Philosopher Vakhtang Kebuladze: “All of the most important social and political products of human history are products of our common imagination.”
The Aspen Institute Kyiv continues a series of dialogues to discuss various aspects of the social contract. The Institute engages Ukrainian intellectuals and leaders from different spheres of our society. In addition, the Institute has prepared a collection of essays written by leading Ukrainian thinkers as part of the project.
On January 24, the Aspen Institute Kyiv held a public discussion, “Social Contract in Ukraine: Quo Vadis?”. The speakers explored both the philosophical aspect of the social contract and its practical and methodological issues.
The symbolic nature of the social contract concept
Vakhtang Kebuladze, Philosopher, Publicist, Translator, and Professor at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, said that before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he perceived the concept of a social contract as a metaphor.
“For me, this metaphor does not refer to specific events in human history but rather a certain long, sustainable process. Some fragments of this process can be seen in Locke and Hobbes’ texts. Or, as happened in the United States, where some fragments from Locke’s texts became the basis of the Constitution of the United States”.
But the philosopher clarifies that now all the processes in the country are happening faster, mainly because of the Maidan and the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion. There is a feeling that these are the moments in the development of humanity and European civilization when a social contract can be concluded.
“A social agreement can have three options: liberal, conservative, and one that tends to totalitarianism. And it is up to our society to choose which way is more acceptable to us”.
Public imagination in the formation of the social contract
About the normativity and relativity of the social contract, Vakhtang Kebuladze noted that the concept of social imagination is the most suitable for it:
“All the most important products of human history, social and political, are products of our common imagination. I support constructivism in historical knowledge and refer to “Imagined Communities” by Benedict Anderson. First, he discusses successful political nations, such as Western Europe and America, as products of the public imagination. Our common imagination can build fundamental constructs and real political entities. Our future depends on how our imagination works, both for Ukrainians and for all civilized humanity”.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Vakhtang Kebuladze has been actively engaged in volunteer activities. Therefore, in the context of the public imagination, the philosopher told about one of his trips to the de-occupied territories:
“When I was in Izyum after the de-occupation, I saw a mural with the words from the song “Imagine” by John Lennon. The wall was almost destroyed. I would describe the essence of this short mural with Lennon as a phrase: ‘Imagine a world without Russia.’ Can we imagine it today? If we try to imagine it and then implement the products of our imagination in our real actions, perhaps this is a certain solution”.
