Existential and Ethical Values in an Information Era

Values as an Existential Choice and Projects of the Future in the Present

In our research, values are considered as values being of fundamental importance for the individual being of a person and social processes and changes. In the context of individual existence, values act as the sphere of freedom and creative work of a person that helps to disclose human individuality in the search for the sense and the importance of being. In terms of the social and philosophical aspect, values are a form of human motivation to be active and creating a new and more perfect being in the context of the image ‘dues’. The concept ‘value’, traditionally referring to the ethical and aesthetic sphere, is considered to be a central and all-philosophical one in my research that is related directly both to ontology, epistemology, anthropology and social philosophy. Values integrate the nature world, communities, consciousness, feelings and activities owing to their subjective–objective nature and powerful and creative potential.

A value is unique in perception, experience by a subject and is charged with socially important significance and matter, it therefore represents the unity of single things and the universal and thereby a value originally does not exist without a valuating subject and an evaluation process itself. A value is a phenomenon of spiritual creativity, laying in the creation of significance and meanings of subjects which cause subjective feelings. However, such an approach does not stand for the reduction of a value to the appraisal. A value is a meaningfully-significant purpose of the existence while the appraisal is a phenomenon of individual’s attitude to subjects from the context of the revelation of positive or negative qualities and characteristics. If the appraisal is always subjective as it exists only as an attitude directed from a personality to an object, a value also can be considered as an objective phenomenon. It can estrange itself and exist apart like pieces of spiritual creative work (such as myths, beliefs, traditions, knowledge, ideals, etc.), but initially a value is always a value of a subject, absorbed into the natural and social reality and looking to the improvement of his existence.

In my opinion, the searches for the universal meaning of values should be related to the understanding of human beings’ incompleteness and their ability to personal identity and self-development. More or less all kinds of values are associated with the solution of the key problems of existence: mortality, solitude, the absurdity of mechanical vital activity and the striving to the immortalization or the consolidation of his presence in the objective life; filling it with meaning and sense, not given initially stands for as the united in the appraisement of the objective reality and the formation of person’s values. The desire for immortality or the achievement of a new quality of life in any form lies in the different values, showing, what the subject considers as missing and necessary for the strengthening of their objective reality and its improvement. In this regard, values are individual options of adjusting the substantial differences between the mortality of a body and the possession of consciousness. Thus, values of material and vital welfare (life, health, a family, children, safety, comfort, wealth, etc.) express the aspiration for physical perfection and the prolongation of corporal objective reality (both personal and in the descendants’ lives). Social and moral values (equality, respect, justice, peace, friendship, communication, etc.) express the striving for the strengthening the relations of an individual with the society, another person, which human beings multiply their objective reality in and through. Mystical and spiritual values prove the desire of spiritual immortality, if the subjectivity is even rejected in such a case. The vitally important values (love, creativity, freedom, spirituality, knowledge, etc.) reflect the aspiration to fill life with unique sense, allowing us realizing that a person can get new quality and mark the objective reality with creative work and thinking. In this connection values can be defined as subjective search for the overcoming of limitations of natural and social programme, obtaining the source, strengthening, multiplying, prolonging and improving individual objective reality, moving it on a new level of quality.

Values, being the base of a person’s world outlook, are able to influence the external world, have their own objective reality and become a response to the life challenge and the absurdity of the existence without appraisal, estranging from a subject like pieces of spiritual creative work. Thus, we meet the definition of a value as a dominant of the consciousness and the existent, directed at the achievement of the ideal objective reality, creatively influencing on the person’s inner development and visual environment through filling them by meaningfulness and sense. Joining a human being and the world with the ties of meaningfulness, values change both sides of this relationship in the line of proper things.

In such a way, the existential vision of values is expressed through the understanding of its essence as manifestation of the subjectivity and its role as the possibility of the reality ‘decoding’, filling the objective reality with sense and goals which have creative and transforming nature. From the position of existential axiology, values are considered as dominants of consciousness and existence, which creatively influence the internal development of a person and the surrounding world, filling them with significance and sense. The main direction of development of axiosphere of contemporaneity is the transition from the values of the real world to new virtuality values of the information society.

If values are a way for a human being to solve existential problems, first of all, mortality, solitude, irrationality, does e-culture contribute to solving these problems by new possibilities?

