts of marginal and lumpen are intertwined with each other.

Signs of marginality:

violation of ties important for a person (biosocial, cultural, spiritual, economic) that existed in a previous life;
constant movement due to lack of attachment to anything;
internal psychological conflict due to the inability to find oneself and the emergence of mental problems on this basis;
due to non-observance of law and order, the ease of becoming an unlawful member of society (offender);
representatives of the lowest strata of society (homeless people, alcoholics, drug addicts, etc.);
the formation of their own values and norms, which very often contradict and are hostile to the values of the social group to which the marginal belongs.

At first glance, the word "marginal" is painted only with negative colors. Actually it is not. Like any phenomenon, marginality has, in addition to negative sides, and positive which include the following:

different thinking, outlook is a source of progressive, innovative activity;
due to high mobility, the marginalized are more likely to start life from scratch, get a different education, find a better job, move to a more prosperous area of the city or change their country of residence to a more economically developed one;
due to their uniqueness, dissimilarity with others, the marginalized have the opportunity to find an untapped niche in the market of goods and services and engage in a profitable business (open their own business related to the sale of ethnic goods, souvenirs from their former place of residence). Outcasts for this reason very often become billionaires.

Marginal personality according to Robert Park

The American sociologist Robert Park attributed the following to the main character traits and personality traits of the outcasts:

anxiety;
aggressiveness;
ambition;
touchiness;
selfishness;
categorical in views;
negativism;
unsatisfied ambition;
anxiety states and phobias.

In society, people with an asocial lifestyle (poor refugees, homeless people, beggars, vagrants, people with various kinds of addictions, violators of the law) were called marginal individuals, who can be attributed to representatives of the social bottom. Their living conditions have a significant negative impact on their mental state. Any civilized society lives according to its established rules, customs and norms. R. Park believed that marginal personality:

Rejects any norms and traditions accepted in society.
Has no sense of duty towards the society in which he lives.
Experiencing a strong need for solitude and avoids the company of people.

Important! Most expert sociologists and practicing psychologists believe that the marginal is a source of cultural growth. He can objectively, without external influence, evaluate any phenomenon and situation, because they are not involved in it, as if isolated. It fills the social group with new ideas, views, introduces new trends, helps members of society develop, broaden their horizons, look at problems from a different angle, instills.

Types of marginals

Depending on the reasons for the development of a marginal way of life and the characteristics of their manifestation, marginals are divided into the following types:

ethnic- people who, for various reasons and circumstances, were forced to change their place of residence and ended up among representatives of another nationality, nationality, ethnic group, culture. This type is the most difficult to overcome, since a person adapts to a foreign culture, traditions, language, religion for a long time and is not able to change his appearance, race and nationality (descendants from mixed marriages, emigrants).
Social- associated with the change of one economic system to another (slavery was replaced by feudalism, socialism - capitalism). Entire groups of people cannot immediately find their place and adapt to the new social system.
Biological The ideal society is one that takes care of its weak and sick members. In reality, unhealthy people and people with limited physical abilities or mental abilities have no value for society, they are left out of life (disabled people, the elderly, chronically ill people, HIV-infected people, children with Down syndrome and other diseases that limit their ability to work).
Economic- people who for some reason lost their jobs and the opportunity to have a stable income, lost their property, housing, and super-rich people who, due to their material wealth, become cut off from all other members of society (beggars, homeless people, dependents, billionaires, oligarchs ).
religious- people who do not consider themselves either representatives of any existing denomination, or non-believers. These are the individuals who believe in their ideals, their gods and create their own churches and sects (prophets, sectarians).
Political- appear during turning points in history, during a period of political crisis, when people lose faith in modern politicians and their proclaimed values, fight against the existing political system, do not trust the authorities and take a hostile civil position.
Criminal- when the refusal to live according to the laws and moral standards existing in society leads to the commission of an offense (criminals).
Age- when the older generation loses contact with the youth, the so-called conflict of children and fathers arises.

Examples of well-known outcasts in history

Vivid examples of outcasts in history are entire neighborhoods of New York emigrants, Chinatown in China and Russia's Brighton Beach. Many emigrants, due to the prevailing mentality, find themselves left out of American society, unable to integrate into it and accept new values.

Another example is the outcasts as a subclass of Russian society that arose as a result of the "breaking" of old and the emergence of new socio-economic relations in the 90s of the XX century. Moreover, the marginals then included representatives of both poles of social inequality: the lower strata of society (“the social bottom”) and the so-called “new Russians”.

Outcasts were called world-famous writers and poets, artists and creators, geniuses and scientists, who during their lifetime were considered insane and outcasts because of their dissimilarity with others and the lack of understanding of their views and creativity by other members of society. In the modern world, there is another group of outcasts - people who spend most of their time at the computer, which leads to a change in their consciousness, the predominance of virtual life over real life.

From history, marginals include:

Diogenes of Sinop - ancient Greek philosopher, student of Antisthenes;
Stepan Razin - Don Cossack, leader of the uprising of 1670-1671;
Emelyan Pugachev - Don Cossack, leader of the Peasants' War of 1773-1775;
Ustim Karmelyuk - Ukrainian peasant, leader of the peasant movement in Podolia in 1813-1835.

If you remember the literary heroes:

James Moriarty - A. Conan Doyle A cycle of works about Sherlock Holmes;

The meaning of the words "marginal" and "marginality" in the modern world has changed beyond recognition. However, this is not surprising. The world is rapidly changing right before our eyes and old stereotypes are being replaced by new concepts, often diametrically opposed to the old ones.

What is marginality and who are marginals? What new categories of people began to be classified as marginalized in the modern world. How the marginal differs from all other representatives of society, and why he has such a status, you will learn about from the article.

So, the marginal is who? This term came into use as early as 1928. It was formulated by the US sociologist Robert Park. He believed that a marginal person can be called a person who occupies some intermediate and indefinite position between a city dweller and a rural outback dweller.

The culture of such a subject is not formed, he cannot fit into the unfamiliar living conditions in another place. His behavior patterns are not accepted by society, and for them he is nothing but a savage who does not know how to behave among people.

The term itself originates from the word "margo", which in Latin means "edge". Therefore, marginals are those who live on the very edge, the edge of society, and do not fit into the generally accepted norms of interaction between people.

What is marginality according to Robert Park?

Marginality is a sociological concept. It means the borderline, intermediate position of people between social groups. This in a certain way affects the psyche of such people (outcasts).

Previously, this word had a sharply negative connotation in society. Robert Park considered such people extremely touchy, aggressive and focused only on themselves. In addition, he included among them those who committed crimes, did not have their own housing, were alcoholics and drug addicts.

In a word, these were the people of the poorest and lowest strata of society. An important feature of the marginals was the denial of all norms and rules in society. They had no obligations, violated the rules of interaction between people.

Park said that such people are often lonely, do not want to make friends and family.

Categories of people who are marginalized in modern society

In the modern world, the concepts of "marginality" and "marginal" have lost their original sharply negative meaning. Marginals are now called those representatives of society whose way of thinking and way of life differs significantly from the way of life of the main mass of people.

Gradually, the semantic content of this term has changed a lot. Once they were representatives of the very bottom of society. Now everything is different. Now in the network and the media, you can often find many articles devoted to the word "marginal" in its elite sense, for example, "marginal culture", "marginal literature", "marginal worldview". Now both the unemployed and the millionaire can be marginalized.

In simple terms, marginal people are now called everyone who does not fit into the socially “correct” behavior.

Marginals can be called:

a vagabond without housing and work;
a traveler who left to search for the meaning of life in Thailand, India, Tibet;
a hippie who denies the hierarchy of society;
freelancer and any "free artist" who is not tied to work and lives on the road;
a hermit living away from society;
a multimillionaire whose lifestyle is very different from most people.

Classification of marginal groups in sociology

In sociology, marginals are subdivided into several groups, these include:

ethnic outcasts are mostly migrants.
There are biological marginals, these are those who have certain physical or mental capabilities.
There are age gaps, this is the generation with which communication in society is almost lost.
There are social outcasts, as a rule, these are those who do not fit into the social structure due to their lifestyle.
There are also economic marginals They are either the poorest or have no jobs at all.
There are political, those people who use methods of political struggle not approved by society.
In addition, there are religious, these are those who have a faith that does not coincide with that recognized in society.
And the last - criminal elements, criminals.

I hope the article helped you find out who the marginal is? How has the meaning of the words "marginal" and "marginality" changed? And what do these words mean now in our modern world.

A classic example of a marginal is Jeffrey Lebowski, the hero of the cult film The Big Lebowski (1998)

If you want to fully understand this topic, I recommend revisiting the famous cult film of the Coen brothers The Big Lebowski (1998). The protagonist of this film is a classic outcast. Everyone's favorite pacifist, Jeffrey Lebowski, can be called a classic outcast of the modern world.

Here is the official trailer for The Big Lebowski (1998):

I wish everyone strives to be themselves, stay true to their dreams and not squeeze themselves into the stereotypes of society, while, of course, without violating the freedom of other people!

See you on the blog pages!

Marginal - a person whose position in society, lifestyle, worldview, origin, etc. do not fit into the total.

A marginal person, a marginal element (from Latin margo - edge) - a person who is on the border of various social groups, systems, statuses, cultures and is influenced by their conflicting norms, values, etc. In modern Russian, this word is also often used to denote a "declassed element", a bastard, an outcast.

Marginality (Late Latin marginali - located on the edge) is a sociological concept denoting the intermediate, "boundary" position of a person between any social groups and statuses, which leaves a certain imprint on his psyche. This concept appeared in American sociology in the 1920s to refer to the situation of non-adaptation of immigrants to new social conditions.

The concept of the "marginal man" was introduced into scientific use in 1928 by the American sociologist Robert Ezra Park (1864-1944), who dealt with the problems of immigrants who flooded the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. People who rushed into the New World at the turn of the century were unable to overcome the crisis of identity and were completely at a loss, believing themselves to be left to the mercy of fate. Not wanting to part with traditional values and at the same time not accepting alien stereotypes of behavior, the newcomers fell out of any and all frames. Having failed to properly shore up a foreign shore, they had already largely lost their intimate ties with the immovable canon of the fathers, so the inert community rejected them like a foreign body. According to Park, this kind of inter-intelligentness just gives rise to a special socio-psychological type of an intermediate, marginal person who does not know how to behave, how to be and what to rely on.

At the same time, Park did not at all consider unrooted aliens to be second-class people. Guessing their latent potencies with the upper instinct, he wrote:

“A marginal person is a type of personality that appears at a time and in a place where new communities, peoples, cultures begin to emerge from the conflict of races and cultures. Fate dooms these people to exist in two worlds at the same time; compels them to accept the role of cosmopolitan and outsider in relation to both worlds. Such a person inevitably becomes (in comparison with his immediate cultural environment) an individual with a wider horizon, a more refined intellect, more independent and rational views. A marginal person is always a more civilized being.”

By the way, the same Park describes the outcasts as follows: “... serious doubts about their personal value, the uncertainty of relationships with friends and the constant fear of being rejected, the tendency to avoid uncertain situations so as not to risk humiliation, painful shyness in the presence of other people, loneliness and excessive daydreaming, excessive anxiety about the future and fear of any risky venture, inability to enjoy and confidence that others treat him unfairly.

A marginal group of people is a group that rejects certain values and traditions of the culture in which this group is located, and asserts its own system of norms and values.

feature age marginality is movement in time and slow adaptation to social roles, not keeping pace with physical development. Age marginality, for example, is characteristic of young people who are in a state of incomplete socialization.

Individual marginality characterized by the incomplete entry of the individual into a group that does not fully accept him, and his alienation from the group of origin, which rejects him as an apostate. The individual turns out to be a "cultural hybrid", sharing the life and traditions of two or more different groups.

Group marginality arises as a result of changes in the social structure of society, the formation of new functional groups in the economy and politics, displacing old groups, destabilizing their social position.

