Abstract
According to the theory of the link between democracy and society's need for educated citizens, the process of transmission of experiences is a basic activity for a society. The conditions of this transmission are the academic, institutional, and political freedom of that society's universities. This transmission takes the form of the communication model: a top-to-bottom form or a horizontal form. The form of transmission is a specific form of rationality expressed in a communicative action. To understand this rationality, it is necessary to analyze existing forms of communication in the context of the history of rationality itself. Today, the digitization of the higher education system has become a global trend, bringing with it new forms of communication. In the Republic of Kazakhstan, the “Industry 4.0” state program affirms that digital communication skills need to be implemented at all levels of social life. The chapter is devoted to the problem of which form of academic communication will be chosen and the consequences of this choice for the Kazakhstan in the future.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Rhizome: In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (from Ancient Greek rhízoma —“mass of roots,” from rhizóo —“cause to strike root”) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes ( Wikipedia 2019 ). Deleuze and Guattari used this term to create the concept of rhizome as an architonic model that could describe specific states and/or the specific understanding of the different areas where this concept is applied (society; culture; thought; literature; politics; etc.). Deleuze and Guattari (1987) , in A Thousand Plateaus , assert the difference between the rhizome and its opposite, the arborescent, which forms a model of domination and subordination like a tree with its root-pivot and its trunk.
Subject-Centered Rationality: Subject-centered rationality is a type of rationality related to subject-centered philosophy. From the Cartesian perspective, the subject is presented as a source of rationality, a ‘philosopher sovereign’ of his reason. It is a transcendent, autonomous and impersonal subject in search of absolute truth (the principle a priori ). The philosophy of the twentieth century—especially postmodernist philosophy—criticizes this notion of the uncommitted and unstructured subject’s not being involved in socio-historical processes. At the same time, it is the whole kind of rationality generated by the philosophy of the transcendent subject that is criticized.
Communicative Rationality: In keeping with Habermas’ difference between communicative and instrumental action, he distinguishes communicative rationality from instrumental rationality. The notion of instrumental rationality is borrowed, by Habermas, from Max Weber—who distinguished instrumental rationality from value rationality. Instrumental rationality is characterized by an emphasis on tools (instruments) to achieve set goals, but not on the rationality of the goals themselves. Unlike instrumental rationality, the consensus of actors is important for communicative rationality. Communication here is not a one-way presentation of information, but rather a way of interacting with people.
Golodomor (Holodomor): The Soviet famine of 1932–33 was a major famine that killed millions of people in the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Northern Caucasus, Volga Region and Kazakhstan, the South Urals, and West Siberia. The Holodomor in Ukraine and Kazakh famine of 1932–33 have been seen as genocide committed by Joseph Stalin's government. It has been estimated that between 2, 3.3, and 3.9 million Kazakh people (40% of all Kazakhs) died in Kazakhstan. ( Wikipedia, 2019 ).
Intelligentsia and Kazakh Intelligentsia: (Latin intelligentia, intellegentia —understanding, cognitive power, knowledge; from intelligens, intellegens —intelligent, knowledgeable, thinking, understanding). The word appeared in Russian language in the 1860s and was synonymous with the expressions “thinking man” and “thinking people.” It refers to a social group which includes people who are professionally engaged in mental work and have the necessary special education for such work (engineers, technicians, doctors, teachers, lawyers, scientists, and the arts). The history of the Kazakh intelligentsia is tragic. Administrative reform carried out by the government of Tsarist Russia in Kazakhstan since the middle of the 19 th century was accompanied by educational reform. This was due to the government’s need for autochthons (people who could read and write in the Russian language and who could serve a kind of link between the local, mostly uneducated, population and the administrative leadership). This gradually formed, thin social layer of highly educated steppe intelligentsia was almost destroyed during repressions in the first decades of Soviet power in Kazakhstan. Further formation of the Kazakh intelligentsia is connected with the history of the formation of the Kazakh university.
Kazakh Enlightenment: Influenced by democratic Russian thought in the 19 th century, the worldviews of prominent Kazakh educators such as Shoqan Walikhanov (1835–1865), Ybyrai (Ibrahim) Altynsarin (1841–1889), and Abai Kunanbayev (1845–1904) was formed. The Kazakh Enlightenment is inextricably linked to the history of Russian democratic thought.
Human-level development: The fourth most important dimension of Kazakhstan’s digitization program, “Human-level development,” proclaims: Evolution of the new competence and digital literacy of the population will become possible due to the innovations in education. (…) To create a digital society, it will be need to update the education system in accordance with the best world practices. Emphasis will be placed on the development of creative and critical thinking, as well as the use of modern educational technologies in the learning process. (ibid.)
Communicative Action: Habermas ( The Theory of Communicative Action , 1981) defines communicative action as being an interaction between at least two individuals that is ordered according to those norms which are accepted as being mandatory norms. Habermas’ communicative action is opposed to instrumental action. The area of instrumental action is one’s sphere of work. Instrumental action has success as its primary goal. In turn, communicative action is aimed at achieving mutual understanding by coordinating the efforts of the participants by communication.
Koulaks: Farmers who owned the land privately, during the policy of massive “collectivization” led by the Soviet power. The famine in Kazakhstan in the 1930s is part of a historical tragedy of several peoples together. The famine was caused by the common policy of the abolition of the koulaks and collectivization of lands and private proprieties.
Industry 4.0 and University 4.0: According to the objectives of the “Digital Kazakhstan” state program approved by the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 827 (December 12, 2017): Industry 4.0 is one of the drivers of digital transformation industry, is the concept of production, where additional value is provided by the integration of physical objects, processes and digital technologies, in which physical processes are monitored in real time, decentralized solutions are adopted, as well as the interaction of machines between themselves and people. ( Digital Kazakhstan 2017 )
Auyl: A traditional village, a traditional encampment, a nomadic settlement in the past, and (now) the sedentary peoples of Central Asia (Kazakhs; Turkmens; etc.).
Alash: The name “ Alash ” was given to the movement within the Constitutional Democratic Party in Russia, in the early 20th century (until 1917); the Alash party (1917–1920) in Kazakhstan; and the Alash Autonomy (1917–1920) (a White-Army-controlled state located in the territory of present-day Kazakhstan).