Existential Challenge under the Conditions of e-Culture

Information technologies has greatly influenced on the development of the specific culture—electronic, digital or a virtual one—within recent decades. It generates technologically and qualitatively new phenomena, involving more and more spheres, such as science, art, social interaction, education, mass media, commerce and the political system. E-culture cannot be assigned to material or spiritual culture as it has features of both of them. After the creation of ‘the second nature’—‘the world of things’ a human being in actual fact created ‘the third nature’—the world of virtual phenomena, that is a specific synthesis of the concise world and advanced information technologies. The study of e-culture became rapidly important for science and practice as the development of new possibilities and at the same time certain threats for existing forms and expressions of culture appeared. At the same time e-culture also generated new values that became a higher priority for human beings and determined human world view objectives.

The analysis of the specific character of e-culture should be started with the definition of this concept, as it is polysemantic and requires its content specification. E-culture or digital culture is first of all a new sphere of the human activity, associated with the creation of electronic copies of spiritual and material objects as well as the creative work of the virtual objects of science, communication and art (Ronchi, 2009). ‘Electronic’ means the representation in a digital form. E-culture was first mentioned at the end of the 1990s. According to the European tradition e-culture was originally understood as a form of cultural heritage preservation (Ronchi, 2009) and also as some opposition to e-commerce. Later the term was used for the notion of different objects having electronic or other digital form. Nowadays ‘e-culture’ is an interdisciplinary concept having connotations in philosophy, cultural studies, sociology, political science, economics and, of course, in the field of information technologies. Its subjects and creators are scientists, programmers, artists, representatives of mass media and average users of information systems, creating electronic forms of self-representation and self-manifestation in the global network, the internet, by the means of technological facilities. The most important characteristics of e-culture are transparency, globality and availability for every user; besides every subject can become both a user and a creator of its phenomena, being free enough in creative work and not having strict limitations.

In general e-culture represents cumulative results of creative activity and communication of people under the conditions of the information technology implementation, characterized with creating of free information space, a virtual form of expression, distant technology and content liberality.

Anyway the world of values is associated with the striving of individuals to stabilize and prolong their being in the material and spiritual dimensions. E-culture allows a human being to get a new form of being that is linked to information technologies and can be seen and felt. Human beings find in the virtual (online) space their ‘other’ being, thereby, at first sight contributing to the solving of the problem of extremity and limitation of their biosocial possibilities. Nowadays, human beings are not already ‘classical’ Homo Sapiens, but this is a greatly virtualized boisocioelectronic subject, being active both in the sphere of their physical nature and social practice, and as electronic and virtual subjects, having great technological super-possibilities (crossing space–time borders and overcoming of speeds) and being a part of the global internet community, having a demand for the virtual interaction with a nickname, electronic account, achievements and rating. The virtual alternative being of human beings of the e-culture favours the development of their character features and possibilities, and transforms and sublimates their real activity into a virtual one.

Human beings of e-culture spend most of their life in virtual space, where they work, play, get to know new people, intercommunicate, make love and even bury themselves. In this space personalities transform into virtual characters—an image, created by them to log onto the internet, where they live in an extremely dynamic sphere, requiring them to apply best efforts and to mobilize strengths and possibilities not used before. The sphere of the e-culture is a kind of ‘second’ life, prototype and continuation of the reality and ‘live culture’, where human beings of the pre-digital age searched for the solving of their existential problems: being, death, irrationality, ‘not free’ and solitude. Nowadays, a human being, living in some kind of ‘virtual samsara’ with a variety of images (avatars), regeneration of lives and deaths, is moving to the world of virtual simulacrum. Nowadays, we become witnesses of a phenomenon—virtual conciseness, when human beings do not feel themselves to be real—physically and existentially. Their mind and bodies have been ‘carried’ to the virtuality, the world that remains to be a construction of the consciousness and high technologies but progressively is devaluating the values of physically real being.

The existence of human beings, living in virtual space, has significant distinctions to the reality: human beings can live and die here many times, choose their presence on the Net or ignore it, specify the conditions of their being, imagine their own life story and purposes. In some specified sense the conditions of e-culture allow to us find ‘new solutions of the human existential problems’:

Freedom

The electronic form of the being offers individuals a new life world, simulated or chosen from a lot of versions by them, themselves. Human beings are free in such a world; they can be or not be (log onto or out of the Net at their own wishes), save or change themselves (their status, names or essence); accept or not accept the terms of one or another system (a game or a social networking site); communicate or be alone; follow rules and norms or violate them (Table 1).

In terms of existence, virtuality attracts human beings who feel a maximum freedom of action here and ‘infinite’ possibilities, which one cannot achieve in the world with natural, social and ethical restrictions. However, the online being is not real. Does it contribute to the solution of real meaningfully-vital problems in such a case or help a human being to abstract from them behind the illusion of the freedom of own online image in actual fact?