Cultural marginality arises in a situation (forced or consciously chosen by a person) of the simultaneous and one-spatial existence of a group or individual in the context of conflicting sociocultural requirements.

In all cases, cultural marginality is intertwined with social stratification and is determined by social processes. The objective conditions for the formation of this marginality are the processes of transformation of the social system (modernization, "perestroika", etc.), the intensification of social movements within society, the development of intercultural interactions.

One of the most important factors in the emergence of cultural marginality is the processes of migration.

Along with the action of factors of an objective nature, when certain groups / individuals, against their will, find themselves in the role of marginals (the impoverished, the disabled, forced emigrants, etc.), purposeful activity can also lead to the acquisition of cultural marginality. One of its grounds is, for example, the rejection of socially approved goals, ideals, and ways to achieve them.

To the main types of reactions leading to the emergence of subcultures, incl. and marginal, can be attributed to:

innovation (consent with the goals of society, but the denial of socially approved ways to achieve them);
ritualism (denying the goals of society, but agreeing to use socially approved means);
retreatism (simultaneous rejection of both the goals and means of society - vagabonds, drug addicts, etc.);
rebellion (also total denial, but leading to the formation of new goals and means, a new ideology).

The subjects of cultural marginality are "accidental" individuals whose cultural roots were cut off as a result of certain social processes. They are in a state of forced alienation from the ethnic, national, religious and moral values traditional for their ancestors. The drama of their position lies in the fact that they are not able to assimilate, assimilate the values and spirit of the culture around them, which continues to be “foreign” for them.

Cultural marginality is also inherent in people and groups who consciously accept for themselves cultural traditions, norms, behaviors of different nature (ethnic, confessional, etc.) and strive to follow them in their lives - in a situation of mixed marriages, missionary work, etc. However, the carrier of this marginality, when choosing one of the orientations, always causes discontent or irritation of representatives of a different cultural tradition, which is a constant potential source of personal problems and disorders.

Cultural marginality can characterize the status of a group or individual and their internal characteristics, socio-psychological characteristics. The sociocultural status of marginal subcultures is determined by their location on the "outskirts" of the respective cultural systems, partial intersection with each of them, and in this respect - only partial recognition from each of them.

Marginal subcultures have a special specificity, in which the presence of norms and orientations is clearly expressed that are different from socially recognized, officially approved standards that determine distance in relation to them, which gives rise to a position of rejection, rejection or disapproving condescension on the part of representatives of the dominant culture (for example, the position ethnic minorities).

The cultural “splitness” of the personality, characteristic of cultural marginality, the “interculturality” of its orientation as a result of the internalization of diverse values, norms, standards borrowed from different (and often conflicting) sociocultural systems, predetermines the complexity of the process of cultural self-identification. The heterogeneity and inconsistency of the characteristics that are reference for the individual of sociocultural groups, the loss of the integrity of self-consciousness are manifested in the occurrence of internal discomfort and tension of the personality, in external forms of behavior corresponding to this state. This can be either compensatory increased activity (often in aggressive forms) with a focus on self-affirmation, the desire to gain significance in social movements (nationalist, class, confessional, countercultural, etc.), or a reaction of detachment, passivity, leading to the loss by the individual of developed sociocultural ties.

Cultural marginality, as a product of value and normative ambivalence, leads to instability and eclecticism in the structural characteristics of those subcultures and individuals who are its bearers. At the same time, the combination of elements of different cultures (often the combination of “incompatible”), their interaction with each other often leads to the emergence of non-trivial and non-standard in various types of activity, creates a rich palette for the development of new directions and ideas.

With the cultural plurality of modern society, each person is in a situation of interaction with various reference cultural systems, is included in various social worlds that present him with mismatched, and often contradictory requirements. However, the possibility of spatio-temporal separation of actions to satisfy them allows the individual in each of the spaces to maintain their cultural integrity and unambiguity.

Moral marginality- this is the position of a person between two different socio-moral systems, when, due to objective or subjective reasons, she broke away from one system of moral values, but did not enter into interpenetrating contact with another and stays in the axiological space of immoral emptiness, where she has nothing to rely on, except on himself and his "will to live." Most often, this marginality is a consequence of social and cultural marginality.

Political marginality: 1. Separation from the original social substrate, the termination of social ties that determine the essence of the individual and the group, as well as the fundamental impossibility of resuming such integration ties. 2. Social quality of consciousness and behavior of a person, layer, subgroup.

The main sign of political marginality is the rupture and entropy of social ties that form civil society. Means of turning individuals into marginals: alienation from property, strict state control, a policy of general internal migration and resettlement.

Marginal layers are the main social base of totalitarian regimes.

Marginality arises in the "clearance", "gap" between social structures and reveals its borderline nature with any change, shift or mutual transition of structures. The so-called "cultural hybrids" find themselves in a situation of marginality, balancing between the dominant group in society, which never fully accepts them, and the group from which they have separated. It is characteristic of ethnic and racial minorities formed as a result of migrations.

Marginality is associated with the duality of ethnic identity. On a personal level, it causes mental stress and can lead to duality, even fragmentation of personal self-consciousness. The marginal mental type in many cases was distinguished by creative potentialities, people of this type became leaders of ethnic groups, national movements, prominent cultural figures, etc.

Marginality is synonymous with the desire for something new on the path of rejecting all kinds of cultural stereotypes and prohibitions that unify the power of universality, “indifference” over singularity and uniqueness, legitimation of enjoyment and pleasure, rehabilitation of the subject of desire by the cultural tradition, and is an important moment in the fight against the tyranny of the discourse of power.

Marginality characterizes the specificity of various cultural phenomena, often asocial or antisocial, developing outside the rules of rationality that dominate in a particular era, do not fit into their contemporary dominant paradigm of thinking, and thereby quite often expose the contradictions and paradoxes of the main direction of cultural development.

Marginality has a disorienting effect on its representatives (marginals). The main negative consequence of marginality is the inability of individuals to find ways to resolve internal, motivational conflicts that meet cultural criteria and, as a result, an increase in alienation, aggressiveness and readiness for various deviations.

Marginal - this is the name of a person who cannot or does not want to live the way the vast majority of society lives, which is a crowd. You are marginal in any case if you deny or avoid social norms. Denial in this case is very important. There have always been such people in human society. Among the uniform majority, people had different attitudes towards such “abnormal” people: someone considered them eccentrics and doomedly condescending, such otherness annoyed other members of society, and they considered themselves entitled to make every effort to either adjust them to the generally accepted standard, especially without being interested in the attitude of the very object of correction to this, or to expel this "human garbage" from society as a threat to its peaceful life.

It has always been difficult for such originals to live among people. Representatives of the dominant majority in society could teach a person to successfully exist only in their own image and likeness. But educators usually did not set themselves the task of teaching the original to live harmoniously in society, preserving their originality. “If you don’t want to be like everyone else, live as you know, just don’t bother us. And God is your judge...” So such eccentrics suffered from their inability or unwillingness to use the practical skills of the lives of others, paving their way through trial and error, for which “normal” people often punished them with pleasure. The aggression of irritated neighbors, who did not want to put up with the need to seek an individual approach to some fellow tribesmen, often spread to the outcasts.

The division of society into the crowd and the marginalized, "us" and "them", is not the original, but arises as a result of certain social mechanisms of interaction between members of the emerging society. The main among them is the mechanism of grouping the most similar people to each other.

These members of society, having united in a group that makes up its majority, establish group values and norms of behavior. Anyone who differs from the average person of the crowd is automatically recognized as abnormal. Then, using its majority power, the group begins to extend its rules to other members of society, who for the time being remained psychologically independent. The majority forces singles to strictly fulfill their group norms of behavior and values, turning them into the laws of the whole society. However, the newly formed crowd exerts pressure not only on those who are on its borders or beyond (hence the origin of the word "marginal" - the Latin word "margo" is translated as "edge, border", which refers to a person located on the periphery of the social structure society), but also for each of its members. Any person who wants to harmoniously merge with the mass must give her part of his personal and behavioral freedom.

This turns out to be psychologically unacceptable for some members of society who, by their nature, are not clearly expressed originals, but who would like to preserve their personal freedom. Due to their resistance to group pressure, the crowd can push such people to the periphery of society, as a result of which they become forced outcasts, joining the number of true outcasts. The last are those primary outcasts who resisted the pressure of the crowd in order to preserve their otherness.

In addition to this, a psychological reaction arises in the crowd among its members to the group suppression of individual originality. As a result, some people who are members of the crowd in spirit and essence show protest behavior, shocking those around them with an accentuated disregard for group norms and values. However, they are not real outcasts, as they psychologically remain dependent on the crowd. They can be called pseudomarginals (or false marginals).

In addition to the mechanism of the natural formation of primary marginals, the formation of forced renegades is possible, when a person who initially found himself in the core of society, in order to preserve the freedom of his personality, prefers to stand out from the emerging crowd. The role assigned to him in the crowd by its leaders can also be pushed to the forced marginalization of a person. In any group, some kind of hierarchy always develops, and someone inevitably gets a place “at the bucket”. Those who do not want to put up with such a situation, but do not have enough influence to increase their place in the hierarchy, also become forced outcasts.

And, finally, false marginals. If one of them is tired of ostentatious shocking for the sake of attracting the attention of people around him and he begins to feel the strength and desire to free his personality from the psychological chains of the crowd, then here he will find recipes for how to do it.

Not all primary outcasts are capable of resisting the crowd, and some of them join the crowd, betraying their original essence. Such people can be called broken or unrealized outcasts.

The true outcasts, who resisted the pressure of the crowd in order to preserve their otherness, are a phenomenon that causes considerable public interest. The true outcasts, as a rule, include talented scientists and artists. Everything seems to be clear with them. With their creations, they fully "repay" their own independent position in society. You can break spears as much as you like regarding the mental health of the greats of this world, shuffle an endless deck of their psychopathological flaws, but the fact remains: groomed and unwashed outcasts, completely breaking out of the frame, very often change the face of the discipline in which they work beyond recognition, and almost reign supreme on the airless peaks of abstract knowledge, where, as a rule, an ordinary person has nothing to do. Often, it is they who accurately determine the main paths of civilization. Moreover, if we interpret the concept of marginality somewhat broader, it turns out that the entire organic world on planet Earth has always developed under the sign of this radical.

However, there are still marginals who do not have pronounced talents. What is their psychology? How do they manage to survive in the minority?

Let us briefly consider the psychology of such people. This will be useful to us in the future to understand how a warrior differs from a marginal. Going from the opposite - by showing what the warrior is not - we can describe the essence of the warrior in more depth.

So, what are the views held by the true outcasts?

Psychology of differences between the layman and the marginal

Neuroticism. Anyone who differs from the average person of the crowd is automatically recognized as abnormal. But if you think about it, it is precisely the people of the crowd who are characterized by total neuroticism, while the outcasts are distinguished by rare mental health and harmony.

Neurosis is a deviation from the norm. The question rests on the definition of this norm. Here in science there are two different approaches. One is to determine by statistical methods the arithmetic mean of a given society. The essence of such “normality” is the ability of a person to comply with generally accepted standards of behavior. Any discrepancy to it qualifies as a pathology. Another approach is based on the concept of a harmoniously developed personality, and harmony is determined not by the standards of good generally accepted in a particular society, but by the internal factors of human nature as a biological species. This notion of "normality" is aimed at maximizing human development and happiness. If modern society offered the best opportunities for the happiness of each individual, then both points of view should coincide. However, the reality is far from ideal. But official psychiatry implies the existing society as completely harmonious and correct. And if so, then a person poorly adapted to life in it is inferior to her. And vice versa: psychiatrists classify a well-adjusted individual as a role model. It turns out that the individual who renounced his human nature, self-realization and happiness, is considered in society as a mentally healthy, "harmoniously developed" personality, although in fact it is generally difficult to find at least some semblance of personality in him.

