Nonlinear effects of ‘normal traumas’ on human capital

Abstract

The article considers the complication of social and cultural traumas under the global-local complexity and the transition to the dominance of nonlinear development. One of the types of the contemporary complex traumas is the ‘normal trauma’ that manifests itself as ‘naturally’ occurring fluctuations, bifurcations, gaps, paradoxes and metamorphoses. The consequences of ‘normal traumas’ for the formation of human capital are ambivalent: on the one hand, they deform the existing values and norms, previously acquired important competences and skills, thereby, knowledge becomes unclaimed; on the other hand, they encourage the creation of new qualities of human capital, necessary for adaptation to complex, nonlinearly developing realities. The author focuses on the ‘normal traumas’ of human capital, which are caused by the processes of globalization, rationalization, digitalization and the post-covid-19 consequences. The author argues that ‘normal traumas’ can and should be managed to minimize and overcome their dysfunctional, dehumanizing effects in order to develop new creative and humane components of human capital. To achieve this goal, the author suggests applying the theoretical-methodological instruments of the humanistic digital turn, ‘rediscovery’ of the significance of substantive rationalities and national-local lifeworlds, and introduction of innovative approaches to the formation of human capital under the effects of global-local complexity and nonlinearity. The author makes a conclusion about the need for the national strategy for the formation of human capital and national-cultural answers to ‘normal traumas’, based on the features of the Russian culture.