I assume that e-culture gives human beings not only illusions but also favours the finding of their own essence and the creation of their own world when they are not satisfied with real (offline) life ‘here and now’. Human beings still have individual decision-making processes under the conditions of this new being form as they can dive into new ‘Das man’, become the mass with specified qualities or a creator and find freedom to control information, time and space.

It should be noted, the conditions of e-culture (the existence of human beings ‘here and now’), where they find their essence, form also ‘new existential problems’, challenges, that they had to face for the first time (Table 1):

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

New Existential Problems and e-Culture

Existential Problems of a Person in the Digital Age	Description
Irrationality of relationship ‘virtual I and virtual “other” one’	In fact, this is a new problem definition of the relationship to the ‘other’ one, dealing with the communication virtualization, missing of the factor of emotional and personal perception, responsibility, honesty, etc. Under communication virtualization, the interaction with each its part turns into a game, quasi-reality, where individuals realize that, their partners can be ‘any one’, even an answering machine that makes honesty, frankness and trusting absurd.
‘Loss of the reality limits’	The issue, related to the double consciousness of a human being, living in two worlds. In this regard, the offline world becomes less important, but the online one, the value of which is growing, remains to be a simulacrum, depriving a human being of ‘ground’.
‘Virtual objectivization’	The frontier between individual and community phenomena under e-culture gets less clear. A human being is involved into the mass more and more and becomes a part of the global network mechanism, conducting the options as many other ones according to the standard developed by a moderator.
‘Freedom of online choice’	The integration with their online images, technologization of human beings, results in multi-alternative and pluralistic models of behaviour, the moral regulators of which are replaced with anarchy, ‘instructions’ or ‘game rules’; ethical choice is extremely hampered and transferred from the sphere of moral appraisal into the sphere of personal and moral self-evaluation in full.
‘Solitude on the Net’	The issue of loss of the interpersonal communication, dipping into the internet-space, where everybody exists alone with a machine; the alienation of human beings from traditional grounds: nature, family, school, friends, which play a less significant role, turning a person into a biosociovirtual ‘monad’.
‘Online not liberty’	Within information environment human beings find both new liberties and dependences. The main one (from e-culture) is the striving to be online all the time, the fear of reality and interpersonal communication and loss of interest in the life.

Source: Author.

Particularly, the urgent problem has turned out to be related to the development of new non-liberties of the information age. Within a given context the following examples can be given. Thus, the neurologist P. Whybrow compares computer dependence with drug dependence and notes that computers intensify the excitement and enhance depressions of users at the same time: ‘The computer is electronic cocaine for many people. Our brains are wired for finding immediate reward. With technology, novelty is the reward. You essentially become addicted to novelty’ Whybrow (2012).

The internet-dependence represents the development of human aspiration to be online, interaction with online partners and online game obsession, and, as consequence, the disregard to one’s own health, offline social relationships, reduction of cognitive and creative activities and intensification of reality perception forms when one perceives the information and does not process it. The serious risks involve the transferring of values into online world, social networking sites, hindering offline communication and the ability to solve life problems and enhancing destructive thinking and self-destructive behaviour. In China, South Korea and Taiwan the internet-dependence is recognized in medical science as a disease and internet overuse is considered as a nation-wide crisis. In these countries tens of millions people are considered to be Internet-dependent.

It should be noted, Internet-dependence is both a psychological and an existential issue, as it makes human beings feel themselves incomplete and ‘disabled’ offline. Gamers or active users of social networking sites can get the feeling of being full only when online, the reality is not important for them.

The perspectives of these changes can result in the further tendency when a person turns into any ‘superhuman’, existing in offline and online worlds, and loses the emotional and sensorial sphere, a demand for reflection and meaningful-life search. The existential problems and risks get new forms, breaking down the reality boundaries for human beings and degrading their uniqueness at the same time.

I and the Virtual ‘Other’ One: Issues of Transcendence

The overcoming of the solitude and the insulation of personal existence involve the human possibility of communication and transcendence to other one through love, friendship, empathy and sympathy. e-culture produces new possibilities for the communication of new global type and human interaction without boundaries which have never before existed. Online communication has united the milliards of people nowadays. According to some estimation over 2 milliards of people from every country and continent are online at the same time. Of course, this unity cannot be compared with real communication; however, it is impossible and even dangerous to ignore this fact. Neglecting of the role of online communication and online communities can result in the estrangement of parents from their children, facilitate the breaking off between online and offline relationships, contribute to the extension of crisis of human social identity. It should be pointed out that a large number of people consider the internet to be an important form of the communication and interaction. The survey of the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTSIOM) dated 21–22 July 2012 ‘Online Reality vs Offline Life’ demonstrates that the communication sphere has been moving from the reality into the virtuality (VTSIOM, 2012). The question ‘What internet resources do you regularly use?’ was answered as follows (Table 2):

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 2.

