The era of virtues. After Soviet morality. Fishman L.G.

The structure of Russian society has long been described by the domestic social sciences using adapted Western theories and classifications. As a result, his current state was presented as a set of archaic phenomena, a continuous “deviation” from the social and political “norm”. Such descriptions answered exclusively to the question: what is not in this society? The study of L. Fishman is an attempt to abandon such a paradigm and describe tectonic shifts in collective morality that occurred in Russia in the late XX - early XXI centuries, from a more flexible position. The author puts forward the thesis that “evil” institutions and practices sometimes grow from quite noble norms and values, and people may not have enough experience and foresight to intervene in this process.

The reader finds out why the very internal logic of Soviet society condemned him to move to the point at which it ended up - a significant role in this was played by the specific socialist ethics of virtue and related collective practices.