Pseudo-modern Romania

The study is devoted to the value profile of contemporary Romanian society. It supports the thesis of “Pseudo-modern Romania”, not so much in the sense of a society with artificial modernity, but rather a heterogeneous society, with traditional, modern and postmodern segments. “Pseudo-modernity” is identified especially in the hesitation between participation and non-participation to public interest activities. The Romanian space of values is structured among the strains of a technological modernization not supported by a cultural one, the postmodern tendencies adopted by contagion and the dilemma of participation to the socio-political life. Institutionally and technologically, the Romanian society went beyond the traditionalism phase and oscillates between modern and post-modern orientations. Traditionalism remains in the social value sphere. The aversion toward risk and the confidence in the explanatory power of religion, even moderated with a rejection attitude toward fatalism constitute such reflexes. The totalitarian communist state, having maximum control over the society’s life, ended up inhibiting values that support civic participation and maintaining the interest for politics at a moderate level. Moreover, it contributed to the adoption of strategies and values implying risk avoidance, under the circumstances of the arbitrary of an opaque and uncontrollable political decision. The tensions of the pseudo-modern society are translated in apparent paradoxical behaviors, as the appeal to the protective authority of the state associated with an avoidance of responsibilities towards it or the entrepreneurship without trust in people and institutions but centered round relations. The argumentation of this point of view is made through setting up and validation of some path models with latent variables, based on poll data.