Thus, it turns out that we should distinguish between two types of neurosis common in modern society: the neurosis of the crowd man and the "neurosis" of the marginal. The man of the crowd is neurotic in its essence, since the society of Western civilization is built on false values - wealth, fame, power, social success, masked by talk of mercy, philanthropy, altruism and other beautiful words. Those few who dare to live differently, taking care of the purity and natural development of their souls, are instantly hung with various medical labels. Some part of the people of the crowd is also recognized as neurotic, since they turn out to be losers in the struggle for a "place in the sun", but this is only an open form of the disease that affects the entire crowd.

Since the literature on the neuroses of modern man is extremely numerous and varied, and this book only partially touches on this issue, here I will give only one illustration of the confusion in society with the concept of “normality” described above. In his Social Psychology, David Myers talks about the amazing phenomenon of depressive realism. He quotes Shelley Taylor, who explains it this way: “Normal people exaggerate how competent and good looking they are, but depressed people do not. Normal people remember their past in rosy light. People who are depressed (unless it is severe) are more detached in recalling their successes and failures. Normal people describe themselves mostly positively. Depressed people describe both their positive and negative qualities. Normal people accept praise for a successful outcome and tend not to take responsibility for failure. Depressed people take responsibility for both success and failure. Normal people exaggerate control over what is going on around them. Depressed people are less vulnerable to the illusion of control. Normal people incredibly believe that the future will bring a lot of good and little bad. Depressed people are more realistic in their perception of the future. In fact, unlike normal people, people with depression are always free from the prejudices of exaggerated self-esteem, the illusion of control, and an unrealistic vision of the future.” It turns out that a person who has an adequate perception of the world and himself in it is recognized as sick (being in a state of mild depression). And all this only because psychiatrists recognize the collective neurosis of the vast majority of people in society as a social norm, manifesting itself in the form of unjustified optimism.

The generally accepted understanding of the normal in society should be treated very critically. If someone tells you that you, your words or actions are not normal, ask the question: “What is the norm?” If you ask this question to yourself, then by trying to answer it you will be able to throw off the burden of the psychological status of the abnormal. If you decide to voice this question in the face of the interlocutor, then most likely you will get rid of his subsequent moralizing, since most of the people in the crowd are not ready for a meaningful conversation on this topic. After all, they accept group norms for execution blindly, without even thinking about their possible inadequacy to a particular situation or present moment.

If you manage at your leisure to analyze the entire range of behavioral restrictions that society imposes on its members through the concept of normal, then you may unexpectedly find new scope for self-realization, realizing the meaninglessness of observing certain norms or realizing that they are inherently wrong.

The meaning of life and attitude towards death. In our society, the life of the layman consists of endless bustle, punctuated by periods when he tries to stun himself with chemical (alcohol, tobacco, drugs) or sensory (affecting the senses - dancing, rhythmic music, music videos with constantly flashing and frequently changing picture on the screen , gambling and computer games, etc.) drugs. Such a life seems absolutely meaningless to the marginal, and he does not want to follow the crowd in this. The outcasts are those people who are trying to get the most out of every moment of life, not agreeing to long-term suffering with fuss for the sake of some illusory goal to get great pleasure in the distant bright future, which, as a rule, never comes.

There are three reasons for the wrong attitude of the layman to his life.

The first of them is that a person does not know how to enjoy life according to the principle of “here and now”. He is so involved in the pursuit of the "horizon" that when he reaches his goal, he is at a loss. This happens because the state of freedom from fuss is so unusual and uncomfortable for him that he is ready to invent his next goal, if only to quickly move into the familiar state of “squirrel in a wheel”, with which he has long been accustomed.

At first, such a person sets himself a specific goal in life: “Here I will build myself the house of my dreams, I will give up everything, I will fall into a rocking chair on the veranda and I will enjoy life.” When the house is already built, it turns out that this concept organically includes a swimming pool in the yard. Then an underground garage, a greenhouse, a sauna, etc. are added to it in turn. After some time, it turns out that the house turned out to be small (the children have already grown up!) And it is necessary to make an extension. And so the construction process of the “dream house” never ends, as a result of which idleness in the rocking chair never comes. Vladimir Orlov depicted such people in a grotesque form in "Altista Danilov", calling them hlopobuds (shortened from "worrying about the future").

Fromm put it well in his book Man for Himself: “Modern man believes that reading and writing are arts that should be learned, that one can become an architect, engineer or skilled worker only through serious training, but LIVING is something so simple that no special effort is required to learn it. Just because everyone "lives" in their own way, life is considered a matter in which everyone is an expert. ... A person is under the illusion that he acts in his own interests, but in fact he serves anything, but not the interests of his real "I". Modern man lives according to the principle of self-denial, and thinks from the point of view of personal interest. He believes that he is acting in his own interests, while in reality his primary interest is money and success; he does not realize that his most important human potential remains unfulfilled.

The second reason why a person loses the meaning of his life in the language of psychology is called a shift of motive to a goal. To quote Fromm again: “One of the most characteristic psychological features of modern life is that actions, which are means to an end, more and more took the place of ends, until the latter themselves became something illusory and unreal. People work to make money, and money is made to buy pleasure. Labor is the means, pleasure is the end. But what is really happening? People work to make more money; they use that money to make more money, and the goal of enjoying life is lost sight of. People are in a hurry and invent different things that save time. Then they use the saved time again to hastily save even more time, and so on until they are so exhausted that they no longer need the saved time. We have been caught in a web of means and lost sight of ends.”

And here is how Oscar Wilde defines this goal of life, lost by the man of the crowd, in the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray: “The goal of life is self-expression. To manifest our essence in all its fullness - that's what we live for. And in our age, people have become afraid of themselves. They forgot that the highest duty is a duty to oneself. Of course they are merciful. They will feed the hungry, clothe the poor. But their own souls are naked and starving. We have lost courage. Or maybe we never had it. The fear of public opinion, this basis of morality, and the fear of God, the fear on which religion rests, this is what dominates us.

Another example of the crowd imposing on a person a shift of motive to a goal, as well as his protection from such “charity”, is demonstrated by an anecdote told by 3. Freud in his work “Wit and its relation to the unconscious”: “One person who was subject to drunkenness, got himself livelihood by giving lessons. But his vice became little by little known, and consequently he lost most of his lessons. A friend of his was assigned to take charge of his correction. “Look, you could have the best lessons in town if you gave up drinking. So, do it." “What do you offer me? was the indignant reply. - I give lessons in order to be able to drink; should I give up drinking so that I can get lessons?!”

In the end, a person finds himself in old age in the face of death with money in his hands, from which he now has no use, except for buying an expensive place in a prestigious cemetery, and a wasted life behind him, in which there was no place for true enjoyment of being. A person feels unhappy, because he was looking for his happiness not at all there. Here is what Myers writes in Social Psychology on this subject: “In recent decades, accompanied by rapid economic growth, people in the Western world began to earn many times more. For example, the average American has twice the income of what it was in the 1950s, yet has half as many children. Double income means twice as many purchases. ...Although today people mostly have enough money and things, they have not become happier. For example, today's Americans, judging by the polls, are no happier or more satisfied with their lives than those who answered the same question in the 1950s. “... Of the 800 graduates of American colleges, those who professed the values of “yuppie” (yuppie is an American abbreviation from the first letters of the words: “young” is young, “urban” is urban, “professional” is professional, that is, young urban resident, pursuing a career and aspiring to a luxurious life) were twice as likely as their former fellow students to feel "largely" or "very" unhappy.

Many Eastern sages had a completely different attitude towards such “happiness”: “I cannot say whether what everyone calls “happiness” is actually happiness or not. I know only one thing: when I watch people achieve it, I see how they are carried in the general stream of the human herd, gloomy and obsessed, unable to stop or change their direction. And all this time they claim that a little more - and they will find this very happiness. My opinion is that you will never see happiness until you stop trying to find it.” - Chuang Tzu (Quoted by: Nisker W. Crazy Wisdom).

The psychological mechanism of happiness is generally expressed by the formula "satisfaction is equal to what was received minus what was expected." Since it is common for a crowd person to want a lot from life (for the sake of this, he “tearing his veins”), but in reality to receive much less than what he wants, then a chronic feeling of being unhappy for him is natural. It may seem that the marginal should differ from the person of the crowd by the lack of desire to enjoy life. In fact, the marginal strives for happiness in life, it’s just that the nature of his motivation is completely different. If a person of the crowd wants specific pleasures from life, which, as a rule, take shape in the mind in the form of materialized results of his vigorous activity, then it is common for a marginal to strive for a pleasant life in general as a continuous process. This approach allows the marginal to abandon the pursuit of specific goals. The tactic of behavior of the marginal is to find a pleasant life by trial and error: if you don’t like life at the moment, change it. Don't like it again - change it again! And so on until you find satisfaction in the process. And as you cling to it, gradually increase the pleasure to the level of complete happiness. That is why the outcasts are characterized in the first half of life by a constant change in lifestyle, work, profession, social circle, habitat and other factors of existence.

The third reason for the wrong attitude of the layman to his life is the flight of a person into vanity from his internal problems. When a person is passive, various thoughts begin to penetrate into his consciousness, one way or another affecting some of his personal problems, once unresolved and put off “for later”. And now the thoughts “think” that now this very “later” has come, and persistently “climb into the head” to their owner. But earlier he had already run away from these problems precisely because he was afraid to take on their solution. Since nothing has changed in the past time and the reasons for hiding from thoughts about unresolved problems have not disappeared, an unbearable desire arises to continue this flight. And the best proven way to do this is increased activity. To do this, one should so load one’s consciousness with the objective environment of some very active activity so that there is no room left for all sorts of “stupid thoughts”: about the neglected upbringing of a son sliding into the criminal environment of drug addicts; about elderly parents abandoned to the mercy of fate; about the complete absence of true friends; about marital relations that have turned into the coexistence of people who are absolutely strangers to each other, and so on.

An analysis of this third reason reveals one distinguishing feature of marginals: they are never afraid to be alone with themselves in a state of passivity, when they are drawn to think about themselves, about the meaning of their lives, about their relationships with other people and the world as a whole. Thanks to such contemplation, the marginals usually have very well developed psychological intelligence and worldly wisdom. And if so, then they absolutely do not need various companies and parties in order to somehow “kill” their free time, which is typical for a crowd person. If the outcasts are drawn to contact with someone, then they prefer some noisy company to communicate with another marginal in terms of content and interest in a partner as a unique personality.

Treating life this way, the marginal, as a rule, is not afraid of its end, unlike the crowd man. The marginal in the face of death thanks his life for all the pleasure that she gave him, while the man of the crowd understands with horror that he lived his life meaninglessly, without taking anything good from it. Therefore, the modern representative of Western civilization is usually tormented by a longing for immortality: “Perhaps the most significant fact is the deeply rooted thirst for immortality, which manifests itself in many rituals and beliefs aimed at preserving human flesh. On the other hand, the modern, purely American form of denying death through the “embellishment” of the body also testifies to the suppression of the fear of death simply by camouflage. ... As Epicurus said, death has nothing to do with us, because "when we are, then there is no death yet, and when death comes, then we are no longer there" (Diogenes Laertius)". (Fromm E. To have or to be).

conversion life into the future deprives it of meaning in the present. At the same time, the pursuit of distant goals is so accustoming to the daily bustle that a person is no longer able to stop for the sake of receiving the long-awaited pleasure. And just as a horse, which has walked in circles in a harness all its life, once free, continues to spin in an open field, so a person who has fallen out of the usual cycle of affairs begins to invent worries for himself, just to return to a fussy lifestyle. Therefore, analyze your life for the presence of grandiose plans for the future. Having discovered the distant goals that determine your current life and make you now deny yourself the available happiness, think about whether the game is worth the candle. If, nevertheless, you consider it necessary to leave some goals in your future, then try at least to avoid drawing yourself into the pursuit of the horizon, when one achieved goal is replaced by others that make your rejection of momentary happiness chronic. Make your goal setting process end.

