Thematic tests in social science exam. Features of Western and Eastern Civilizations
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Chapter 1. Phenomenon of the East: history of study and contemporary problems
Interest in the East today is enormous and, apparently, will grow. This interest is comprehensive and all-encompassing: history and culture, society and the state, man and religion (gods and people), finally, the ancient foundations of the great civilizations of the East - all this is now in the center of attention as the inhabitants of the countries of the East themselves, striving for self-knowledge and self-identification, to the discovery of the fundamental foundations of one's own existence, and even more so of representatives of a different, Western, European tradition, whose general parameters are so different from those of the East. This kind of general interest is far from accidental: the end of the 20th century. with its gloomy apocalyptic clouds hanging over the planet, it encourages many to become seriously interested in both existential problems (which awakens active attention to mysticism, and here the indisputable priority is for the ancient cultures and religions of the East), and the search for roots, primary sources. In addition, much in modern world closely connected with the East - it is enough to recall the phenomenon of developing countries with their most acute economic, demographic and socio-cultural problems, the solutions to which have not yet been found. How and when these problems will be solved, what are the ways leading to their solution - all this worries and cannot but worry the world, the vast majority of whose population, growing both absolutely and relatively, lives precisely in developing countries, primarily in the countries of the East.
What is the East?
Europe and the East: two structures, two ways of development
History of the study of the East
The phenomenon of developing countries and the traditional East to
What is the East?
What is this - the East? The question is not as simple as it might seem at first glance. We are not talking about a geographical concept, but rather about a historical, cultural, sociopolitical, civilizational one... We are talking about a gigantic all-human wholeness, albeit in some ways very heterogeneous and contradictory, but still almost monolithically integral in its deepest basis - the very basis that , in fact, gave rise to the East-West dichotomy in its time. But how did this dichotomy come about, and what ultimately gave rise to it?
As you know, history begins in the East. The oldest centers of world civilization have their roots in the fertile valleys and foothills of the Middle East. It was here that the oldest social and political institutions arose and acquired stable forms, the totality of which determined the outlines of the earliest modifications of human society, and then the state. No wonder the ancient Romans, whose civilization was in many respects a subsidiary of the Middle East, respectfully said: “Ex Oriente lux” (“Light from the East”).
The Middle Eastern Mediterranean lands, which connect Africa with Eurasia by a narrow isthmus, for many hundreds of millennia were the natural crossroads bridge along which the oldest populations of hominids (prehumans), archanthropes and paleoanthropes moved, meeting and mixing with each other. The mixing of such populations and the resulting cross-breeding sharply accelerated the process of transformation of hominids, playing a significant role in the preparation of those favorable mutations that ultimately led to the emergence in this region of the world of a modern type of man - Homo sapiens. And although experts disagree on the question of whether the Middle Eastern zone of sapientation was the only one, there are good reasons to believe that it was here about forty millennia ago that the first sapient people appeared, whose migration to various regions of the ecumene with the displacement of the pre-sapient hominids that lived there and with crossbreeding with these latter served as the basis for the appearance in various regions of the globe of numerous racial types.
The first sapiens neoanthropes were mainly hunters and gatherers and moved after the animals that served them as food, the habitats of which changed depending on fluctuations in climate, from ice ages caused by geological cataclysms. At the same time, the Middle East-Mediterranean remained the most favorable zone for existence; it was here that the transition from the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) to the Neolithic began 10–12 millennia ago. The essence of the transition was reduced to the gradual settling of collectives of wandering hunters and gatherers in the forest-steppe regions of the Middle Eastern foothills (Palestine, Anatolia, Zagros, etc.) abundant in vegetation and game. The groups that settled here at first only hunted for small animals that lived in the mountains and collected wild plants, especially cereals. Later, they found a way to tame animals and domesticate some plants, which marked the beginning of cattle breeding and agriculture.
The transition from an appropriating economy (hunting, fishing, gathering) to a producing economy, that is, to regular food production, made at the turn of the Paleolithic and Neolithic, was called the Neolithic revolution in science (sometimes it is also called the agrarian revolution - a term less successful because of the impossibility avoid unnecessary coincidences and associations). This transition really played a truly revolutionary role in the history of mankind, so that in terms of the new opportunities and prospects that opened up for people, it can be put on a par with the industrial revolution of early European capitalism and modern scientific and technological revolution. Its essence is that a sedentary life with guaranteed food contributed to a sharp acceleration in the further development of production and culture, which, in turn, led to the flourishing of housing and economic construction, the production of diverse and high-quality stone tools (Neolithic tools), ceramic storage vessels and cooking, as well as the invention of spinning and weaving with the subsequent manufacture of various clothes. However, for history highest value have the consequences that the revolution in production was the cause of. Among them, attention should be paid to the two main and most important.
Firstly, the new conditions of a settled and food-sufficient life for farmers played an important role in a fundamental change in the entire way of life of a person who has acquired favorable opportunities for a guaranteed stable existence. An increase in the birth rate (an increase in the fertility of women) and the survival of children in the new conditions led to a sharp increase in the rate of population growth, due to which the process of migration and the spread of the achievements of the agricultural Neolithic noticeably intensified: the surplus population, sporadically settling outside their native village, quickly mastered new territories suitable for agriculture - first in the region of the fertile river valleys of the Middle East, then in other lands, including North Africa, the European Mediterranean, Iran and Central Asia, India and China. At the same time, the new subsidiary settlements, as a rule, retained the general stereotype of existence already developed by the early farmers, including the social-family and communal-clan organization, mythology, rituals, production skills and technology, etc. Of course, with time and depending on the circumstances in new habitats, all this underwent a certain transformation and was enriched with new elements of culture.
Secondly, the productive potential of the agricultural Neolithic turned out to be so significant that already in the early stages of the existence of agricultural communities - especially those that were located in the most fertile regions of the river valleys, in the optimal ecological conditions of the Middle East zone - there was an objective possibility of creating an excess product, due to which it was possible to support people exempted from food production, who performed various administrative functions. In other words, it was on the basis of the production possibilities that emerged as a result of the Neolithic revolution that the oldest centers of urban civilization eventually arose, with their characteristic supra-communal social structures and early forms of political administration.
So, the history of man, his producing economy, culture, as well as history in the full sense of the word, i.e. the history of human civilization - all this goes back to the Neolithic revolution that took place in the Middle East zone about 10 thousand years ago, not to mention about the fact that the sapiens man himself was formed in the same zone. This is truly Ex Oriente lux! It is worth adding to this that on the basis of the production capabilities of the agricultural Neolithic, the first proto-state structures known to science arose, the overwhelming majority of which, again, existed in the East, and not only in the Middle East.
It is important to note that before the era of antiquity, the same type of proto-state existed in Europe, in particular in Greece, starting from the Mycenaean period of its history. There is hardly any reason to doubt the Middle Eastern origins of the early European agricultural culture, as well as the parameters of its pre-antique statehood. Pre-antique Greece, which appears to the world most clearly from the pages of the Homeric epic, was characterized by approximately the same relations that existed in other early proto-states, in particular the eastern ones: communal ties dominated, there were petty rulers-leaders (Basileus, etc.), then how private property relations were still undeveloped. Another thing is the times of antiquity. Actually, it was from the appearance in the second third of the 1st millennium BC. e. ancient Greece and the East-West dichotomy originates, for it was from that time that the Greeks began to feel and fix very noticeable differences in their way of life from the way of life of the civilized peoples of the East neighboring them, not to mention the uncivilized “barbarians”. What were these differences?
So, Marx quite adequately assessed the features of the classical oriental structure. It is significant that he, being so indifferent to class analysis, never once used the concept of "class" in relation to the East, including the contemporary East. Where there is no private property, there is not and cannot be a place for classes and class antagonisms - this is how this silence can be understood. And this despite all that about private property and social antagonisms, say, in India, Marx wrote a lot and willingly. But if not a class, not private owners, then who?
“If not private landowners, but the state directly confronts the direct producers, as is observed in Asia, as landowner and at the same time sovereign, then rent and tax coincide, or rather, then there is no tax that would be different from this form of land rent. Under such circumstances, the relation of dependence can be politically and economically no more severe than that which characterizes the position of all subjects in relation to that state. The state here is the supreme owner of the land. Sovereignty here is landed property concentrated on a national scale. But in this case there is no private land ownership, although there is both private and communal ownership and use of land. In this lengthy quotation, the idea is most clearly expressed: the ruler who has risen above the eastern communities and the apparatus of power serving him, i.e. the state is not only a symbol of the collective, but also real power. Power based on the supreme property of the sovereign and the state.
Concluding this thought, it is worth once again focusing the reader's attention on the fact that, according to Marx's idea, in the absence of private property, the state comes to the fore as the supreme owner and supreme sovereign, i.e. as the highest absolute power over subjects. In this case, the state becomes a despotism, the ruler becomes an oriental despot, and the subjects find themselves in a state of total slavery (all slaves, everyone is a slave in the face of a superior). Such a state does not express the interests of the ruling class of owners, because there are neither owners nor classes. It stands above society, suppressing it with itself.
