The sociological dimension of mental warfare

Abstract

This paper offers a sociological approach to the recently actualized problems of mental warfare. First, we will list the existing approaches that have determined the further direction of informational and mental confrontation, and then formulate a sociological dimension of mental warfare based on the classical positivist scientific view of society. Next, we consider the social structure, which is a significant cause of disorganization and destabilization of the community, deliberately provoked within the framework of mental warfare. We consider the social system as a system of legitimization of social roles and statuses, institutions and norms of behavior in accordance with values. Next, we analyze norms and values as social filters that correct the operation of the system and protect it from malicious signals. Next, we analyze the main functions of communication: informational, expressive and pragmatic, within the framework of information and psychological warfare, i.e. the tactical level of mental warfare. At the end we focused on the problem of adequate / inadequate understanding as a communicative skill operationalized in the concept of sociomental stratification by T.M.Dridze, which can be used as a basic methodology for studying critical thinking - the most important factor of mental protection.