As for the escape into the hustle and bustle from the realization of one's psychological problems, which is so common among a crowd person, then try to test yourself in this regard. If your life is busy with endless troubles, check the objectivity of their occurrence by running away from them for a couple of days to some deserted wilderness, where you will be left alone with your thoughts. And let no active activity distract you from this - complete physical passivity and continuous soul-searching. As a result of such a test, you will either enjoy, and then you can safely return to your former life, or you will be overwhelmed by the realization of once unresolved personal problems that have finally overtaken you thanks to this artificial stop of yours in the middle of an endless flight. And then you just have to take up their decision, and all the previous everyday fuss will turn out to be an analogue of sand, where you, like an ostrich, hid your consciousness.

natural behavior. Relations between people in modern society are mainly built on hypocrisy, and recently the so-called political correctness has also become the norm for behavior of public people. Hypocrisy is a mask, a socio-psychological role that people cover up their true thoughts and desires, preventing them from breaking out. The main cause of hypocrisy in the crowd is the orientation of its members to the expectations of the people around them. A hypocritical person, in order to comply with group norms of behavior, is forced to say and do something completely different from what his own soul wants. Because of the fear of being exposed, the man of the crowd suppresses his true motives and drives him deep inside. In contrast to this behavior, the marginal does only what his own soul tells him to do. This becomes the basis of sincerity and immediacy of behavior, but this is what often gives rise to tension and conflicts in the relations of the marginal with the people around him, since his words and deeds often do not coincide with their expectations.

It cannot be said that the people of the crowd have “forgotten” how to build sincere relations with each other, no, they never knew how to do this, since the natural spontaneity in a child is severely suppressed already in the first years of his life. Here is how Fromm describes it in “Escape from Freedom”: “Already at an early stage of education, a child is taught to show feelings that are not his feelings at all. He is taught to love people (of course everyone), they are taught to be uncritically friendly, smile, etc. If in the process of upbringing in childhood a person is not completely “broken off”, then later social pressure, as a rule, completes the job.

If you don't smile, you are said to be "not a very nice person" and you must be nice enough to sell your services as a salesman, waiter, or doctor. Friendliness, amusement, and all other feelings that are expressed in a smile become an automatic response; turn them on and off like a light bulb. Of course, often a person realizes that this is just a gesture; however, in most cases, he ceases to be aware of this and at the same time loses the ability to distinguish such a pseudo-feeling from spontaneous friendliness. Not only hostility is directly suppressed, and not only friendliness is killed by forced counterfeiting. Suppressed (and replaced by pseudo-feelings) a wide range of spontaneous emotions. In our society, emotions are generally suppressed. There is no doubt that creative thinking - like any other creativity - is inextricably linked with emotion. However, today the ideal is precisely to live and think without emotions. "Emotionality" has become synonymous with imbalance or mental illness. By accepting this standard, the individual has greatly weakened himself: his thinking has become wretched and flat. However, since emotions cannot be completely suppressed, they exist in complete isolation from the intellectual side of the personality; the result is the cheap sentimentality that feeds millions of feeling-hungry consumers from movies and the popular song.

And now the post-war syndrome, when people who have known the happiness of sincere relationships with others, rebel against the return to the musty swamp of falsehood and the hypocrisy of "normal" society, only clearly exposes this vice of modern Western society (such a conflict is quite skillfully shown in the American film "Rambo: the first blood"). Any attempt of a marginal to be honest and frank in relations with people of the crowd leads to the fact that he is qualified by them either as a psychopath (does not hide his dislike for a bad person), or as a cynic, or as a person “out of this world”, which is equivalent to a psychiatric diagnosis, or as "the elephant in the china shop", which is tantamount to bad manners. But the same cynicism is when a person deliberately does not share in word and deed any aspect of generally accepted morality and rules of etiquette and openly and honestly demonstrates his position to others, thereby refusing to “mow like a fool”. An example of such behavior is the act of Diogenes, who once masturbated on the steps of the Parthenon and invited those passers-by who do this secretly at home to honestly and openly join him. The hypocritical concealment of one's unsightly inner essence is considered in the crowd as a model of decency.

The behavior of the inhabitant is primarily due to two motives.

The first is a reflection of the market basis of the modern society of Western civilization and lies in the fact that each person is concerned about how to sell himself at a higher price. And this applies not only to business relationships. For example, marriage in our time for many people has actually become a mutually beneficial deal. Or, say, a person is no longer raising his children, he “invests” in them, expecting to receive profit from this in some form in the future! Politicians lead a righteous (of course, in public, since in their true form many of our politicians usually cause only disgust) lifestyle only in order to create a resource for themselves in the form of a good location of the electorate for the election campaign. This is what underlies political correctness, which is just populism, a mercantile desire to “sell” oneself to as many people as possible.

The second motive that makes the man of the crowd play roles that hide his true essence is "conscience", which is only a reflection of the expectations of his environment. And since everyone expects from a person an effective desire for social success, then many diligently play the role of the “soul of society”, which succeeds in everything in life. The real conscience is unknown to the man of the crowd, since it is a manifestation of the deep structures of his soul, which can make him act contrary to the expectations of the crowd, and this is already fraught with trouble. Therefore, the true conscience of the man of the crowd is mercilessly suppressed and driven into the darkest cellars of the psyche. And only for the marginal, true conscience remains the main imperative in his behavior, since acting against conscience will lead him to mental anguish and deprive life of pleasure, which is unacceptable for him. “How can conscience develop if conformity is the life principle? Conscience, by its very nature, is nonconformist; she should be able to say no when everyone else says yes.

To the extent that a person adapts, he is unable to hear the voice of his conscience and even less able to follow it. Conscience exists only when a person feels like a person, and not a thing, not a commodity (Fromm E. A healthy society).

The described motives are united by the orientation of a person to the external factors of his life, to the crowd. But a person also has internal motives when he does something not because others might like it, but because something has stirred in his soul that has nothing to do with the crowd. And these internal motives often come into conflict with the two external ones described above, when a person wants to do something because his soul asks for it, but understands that the people around him expect something completely different from him. And the development of our society according to the Western model goes just in the direction when these conflicts of motives arise more and more often and are almost always resolved in favor of the interests of the crowd. Ultimately, the modern man of the crowd simply loses the ability to hear his own part of the soul, independent of the environment, and, as a result, completely loses spontaneity in his behavior. Whatever desire is born inside his soul, it is doomed to dissatisfaction.

This leads to the experience of one's personal misfortune even in those cases when a person is outwardly quite prosperous.

Each person should decide for himself what or whom to focus on in his behavior. At the same time, the choice is not rich: either orientation to the crowd, to the expectations of the surrounding people; or to your own soul. The first will give relative harmony in relations with other people, but will give rise to a total conflict with one's own soul, fraught with the formation of a neurotic personality. The second way will provide internal psychological harmony, harmony with your own soul, but you will have to pay for this with the dissatisfaction of those around you with your behavior, since the desires of your own soul will not always coincide with their expectations.

If you nevertheless choose sincerity and spontaneity as the norm of behavior for yourself, which, for example, was far from always given to you before, then you will have to start with correcting your own conscience. Conscience is different. In a crowd person, conscience is an internal censor that contains all generalized group norms of behavior and values. It is this controller that makes a person act as is customary in his society. But there is another conscience - the opinion of one's own soul, which is independent of the expectations of the environment. In the man of the crowd, this true conscience is completely replaced by an internal censor, and then it begins to seem to the man that he acts in this way not because others around him so want, but according to the dictates of his conscience. But this is self-deception, allowing the crowd man to somehow reduce the severity of his internal conflict.

Therefore, a person who wants to become more sincere and direct in his behavior will have to fight with his inner censor, whom he is accustomed to perceive as his conscience. And all this will have to be done in order to reanimate the desires of his own soul, which, if it still continues to give its voice in the process of deciding what to say or do, then it is barely audible, deprived of hope for attention to itself and timid due to fear lose the ability to speak at all. Every time you want to do or say something in interaction with other people, ask yourself the question: “Does my soul really want this?” - and carefully listen to whether a thin voice will be heard from the depths of the soul, contradicting the already habitual commanding roar of the inner censor. The more closely you listen to the voice of your own soul, the stronger and more confident it will become over time. And the internal censor, on the contrary, will lose its influence, until one day it stops completely.

Attitude towards oneself and people. The orientation of the marginal in his behavior mainly on himself gives, at first glance, a reason for others to accuse him of selfishness. However, a careful analysis shows that true egoism is inherent in the people of the crowd, while self-love is characteristic of the marginal, which is far from the same thing.

The man of the crowd, suffering from selfishness, does not really love himself. And the one who does not love himself is deprived of the ability to love other people. That is why modern society is dominated by indifference to each other and even cruelty, generated by competition for "a place in the sun."

As for the marginal, he, loving himself, turns out to be able to love another person, which should be distinguished from such a well-known neurosis called "altruism". Altruism, or love for all people at once, usually has nothing to do with real love. The love of the marginal is always shown to some specific people who are interesting to him and worthy of his love. In the same way, the marginal turns out to be capable of showing mercy to a specific person who is really in trouble, but not to a professional beggar who hypocritically plays out a dramatic scene.

The difference between a man of the crowd and a marginal in relation to himself and people is understandable by definition: the marginal is basically self-sufficient, and a man of the crowd without others cannot live even for a short time. That is, the marginal is so valuable and interesting to himself that he can do without contacts with other people for a long time. Many readers will immediately declare that this, they say, selfishness is a bad personal quality. But everything is not as simple as it seems at first glance. The fact is that usually people are very confused in such concepts as selfishness and self-love. Let's try to understand the differences between them.

Egoism (or egocentrism) is a personal position when a person puts himself in the center of the world and believes that everything around exists only for him, only for his sake. And if so, then the egoist is convinced that he should be the happiest, the richest, the most beautiful, etc. etc. Such an attitude towards the world and people gives rise to the following: firstly, the egoist begins to look at others as his slaves, whose mission is to please him in everything. Secondly, he considers himself entitled to claim the property of other people. Thirdly, he constantly compares himself with all other people in order to obtain confirmation of his superiority. This gives rise to greed and rivalry in him, since no one around him should be in any way superior to him. Since all the people around him become his competitors, he involuntarily begins to treat them with hostility. This hostile attitude towards all people, complemented by a lack of respect for them (how can you respect your slave!), makes it impossible for an egoist to develop love for anyone around him. But he is not able to love himself either, because he is constantly not satisfied with the results of comparing himself and his successes with those around him, among whom there will always be a more successful rival. One is more beautiful than an egoist, the other is smarter, the third is richer ... How can you love yourself, such a loser!

The marginal will never be an egoist, since it would never occur to him to put himself in the center of the world, because then he will automatically find himself in the center of the crowd, which is unacceptable for him. The marginal does not need the world of the crowd around him, since he finds his happiness inside his soul. The happiness of the marginal lies in the ability to enjoy such a life and such a world as they are. And in this, no one can be an assistant to him, since tuning into such an emotional state is a deeply intimate process. A person does not need to be the center of the world, since he himself is, by and large, this very world, consisting of feelings of himself and his connections with nature. Such a harmony with oneself gives the marginal the ability to experience love not only for himself, but also for another person, whose world will be no less interesting to him than his own. And if the positive attitude of the egoist towards other people is inversely proportional to their human qualities and their material wealth, then the marginal shows a direct relationship. The egoist compares himself with others and hates them the more, the better they are. The marginal shows the greater interest in a person, the richer he turns out to be the content of his inner world. This is the basis of the marginal's ability to show love for another person. This is where the “golden rule” of the Bible comes into play – “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And just as an egoist, in whom a man of the crowd is guessed, spreads his hatred of himself to the people around him, so the marginal is capable of loving not only himself, but also others.

