Summer club 2022: part 2

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Wednesday morning of the Summer club started with reflections and studying of the intellectual history of Ukraine together with the philosopher, politologist, and writer Volodymyr Yermolenko. “Let’s think about the difference between the republic and the empire today. Res publica (lat) is a common business, community’s business, the form of government that unites people. The “top-down” policy characterizes the empire; it performs the will of a sole ruler, firm absolute. In contrast, the republic allows a return policy when free people unite into free communities, and communities unite into free states, and the states into free unities of countries. Today in the russian-Ukrainian war, we experience the fight of the planetary size – we possess, to a certain extent, the war between the idea of a republic and the idea of tyranny,” comments the writer.

Well, there were a lot of complex questions. Here are some of them. We invite you to think them over:

  • Can we talk about the duration of the Ukrainian political culture?
  • How can it be localized in the history of the fight between republic and empire?
  • What are the peculiarities of Ukrainian political culture in the context of European?
  • What is the tradition of anti-tyrannic and republican thinking in Europe, and how does the Ukrainian experience install into this tradition?
  • How can reflecting on the Ukrainian political culture help us reinterpret our classics: Skovoroda, Kotlyarevskiy, Shevchenko, Marco Vovchok, Kostomarov, Dragomanov, Lesia Ukrainka, Khvylyovy, and others?

Ukrainian businessman Valeriy Pekar introduced integral dynamics to participants – an effective model of the evolution of thinking, leadership, and governance, which describes the development of psycho-social systems of different sizes. “Human thinking is gradually developing from one balanced state to another. Every stage defines its way of world perception – the paradigm of thinking, which are neither good nor evil but push into good or evil deeds. Understanding the paradigm of thinking is the first step towards understanding who we are and what our limits and development stimulus are. By the way, there is no bigger injustice than an equal attitude to the not equals. That is why the human resources management instruments must be highly personalized, based on values and life aims of the employees,” says the public person.

In the evening, the assistant professor of the sociology department of National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” Mychailo Wynnyckyj, literary critic Tetiana Ogarkova, and the editor of The Ukrainians Bohdana Neborak discussed why medical specialists need culture and deepened into the context of being Ukrainian. They also advised participants on how to fill in the literature gaps. “Go to the presentations of books by Ukrainian writers, read Ukrainian literature, and rethink the contexts. Go to museums, exhibitions, and excursions to Ukrainian cities. Today everyone can open the Ukrainian context one way or another”, comments Tetiana Ogarkova.

The following day, the participants worked on the notion of ethics in medical decisions. Pavlo Khud, the vice dean of the social sciences department of Ukrainian Catholic University, asked complicated questions that sometimes had no solid answer. We also offer you these questions to think about:

  • Why do people act unethically and against the law?
  • Why and under what circumstances do we create evil?
  • What motivates us to create evil, and how do we explain it to ourselves?
  • What is evil?
  • Why can good people do evil deeds?

“Narrow views on the world and strong context can push good people to unethical decisions. Despite good intentions and strong values, a person can adapt to unethical practices under the relevant organizational context and eventually lose the ability to see their mistakes,” comments the priest.

Mychailo Wynnyckyj had an active dialogue with the participants about the notion of a “barrier” of war and dreams about Ukraine: “The Chinese hieroglyph for the word “crisis” look like this – 危机. This hieroglyph is combined of two signs: the one on the left means danger, and on the right – opportunity. For Chinese people, the crisis is the combination of danger and opportunity.”

Before the session with Pavlo Kovtonyuk, deputy minister of health care of Ukraine (2016-2019), co-founder of the Ukrainian Health care Center (UHC), participants had to read the extract from the document named “Social Insurance and Allied Services,” which also had an informal name of Beveridge report” and think about the vision of development and rebuild of Ukraine after the war. Beveridge’s plan became the basis for significant reforms in the British social sphere, defined further development of social systems worldwide, and brought into life the term “welfare state.”

“This document also influenced the creation of the National Health Service in Britain in 1948. The document was drafted by the special committee headed by the parliamentarian William Beverage in May-November 1942, right in the middle of World War II. I offer to look at the Beverage’s plan as an example of planning after war rebuild during the war itself and think about why we need our victory. What evils do we want to defeat? What we want to achieve and what we are ready to eliminate?” comments Pavlo.

We also made a reference list for you based on recommendations of the speakers of the event:

 

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