I recalled Marx's ideas about the "Asian" society and the corresponding mode of production, not only because for a number of decades I myself tried to oppose precisely this idea to the vulgar scheme of the Histmatian formations (to oppose Marx to the Historical Mathematics was the only way to avoid repeating the vulgarized Historian scheme). It is much more significant to note that Marx himself understood well what the traditional East was, and, moreover, he saw well that the alternative to private ownership in the history of human societies has always been a cruel despotic state. Why did he not take this conclusion into account when he designed a society of a bright future? In fairness, it must be recalled that the theory assumed the withering away of the state. But after all, the social revolution proceeded under the sign of the dictatorship of the proletariat - and what is this, if not a state, and what else? Maybe Marx counted on the mind of the advanced proletarians, who, using the lever of dictatorship, immediately dismantle it, because they realize what a fatal force this very state is in their hands? Alas, even if he thought so, he did not write about this anywhere. And he did not take into account the fact that the revolution he so desired and, accordingly, the dictatorship will be realized where there was still almost no capitalism and where, if only for this reason, there will be so many classes hostile to the advanced proletariat that in order to destroy them it will be necessary to maintain the dictatorship for a long time. For such a long time that it will have time to institutionalize and become the basis of the structure long before anyone will seriously talk about the withering away of the state, the army and other instruments of coercion and violence. In short, the situation is clear enough.
The realities of Marxist socialism and the history of the East
Marx died at the end of the nineteenth century. The revolution was done in a Marxist way at the beginning of the 20th century. What did those who committed it think about, how much did they follow Marx's recipes? It should be immediately noted that the revolutionary postulates of Marxism underlay Bolshevism, despite the fact that both Lenin and his teacher and predecessor in the revolutionary struggle in Russia, Plekhanov, were well aware of the ideas of the “Asiatic” mode of production. They knew and even tried them on for semi-Asian Russia. True, Plekhanov drew the logical conclusion from this comparison that Russia, being an Asian power, is fundamentally different from the ancient capitalist West and that it is not yet ready for a Marxist revolution. Lenin, as you know, believed that this unpreparedness did not matter, that Russia's backwardness would be eliminated with the help of the advanced West, and therefore it was important to start, and then we would see ... Leninism won, and the consequences of this are clearly visible to everyone today. However, this was not always the case.
For many decades, the ideology that zealously defended the absolute truth of Marxism and Leninism aimed to convince everyone that Marxism and the Bolshevik revolution had succeeded. Accordingly, the facts were distorted and the whole historical picture was distorted. The atrocities of the Gulag were presented as good deeds, failures were portrayed as successes, and the internal structural flaws of the new system were not only not seriously analyzed, but, on the contrary, were hidden from view in every possible way. Even to speak on this subject was considered an anti-people and jurisdictional affair, and even to investigate and even more so to publish a study meant maliciously slandering the system and promised the author many years of imprisonment, if not physical destruction.
It is not surprising, therefore, that objective analysis in the social sciences has been replaced by conscious distortion, illusory constructions, and utopian ideas. Passing off wishful thinking, illusions for reality has become in our country, in a sense, a profession, especially beneficial for those who were not ashamed of this profession, but, on the contrary, actively and skillfully succeeded in it. Actually, it was on this basis that historical materialism (historical materialism) flourished, the main ultimate goal of which was to convince everyone that we are victoriously and successfully moving towards a brighter future.
Historical scheme of historical mathematics is primitive. Based on Marx, this scheme formulated a five-term ladder of formations (primitiveness - slavery - feudalism - capitalism - socialism), which was proclaimed mandatory for the whole world and for all countries of the world, if only these countries existed long enough. In this scheme, as it is easy to see, there was no place for the East; moreover, it consciously and fundamentally rejected Marx's ideas about the "Asiatic" mode of production. An exceptional fact, if we keep in mind that every word of the great founder was worth its weight in gold and was quoted at every opportunity. Those who at one time, in the 1930s, tried to mention the "Asiatic" mode of production and apply the corresponding ideas of Marx to characterize what happened in the countries of the East in the 20th century, ended badly. This made it clear enough for everyone that Stalin did not approve of such searches.
Why Stalin did not approve of them is clear as daylight. After all, life itself made even the most zealous dogmatists understand: you never know what Marx thought about the East, it’s better not to remember this, because what Marx described is too similar to what is happening in the country of victorious socialism ... There was no Stalinist socialism in the society private property and the market, just as they did not exist in the traditional East, at least in Marx’s scheme (in fact, as will be discussed further, both private property and the market existed in the East, but they did not look like European private property, nor to the European market). There were no classes in Soviet society, just as there were none in "Asian" societies according to Marx. The place of the private owner and the ruling class in the society of victorious Marxist-Stalinist socialism was occupied by an all-powerful state with an unprecedented apparatus of violence, which was typical of Eastern despotisms. In a word, striking analogies were quite enough for Marx's ideas about the "Asiatic" mode of production to be, as it were, crossed out from the ideological norms of Marxism. Naturally, the historian faced the task of compensating for this liquidation and explaining the phenomenon of the East in a different way, not according to Marx. The istmat coped with this task with enviable ease.
The East in his scheme is an integral part of the world. Of course, the East is characterized by specificity - but who does not have it?! And does the specificity prevent the whole history of mankind from developing according to certain general laws discovered precisely by Marxism? If the whole world has been moving from primitive times to slavery, then to feudalism, then to capitalism and now to socialism for long millennia, then how can the East be left aside? True, some of the countries of the East sometimes lagged behind in their development. But that's not a problem. The experience of Russia has shown that it is possible to skip over the missed stages in development. And if so, then the modern backward states can do this, if there is a desire ...
Indeed, the practice of the historical process of the XX century. testifies that some of the countries of the East, mostly the most backward and poor, tried with the help of the USSR to overcome the backlog and reach modern frontiers, relying on the recipes of Marxist socialism. What this led to is now well known. But the fact itself is interesting: the developed countries, for the sake of which, in fact, the theory of Marxist socialism was created, did not accept it, but the underdeveloped ones were ready for it. Moreover, the more backward their internal structure was, the less European capitalism succeeded in transforming it in the 19th and 20th centuries. Why?
And here we return again to why the Historical Mathematician so vigorously rejected Marx's ideas about the "Asian" mode of production: structurally, the countries of the East in question are the closest to the bright socialist future glorified by Marx. There is almost no place for private property and the free market, there are no antagonistic classes, but there is an all-powerful state (the equivalent of the dictatorship of the proletariat), ready to direct the development of the country along the path that those in power consider good for it by means of unceremonious violence. That is, in the foreground - power and the violence it gives rise to, quite related and structurally close to power and violence in the country of victorious socialism. The countries of victorious socialism in this sense are only a modification of the traditional Eastern structure. Of course, modernization and technological progress, industrialization and urbanization have greatly changed the face of these countries, primarily Russia. The illusion arose that by maintaining its internal structure based on violence and the omnipotence of the state, one could almost get ahead of capitalism. But this illusion collapsed under the blows of a cruel crisis that exposed all the vices of the inhuman system. And again the question arose of the classical East-West dichotomy. It turned out that Marxist socialism according to the Soviet model is precisely the modification of the East, and not the overcome West.
Today, this fact has revealed to the limit the emptiness of historical literature, the falsity of its pseudoscientific schemes. However, what is visible to everyone today has long been quite familiar to many, especially in our country, which was affected almost more than all others. It is not surprising that after Stalin, at first timid, but over time, increasingly persistent searches for alternatives to the Histmatist scheme began to appear more and more often. Many of them were based on Marx's ideas about the "Asiatic" mode of production.
Domestic historiography of the East: the search for alternatives
Russian orientalists, although they represented before 1917 an impressive and respected group of specialists in the world community, were relatively little interested in the history of the East and the problems of the historical process in the East. After 1917, the study of the East at first did not attract attention at all, to a large extent due to the fact that specialists gradually disappeared - the old ones died or emigrated, some simply stepped aside from their professional activities, unable to fit into the new era and meet the requirements of the revolutionaries, and the new ones practically didn't prepare. Later, in the late 1920s and 1930s, a new generation of specialists appeared, and most of them dealt with the modern East, or rather, with the problems of the revolutionary movement in the East, which strictly corresponded to the needs of that time. During the years of the great purges, a significant part of them - primarily those who were interested in the problems of the "Asian" mode of production, although by no means only they - were destroyed by the regime, and the rest were silent for a long time. Russian Oriental studies began to revive little by little only in the post-war years, in many of its areas practically anew, from scratch, having neither established scientific schools nor living respected teachers.
