Paradox man in Contemporary Russia

The purpose of this manuscript is to raise an unusual social problem - paradoxes of social consciousness and behavior. It is a result of a longer work dealing with paradoxes of consciousness and behavior as they have been massively displayed in USSR/Russia transition. Paradoxes always exist in the life of humankind. For the first time attention to them had been paid in the Ancient Greece, than in the Middle Ages and New History. Hence paradoxes of social consciousness are inherent not only to previous stages of historical development - science and social practice have been facing them in modern time. Paradoxes tend to increase and to affect most spheres of social life. Sociological approach to paradoxes permits to reveal their manifestations in real life, in process of realizing these or other kinds of activity, for paradoxically is inherent not only to process of cognition, but also to reality itself. But especially evident, sharp and outspoken this paradoxicality becomes for societies with an unstable development, those in a state of instability, amorphy, uncertainty with regard to vector of historical process. In these conditions paradoxes of consciousness and behavior become massive, universal, give rise to freakish combinations of good and evil, honor and intent, fidelity and treachery, reckless innovation and obstinate traditionalism. For the researchers of social and political life, social consciousness and behavior, for the students and for all people, studying contemporary Russia