So, for example, Myers in Social Psychology cites many real events in which a large number of people did not come to the aid of the unfortunate, begging passers-by or observers. Here is one such case: “Eleanor Bradley, while shopping in a store, accidentally fell and broke her leg. In a semi-conscious state, suffering from pain, she begged for help. For 40 minutes, streams of customers flowed past her. Most of us will be able to recall from our own lives enough examples of the indifference of others to the victims of accidents or violent crimes. Someone may object that he knows cases when those who need help still received it from strangers. But here the main thing is not this, but statistics: how many people who passed by are those few who still respond to calls for help? If you collect statistics on many cases, it turns out that the proportion of sympathetic people will be at most a few percent, but this is exactly the proportion of marginals in society! It turns out that helping an outsider is a marginal behavior that is not characteristic of the vast majority of society!

Naturally, the hypothesis arises whether mercy is really connected with other manifestations of marginality?

So, the same Myers cites the results of studies that show that crowd people are not inclined to help people who are not like them (i.e. marginalized), while marginalized people, when helping strangers, do not pay attention to the presence or the victim has no signs of resemblance to them. The people of the crowd manifest the mechanism of moral exclusion, and the marginal people show the mechanism of moral inclusion. Crowd people tend to consider everyone around them “strangers”, unworthy of their care and attention, while marginal people are ready to consider any person who is really in trouble as “their own” (we mean not professional beggars and hypocritical philanthropists, but victims of accidents when a person in need experiences genuine pain and his life or health is in real danger), even in spite of his clear signs of difference. Elsewhere in the same book, I came across this phrase: “Preliminary evidence suggests that highly emotional, empathic, and self-decision-making individuals are more capable of empathy and assistance.” Well, why not a description of the marginal!

Why are people in the crowd so callous even to each other? Here again, the property of egoism is manifested, leading to the fact that in modern society the competition of everyone with everyone becomes the norm. The man of the crowd builds his relations with those around him according to the principle “man is a wolf to man”. Therefore, due to chronic wariness towards people, he is not capable of any kind of warm and close relationship even with those whom he used to consider friends. Such a fear of deep communication is somewhat similar to a person’s reluctance to let a guest into his cluttered and filthy apartment, the analogue of which in this case is his soul. Who among the people of the crowd is pleased to show others his inner essence, so unlike the role he plays as a prosperous member of society!

Outcasts have a completely different approach to this issue: the social circle is as narrow as possible, but the relationship is deeper. In one evening, the marginal is able to realize a truly mutually interested contact with a maximum of one person. Even in numerous companies, outcasts tend to communicate in a narrow circle: in pairs, maximum three. If we return to comparing the soul with an apartment, then the marginal is similar to that householder who considers his dwelling (soul) the most interesting place in the world and will be happy to introduce his guest to it in all details. And, of course, he is ready to do this not as a museum guide, tiredly repeating the same lecture about subordinate exhibits to crowds of visitors, but holding his guest by the hand and looking into his eyes so as not to lose personal contact with him for a second, tracking the interest shown by those in the demonstrated riches of the apartment-soul. That is why the marginal usually has very few friends, since such heartfelt communication with many is impossible, especially considering that he spends most of his time communicating with himself. The marginal can only contact those with whom he is in direct contact at the level of the individual. As soon as a person begins to contact the group in general, as with an impersonal subject, he turns into a crowd man.

Many people suffer because of the lack of real love in their lives, not realizing that the reason for this lies in the lack of self-love. The situation is even worse if, instead of it, egoism, which is one of the forms of neurosis, has taken root in the soul of a person. Therefore, the path to the emergence of love in your life begins with clearing the place in your soul for self-love from manifestations of egoism. Since the main manifestations of egoism are a consumer attitude towards other people and greed for material goods, because of which competitive relations with others arise, then first of all you need to start fighting them in your soul. After you manage to eradicate the manifestations of selfishness, it is time to cultivate self-love. The basis of this feeling is the readiness to hear her every movement and your desire to satisfy her desires, if possible, on the principle of "here and now." Any delay in the fulfillment of the desire of one's soul usually does not produce the desired effect. Either satisfy your desire immediately or never, since the desire for delayed satisfaction draws a person into a fuss that prevents him from hearing the subsequent desires of his soul.

As you learn to love yourself, you will find that among the many desires of your soul is an interest in other people, although not all at once. Following this interest, you will find your love.

Attitude towards work and leisure. In modern society, the honor and respect of the surrounding people usually goes to the so-called workaholics. And not for the results of their heroic work - this is a special conversation, but only for the diligence shown, expressed in the fact that a person's life mainly consists of long work, short sleep and short periods of time spent on food, the road, the necessary life at a minimum . That is, it turns out that in the crowd it is precisely the way of life that is associated mainly with work that is valued.

The reasons for such a life choice are discussed below, but here it is only worth saying that a crowd man in such an attitude to his work actually loses the very meaning of this occupation. According to the logic of things, a person must work in order to obtain the material resources necessary for him and his family to enjoy life. However, this logic is inaccessible to the representative of the crowd, and he lives in order to work. The marginal, in contrast to the generally accepted patterns of behavior, works in order to live just in accordance with the logic just indicated. Therefore, as a rule, in the crowd he is labeled a loafer for insufficient labor zeal. It especially infuriates the crowd when the margin does not work at all. But if a person has the means to live, why should he still earn?! This question is unacceptable to the environment, as it believes that a respectable person should work always regardless of life circumstances.

For the man of the crowd of modern society, workaholism has become the norm. In fact, the life of most people now consists of one continuous work, interspersed occasionally with a short rest. A different picture is observed in the case of marginals. Here, a significant part of life already consists of enjoying being, from which the marginal sometimes has to be distracted by earning a “piece of bread” at a minimum, if only it is enough to maintain himself in good condition to enjoy life. As a result of this, the crowd usually considers the marginals to be lazy and idlers, and the marginals perceive the people of the crowd as half-wits, wasting their only life.

Why do crowd people work so hard at the expense of rest? Four reasons can be identified. The first of them - the most important - is the struggle of all with all for social status. We will consider it in more detail below. The second reason comes down to the fact that many people simply have no alternative to work. They would be happy to have a rest, but they do not know how and with whom. Such people usually live in only one world - their professional sphere. The labor collective for such is the only circle of communication. Therefore, they simply do not imagine themselves outside of their work. Such unfortunate people come home only to sleep.

The third reason is the vicious circle in which many people of the crowd find themselves when they still try to organize some kind of decent rest for themselves. But because of their inability to rest, they remain unsatisfied with it. They react to this failure with a simple conclusion: the leisure services in the entertainment market were purchased of insufficient quality. So, next time you should not skimp and buy something more expensive. Do you need more money for this? It doesn’t matter, we’ll take on additional work, if necessary, we’ll sit in the office and on weekends, but we’ll somehow manage to increase the cost of our vacation. This tactic usually fails, as the cause of dissatisfaction with one's vacation is not correctly identified. You need to know how to rest! And above all, this skill lies in the correct switching from work to rest and back.

The transition from work to outdoor activities always takes a certain amount of time. You need to tune in to it, since getting pleasure from outdoor activities requires fresh senses. The sense organs and the brain, raped by work, need passive rest to restore their working capacity, which is necessary for enjoying outdoor activities. That is, active rest is the same load for the nervous system as professional activity! Therefore, it needs to be restored both during the transition from work to rest, and vice versa. Without it, a person will both work and rest inefficiently. In today's society, very busy people practice a continuous alternation of phases of work and active rest without any tangible pauses of passive rest. This happens most often because passive rest, as we talked about it above, in the section on the meaning of life, is very dangerous for a crowd person, because during it all sorts of “bad” thoughts about various unresolved personal problems come into your head. So such workaholics get into a vicious circle of meaningless life. It is possible, of course, in the form of passive rest to arrange a booze until the consciousness is turned off, but I doubt that the nervous system is fully resting at the same time.

The fourth reason for workaholism could be called ideological, since there is a dogma in society that work in itself is good both for the worker and for humanity as a whole. Somerset Maugham quite aptly spoke about the psychological background of such a generally recognized attitude towards labor relations: “We often hear about the ennobling effect of labor; however, there is nothing noble about work as such. If you look at the history of the development of human society, you can see that when wars raged, work was despised, and military service was revered as valor. The bottom line is that people who imagine themselves to be the crown of creation, in every historical period, consider their occupations to be the noblest destiny of man.

Work is praised because it distracts a person from himself. Fools get bored when they have nothing to do. For most, work is the only escape from boredom; but it is simply ridiculous for this reason alone to call labor ennobling. Idleness requires considerable talent and effort - or a special mindset.

The approach of the marginal to the ratio of work and leisure is expressed by the motto "We work in order to live, and not vice versa." And for life, the marginal does not need much, since he is guided by the principle of reasonable sufficiency.

The solution to this issue is connected with finding the right meaning of life. When work turns out to be the very meaning of life, joy leaves it. If you think that you need to live for the sake of enjoying the current moment, then do not let extraneous fuss interfere with this. It is foolish to waste your life on earning resources for future happiness if it makes it impossible to enjoy life now. In relation to work, the principle of reasonable sufficiency must be observed - one must work so much to provide one's life with the minimum necessary for affordable happiness. And the rest of the time from work, you need to enjoy the real life. And in no case should you allow others to draw you into senseless workaholism.

Attitude to wealth, fame and power. In any more or less stable crowd, a hierarchy of social roles and statuses associated with them is formed over time. For some people, the struggle for a place in this hierarchy becomes the meaning of life.

To achieve a high social status, the most important are three types of resources: wealth, fame and power, which are relatively easy to transform into each other in modern society. That small part of the crowd, which manages to occupy significant places in the social hierarchy, becomes the elite of society. However, they find little satisfaction from the result achieved, especially when many members of society are completely indifferent to their position. Then the elite begins, using their dominant position in the crowd, to propagate their values to the masses. Wealth, fame and power in the public mind become an intrinsic value, and the vast majority of people begin to strive for them. But along with this, they begin to respect those who have already achieved success in this field, i.e. elite, which she needed.

The marginal is that member of society who shows insensitivity to this manipulation of public consciousness. He is indifferent to high social status in any of its manifestations, as he knows how to enjoy life in simpler ways.

These three social phenomena in modern society are the main factors that give the man of the crowd the purpose of his life - high social status. Moreover, all these three resources for obtaining the coveted status are very easy to convert into each other: for money, you can glorify yourself through the media, which automatically gives good chances to win some elections and break through to power; wide popularity, in addition to access to power, can perfectly feed a person through show business; the holder of power usually gets rich easily through the mechanisms of corruption and theft and easily makes publicity for himself through the "pocket" media. Therefore, in order to understand the attitude of the man of the crowd to these three "pillars" on which modern society rests, one must first understand the meaning of social status for him.

If we analyze the history and culture of the entire human civilization, it becomes obvious that in the society of almost all nations there were quite a lot of people whose main goal in life was to obtain the status of an earthly god. In many powerful states, the title of supreme ruler directly denoted either the divine nature of its bearer, or the vicegerency of heavenly gods on earth. And although the most pronounced was the deification of the ruling persons, but this social process was not limited to them alone and was replicated at the local level on a smaller scale in forms accessible to the capabilities of local princelings.

Most of the religious ideas about heavenly gods invented by man, one way or another, were the development, limited by the framework of mundane fantasy, ideas about what an earthly god should be. It can be assumed that most religions were invented by people (or, at least, modified by priests by order of influential persons) not so much to solve some psychological problems of an ordinary person, but to instill in him the right attitude towards earthly gods, using the example of worshiping abstract images. divinity.