It is not surprising that the conditions of existence also determined the nature of post-war Oriental studies: for the most part, it was represented by people who were used to and knew how to keep their mouths shut and not express ideas that at least somewhat disagreed with the officially recognized ideology, including theoretical constructions. istmat. In practice, this meant that post-war Soviet oriental studies, in terms of comprehending the historical process and the peculiarities of the internal structure of the countries of the East, followed, with rare exceptions, the letter of the Historical schemes sanctioned by the ruling regime in the country. To evade such schemes meant to place oneself, as it were, outside the law, outside society. Therefore, those whose conscience did not allow them to put up with vulgar schemes went into such areas of science where they did not have to deal with schemes, at least at every step. Yet the situation was gradually changing. After the war, a new generation of scientists came to science, free from the deadly fear that forever took root in those who survived the great purges. Through the efforts of this new generation, domestic oriental studies began to develop anew, although in fairness it must be admitted that later those who came out from behind the barbed wire joined it, especially after the death of Stalin and the 20th Congress of the CPSU.
A new serious stage in the fundamental understanding of the problems of the East began around the 60s and, to a large extent, was again associated with the advancement of Marx's ideas about "Asiatic" society to the fore. The impetus for this was both an objective need to explain the phenomenon of the developing world, which had already declared itself and did not fit into the usual stereotypes (“colonialism is guilty of lagging behind the East”), especially after the decolonization of the East, and started by French Marxist Orientalists (M. Godelet, Zh Suret-Canal, J. Chenot and others) discussion on the problems of the "Asian" mode of production. The ideological thaw allowed domestic orientalists to get involved in discussions and express a number of extraordinary points of view, quite far from the Historical ideas sanctioned by the regime. However, the discussion did not get much development, because it was soon interrupted under pressure from the authorities. The time for revenge came, marked by the appearance of a number of works, the authors of which zealously sought to defend the Histmatian schemes, and this was done not so vulgarly as before, which gave the schemes rejected by life the illusion of some kind of scientific character (this is most clearly seen in the monograph by V. N. Nikiforov " East and world history”, M., 1975).
However, a positive result of the discussion was the right won in theoretical battles to openly oppose the scheme of the world-historical process, albeit the dominant one, but not the only one possible in Russian historiography. The result of this was a revival of theoretical research, increased attention to relevant research abroad, starting with such venerable authors as Toynbee and Weber. Gradually, it became more and more clear to specialists that one should not strive for unity of opinion - and after all, this kind of desire, laid down by Marxism and Historical Mathematics, was, as they say, in the blood of each of our social scientists for many decades - and that, on the contrary, the ultimate value of the cumulative work of researchers lies precisely in the fact that each one develops and defends his own positions: let time and subsequent generations decide which of them turned out to be closer to the truth.
It should be noted that up to recent years, it was assumed, as it were, that any scientific research of this kind should be carried out within the framework of Marxism and on the basis of Marxist methodology. And if anyone had doubts about this, they usually did not come to the fore. Only at the very recent times When many established stereotypes of thinking began to actively collapse, the situation in this regard changed decisively. Those who wanted to express alternative ideas to Marxism and create their own concepts on their basis received wide opportunities for this. In particular, this was reflected in the fact that some researchers openly questioned the holy of holies of history - the scheme of formations and the very principle of the formational explanation of history. As an alternative, a civilizational explanation, in the spirit of Weber and Toynbee, was put forward, or a combination of formational and civilizational principles in the analysis of the historical process. It is essential to note that among the specialists who have been most actively involved in theoretical discussions, Orientalists predominate almost completely. This, however, is not surprising: it is precisely with the problems of the East, past and present, that Marxism and Historical Mathematics have never coped. To solve these problems, new theoretical foundations are urgently needed.
What is the situation with the mentioned problems, how did they try to solve them in Russian Oriental studies until recently, and what new solutions are offered in our days of vigorous breaking of outdated stereotypes?
Conceptual solution of the problems of the East in modern domestic oriental studies
Although in recent years specialists have made a conscious emphasis on civilizational, religious and cultural factors in the evolution of society, it is important to note that this has so far been very weakly reflected in historiography. In the first place in the analysis of factors and causes, it is the socio-economic analysis that continues to remain. There's nothing you can do about it: that's how we've been brought up, that's what we stand on... Many quite sincerely believe that this is - in strict accordance with the spirit and letter of Marxism - the core, the spring of development. To some extent, it really is. The only question is to what extent. And in relation to the East we are studying, the question can be formulated something like this: the economy or power, property or the state? What is primary, what is secondary, what is the relationship here?
Actually, finding the right answer to these questions is what will bring us closer to the truth. But what about the search for an answer? And how have the search results performed to date? For a complete answer to these questions, an independent, special and solid study is needed. As part of a brief review, we can only talk about the main positions and trends. In order for the result to be as adequate as possible to the realities, we divide the general theme into three parts delimited from one another by chronological frames.
1. As for pre-colonial societies, the question now stands approximately as follows: how should the historical process in the East be assessed, starting with the Neolithic revolution and urban civilization (the oldest primary proto-states) and ending with the pre-capitalist early colonial times (XVI-XVIII centuries)? The ideological stereotype prevailing in Russian historiography for decades proceeded from the fact that, approximately before our era, all state structures were slave-owning, and after that - feudal (meaning not the reality of feudalism as a system of relations, but the abstraction of the Marxist-Histmatic formation). There were many disputes over the question of what is the essence of the dissimilarity between the slave and feudal formations in the East and where should be the line between them. However, the futility of discussions on these topics did not undermine the prevailing stereotype: slavery and feudalism as formations in the East should have existed, because the Marxist-Istmatist scheme is primary in this sense, and the historical material is secondary (there could be no talk of changing the scheme; the material one way or another should was to be squeezed into the scheme, even with the necessary reservations).
The situation has changed in recent years. The rigidity of the stereotype became obvious even to the supporters of the five-term Histmatist scheme. They are now trying to make the scheme more flexible so that the explanation would be at least somewhat satisfactory in the face of an ever-increasing mass of facts contradicting it. The categorical nature of generalizing definitions is softened. The great role of the community and free farmers in the ancient (slave-owning) societies of the East is recognized, sometimes even the predominant role of non-slave labor in them is recorded. It is emphasized that feudalism in the East in the Middle Ages was different than in Europe, in particular, without landlords with their lordly economy, even in some places without an influential hereditary aristocracy, titled nobility. Some more concessions are made, the meaning of which often boils down to the fact that the leading role of the state in the system of production in the East could well be perceived as a kind of modification of feudalism (“Eastern feudalism”, “state feudalism”).
It should be noted that the softening of the rigid scheme, the recognition of realities, the presence of numerous reservations - all this is to a certain extent the result of discussions, evidence of the desire to overcome the rigidity of the scheme of yesterday, to take into account its criticism, but for all that it is imperative to preserve the unity of the world historical process. Unity in its elementary sense that all the known history of society, in principle, had to go through one and the same stage of development in antiquity (the slave-owning formation), and in the Middle Ages through another (the feudal formation). The weakness of this new and, in principle, positive approach, however, is not only that it still blurs, obscures the cardinal difference between European and non-European structures in antiquity and the Middle Ages; much more significant is the fact that it still comes to the fore, albeit a softened, but a priori presumption: in ancient societies, the main effort should be given to the search for slaves, slave owners and their relationships, and in medieval ones, on the contrary, try not to notice the same slaves and slave owners , but on the other hand, be able to explain all real relations (as a rule, the same as in antiquity) from other, now “feudal” positions.
As already mentioned, the fact and its interpretation are closely related, but this connection is quite flexible in the sense that the old scheme, which goes back to the interpretation of facts from yesterday's positions, continues to dominate science for a long time even when new facts urgently require a different interpretation. and a new scheme. The situation just mentioned convincingly confirms the regularity of this kind of connection and, moreover, once again reminds us that in different sciences this kind of regularity is implemented differently: in physics and technology - almost automatically and rather quickly; in biology, sometimes with dramatic collisions, but in the end, also decisively and irrevocably, and in the social sciences, and in particular in history, perhaps the most difficult thing, which is quite understandable and understandable: the interpretation of historical facts is directly related to such a delicate area as politics today. But if it is precisely politics that demands it, as was already discussed in connection with the phenomenon of the developing world, then this means that changes are ripe in our field of science as well. And almost everyone understands this today. But is simply understanding the need for change enough?
