Mythological Consciousness as an Element of the Conceptual Space of Transformational Processes

This article continues the analysis begun in the previous article (VTE, 2026, No. 2) of the two-dimensional conceptual frameworks for the evolution of socioeconomic development in various countries. A framework was proposed that includes four «poles» symbolizing the varying strengths and weaknesses of both the state and social structures. Moreover, the fundamental processes of institutional system formation are recognized as the peculiarities of the consciousness of the actors involved in these processes. Accordingly, a previously unaccounted area emerges within the conceptual framework, symbolizing the strength of society in its pre-state or proto-state state. It is suggested that in this area, the specifics of the institutional system are fundamentally influenced by «mythological consciousness». Such features of this consciousness as its realistic, rather than mystical, nature, as well as its distinctive combination of concrete and abstract thinking, are highlighted. It is shown that philosophers, ethnographers, and anthropologists alike note that, in contrast to logical, scientific thinking, for which abstraction is the result of ascending from the concrete and synthesizing this process, adherents of mythological consciousness, despite their rational approach to concrete phenomena and solutions to concrete problems, do not elevate the results of this analysis to the level of «higher» abstraction. A rupture occurs between the concrete as "external" and the abstract as the ideal, semantic, and "internal" plane of understanding reality. The role of the symbol as a concrete, sensory image of an abstract concept is particularly emphasized. The importance of incorporating research related to the manifestations of mythological consciousness in a wide variety of communities into the conceptual space of socioeconomic change is noted, including the emergence in modern conditions of new mythologemes that underlie populist movements of various stripes.