Keywords
liberty
values
transformation
politics
How to Cite
Abstract
The article analyzes the transformation of concepts like liberty, equality, and democracy depending on the political, historical, and socio-cultural context. The author proposes to trace the significant difference in understanding “universal” socio-political values by using the classical liberal theories of B. Constant and A. de Tocqueville compared to modern international political processes. The author uses comparative and historical analysis methods, and a cultural and axiological approach to studying the ideology and politics. The argument is that the ancient understanding of liberty was irrelevant for the society of the XIX century, just as B. Constant’s classical understanding of liberty no longer meets the changing socio-political needs of people living in the XXI century. It does not consider a fundamentally new sphere of human activity like freedom and privacy in the digital world. Recognizing the value of democracy, the author observes that today, A. de Tocqueville’s approach is more than adequate for understanding political processes. For example, the post-election information warfare in the United States in 2020 shows the relevance of the specific understanding of Tocqueville’s democracy as a profound process of total equality spread. The main conclusion is that the political values familiar to modern discourse often are interpreted inadequately to reality since scientific understanding is rigid and lags behind the rapid development of information technologies, globalization, and virtualization.
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