Life shows that this is not enough. And it is far from accidental that after the discussion of the 1960s and 1970s, a tendency to revise established schemes and stereotypes manifested itself with particular force in Russian social science. At least a few new concepts have emerged. The authors of some propose to see in the history of pre-capitalist societies a single socio-economic stage of development, calling it either feudal (Yu. indistinctly expressed from the point of view of the mode of production (M. A. Cheshkov). And although all these conceptual approaches are essentially different, differently developed, they also have something in common. The positive thing about them is, of course, that they all emphasize the essential sameness of ancient and medieval non-European societies, but it should be considered a disadvantage that, in an effort to preserve the illusion of the world-historical sameness of the development path, the authors of the mentioned conceptual schemes are inclined, although in different degrees, to erase not only the difference clearly expressed in the history of Europe between its antiquity (antiquity) and the Middle Ages (feudalism), but also, what is much more important, the fundamental difference between Europe and the non-European world.
From these positions, those conceptual schemes that are created by historians who, to one degree or another, recognize the theory of the “Asian” mode of production, look more preferable. Among specialists close to this issue, there are representatives of various specialties - political economists, philosophers, ethnographers, orientalists, etc. They interpret Marx's ideas about Eastern society very differently, and specific materials related to the problem of socio-economic development of non-European pre-capitalist societies. It is quite characteristic that the specialization of this or that author does not at all limit the scope of his interests and the implementation of his ideas, although historians, political economists, ethnographers, etc., still feel the corresponding approach.
Special mention should be made of those of them who, for quite a long time and seriously, developed and sought to put into practice on a more or less large scale the theory of the "Asiatic" mode of production. Yu. I. Semenov, in particular, in a number of his articles defended the idea of the underdevelopment of traditional Eastern and modern African societies, seeing precisely in this their correspondence to the standard of the "Asian" mode of production. G. A. Melikishvili, without placing too much emphasis on the term (“Asian” mode of production), emphasized the importance of the role of the state in the traditional East and the insignificant role of slavery in the Ancient East. A serious contribution to the development of the political and economic aspect of the "Asian" mode of production was made by R. M. Nureev. It is worth adding to this that behind the scenes similar ideas were expressed earlier by those who, like venerable specialists in the field ancient history A. I. Tyumenev and N. M. Nikolsky, wrote his works when it was impossible to speak aloud on the topic of the “Asian” mode of production. And when this became possible, venerable scientists like the economist E. S. Varga or the historian V. V. Struve began to write about the “Asian” mode of production, who had previously been something like an apostle of the theory of the domination of the slave-owning formation in the Ancient East.
Summarizing, it can be noted that at different times quite a significant number of serious specialists leaned towards the idea of the “Asian” mode of production, to one degree or another, interpreting it in different ways. And if the quantity here did not turn into quality for a long time, and the defenders of the ideas about the “Asian” mode of production themselves did not receive recognition, then the reasons for this should be sought, as mentioned, not in the scientific weight of the developments, but in the political and ideological rejection of the idea of the omnipotence of the state .
In our time, when the old stereotypes have been resolutely discarded and the revision of distorted history has become the urgent task of the day, it is no longer necessary to hide behind the shield of Marx's idea of an "Asiatic" mode of production. Those who believe that the historical process, especially in the traditional East, cannot be explained from the standpoint of modes of production, formations and, in general, the unconditional primacy of political economic analysis, tends towards the already mentioned civilizational approach, i.e. to bringing historical and cultural processes to the forefront or to a multifactorial analysis, in the process of which civilizational features will be given the main attention. What form the relevant research will take, especially bearing in mind Toynbee's rich experience, is not yet very clear. Future will tell. But one thing is quite obvious: the time of the absolutely obligatory domination of formational political and economic analysis in the Marxist-istmatist interpretation is a thing of the past. There are problems that future generations of Russian historians of the pre-colonial traditional East will have to solve anew - and, thank God, without regard to ideological dogmas.
2. The second group of problems concerns the colonial East, the countries of the East during the period of colonialism, i.e. around the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Here, too, there is considerable scope for controversy. Until recently, it was believed that these problems had been thoroughly studied, because they were touched upon in their works by Marx and Lenin. Today it has become obvious that this is precisely why all the problems connected with the colonial East must be reviewed and solved anew.
We list at least some of the problems that deserve attention. Is it possible to consider the colonial societies of the East as feudal or semi-feudal, as was the custom with us until recently? And if so, what is their “feudalism”, how does it differ from Western European feudalism, which is considered classical? And was this “feudalism” everywhere, what role did something similar to it play, say, in the fate of Turkey and what role in Japan? Further. Do we correctly evaluate the phenomenon of colonialism? A lot has been written about the suffering of millions of workers of the East from colonial oppression in our historiography, and black paint was generously used. But little is said about the historical role that colonialism played in transforming the internal structure of the traditional East. But from the point of view of the problems of the world-historical process, so dear to the theoreticians of Marxism and Historical Mathematics, this is precisely what should be considered and evaluated in the first place.
Naive in the light of modern events is the Eurocentrism used in attempts to periodize the history of the countries of the East in the 19th–20th centuries. Of course, this is, in a sense, a new story for the East. But the very term “new” and its interpretation in Russian historiography are unconvincing because they artificially tie the East and all the serious processes of internal transformation that took place in the countries of the traditional East to arbitrarily chosen dates. European history, for example, to dates associated with revolutions in England or France. For the East, the criteria that played a decisive role in the process of the said transformation are important and paramount. Therefore, it is much more appropriate to speak not about the "new history" of the East, and not even about the "history of the East in modern times" (in both cases, European "new history", "new times" for capitalist Europe are meant), but precisely about colonialism as an epoch that provoked an internal transformation. And, of course, at the same time, it would be necessary to bring to the fore the very historical, cultural, religious and civilizational factors that played an almost decisive role in the form the transformation of this or that country of the East, this or that civilizational region took. And one more thing: colonialism is important as a provoking criterion, nothing more. We must not forget that at the moment when the bacillus of colonial capitalism began to operate in various eastern regions, the East was in many respects no less prosperous than Europe, and somewhere and in some ways even more. There are serious special studies (in Russian historiography they are represented by the works of A. M. Petrov), which show that even in the XVII-XVIII centuries. Europe’s colonial trade with the East was built in such a way that Europe was forced to pay for highly valuable and desirable spices and other rarities by Europeans in gold and silver (fortunately, there was an influx of American gold and silver from the 16th century), and not with their own goods, which Europeans had at that time for developed trade simply did not exist, and which, by the way, the rich East at that time simply did not need.
Everything began to change decisively only from the 19th century, when the age of machine industry, factory production began, with which the eastern economy, in particular handicraft, could not compete. And if we have in mind not the early colonial trade, not the first trading outposts captured in the East, but colonialism in the full sense of the word - that colonialism that began to radically deform the structure of dependent non-European regions - then it should be dated approximately to the turn of the 18th-19th centuries It is to the 19th century. This also applies to the ripening in the East of a complex of social and civilizational inferiority, under the sign of which the main reforms proceeded, various kinds of Westernizing influences intensified, the foundations of a private capitalist national economy were laid, and, as a result of all this, revolutionary national liberation ideas gained strength, based primarily on borrowed from European doctrines, from Christianity to socialism, and manifested themselves in full force already at the beginning of the 20th century, in the era of the “awakening of Asia”.
3. The third and last group of problems associated with conceptual constructions in modern Oriental studies should be considered those with which science began to deal after the Second World War and especially in connection with the decolonization of the East and the formation of the phenomenon of the developing world. Here, Oriental studies closely merges with various complex problems of political science, the world economy and many others, from demography to futurology. As we have already discussed in a slightly different aspect, the phenomenon of the developing world is not only complex and contradictory – it is also very ambiguous and unstable in the process of evolution. It is unstable not in the sense of the natural development of the elements incorporated in the structure, but in the sense of the unpredictability of unexpected turns of this very development.
The phenomenon of the developing world, represented both by the traditional East and continental Africa, which has recently entered the historical arena and has undergone a long process of latinization, which can be put next to the process of colonization of the East, America south of the United States, in a certain sense demonstrates the unity of the entire non-European world, opposing the developed countries ( now far not only in Europe, although, and above all, in the countries of European culture, except for Japan, which stands apart in this regard). The unity of the developing world is not so much in its similarity in terms of origins, but in the similarity of the problems it faces, ranging from development to political independence and ideological and cultural self-identification. But, bearing this in mind, it should nevertheless be noted that, in the final analysis, the source of all modern problems should be considered nothing other than the recent and more distant past, moreover, its past rather than that introduced by the colonialists, i.e. in the final analysis, those potentialities of non-European structures, which have already been mentioned more than once.
Without considering in detail all the existing and related to the developing world modern concepts in domestic science, it is important to recall the main ones. The point is not even how to explain the reasons for the backwardness of the East, how to evaluate its modern structure - whether to focus on the multi-structural nature of the economy, on the strength of community ties and corporate traditions, on the power of the state with the weakness of private property activity, on the poverty of a rapidly increasing population, etc. . It is more important to determine what is the key to solving all these and many other problems.