I can single out four such manifestations of earthly divinity: omnipotence, power, glory, imitation of immortality. The first aspect - omnipotence - is very accurately conveyed by the word itself: I can afford everything available to a person in this world. Power assumed a sense of permissibility to decide the fate of other people. Glory was expressed in the universal worship of the surrounding people. It was more difficult with immortality, since really eternal life was not given to the powerful of this world, despite all their attempts. Therefore, in order to preserve their image in the public mind, they went to all sorts of tricks in the form of monumental structures, works of art and ways to physically preserve their ashes. At present, the mentality of mankind has not changed at all even with the advent of astronautics or the Internet: as before, a huge number of people in society strive to obtain the status of an earthly god. Changes occurred only in the form of manifestations of divinity. If earlier omnipotence was provided by tyranny, now everything can be bought for money. Other aspects have changed even less, except that deep freezing, cloning and DNA preservation were added to the mummification and embalming of the body. The glory of some Bill Gates or Michael Jackson is no different from the prehistoric worship of spirits, so the attitude of the crowd towards them has lost all hints of any rational feelings such as respect for an outstanding person. They are called in modern society nothing more than idols of the computer or music world. I would like to talk about power even less, since the powers that be experiment with the ability to destroy or make happy any person at their whim, they stopped a long time ago, convinced of the ease of it.

What are the reasons for such an all-consuming desire to obtain the status of an earthly god, at least a “local flood”? This is due to the dissatisfaction of a person with his present life. Religious fantasies in such a situation paint an ideal image of heavenly happiness, and activity to achieve the status of an earthly god makes it possible for a person to partake of these longed-for mirages. Therefore, it turns out that it is precisely those people who strive to become earthly gods who absolutely do not know how to live their real life, to receive completely earthly pleasure from it.

Based on the foregoing, we can conclude that the mania to be earthly gods is the highest form of modern man's neurosis in its destructiveness and harmfulness to humanity.

How does the marginal position differ from the one just described? First of all, the fact that the marginal does not need to dream of heavenly happiness at all, since he fully enjoys his current life as well. This means that his attitude to wealth, fame and power is fundamentally different from their fetishization by the crowd, the simple members of which are imposed on earthly religion by the divine neurotics just described. It's like in A. Tarkovsky's film "Stalker", when the Writer asks the Stalker: "Didn't you yourself want to use this room?" To which he indifferently replies: “But I feel good!” And this is said by a person who, by the standards of modern society, is an absolute zero! Therefore, it remains for us in our consideration to descend from "heaven" to earth.

The living conditions of the marginal in their significance must be reduced to the limit of the struggle for existence. That is, a person should be provided with material goods only to the extent that he does not have to spend money on getting a piece of bread. all time, but nothing more. Having secured a living wage for himself and his family, a person should have enough time and opportunity to enjoy life, improve himself and raise children. As for power and fame, the first one disfigures the human psyche, which the real marginal will never agree to, and the second deprives him of his freedom, since a famous person cannot appear anywhere without numerous guards, without risking to face: importunate admirers; paparazzi filming his every move in the hope of selling it to the media later on; with some psycho who wants to immortalize his name by stabbing a celebrity with a knife.

If you, having delved into your soul, find a positive attitude towards something in this trinity - wealth, fame and power, then try to think about what caused it. Is it really caused by the needs of your true soul, or is it brought into it from the outside as a result of some psychological manipulation of your consciousness? And just as in the house from time to time it is necessary to carry out cleaning and revision of everything that is available, throwing all the rubbish to the landfill, so it is useful to carry out such a cleaning in the soul, removing from it all foreign elements that are useless for your enjoyment of the current moment. And especially carefully it is necessary to get rid of various psychological implants that turn you into someone's slave.

attitude towards freedom. The personal freedom of a person is manifested primarily in the fact that he is either insensitive to the psychological pressure of other people on him, or able to resist him by the effort of his will to independence. Psychological experiments show that in society the proportion of people who show personal freedom, according to various estimates, ranges from a few percent to a third (it all depends on the degree of psychological pressure exerted and the seriousness of giving in to this pressure). That is, most people show conformism - a willingness to succumb to public opinion, authority. And only a few are ready to go against or across the tide. But even among these few, one should distinguish between truly free people and false marginals. The former pave their way on the basis of an internal goal, and the current in society is only taken into account in order to make an appropriate correction and, in the end, still sail exactly to their goal. As for the false outcasts, they always row only against the current, thereby attracting attention to themselves, which, in fact, is their true goal. This is not personal freedom, since their movement is always determined by the current in society anyway. The crowd changed the direction of its movement, and the false outcasts are forced to immediately turn around to face the flow again - sort of anti-weather vanes (physically, a weather vane and an anti-weather vane are one and the same, since they differ only in the direction of the arrow drawn on them). And a completely free person, on occasion, can go with the flow, if, by the will of circumstances, it temporarily carries him directly to the goal he has chosen.

The issue of freedom, as a rule, rests on the choice of one of two options for the development of the situation: if you recognize the restrictions imposed on you, you receive such and such a reward; if you don't recognize it, you have corresponding negative consequences. In the first case, a person receives a certain benefit for his lack of freedom, which may consist either in the form of a useful acquisition, or in the form of the absence of repression. In the second case, a person gets freedom at the price of either refusing to be rewarded, or at some cost due to the punitive influence on the part of the subject of the imposed restrictions. For example, hunting is prohibited in the reserve. The hunter is free to choose: either he ignores the ban and pays a price for this act of freedom, which will be determined by law enforcement and the justice system; or he will give up the freedom to hunt anywhere and be spared a potential sentence for breaking the law.

Restrictions on human behavior can be imposed by official laws, rules of etiquette, norms of behavior. Let us focus on the attitude towards unofficial social norms of behavior in society.

Among the violations of informal social norms, three types of manifestation of freedom can be distinguished: violation of the rules of etiquette; disrespect for authority; opposing oneself to the majority of society (or any group that is a reduced model of society). If the rules of etiquette are at least spelled out in specialized literature, then few people will even verbally declare such social norms as the need to respect authority and focus on the majority. However, for each of these three acts of freedom from the implementation of these generally accepted rules of behavior in society, the subject of freedom faces the condemnation of the crowd. And this already gives rise to certain consequences for the outcast: communicative isolation and negative prejudice of the surrounding people, aimed at returning the troublemaker to the role of a respectable member of society. Thus, it turns out that each member of society finds himself in a certain force field that keeps his behavior within the framework of social norms. And the farther their violator moves away from the permissible limits, the stronger the restoring effect of this force field turns out to be.

Any person who wants freedom in their behavior from the restrictions of social norms understands that after the first step towards protest, the crowd will increasingly pose the question “edge-on”: “Are you with us or against us?” And either he will someday have to “break down” in his love of freedom and receive punishment from those around him for all previous steps of protest (and the crowd’s revenge on such failed rebels is especially cruel and ruthless! She cannot forgive them her own cowardice, since any member of the crowd secretly wants to be free, but is afraid of even the thought of rebellion), or the escalation of confrontation between him and the crowd may lead him to a final break with society. And this is a question absolute freedom! The image of such freedom is the behavior of a sailor who believes in his own strength, his crew and his ship. Such a captain in a storm always tries to go to the open sea away from dangerous shores, on which waves and wind can break his ship. A cowardly sailor (if you can call him that, since the words “coastal” or “countryman” are more suitable for him!) Always tries to huddle closer to the shore, seeing in him his salvation in the person of people who can come to the rescue on occasion.

Most of the members of the mob feel unprepared to go through this path of liberation to the end, if necessary, so, fearing the revenge of the mob, they do not even try to enter it. But the road of freedom turns out to be not so terrible for those who are mentally strong and flexible enough to calmly walk along it back and forth without approaching its dangerous ends: a complete loss of freedom in merging with the crowd and a final break with society. . Such fighters are able to protest moderately, without breaking under the pressure of the crowd and avoiding its revenge, and without taking the matter to the last choice: “Are you with us or without?” Such "walking on the razor's edge" is the lot of flexible outcasts who are able, if not to coexist harmoniously and conflict-free with the crowd, then at least not to conduct open hostilities. All other members of society are subject to the so-called conformism. The dictionary of foreign words defines this concept as follows: “conformism is opportunism, passive acceptance of the existing order, prevailing opinions, etc., lack of one’s own position, uncritical adherence to general opinions, trends, authorities.”

At least two-thirds of our society consists of people who are ready to completely submit to the pressure of the crowd in the face of its authority or the defining majority, suppressing their personality. Here is how Fromm described conformity in The Healthy Society: “Conformism is the mechanism by which anonymous authority rules. I should do what everyone else is doing, which means I should adapt, not be different from others, not “stick out”. I need to be ready to change in accordance with the changes in the pattern and willing to do so. No need to wonder if I'm right or wrong; the question is different - have I adapted, am I not “special”, am I different, am I not different. The only thing that is constant in me is this willingness to change. No one has power over me, except for the herd, of which I am a part and to which I am nevertheless subject.

Thus, we understand that it is conformism that is the main basis for the division of society into the crowd and the marginalized. That is, a marginal can be defined as a person who is not subject to conformism. But there is a "pitfall" here! The fact is that the term “nonconformist” is often used in society, calling it false marginals - people who oppose themselves to the crowd, but are not true marginals. False marginals are an organic component of the crowd, just as a celestial body with its satellite make up a single cosmic system. If we remain within the framework of this cosmic analogy, then the image of a wandering planet, which is not connected by gravity with any other cosmic object, will correspond to the marginal. And the pseudo-marginals are inherently not free, since their lifestyle is still determined by the crowd: “Everyone wears tight trousers, but I will wear wide ones! How? Everyone changed into wide pants?! Well, then I'll put on tight ones. And the marginal in such a situation does not give a damn about what others wear there. If he likes to wear a Scottish kilt, then he will not refuse it even when men's skirts suddenly come into fashion in the crowd. And he will still not give a damn about the fact that all the men around him look like him in that they walk in skirts.

False marginals always oppose themselves to the crowd, while being part of it. And a true marginal can get along well with the crowd, if they tolerate his eccentricities and leave him alone. That is, for the false marginals, the main thing is precisely the protest against the fashion of the crowd, and for the true marginal, his own taste is most important, regardless of how the people around him react to it.

An example of pseudo-marginality can be some admirers of avant-garde art who cannot stand the so-called mainstream. They are always fond of some particularly rare kind of, say, music, for example, noise (banal noise - in Russian), whose fans can be counted on the fingers. But as soon as the crowd shows interest in this clang and rumble and it becomes mainstream, they immediately lose interest in noise and rush to urgently look for some new exotic. The real marginal, being an independent person, will remain faithful to his preferences in art or in something else until they get bored with him or turn out to be supplanted by his new hobby. But all this interest and its changes will be due solely to the movements of his soul, independent of anyone. And it’s better not to confuse the real individuality of the marginal with the fashion in the crowd for ostentatious individuality, which is essentially a cover for spiritual impersonality and adjacent to the rejection of one’s personality, replaced by the role of the “correct” person, tuned to social expectations.

If there is a desire to increase one's personal resistance to the psychological pressure of other people, then one must first learn to detect this very pressure, since it can be skillfully disguised by a skilled manipulator. And the main support in this will again be your own soul, its, perhaps, still very weak voice. And the key question will still be “Do you really want this?” Finding her objections or at least doubts, you should analyze your own motivation, the reasons that push you to this decision. So gradually learn to detect protruding ears of manipulators. And when you see your opponent in person, it is already easier to fight with him.

Another type of personal lack of freedom - protest behavior, characteristic of false outcasts, is more difficult to eradicate, since it is based on some neurotic problems. The main one is the need for the general attention of the crowd to oneself, which can already be qualified as a desire for fame. Scandalous fame is also fame, which gives certain gains in the crowd. Therefore, a lover of shocking the public, absorbing its attention like an emotional drug, must first deal with his internal conflict. The choice will mainly be between the need for fame and the desire for personal freedom. Together, these psychological characteristics in the soul will not get along.

And, finally, on your way to personal freedom, it is important not to overshoot the limit of reason. It is one thing to be free from the psychological influence of other people, and quite another to take into account their possible reaction or opposition to your behavior. This is already an objective factor, independence from which is achieved only by the life of a hermit. If you live among people, then you most likely cannot be physically independent from them. Try to walk the streets wherever you like - you will quickly fall under the wheels of a car or go broke on fines.

