The discursive level is the ultimate level of understanding and thinking—that is, that which we primarily associate with human nature. This becomes evident when we consider that we never deal with objects of the external world directly. The complexes of sensations that we identify as their objects become such thanks to the presence of meanings. The meanings themselves are canonized by a specific cultural community as ways of involving a comprehended fragment of social reality into public practice. In fact, these ways, as forms of life, determine the configuration of social being and the appearance of reality in which the world reveals itself to a person. There can be no "final" verification of the "adequacy" of meanings: the modern concept of "dog," implying a logical content related to zoology and science in general, can be considered preferable to a religious-mythological concept (like "Anubis") or a totemic one (dog as an ancestor) only from the standpoint of practical relevance. However, practice here does not act as a criterion of truth, but as a representative of a way of social life—a system of: 1) mainstream modes of interaction with the world, 2) organization of social space around these strategic practices, 3) their instruments, 4) the collectives of actors that take shape, and 5) social identities. Entering as "new players" into "old games," we assimilate previously established meanings, including axiomatic ones, that allow us to understand other participants and the entire process of activity. As a result, having assimilated certain unverifiable social assumptions ("our clan's ancestor was a dog," "the gods ordered the world," "nature is material"), then the knowledge accumulated by previous generations (that very universe of cultural meanings), as well as social identity and practical skills, we become retransmitters of the discourses that raised us. From this point of view, discursive reality is not merely the sphere of ideology but, rather, the sphere of struggle for Heideggerian destiny of being—including the being of specific communities.
Despite long and considerable efforts, the tendencies that are destroying Ukrainian society (and possibly Ukrainian independence)—the growth of corruption, depopulation, anomie—are only intensifying. This, at least in part, may be connected to the problem of discursive subjectivity: opposing various interpretations of current events, entering into confrontation with the Russian ideological discourse, Ukrainians often align themselves with Western versions of the discourse about Ukraine. Due to modern political and instrumental realities, they become dominant, including from the standpoint of national self-understanding and national subjectivity. At the same time, any external discourse, no matter how good it is, is a discourse generated and directed at the development of the community that produced it, which will always regard another community not as an end, but as a means. Ideologists and political technologists, directly or indirectly involved in shaping Ukrainian self-understanding, must answer, first and foremost to themselves, what their goal is: a polarized social space that predictably reacts to influences in the desired direction, or a full-fledged actor capable of independent thought and action.
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