If we consider that the modern developing world, and in particular the modern East, goes mainly along the capitalist path and its difference from European capitalism is more in quantity than in quality, more in pace than in principle - and such a point of view has a considerable number supporters, then the key in the recent past had to be involuntarily sought in the circumstances of the formation of European capitalism, well developed by Marxism, which was usually done, down to details and particulars. However, operating with such a key displaced many real planes. For example, the strength of the eastern state was habitually equated with the phenomenon of Bonapartism, caused, as is known from the works of Marx, by a temporary balance of class forces that leave room for the state that has risen above them. But was it so in the East? After all, there the state, even according to the already reproduced analysis of Marx, was different and played a different social role.
If we raise the question of the synthesis of the traditional and the modern in the developing world, and in the East in particular, then again it is important to find the key element: is it traditional or modern? In other words, what remains leading: is the East moving towards capitalism, or is it “digesting” capitalism, while remaining primarily the East, not only from the point of view of the exotic, but also in terms of structural, essential? There may be different answers here: some focus on synthesis, as it is most fully reflected in the monograph of a team of authors headed by N. A. Simoniya “Evolution of Eastern Societies: Synthesis of Traditional and Modern” (M., 1984), while others prefer pay attention to the structure of the traditional East and its great civilizations, which have by no means lost their influence and, on the contrary, have convincingly demonstrated their strength in recent years using the example of Iran, and not only Iran.
If we take into account that the end of the 20th century, as already mentioned, dramatically changed the dominant trends in the developing world, practically did away with the inferiority complex that existed there before and greatly limited Western influence on the countries concerned, which now boils down primarily to a revolution in sphere of material consumption, to some extent to the perception of mass culture, but practically does not affect the fundamental aspects of life, worldview and traditions based on religion, it will become obvious that many of the problems of the modern East are closely related precisely to the fundamental tradition, worldview, and the influence of religion. and cultures, with a powerful influence of civilizations, in line with which for centuries and millennia the countries and peoples of the East were born, matured and existed.
Fixing the mentioned difficulties, some experts (VL Sheinis formulated these positions in the most detailed way) raised the question of the non-encompassing nature of the formational approach. If European capitalism is primarily a product of the development of European society, European civilization, then is it any wonder that the civilizations of the East (and Latin America) do not fully correspond to it, that there is a dissonance, even a dramatic gap, between those forms of social organization and orientation of society that gave rise to European capitalism and correspond to its development needs, and those that have developed within the framework of other civilizations and a different structure and therefore cannot properly adapt to capitalism. And if this is the case, then there is an alternative that is not yet entirely clear: either the developing countries will still be able to transform their internal structure to such an extent that it, including all civilizational values, will correspond to capitalism and lead to successful development (the example of Japan shows that it happens), or it won't. Or maybe some will succeed, while others will not, and civilizational influence can also play a significant role here: the culture of work in the countries of the Far East and in the young states of Africa, for example, is far from the same, which is largely due to traditions of the past. The same can be said about many other civilizational and ideological aspects, about the forms of social integration and corporate ties, about religious traditions etc.
Is this kind of prospect realistic? Highly. Moreover, from year to year it becomes more and more obvious: some developing countries are moving forward quickly, others are barely lagging behind, and still others are almost standing still. Some get richer at the expense of their labor, others at the expense of resources (oil); some actively adapt to the capitalist economy (this applies primarily to the countries of the Confucian civilization of the Far Eastern culture), others, even having become rich, do not really gravitate towards it.
Concluding a brief review of the main conceptual solutions in connection with the problems of the East, including the modern one, the author would like to draw attention to the fact that the choice of the right decisions and, in general, the correct interpretation of the facts depend on how fully the facts themselves are perceived and adequately evaluated. Actually, it is precisely this goal - to present the main facts from the history of the East and offer an adequate interpretation of them - that this book pursues.
5. Features of Eastern and Western cultures
Mankind, with all its extraordinary diversity, rushes between two cultural poles: East and West. Let's try to clarify these concepts.
It is known that world history began from the East, it is he who is the center of civilization. The oldest social and political institutions arose and acquired stable forms here. No wonder the ancient Romans respectfully said: "Light - from the East"
What is the East? This is not a geographical, but a civilizational, historical and cultural concept. This is a gigantic human integrity, very heterogeneous and contradictory. It has some common features: the reproduction of established social cultures, the stability of lifestyle, the strict priority of religious and mythological ideas and canonized thinking styles, the dissolution of the individual in the team.
The East is first of all a traditional society and a traditional way of development. Where did this tradition come from, how and by whom was it established? According to Orientalists, the tradition was, firstly, borrowed from the cyclical nature of agricultural work, on which the prosperity of the first centers of civilization directly depended. Secondly, having taken shape in the first state formations, they tried in every possible way to oppose themselves to the barbarians and assert their priorities as decisive and extremely important.
The main cultural dominant here are myths, religious cults, rituals and rituals.
There are few such civilizations. Of those actively functioning today and largely determining cultural traditions over a number of centuries, it is necessary to name the Arab-Islamic, Indo-Buddhist, Chinese-Confucian (12. Vol. 1. P. 26). Of course, within each of them there are many internal differences, but for all that, over the long centuries of its existence, each has created a stable system of values that expresses the specifics of the respective cultural types.
The most important element characterizing the East is "oriental despotism". Despotism as a form of power and the general structure of society arises where private property has no priority and the land belongs to the rural community. In order to organize intercommunal work, an authority is formed, which, gradually gaining strength, becomes despotic in relation to the community members. However, this power does not deprive the community of autonomy in solving its own problems. Deducting rent-tax to the state, the community lived on its own, and the community members were of little interest in who replaces whom at the top of the political pyramid. However, the state rulers and their servants were not interested in the joys and troubles of the peasants. The main thing is to receive the traditionally established rent-tax in time.
In Chinese culture, emphasis is placed on social ethics and the administratively regulated behavior of the inhabitants of the country. Religiously sanctioned ethics obligated the Chinese to look to the emperor as a caring father and strictly follow the traditional norms of community relations.
Tradition forbade sons to leave their father and mother and surrender to the love of their wife. Love is associated not with the freedom to choose a partner, but with a duty to parents, brothers and sisters. Chinese poets sing of friendship, the only form of communication in which a man remains free. There is nothing like the Biblical Song of Songs in their poetic treasury.
The ideology of China from the VI century BC. is Confucianism. “In the doctrine of Confucius there was no place for mysticism and irrationalism, ontology and cosmology, even for religion and mythology in general, for abstract metaphysical speculations. Even the Sky - the only metaphysical substance presented in the main Confucian treatise "Lunyu" - appears not as a deity, but as the supreme regulating and controlling principle. At the same time, emphasized rationalism, didactics, and a strong emphasis on social ethics should be considered characteristic features of Confucius's philosophy” (13, p. 51).
And in the Indo-Buddhist culture, private property did not play a special role, however, as well as in general in the Eastern tradition. It emphasizes the spiritual life of the individual, for whom liberation from the law of karma is the goal of life. The community strictly ensures that each member of the community harmoniously combines in his life the norms of kama (sensual attraction), dharma (moral law and order), artha (practical behavior) and moksha (liberation from samsara) Since the fate of each person is determined by karma, the ratio of good and unseemly affairs in the past reincarnation, insofar as his property status is not essential for this reincarnation, and he must take care not to do something that he will have to pay for in a future reincarnation. Focusing on the main value - moksha - the community member could count on liberation from tiresome trials in the world of samsara. Such a liberation is a rejection of the earthly "I", an egoistic attitude to life and a complete merger with absolute spirituality, indistinguishable in itself.
In the traditional Islamic society, the commitment of Muslims to the religious community and the strict observance of the instructions of the Koran are valued. Private property is recognized but limited. A fair amount of fanaticism and fatalism of the faithful is noticeable. “The deity in Islam is an absolute despot who, at his own will, created the world and people who are only blind tools in his hands, the only law of being for God is His arbitrariness, and for man - blind irresistible rock” (61. T. 1. C . twenty).
Traditional civilizations have amazing vitality. Alexander the Great conquered the entire Middle East, founded a vast empire. After him, the system of Hellenic states remained. But the East digested both the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, and the magnificent culture of the ancient Greeks brought to the conquered countries, which, it would seem, was established there forever. One day everything returned to normal - to its eternal order.
Like a huge flurry, the troops of Genghis Khan passed through the countries of the East; later Tamerlane crushed empires and reshaped countries - and yet everything returned to its old places, the peoples continued to live in the old way, with their clans and communities. And they continued to worship the old gods, changing only the name.
The English historian Toynbee believes that religion is one of the characteristics of civilization and even determines it. Others argue that civilizations choose religion. The Middle East could not accept Christianity with its freedom of conscience and the responsibility of man for his deeds. But Islam, with its clear regulation of the life of the faithful, most fully meets the needs of the civilization of the Middle East.