Search for an alternative behavioral strategy. Downshifting

The idea of success is one of the key ideas in modern developed societies. The desire for success, the achievement of certain goals and benefits underlies the culture of consumption. Western mass culture, associated with the market economy, the proclamation of personal and civil liberties, as well as the desire for “achievement” and consumption, has formed its own image of a successful person. The concept of "success" has become one of the basic ones, reflecting the main values of this type of culture - social status, possession of material goods, access to information, etc.

The system of large corporations, which forms their own codes of prescribed behavior and the rhythm of life, has received active development in the West. In the 1990s the main features of corporate ethics and culture are formed. Requiring the employee to be maximally involved in work, to identify his own aspirations with the interests of the company, to live in a tough rhythm of constant competition, work in a corporation claims a dominant role in the hierarchy of values of its employee. With obvious important advantages: a high stable salary, career growth (and with it growth not only in income, but also in status), a social package and other attributes of a stable life, the corporate model of success has a number of strong side effects. The main one is the lack of time to communicate with loved ones, to realize their own creative potential in areas other than professional. If for some reason the work becomes monotonous, too overloaded with responsibility and stress, the benefits of a high income no longer seem so significant in comparison with the feeling of being driven away, losing important components of one's own identity. This feeling accumulates gradually and can lead to a deep personal crisis. It may coincide with a midlife crisis (or other age-related crisis), which only exacerbates its severity. The model of success that seemed “correct” and the only possible one no longer brings satisfaction to the individual. This means that the a priori desired "happiness" is not achieved - a cultural concept, in this case closely related to the concept of "success". Hence, there is a need to search for alternative strategies of behavior and value priorities that can provide the individual with a sense of self as a successful and at the same time happy person (the significance of “success” remains unshakable, not its expediency, but its semantic content is called into question).

The concept of downshifting. This is how the phenomenon of downshifting is born. It is named after automotive terminology (slow down, slow down, downshift) and is understood as the opposite of the desire to climb higher and higher up the career ladder. There is a contradiction in the designation "downshifting". On the one hand, we are talking about lowering the level: the metaphorical semantics of referring to the bottom characterizes this phenomenon as negative, “lower” means worse, since the downward orientation corresponds to a negative linguistic connotation. On the other hand, downshifting is perceived as a drop in speed, i.e. choosing a more cautious, conscious and thoughtful movement. Thus, a positive characteristic is also assigned to the decrease. The contradiction in the meaning of the phenomenon shows contradictions in its assessment and interpretation by society, its various groups.

Downshifting (from the English. Downshifting) - the transition from a highly paid, but associated with excessive stress, workloads and taking up all your free time work to a more relaxed, albeit low-paid compared to the previous one. Successful managers give up their stressful and time-consuming work for a quiet and leisurely life somewhere in the backwoods of the countryside with their families. The true meaning of downshifting is a return to yourself, to your desires and dreams. Downshifting is both a social phenomenon and an individual one. The main external sign of downshifting is a voluntary renunciation of a career, of endless consumption, of demonstrating one's high status, level and lifestyle imposed by society.

Contrasting a career with other more interesting things has been outlined for a long time: the acceptability of the "price" for success, wealth, luxury has been questioned since biblical times. Modern Western ideologists of downshifting often formulate the task not as "abandoning a career", but as "a way to live easier, happier and in harmony with the environment."

Downshifters began to call themselves people who have achieved some success in their careers, but at some point decided to “quit the game”, refusing a successful but stressful job in favor of a less prestigious, but more relaxed, one that allows them to realize their own dreams. At the same time, they consciously went for a possible lowering of their status and income, setting other life priorities for themselves. Downshifters are not adventurers, they simply abandoned other people's goals and desires, they ceased to be cogs in the system.

The phenomenon began to spread rapidly in different countries and among different social strata. Interest in downshifting is growing rapidly and steadily both among supporters of this movement and in the mass media, among marketers looking for new markets for products, recruiters who are faced with unusual behavior of employees who have achieved some success in career growth. If in the early 2000s the first articles and discussions about downshifting began to appear mainly in specialized business publications, today the topic has moved from the category of special to the level of popular. The entertaining glossy press writes about downshifting, the image of a downshifter becomes popular in works of art.

Today it is already legitimate to talk about a special community of downshifters, whose members share common values and form the basic principles of behavior. In this regard, we can talk about the sociological aspect of the problem: how is this community built and reproduced, what are its prospects for downshifters themselves and other groups, how strong is the influence of this community in society and what are the channels of such influence.

Downshifters are often women who prefer to be housewives not in the office, but at home. They move to a low-paid job, actualizing the previously discarded model of role relations in the family "hostess and mother - breadwinner and protector." When both spouses decide to pay more attention to each other and children, the only way out is to lower the standard of living of the family.

The desire to save a family and raise healthy offspring is one of the most common reasons for downshifting. But not the only one. It is no less rare to hear about how people gave up career prospects not for the sake of relatives, but for themselves.

Moving to the provinces is one of the most popular downshifting strategies in those places where the standard of living in the country does not fall below some acceptable level for a modern person.

Dunshifting is most widespread in England, France, North America and Australia.

According to the British Bureau of Marketing Research in 2003, 25% of the UK population aged 30-59 identify themselves as downshifters. The key question of the questionnaire was the following: have the respondents made such voluntary changes in their lifestyle over the past ten years that have led to long-term consequences, including a decrease in earnings, but an increase in free time for recreation. Such a figure does not mean that a quarter of the inhabitants of the UK are downshifters, however, the rather active desire of respondents to emphasize their need for lifestyle changes, even if they entail a decrease in social status, indicates the urgency of the problem for the population.

From 2002 to 2005, the Australian Institute conducted a series of studies on changes in the structure of employment and values of Australians. According to 2003 data, 23% of Australians aged 30 to 59 consciously decided to reduce their earnings and came to the idea of the need for downshifting in their lives. The authors of the study emphasize that the idea of reducing the rate of employment is often dictated by the realization that an individual is not able to provide for all his needs, no matter how much he earns. The reason for the change in priorities can also be a change in value attitudes caused by disappointment in the ideals dictated by the culture of consumption. According to 2005 data, more than 62% of the Australian population believe that no matter how hard they work, they will not be able to earn enough money to meet all their needs. The figures, as we see, are quite large, but they speak not so much about downshifting as about a wider range of phenomena associated with the development of modern societies and consumer culture, their differentiation and complication.

The researchers point out that over the two years (2003–2005) interest in downshifting in Australia has increased markedly, both from people seeking to change their lives and from the media, seeking to fix the phenomenon and calling it the trend of the year8. Demand generates supply, so already in 2004 firms began to appear in the country, which, for big money (according to the authors, more than $ 5,000) are ready to help organize a downshifting plan.

In Australia, as in other countries, downshifters come together to help each other achieve new goals. Their common goal is to convert one in two Australians by 2015. This will not be easy, because often such people are not understood by others. Even relatives suspect them of selfishness rather than a desire to devote more time to others. What about employers? Is it possible to expect that they will entrust a serious matter to a person who is so preoccupied with his inner world?

Although the idea of downshifting involves the search for one's own life path and the individualization of choice, people who call themselves downshifters often do not seek isolation and exclusion from public discussions. They need to consolidate around a common idea, an authoritative person whose manifesto they are ready to follow and whose values they share. Therefore, whole communities of downshifters are being formed, Internet portals and forums are being created where people can exchange experiences, be inspired to change their own lives or encourage those who are just thinking about the advisability of making changes to their own way of life. Usually in such a community there is a group leader whose path is considered a model, recommendations are a guide to action, and an Internet page is a center for exchange of opinions.

For example, in the UK, one of the largest Internet communities in terms of number (attendance to the pages of the site http://www.thedownshifter.co.uk is about 100,000 views) is headed by Richard Cannon. The former top manager of British Rail, after leaving the company, he created his own website, on the pages of which there are texts “for” and “against” the idea of changing life, the story of happy transformations in the life of the author is told. Cannon made his downshifting in 2000. His story is as follows: all his life he worked very hard, earned good money, was a respected person, a decent family man, the father of three children. True, due to the very intense work, Cannon did not have time to communicate with his family at all. By the age of 50, he began to have health problems, and then there was a car accident in which one of his daughters died. The most severe life crisis led to a revision of life priorities, it became clear that work no longer brings satisfaction, that the most precious thing is the family, and it remains without proper attention and care. Then Cannon began to plan his downshifting. He writes that he planned it in advance, like an escape. First of all, a vegetable garden was planted in the garden, then chickens were brought in. Cannon took a leave of absence, received additional benefits, but did not return to work. Today he does not work five days a week, but lives on temporary earnings, writing articles and not very responsible and serious work in a cricket club, of which he has long been a fan. Cannon no longer has the earnings he used to have. And although he says that the “new” life turned out to be harder than expected, he is absolutely happy, as he can spend most of his time with his family, communicate with his grandchildren and do what he loves. Such a story can be considered one of the examples of a downshifting scenario.

In France, Tracey Smith can be considered such a leader and authority. Her story is similar in many ways to that of Richard Cannon. Leaving a very successful career that did not allow her to spend time with her family, Tracy moved with her husband and children to a small village in the south-west of France, where she began a new life, which she herself characterizes as “simple green living” (a simple life in nature). Over time, when the Tracy family realized that they managed to cope with the initial difficulties of a not so simple life in unusual, not as comfortable as before, conditions and with less money, Tracy decided to generalize her experience and help those who just decided to start a new one. a life. She created a downshifting manifesto, developed a whole step-by-step system on how to find balance in life, wrote a book of advice, and created several films about the strategy of "green" downshifting. In 2005 France hosted the first national downshifting week, founded by Tracey Smith. Today, downshifting weeks have acquired international status. Tracey Smith has become one of the recognized world authorities in the field of downshifting. Acquaintance with the official website of the international downshifting weeks http://www.downshiftingweek.com Tracey Smith provides a wealth of material for interpretation and reflection.

Let's take a closer look at the test survey given on the home page of the site, it can clarify the basic ideas about downshifting laid down by the ideologists of the movement. Here are the proposed positions (it was required to choose one answer):

1. What is your main motivation for doing a "little downshift"?
A) Considerations concerning one's own health.
b) Spend more time with family and loved ones.
C) I realized that there is more to life than chasing money.
D) I want a better job and a more balanced life.
E) I would like to find time for a social life (volunteer in my community).

2. What do you most aspire to? What do you like most about your downshifting?
A) Find time to cook, using more fresh ingredients.
B) Grow something edible and eat the fruits of your own garden.
C) Just enjoy a life that is less stressful.
D) Do not respond to the alarm.
E) Have time to develop your own creative ideas.
F) Reconnect with people who have not been able to see for a long time.
G) None of the above.

3. What comments have you received from others about your downshifting?
a) You are crazy.
B) They thought it was a fad (whim).
C) They could not understand why I wanted to move away from the 9-5 model (meaning a five-day work week with an eight-hour work day and an hour for travel).
D) This is not normal behavior.
E) They wish they had the courage to try it themselves.
E) None of the above.

4. What age group do you belong to?
A) up to 29 years old.
B) 30–39 years old.
C) 40–49 years old.
D) 50–59 years old.
D) 60–69 years old.
E) 70 or more.

5. Where are you from? ("Where are you in the world?")
A) the United Kingdom (UK).
B) Another European country.
B) Africa.
D) America (in the original - plural
number).
D) Asia. Pacific region.
E) the Middle East.
G) South Asia.

What do the proposed questions give for constructing the image of the community under study? The first question, concerning motivations, already contains a clause designed to encourage and strengthen the respondent on the path to acquiring a new ideology. "What's your primary motivator for doing a little downshifting"?", i.e. in order to feel like a downshifter, it is not necessary to drop everything and leave for a remote village. It is enough to feel the need for change and make at least some progress in this direction It is this kind of downshifter, not yet "hardened" downshifter, only slightly slowing down (often a metaphor for automotive topics), that may be most receptive to advice and discussions conducted by the community.

