By Alexander Perepechko

Published on November 27, 2015

The Kurginyan Matrix

Compared to earlier stages of Modernity, Late Modernity in the West is less “heroic.” Americans and Europeans do not want to go to war and fight. Together with small families and mammismo, changes in governmental regulations pertaining to illegal activities, illicit activities, and activities regulated by classified legal procedures partially explain this unheroic realism. What are these activities about? When did governmental regulations change for these activities? Why did these changes occur?

As a matter of fact, Modernity (and we live in Late Modernity), like any other epoch (except post-modernity), is about regulations. Regulations can be viewed in a variety of ways. We know that secular law is a key regulator in the epoch of Modernity. In the West, most of societal life is located within the domain of legal activities.

But this is not the only domain where societal life can be found in western societies. The elitologist from Russia Sergey Kurginyan (2007: 42-46, 52), l’enfant terrible of the methodological school of Georgy Shchedrovitsky, uses a normative matrix to define legitimate and other types of societal activities in the West. According to this matrix, there are 4 types of activities relating to legality: 1) legal activities; 2) illegal activities; 3) activities regulated by classified legal procedures; and 4) illicit activities authorized by powers. The first diagonal of this matrix is (legal activities) + (illegal activities) and the second diagonal is (activities regulated by classified legal procedures) + (illicit activities authorized by powers). Figure 13 depicts these two diagonals.
Continue reading Securitization of post-heroic America. From organized crime to low intensity conflict and from the liberal state to the “post-modern” state? (part 1) →