Differences in worldview are very significant for the way of life of peoples. Traditional Eastern society appreciates the various information needed to organize everyday life, but is inhospitable to abstract theoretical studies. As a result, science developed in the East with difficulty. Modern natural science has not been formed either in China or in India, although both the Chinese and Indians have never been mentally retarded and have a number of outstanding discoveries and inventions to their credit.
It would be an unforgivable delusion to think that the East stood still. Albeit slowly, it has evolved. True, the dynamics of its development differed from the Western one. First, its development is cyclical, and the structure rejected those innovations that could threaten its stability. Secondly, in Europe the owner-owner was the engine of progress and the supporter of innovations. In the East, only those innovations were selected and reproduced that corresponded to the norms of corporate ethics and the interests of the state. These were innovations aimed at strengthening the effectiveness of power or the stability of the state.
In the East, a person's life is adjusted to the rituals of traditional culture most often without any respect and condescension towards him. There is a strict practice of total adaptation of the individual to the government, and not the government to the individual. Usually violence against a person in the name of an abstract ideal. The intrinsic value of human life and its personal originality mean nothing. Personality is replaced by a role, i.e. the place of a living personality is occupied by a class abstract scheme. Within its framework there is no room for personal will and personal action.
Directly opposite to the East character is, according to V. S. Solovyov, Western civilization. “Here we see rapid and uninterrupted development, free play of forces, independence and exclusive self-affirmation of all particular forms and individual elements” (61. T.1. C.23).
The term "West" is understood as a special type of civilized and cultural development, which was formed in Europe around the 15th - 17th centuries. The forerunners of this type were the culture of antiquity and the Christian tradition. Exactly at ancient culture philosophical and religious consciousness loses its monopoly, a system of rapid logical assimilation of knowledge arises. The forced connection of the individual with the tradition collapses, society loses single system values.
One of the most important factors that influenced the formation of Western civilization was ancient Greek philosophy. Only she formulated the idea of love for knowledge itself, unprecedented for its time. In it, it is not the impersonal Tao or Nirvana that acts as an absolute,* but Loyus, moreover, comprehended rationally through the comprehension of nature. This attitude to knowledge in the ancient Greek world is explained as follows. First, Greece played the role of an intermediary between different cultures. It was located at the junction of several original cultures (Cristo Mycenaean, Ancient Egyptian, Phoenician, Babylonian), and as a result could take advantage of the results of foreign achievements.
* Tao in Chinese philosophy is the incomprehensible and inexpressible spiritual principle of the world. Nirvana in the Hindu-Buddhist culture is understood as a state of detachment from being, eliminating the individuality of personal life and attaching the consciousness of the individual to the absolute.
Secondly, Greece is the birthplace of democratic orders and civil laws. The great reformer Solon sought the obligatory execution of the law by all citizens, regardless of their property, social or any other status, thereby contributing to the formation of a single legal field.
Thirdly, the Greeks infinitely appreciated in their way of life their dissimilarity to the environment and realized themselves through "argon", a style of life, thinking, which determines the craving for polemics, dialogue, the clash of opposing points of view, and hence the limitation of personal opinion by referring to supreme arbiter of reason. Let us recall the famous saying of Aristotle: "Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer."
The second factor that contributed to the formation of the Western type of culture was Christianity, where the Logos becomes God. It gave humanity a "personal" God, i.e. personality becomes the absolute beginning of the world. And since all people are individuals, they are all equally worthy of their personal participation in God, with whom they are connected by love. Serving God is associated primarily with work, which is considered and appreciated regardless of its specific form. “He who works hard grows in the eyes of God, even if his estate is despised, and his position is barely noticeable. The one who works negligently is a mob in the eyes of the Creator, even if he were a prince or the most prominent of lawyers” (54, p. 122).
Luther was the first in Christian culture to oppose work and idleness, reviving the well-known saying of the Apostle Paul: "He who does not work, let him not eat." The moral exaltation of labor and the condemnation of idleness prepared one of the most important guidelines for humanistic and democratic culture. The initial prerequisites for the cultivation of private entrepreneurial success and private property were created.
While science owes its origin to the ancient Greeks, modern technology is rooted in the Christian belief in a creator God. Only a culture based on belief in a transcendent God could demystify nature. Only such a culture could set itself the goal of conquering nature, forcing it to serve people; only such a culture allowed the development of attitudes, guided by which the monks became in the XII century. to block rivers with dams, using their energy for complex systems of water mills, and later Bacon expressed his famous position “Knowledge is power”. To see that knowledge is power, a very special point of view is needed, from which the object of knowledge appears in a purely instrumental capacity, a point of view unknown to all other cultures.
An equally important component that characterizes the spiritual life of the West is democracy. Democracy is a certain type of power opposed to those governments where one - be it a tyrant, a monarch or a Fuhrer - rules over all. In a democracy, there are representative bodies of power and the majority determines the domestic and foreign policy of the country.
Like any power, democracy contains a certain danger for the individual, subordinating it to the will of the majority. And if the interests of the individual, as well as the interests of the minority, are not protected, or even directly suppressed, sacrificed to the state, then such power develops into its opposite - totalitarianism, the absolute power of the majority over the minority, the collective over the individual, the general interest over the private and individual.
Against the dictates of the majority, Western culture has developed a system of legal norms that provides the individual with autonomy, protects him from state arbitrariness. The rule of law has its origin in people's hope for equality of opportunity, for relative freedom in their individual lives.
But the achievements of Western culture are not absolute. Technological, economic and legal rationalism do not coexist badly with moral faith in the good. Private entrepreneurial activity, tough competition sharply limit the scope of compassion and mercy, deform the moral principles of brotherhood and respect for every individual.
It is no coincidence that it was Western European culture that gave rise to social Darwinism with its dismissive attitude towards the peoples of Asia and Africa, the cults of violence and technology, two world wars and aggressive campaigns against non-European peoples. “Today Europe is strong and powerful, and Europeans consider themselves the most civilized and cultured in the world,” wrote J. Nehru. “Europeans look down on Asia and its peoples, they come and seize everything they can in the countries of Asia” (47, vol. 1, p. 40).
And in relation to nature in the system of Western culture there is no place for reverence for life.
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Introduction
2. North-South: confrontation and cooperation
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
The problem of the interaction of civilizations now attracts the attention of specialists in various fields of knowledge. The objective basis for the growing interest in this problem is the processes of integration and, at the same time, the growing fragmentation of the world. Since the solution of the problems of social integration is a priority, this requires reconciliation of these opposing tendencies. However, in studies of intercivilizational interaction, a discrete approach still prevails, in which the civilizations of the West and East, North and South are considered as independent isolated spheres of social life, as social systems that are different in structure and culture. Aspects of their complementarity are underestimated, so the comparative analysis is superficial and incomplete. To identify the “sphere” connecting them, in which they are able to identify similarities and differences, a dichotomous approach is promising, which closes the relationship of civilizations within the framework of a certain integrity, a common space in which the prospects for the unity of mankind are set. The identification of such an inter-civilizational sphere makes it possible to supplement the attitude towards isolation with the aspect of connection and complementarity, which is especially important in the context of the unfolding globalization.
Civilizations West-East, South-North and related issues are the subject of research in many sciences. In modern science, there are practically no branches of humanitarian knowledge in which, one way or another, the problem of the interaction of civilizations would not be considered. Separate provisions that were developed in economic and political theory, sociology, cultural studies, comparative philosophy and philosophy of history fixed a discrete approach in understanding the dichotomous aspect in the study of global civilization Svechkareva V.R. Transformation of the socio-cultural sphere of civilizational interaction between East and West // Proceedings of the 57th Scientific and Technical Conference of the Astrakhan State Technical University. April 25-27, 2007. - Astrakhan: ASTU Publishing House, 2007. Abstracts. .
The issues of interaction between East-West South-North civilizations are periodically addressed by many scientists: O. Comte, D. Bell, A.S. Akhiezer, O.E. Bessonov, L.M. Romanenko, D.F. Terin, V.I. Pantin, J. Commons, A.I. Nekless and more. others
Describing the main areas of science related to the study of inter-civilizational interaction, it should be emphasized that, in general, the existing studies have made it possible to accumulate information about individual aspects and aspects of the interaction between West-East and South-North civilizations, but many problems have not yet been adequately covered. Despite the fact that interest in the study of the problems of the interaction of civilizations is not weakening, an attempt to formulate a single methodological basis remains unrealized, with the help of which it would be possible to bring the methods of analysis and the subject of research into line. The civilizational dichotomy "West-East" was fixed by many researchers, but the aspect of complementarity (applicable to the analysis of this interaction) has not been developed previously.
The relevance of the chosen research topic lies in the fact that the formation of a global world, covering both technogenic and sociocultural forms of human life, actualizes the problem of convergence and "mutual recognition" of such planetary poles as West and East, South and North. As social dynamics intensifies, the emphasis shifts from state to process, and the “increasing” globalization in this regard leads to the formation of the contours of a single civilization, which, however, does not in the least cancel cultural diversity or the specific features of the civilizational development of the West and East, North and South . Of decisive importance in the processes of interaction is finding a correspondence between the states, qualities and areas of activity of one and the other civilization, as well as the generation of new forms of cultural activity and spiritual guidelines.