It is noteworthy that the “hints” to the questions clearly emphasize the negative characteristics of the outside world, in which it is necessary to “chase” money, where people do not have the opportunity to spend time with family and loved ones, lose contact with friends, and cannot develop their creative quality and do not have time to enjoy life. Moreover, such a flawed position is the norm for “ordinary people” (non-downshifters). They react with marked aggressiveness (“you're crazy”, “this is just a whim”, “this is not normal”) to a person's attempts to stop and try to get out of the vicious circle of races for income, status and prestige. Thus, a distinction is made between "ordinary people" (negative characteristics) and "new elected" - those who have already decided or at least thought about the advisability of downshifting as the only true way to find harmony and personal success. This mechanism of constructing one's own positive identity and delimiting the groups "us" - "strangers", "we" - "others" is typical for the organization of subcultural groups.

The second significant point: in the answers about the motivations that prompted downshifting, there is a point about the desire to set aside time for public service. This point is very characteristic of the Western model of downshifting, which masters the values accepted in society. In D. Drake's book Downshifting, volunteer participation in various social and religious communities is also given a considerable place. This value is on a par with family and friends (i.e. the field of privacy). It is interesting to see how these attitudes can (and can they?) take root in Russia, where belonging to public associations for the majority of the population is not typical and often
inferior to the importance of the family, the circle of loved ones.

The third characteristic feature of this survey is its focus on the formation of environmental consciousness. The environmental component is important for the Western understanding of downshifting as the desire for a "simple life" (the ideal of simple life). This phenomenon is reminiscent of the search for a new naturalness in the Enlightenment, but the specificity of modernity sets a different understanding of what is considered “natural” and desirable. First of all, this is the desire to reduce stress (an invariable component of the construction “life is a race”), gaining an independent schedule (not responding to an alarm clock), and consuming environmentally friendly products. The ecological worldview has been actively developing in Western culture in recent decades, gradually reaching a leading position.

The final question about the place of residence is “Where are you in the world?” - formulated in such a way that when reading, the respondent thinks about what place he belongs to, what role is assigned, etc. Thus, here an attempt is made to call a person to a frank conversation, to set him up in a philosophical way. In general, the test questions are designed to help the organizers of the downshift weeks to learn more about the participants in the process, to understand their motivations and aspirations. But since the test questions have ready-made answers, it is important for the initiators of the survey, apparently, not so much to receive new information about the life circumstances that prompted a person to downshift and search for like-minded people (the very fact of searching on a topic on the Internet speaks of the need to find a group with similar interests), how much confirmation of already existing attitudes and assessments that allow you to construct your own image of a downshifter, downshifting and society. Such models are intended to become a starting point in the ideas of a person who wants to join this cultural group. The answer option “None of the above” leaves some room for maneuver and alternative scenarios, but implies a certain marginality.

Cultural legitimation of downshifting. Speaking about the phenomenon of downshifting, one cannot fail to mention two people who have had a significant impact on understanding this phenomenon. These are Americans John Drake and Daniel Pink. The first is the author of Downshifting, which is a detailed guide to action, replete with examples and aimed at a wide audience of potential followers. The second is known for the book “A Nation of Free Agents. How New Independent Workers Are Changing America's Life. The work of Daniel Pink combines into a holistic semantic field several important trends in the development of modern business relations - the desire for greater freedom of action and movement on the part of the employee, awareness of the value of one's own private life as higher than corporate values, the desire for creative realization. Pink talks about the tendency to increase the distance between the employer and the contractor (mobile office, work from home, contract-fee projects that do not require constant direct contact between all participants in the workflow).

One of the basic categories of the idea of free agents is freelancing (from the English freelance - free earnings). The idea of freelancing is close and in a certain sense coincides with the idea of downshifting. Downshifting with freelancing brings together the desire for more freedom
planning personal time, the ability to work remotely outside the office with a choice of convenient time and workload intensity. But at the same time, working as a freelancer does not always mean a significant increase in free time. A person may not free up time for communication with family and friends and his own creative realization, as he will be forced to spend the whole day instead of the office at the computer in the house, Internet cafe or any other place. In addition, there are other possible models in downshifting, so freelancing and downshifting cannot be completely identified. Due to the great commonality of values, attitudes, stable scenarios of behavior (the model of relations "customer-executor", the fee basis for the implementation of private orders, etc.), many of the provisions put forward by.D. A kick when talking about free agents can be applied to the study of downshifting. Thus, it can be assumed that with the spread of the idea of downshifting, there are changes in the normative models of the organization of corporate culture, both internal in the company (to prevent the radical departure of a valuable employee “to free bread”) and its relations with the outside world. In the “customer – free performer” pair, the customer no longer perceives a loner who independently builds his own employment schedule as a business outsider and loser. A regulatory definition has been developed for the “free agent” strategy, which means that he is already, as it were, legitimized in his desire to work freely, being not associated with a permanent employer by a long-term contract.

The same legitimation mechanism occurs with the introduction of the word “downshifter” into the active business lexicon. Initially, it was necessary to identify the marginal environment of people behaving inappropriately, in terms of the dominant ideology of success, career growth and the desire to achieve certain material benefits, lifestyle as status markers. The word that appeared does not contain a radical sentence for a new phenomenon (it is not a “loser”), it does not have direct correlations with the negative definitions of a person as a loser who has not reached the top and has broken down on the way. However, the designations "downshifter", "downshifting", as already mentioned, still contain a dual assessment, including a certain indication of the orientation
down, slip.

Basic strategies. Two main groups of downshifting strategies can be distinguished - “easy downshifting”, which does not require a complete break with the usual way of life and environment, allowing even if necessary to restore the abandoned position, and conditionally called “deep downshifting”, which provides for radical changes in lifestyle, place of residence , occupation.

Joining the community of downshifters occurs according to different scenarios, which can be divided into the following groups:

involving a change of place of residence (for example, moving from a city to a village, living in Goa or Bali);
change of occupation (for example, leaving the career of an accountant and becoming a diving coach, doing what you love);
changing the time spent on work, increasing freedom in decision-making (the ideology of freelancing or creating your own business);
“escape planning” suggests that the person has not yet decided to make changes, but has already felt the need for them in his life and the need to join the group of downshifters in order to get approval for his own life choice.

On the way to optimal energy

Optimal energy is the ability for mental and personal development, self-realization and self-improvement without the occurrence of mental disorders.

If mental development is understood as a natural process of development of higher mental functions as socialization, the result of which is normal adaptation to society, then personal development is understood as the process of development of individuality (individualization), the result of which is adequate adaptation to one's self. Socialization is understood as a process of assimilation and active reproduction by the individual of social experience, carried out in communication and activity. Individualization is the process of a person's search for spiritual harmony, integration, integrity, meaningfulness. In the process of individualization, a person himself creates his own qualities, realizes his own uniqueness as a value and does not allow others to destroy it. Individualization is defined as the process of forming a unique and unrepeatable Self, the acquisition by an individual of ever greater independence, autonomy.

These two processes - socialization and individualization - begin from birth and, normally, balance, complement each other due to their different vector of direction. Socialization is “movement towards WE”, individualization is “movement towards I”. The predominant development of one of them leads to the weakening of the other. Extreme variants of such development can be, for example, conformism (excessive socialization) and negativism (excessive individualization).

What can act as indicators, criteria for the identified levels of development? If we talk about the norm of mental development, then there are no special problems. The question of the criteria for the norm of mental development has been considered quite fully both in domestic and foreign psychology. There are periodizations of mental development, the content of which includes a description of the norm of this development at each age stage. Much more difficulties arise in determining the criteria for the norm of personal development, since the very concept of "personality" implies the properties of individuality, originality, which often do not fit into the framework of existing norms. The combination of such terms as "personality" or "individuality" and "norm" and "average value" is a combination of two terms that are essentially completely inconsistent with each other. The word "personality" precisely emphasizes individuality and is opposite to the scheme, norm, middle.

In this case, it is necessary to refer to such criteria that could characterize mental health from the position of the person himself. One of these concepts is the concept of self-identity, which acts for each person in the form of a question to himself “Who am I?” and describing his inner world.

The concept of self-identity refers to concepts that consider mental reality as a holistic, dynamic entity. By self-identity, we mean the process of a person experiencing his Self as belonging to him. Self-identity acts as one of the manifestations of the content of psychic reality, it makes it possible to single out one's own Self, its non-identity with the Other.

Self-identity is a continuous, changing stream of experiences by a person of his identity. This is a dynamic, holistic formation, which is normally in the process of constant refinement, building an image of one's Self, inscribed in the context of the external environment - the world and other people and is a systemic procedural unity. Its function is the process of clarifying, correcting and self-building the image of one's self, other people and the world as a whole. The result of this process is a self-concept defined for a given moment, embedded in the concept of the Other and the concept of Life, which are the structural components of the “self-identity” system. Consequently, self-identity as a dynamic property of a person can be considered as a structure and as a function, as a process and as a result. Structurality and integrity, dynamism and static nature - these are the dialectical properties of self-identity. Only the presence of these contradictory properties at the same time makes it possible to speak of the existence of a true self-identity.

Thus, mental development can be seen as a process and as a result. As a process - the development of higher mental functions. The procedural criterion is socialization. Socialization is a movement towards WE (I am like others, I am for others). As a result - adaptation to society. The ascertaining criterion is the level of adaptability.

Personal development can also be seen as a process and as an outcome. As a process - the development of subjectivity. The procedural criterion is individualization. Individualization is a movement towards the Self (I am like Me, I am for Me). As a result, adaptation to the Self. The ascertaining criterion is the level of self-identity.

Mental health can be represented by the following model:

Optimal energy is mental and personal health.

If we take the optimality of human energy as the basis, then all people can be classified as follows:

townsfolk
outcasts
warriors.

The townsfolk manage their life energy the least effectively. The outcasts are characterized by a more rational energy compared to the townsfolk. True, this happens due to the "falling out" of the marginalized from society. The most effective energy is in the warrior. In terms of socialization, the warrior is somewhere in the middle between the layman and the marginal.

The philistine, in essence, cannot be outside of society for a minute. Society is the natural environment of the inhabitant, to which he owes everything. The social status and well-being, which are so important for the layman, is given to him by society. Left alone, the inhabitant feels lost, useless. This makes him anxious about his fate. At the same time, society often places an unbearable burden on his shoulders in the form of hard work or excessive responsibility, which makes the layman lose his peace and bring himself to stress. It can be said that the inhabitant lives in eternal vanity. He has to keep a “hand on the pulse” all the time, constantly respond to numerous events taking place around him, and, of course, there are always a lot of such events. There is no need to talk about any efficient energy here.

The marginal, on the contrary, reduces his contacts with society to a minimum. This releases his powers. However, he is forced to spend free energy only on himself and on his loved ones, which does not allow him to fully realize himself. To compensate for their isolation from public life, marginalized people unite in informal societies, but this only partially helps them in satisfying their need for socialization. They do not want to return to a full-fledged society - after all, this is a return to what they left.

In general, the marginal is asocial element. At the same time, he can live quite happily, not at all be anxious and restless. It can be a completely self-sufficient person with his own set of values. But if he does not realize himself in society in any way, then his energy cannot be called optimal.

Thus, antisocial individuals cannot have optimal energy. To possess such energy, a person should not artificially limit his contacts with society. At the same time, his contacts should not go beyond reasonable limits.

A person can have minimal contacts with society, and at the same time his creativity can be in demand by society. Such a person can no longer be called marginal. Most likely, he will belong to the category of warriors. If his work is not in demand by society, then the person is probably a marginal.

The warrior has all kinds of needs from A. Maslow's pyramid, and not one of these needs is hypertrophied. The warrior self-actualizes, but does not resort to excessive socialization for this.

As you know, excessive socialization leads to rigidity of thinking, lack of flexibility and mobility of perception, dependence of health on stress and emotional outbursts, premature deterioration of health and early aging.

For a more detailed acquaintance with the characteristic features of a warrior, you should get acquainted with the methodology "Becoming a Warrior".

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