Power and making of meaning, or political pragmasemantics

Political power abstract concept using leads to paradoxicality and inconsistency in the theoretical constructions of political science. Without power, individuals cannot form a community necessary to achieve the good of each of them, but at the same time, any power is a restriction, suppression of subjectivity. Therefore, political power presupposes the formation of a certain semantic picture of the world, which explains and justifies the orders implemented by that power. Such a dominant semantic picture of the world provides the basis for the legitimacy of power, the consolidation of society, and common identity. It is multi-layered and fluid; and its formation involves not only the political class, but also the humanities, the education system, and personal experience. This process can be represented by the pragmasemantic approach as a cascade of interfaces (contexts) of meaning formation, each of which is operationalized as a value-regulatory system (VRS). From this point of view, the political power appears as the main VRS, which, in order to justify its influence on the ordering of others, claims to have the dominant semantic picture of world. However, society development needs the constructive variability of the reality comprehension and needs the power organization formats, capable of generating and maintaining such variability. Thus, political theory also needs a transition from operating with general abstractions to the constructive understanding of the procedural and operational nature of politics as applied to specific societies, taking into account their current problems and historical experience. Nowadays, this topic acquires a non-trivial significance, when the formats of the VRS in management, business, science, education, art, and personal life are radically changing.

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