The aim of the work is a comprehensive study of East-West, South-North civilizations in the context of modernity.
This goal can be achieved by solving the following tasks:
Consider the influence of North and South in East and West;
To characterize and highlight the features of the phenomenon “East-West;
Highlight the problem of "North-South" in the modern context and consider ways to solve this problem;
Consider the main aspects of the illusion of the "rich North" in the modern world.
The structure of the work is predetermined by the tasks set and includes an introduction, two chapters, four subsections, a conclusion and a list of references.
1. East and West in the context of modernity
1.1 North and South in East and West
The type of people of the North could be projected to the South, and to the East, and to the West. In the South, the Light of the North gave birth to great metaphysical civilizations, like the Indian, Iranian or Chinese, which, in the situation of the "conservative" South, for a long time preserved the Revelation entrusted to them. However, the simplicity and clarity of the northern symbolism turned here into a complex and diverse intricacies of sacred doctrines, rituals and rituals. However, the farther to the South, the weaker the traces of the North. And among the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands and South Africa, "Nordic" motifs in mythology and rituals are preserved in an extremely fragmentary, rudimentary and even distorted form. .
In the East, the North manifests itself as a classical traditional society based on the unequivocal superiority of the supra-individual over the individual, where the "human" and "rational" are obliterated in the face of the super-human and supra-rational Principle. If the South gives civilization the character of "stability", then the East determines its sacredness and authenticity, the main guarantor of which is the Light of the North.
In the West, the North manifested itself in heroic societies, where the inherent tendency of the West as such to fragmentation, individualization and rationalization overcame itself, and the individual, becoming a Hero, went beyond the narrow framework of the "human-too-human" personality. North in the West is personified by the symbolic figure of Hercules, who, on the one hand, frees Prometheus (a purely Western, theomachic, “humanistic” tendency), and on the other hand, helps Zeus and the gods defeat the giants who have risen against them (i.e., serves for the benefit of sacred norms and Spiritual Order) Dugin A. Fundamentals of geopolitics // M.: ARKTOGEYA-center, 2000. - 928 p. .
South, on the contrary, is projected onto all three orientations in exactly the opposite way. In the North, it gives the effect of "archaism" and cultural stagnation. Even the northern, "Nordic" traditions themselves, under the influence of southern, "Paleo-Asiatic", "Finnish" or "Eskimo" elements, acquire the character of "idolatry" and "fetishism". (This, in particular, is characteristic of the German-Scandinavian civilization of the "age of skalds".)
In the East, the forces of the South manifest themselves in despotic societies, where the normal and just Eastern indifference to the individual turns into a denial of the great Superhuman Subject. All forms of totalitarianism in the East are both typologically and racially connected with the South.
And, finally, in the West, the South manifests itself in extremely crude, materialistic forms of individualism, when atomic individuals reach the limit of anti-heroic degeneration, worshiping only the “golden calf” of comfort and selfish hedonism. Obviously, it is precisely this combination of two sacred geopolitical tendencies that gives the most negative type of civilization, since two orientations are superimposed on each other, already negative in themselves - the South along the vertical and the West along the horizontal.
1.2 Dichotomy "East-West": characteristics and features
It is known that world history began from the East, it is he who is the center of civilization. The oldest social and political institutions arose and acquired stable forms here. No wonder the ancient Romans respectfully said: "Light - from the East"
The East is first of all a traditional society and a traditional way of development. According to Orientalists, the tradition was, firstly, borrowed from the cyclical nature of agricultural work, on which the prosperity of the first centers of civilization directly depended. Secondly, having taken shape in the first state formations, they tried in every possible way to oppose themselves to the barbarians and assert their priorities as decisive and extremely important.
The term "West" is understood as a special type of civilized and cultural development, which was formed in Europe around the 15th - 17th centuries. The forerunners of this type were the culture of antiquity and the Christian tradition. It is in ancient culture that the philosophical and religious consciousness loses its monopoly, a system of rapid logical assimilation of knowledge arises. The forced connection of the individual with the tradition collapses, society loses a single system of values.
formed in the 19th and 21st centuries. the superiority of the West in technical, economic and military-strategic terms, gave rise in the minds of a certain circle of European intellectuals to the illusion of the "inferiority" of the Eastern world, which gives them the right to join the "inert" East to the benefits of civilization. Particularly unconvincing is the idea of some Western, and not only Western politicians, that the Eastern type of civilization, especially Muslim, in contact with other civilizations and cultures, reveals imperial tendencies towards other socio-cultural societies1. Svechkareva V.R. Dichotomy West-East in the socio-demographic context: the phenomenon of the "aging population" // Healthy lifestyle for all ages (based on the materials of the All-Russian scientific and practical conference. Saratov, November 23, 2006) / Edited by Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Professor M.E. Elyutina. - Saratov: Publishing Center "Science", 2007. - S.186-191. .
In fact, the East, both in ancient times and today, did not represent and does not represent a monolithic whole moving in one eschatological direction. Three directions in the history of the development of his civilization can be distinguished: panegyric (praiseful), critical and Islamic. Within the framework of the first, the East, and, above all, China, were presented as the land of general prosperity, learning and enlightenment, and were set as an example, as a model of wisdom in management. Within the framework of the second type (Ancient Egypt, Ancient Persia, some other despotic states of the East), attention was focused on the spirit of violence, slavery, cruelty and prolonged stagnation. Within the framework of the third type of civilization (East of the Arab-Islamic region), the idea of the superiority of the moral and ethical norms of the Arab-Muslim civilization over the West, the development of exact sciences such as algebra, trigonometry, astronomy, geography, chemistry, psychology, medicine and others became widespread. .
Therefore, here we need such a scientific and historical understanding, which in modern conditions approves a civilized approach based on the ideas of "cultural pluralism", on the recognition of respect for all cultures and confessions, on the need to reject any advantages of a particular culture, and therefore, the denial both Eurocentrism and the superiority of the East. In assessing the relationship between the West and the East, with full respect for the various ways of development of these regions, the concept should dominate, according to which the final road of history leads to rapprochement, and, ultimately, to the formation of a single world civilization Svechkareva V.R. Dichotomy West-East in socio-demographic context: the phenomenon of "aging population" // Healthy lifestyle for all ages (based on the materials of the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference. Saratov, November 23, 2006) / Edited by Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Professor M.E. Elyutina. - Saratov: Publishing Center "Science", 2007. - S.186-191. .
However, throughout the last century (XX century), relations between the countries of the West and the East were, as it were, one-dimensional in nature: the poor and backward peoples of the East looked towards the West, in search of ideas, models of development and leadership. Therefore, it is not surprising that the belief is deeply rooted in the West that its mission in Asia, i.e. in the East, is to teach, lead, command. To reveal the essence of the problem under consideration, it is necessary, first of all, to understand the established ideas about the East and the factors of its traditional backwardness. It should also be noted here that the West had mainly mythological and legendary ideas about the East. This approach was organically combined with the formation of a negative attitude towards the East and Asia.
The problem of "West - East" in the historiography of philosophy in the late XIX - XXI centuries. not yet consecrated, however, as well as its importance. In the works of foreign scientists, on the contrary, a serious layer of theoretical and other scientific developments was deposited, without the knowledge and use of which the content of both social movements and, in general, the history of the peoples of the East in the 19th - 21st centuries would be lost. cannot be understood and disclosed sufficiently. Naturally, a critical approach is needed here Svechkarev V.R. Dichotomy West-East in socio-demographic context: the phenomenon of "aging population" // Healthy lifestyle for all ages (based on the materials of the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference. Saratov, November 23, 2006) / Edited by Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Professor M.E. Elyutina. - Saratov: Publishing Center "Science", 2007. - S.186-191. .
The modern East is a whole complex of sociocultural, national-historical-cultural areas, such as the Middle Eastern Arab and Turkic-Muslim, Middle Eastern Iranian-Turkic Muslim, Central Asian Turkic-Muslim, East Asian Buddhist-Shinto, Confucian-Indian, Industrial -Buddhist-Muslim, etc. Each of these worlds, both in terms of its internal basic characteristics and in terms of relations with the Western world, has its own characteristics and requires an appropriate interpretation. For all that, the approaches to the East prevailing in the West are determined by the ideas that go back to Hegel about the passivity, lethargy and inability of the Eastern mentality to social, technological and other forms of progress. Modern authors, in the factors that contributed to the modernization of a number of Asian countries, are looking not in themselves, but outside, focusing exclusively on the role of outside exogenous factors, impulses from outside, the phenomenon of revolution from above, the dominant role of superstructural institutions.