The Respondents’ Preferences of Choosing Information Resources

Internet Resources	Users, %
E-mail	76
E-books	37
Forums, blogs	61
Online games	47
Online-TV	36
Online publications	59
Social networking sites	85

Source: Author.

Although books, TV and games have not still lost their ‘reality’, the field of human interaction (e-mail, forums and social networking sites) has already moved to the sphere of e-culture.

On the one hand, the online interaction solves the issue of human solitude, brings human beings together with ‘other’ ones and allows advancing their communication experience. On the other hand, human beings remain lonely offline especially when online communication is interrupted or not available. Having lost the need for offline friendship and love and having these feelings only by means of simulation and their own fantasy, human beings turn to not having the most important social grounds that enhance an ‘existential vacuum’, a situation of ‘solitude in the Net’ and aspiration of ‘escape from reality’ up to escapism. In Japan such ‘escapees’ are called ‘Hikikomori’ or also ‘NEET’ (‘Not in Employment, Education or Training’). These are persons who are sure that the whole world represents a global conspiracy aiming to annihilate just them. Such persons became unsociable and escape from the reality in any ways, maintaining relations with people about them only online (Ishikawa, 2006). The development of the phenomenon ‘escape from the reality’ proves that new technological facilities do not favour the solution of the issue of interpersonal relations and can give it new forms.

The virtualization of the communication sphere and social interaction is probably an area of the highest risk under the information age that contributes to the changing of personal essence, the forms of experience transfer existing for millenniums, traditions and values.

The shift from the personal communication to the communication mediated by information technologies becomes a new condition of the development of modern human beings, who overcome age-related, psychological and physiological complexes within the communication on the one hand and can get new phobias and fears on the other hand. Thus, modern psychologists diagnosed nomophobia as a social fear of the direct interpersonal communication caused by the habit to use the computer-aided or cellular communication (King, Valença, Silva, Baczynski, Carvalho & Nardi, 2013).

The problem of the communication under e-culture also involves the issue of the trust in ‘other’ one, an online partner, that researchers are studying nowadays. Thus, D.R. Raban points out that modern forums show that people largely confide the information presented to them by unfamiliar people on forums (Raban, 2009).

According to the survey of VTSIOM mentioned above, ‘Online reality vs offline life’, carried out in Russia, over 73 per cent of the respondents still trust friends’ and familiar people’s pieces of advice more than the comments on internet-forums (47 per cent) and websites (48 per cent). At the same time, social networking sites are more reliable for 62 per cent of the respondents than unfamiliar people in the street (VTSIOM, 2012).

Interpersonal communication is replaced more with its online simulation, displacing the most important relationship spheres such as love and friendship. Modern researchers note that the number of network romantic relations has been increased, and virtual relations (called ‘the Second Life’) sometimes can improve the mental state of persons, helping them to solve their real problems (Gilbert, Murphy & Ávalos, 2011). The concept ‘friendship’ is undergoing certain changes under e-culture, dealing with the loss of stability, social and financial support, and responsibility (Amichai-Hamburger, Kingsbury & Schneider, 2012). The simulation of feelings in these spheres facilitates the loss of human existential grounds and changes moral and ethical milestones related to the understanding of ‘other’ one’s value.

In some specified sense, human beings live in two worlds, which they do not trust in full; offline communication remains important, although the value of the virtual ‘other’ one is developing, the interaction which has its rules. The logging onto the Net to ‘meet’ the ‘other’ one, and transcending under these conditions turns out to be insignificant, senseless, as these relationships involve the simulation of feelings, trusting, understanding, and participation in the ‘other’ one’s life.

Thus, human beings also face a moral choice in the virtual space. There are more possibilities and conditions to violate common morals and ethics of the behaviour there that means there are more temptations to do that. Human beings still remain to be ‘condemned to freedom’ online, that has new levels and forms there. It is greatly more difficult to keep on behaving morally under the ethical pluralism than under a strict control that means human beings have great possibilities and opportunities for their self-development and self-improvement nowadays.