The events of 2013 and 2014 — the Revolution of Dignity and the beginning of the war — became the starting point for a conversation about values and capabilities.

Yevhen Hlibovytsky, founder of the analytical center pro.mova, rightly noted that the dynamics of values are primarily influenced by upbringing; environment, practices, discussions, discourses, institutions, etc., are directly tools. Following this, and with a significant lead, are catastrophes: extremes that communities experience transform their values. In 2013, people who survived the 2012 crisis came to Maidan: many people simultaneously realized they needed a way out of the catastrophe and began to seek it by turning to cultural factors (as opposed to institutional factors, conditionally: Marx vs. Weber).

In harmony with the observations of Yevhen Hlibovytsky, a remark by Olga Balashova, co-founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art / MOCA NGO, was made: people who came to Maidan had reached the same level of awareness of the challenge, overcame the same challenge, and drew similar conclusions. This is the cycle of value actualization.

In one way or another, at different levels, each participant in the discussion referred to the events of late 2013 and naturally — to the democratic processes associated with them. Democratic communities are about a certain set of values, about values of self-actualization.

The name Ronald Inglehart in a conversation about values and democratic processes was mentioned (as expected) either in the first sentence of the moderator's introductory speech — philosopher and cultural manager Oleksandr Panasyuk. The Inglehart-Welzel cultural map of the world literally showed the divergence between societies that emphasize survival values and societies that adhere to self-expression values (and to what extent they adhere and emphasize them). Inglehart's diagram revealed how clear and dynamic the boundary between society-1 and society-2 is. And finally: Ukraine was also on that cultural map. Clearly, even before 2013, the category of 'value' was in circulation with us, but after the events of the Revolution of Dignity, it is considered more deeply, gradually taking its rightful place in public thought — one of the fundamental ones.

Olga Balashova considered values as something that cannot be canceled, something that motivates actions — in a certain historical, political, and social context and at a certain level of social interaction. Therefore, it was important for Balashova to emphasize: the natural and normal development of institutions is important for the dynamics of values. People trained to survive will survive if the living conditions require just that and only that. Contemporary art, for instance, is one of the tools for transforming values, it is where democratic processes are: contemporary art knows how to pose questions in such a way that they cannot be ignored.

There was no shortage of such questions in the experts' discussion on values, it should be noted.

Anton Martynov, founder of the publishing house 'Laboratory', speaking about the market of translated non-fiction in Ukraine, which is essentially the agenda of society (as it captures what concerns us now and what we need today), referred to the reflections of Scott Kaufman. His 'Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization' was published by 'Laboratory'. The well-known American cognitive scientist made a successful attempt to translate humanism from the field of values into the field of virtues and provided the idea of self-actualization with a solid scientific basis. Self-actualization, if we believe Kaufman, is the capability today.

Yevhen Hlibovytsky slightly lowered the degree of general optimism: how long will this capability last here and now? 'The question of values does not greatly affect who we are, but it greatly affects our capability. Who we are is largely determined by what historians call the theory of path dependence: we are where we came from, but the dynamics with which we change testify to our capability.'

Divided values do not ensure conflict-free existence. The divergence of values is not a question of the moment; the question is whether different values are compatible right here and right now. In Ukraine after 2013-14, such a question can no longer be ignored: the sudden entry into a situation of distrust (and this is not only about us but about the whole world) requires a review of values.

What Makes Us Capable Today: Values