Modernization in the East began in the 19th century as a social transformation of society and was associated with the globalization of the historical process, where the social transformation of various societies, various countries turned out to be included in a certain global process.
In its most concise form, modernization can be defined as a form of transition from a traditional, agrarian civilization to a liberal, industrial civilization.
The 19th century polarized the world into two parts: Western (capitalist) and non-Western (non-capitalist). The dominant feature of polarization was the active influence of the West on the world of the traditional East in order to transform it in its own image and likeness. Historically, modernization is a process of change in the direction of those types of social, economic and political systems that have developed in Western Europe and North America from the 17th to the 19th centuries and then spread to other European countries, and in the 19th and 20th centuries. - to the South American, Asian and African continents Fortunatov V.V. History of world civilizations. St. Petersburg: 2011. - 560 p. .
However, the East was not only a passive object of influence in this process. For the East, the collision with the West gave rise to the need for perception, adaptation of many elements of Western civilization. This was pointed out by the outstanding Indian humanist thinker Sri Aurobindo Ghose: “... When a culture that has fallen into a state of passive existence, sleep, stagnation, collides or, more seriously, receives a direct impact from a “waking”, active, extremely creative culture and reveals itself opposed to her young and fruitful energy, sees her tremendous successes and the development of new ideas and formations, the very first instinct in life will, of course, be to adopt these ideas and forms, borrow them up to imitation and reproduction in order to enrich oneself, and in one way or another to acquire all the benefits of these new forces and opportunities.
Imitation and reproduction means that India, like other countries of the East, felt backward in the collision with the West. Modernization for her meant objective need overcoming backwardness by assimilating the achievements of Western civilization.
But the modernization of non-European countries as a reproduction means, at the same time, the transfer to the local socio-cultural soil of the ideas and values of a different culture, usually Western. This raises the problem of meeting and cultures, civilizations, their convergence. This is a complex social process, which is accompanied by such phenomena as resistance to modernization, a split in society between the forces of resistance and adaptation to reforms, the danger of losing national and cultural identity, and spiritual degradation.
The technological breakthrough of the West in the middle of the second millennium gave rise to the illusion that the only promising future-oriented civilization is its Western European form. The East in Eurocentric cultural studies was perceived only as an area of acculturation, that is, as a testing ground for Westernization. But an objective scientific analysis shows that the West without the East is one-dimensional and spiritually and morally limited. The history of world civilizations from ancient times to the end of the 20th century. 10 -11 cells. Khachaturyan V.M. 3rd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Bustard, 1999. - 512p. .
The modern dominant Western technological civilization has limited human spirituality, subordinated it to consumer and pragmatic attitudes, made the human consciousness “truncated”, from where a “one-dimensional-planar” vision of the world arose. According to R. Rozak, the way out of this impasse lies in the formation of a new culture, where logic and intuition, science and faith, individualism and community, artificial and natural are combined. The mutual integration of the value systems of the West and the East has not yet given rise to a new cultural experience. The dominant universals of the Western world do not affect the deep layers of the culture and mentality of the East, but for now they operate only at the level of adaptation of the Eastern society to new information, technological and social transformations. L. Gumilyov believes that there are no peoples that were initially advanced or backward, all the great peoples of the East and West had in their history stripes of both rapid forward movement and slow, if not backward, movement, which led to a temporary lag.
Modernization was resisted, as a rule, by the traditional strata of society, which felt in Western culture, European rationality, a force structurally alien to them, which finally undermines the foundations of their existence Moiseev L.A. History of civilizations. Lecture course. // Rostov n / a: 2000. - 415 p. .
At present, the West and the East are uniting in search of a solution to problems spiritual development humanity and the formation of a higher human being. More precisely, the initiative to a greater extent comes from the West, because triumph Western thinking never gave a final solution to human problems. Moreover, the philosophy of life generated in the West, based on strength, competition and self-affirmation, showing linear progress and unlimited growth, led, on the one hand, to the development modern science high technologies, and on the other hand to a social, ecological, moral crisis. It has become clear that the obstacles to progress are not in the realm of technology, but in a realm that can be attributed to human nature. That is why the West turns to Eastern philosophical systems, to their traditions of psychophysical improvement.
The restoration of a holistic attitude to the world, the appeal to the East in the philosophical projects of the 20th century radically changed Western thought practice. Philosophical methods have become more flexible, compliant, including not only the rigor of the concept, but also the ambiguity of understanding as a universal ontological phenomenon.
At the end of the 20th century, the opinion began to prevail in Western scientific circles that the West is now “the only civilization that has significant interests in all other civilizations or regions, and also has the ability to influence the politics, economy and security of all other civilizations or regions.”
Describing two polar perspectives for the development of civilization in the 21st century - the overwhelming power of the West and, conversely, its decline due to economic and demographic decline, unemployment, huge budget deficits, declining work ethic, social disintegration, drug addiction and crime, will remain number one in terms of power and influence also in the 21st century. However, gradual, inevitable and fundamental changes are also taking place in the balance of power between civilizations, and the power of the West in comparison with the power of other civilizations will continue to decline. The most significant rise in power has come from Asian civilizations (and will continue to do so), and China is slowly emerging as the society most likely to challenge the West for global dominance. These shifts in the relationship of power between civilizations lead, and will lead to the revival and growth of the cultural self-confidence of non-Western societies, as well as to an increasing rejection of Western culture Svechkareva V.R. Dichotomy West-East in socio-demographic context: the phenomenon of "aging population" // Healthy lifestyle for all ages (based on the materials of the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference. Saratov, November 23, 2006) / Edited by Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Professor M.E. Elyutina. - Saratov: Publishing Center "Science", 2007. - S.186-191. .
Today's reality is that the East has already become the supporting structure of the world community, equal in size to the West, and this role will be strengthened in the 20th century. Moreover, in the East itself, several centers are actually maturing (China, Japan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, including a numerically growing group of smaller, but very dynamic new industrial countries), capable of competing on an equal footing both with each other and with the West, if not in general, but with its leading powers.
Another thing is the global conflict between the West and the East, in particular modernized Islam. Regional conflicts on the border lines between the Islamic and Christian worlds, according to authoritative Western strategists, promise to take on a global character.
Islam in the second half of the twentieth century, as it turned out, has not only a cultural and civilized potential, but also economic tools to challenge the West.
So, according to the famous Russian Arabist R. Landa, at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries. The main contradiction of our time has become the West-East confrontation.
He believes that the confrontation between the ruling elites of the West and the subordinate peoples of the East is now taking place in the internationalization of the class struggle. east-west north-south contemporary
Modern Islamic fundamentalism is the reaction of Muslims of the East to the invasion of the cultural and moral values of the West, to the forced modernization and "Europeanization" of life, society and way of life, to economic and social inequality, which is also considered the result of the invasion of the East by Western colonialism, and today - globalism.
Today's process of globalization again turns us to the problem of dialogue between the West and the Islamic world. Basically, there are three features that characterize Islam, according to R.G. Izmailov, - are the cause of friction between the West and Islam:
The inseparability of the worldly and the religious;
The desire to unite Islamic institutions into a state;
Globalism of Islam.
The third sign, on the one hand, “which is an irritant in relations between the West and Islam, on the other hand, can become almost a decisive moment in the convergence of the two traditions.
In the third sign, the idea of Islam about the unity of the origin of the human race finds its expression, which, among other factors, indicates the global nature of the teachings of Islam.
Through a common origin, one can come to a commonality of the basic needs of an individual belonging to different cultural traditions, and if this line of reasoning is carried further, then this idea can serve as the basis for a constructive dialogue.
It should be added to this that Islam actively advocates the development of science and new technologies, and also does not deny the relative freedom of the individual in the development of history.
It should be noted here that in the conditions of modern globalization, the Islamic world should strive to perceive the Western world not as completely alien, but to actively cooperate with it, borrowing positive achievements.
The West, on the other hand, should treat with understanding the specifics of Islam as a religion that does not separate the secular and the religious, study Islam more actively in order to improve the quality of dialogue with it in various areas. Fortunatov V.V. History of world civilizations. St. Petersburg: 2011. - 560 p. .
Thus, the totality of historical data at our disposal allows us to conclude that the gap in the pace of economic and technological development of the two civilized massifs - the West and the East - necessitated its elimination in the subsequent historical period, clearly denoting the dominant and features of world development as a whole. The basis of rapprochement and interaction with the West was the idea of development (progress), reflecting the unity of human thinking and practice in the horizon of planetary processes.
2. north-south: confrontation and cooperation
2.1 The North-South problem in the contemporary context
One of the most serious problems of our time is the problems of socio-economic development, in the context of which the gap in socio-economic development and well-being between the developed countries of the West and the countries of the so-called "Third World" is increasingly highlighted. Developed countries are characterized by high per capita income. In such countries, most of the population has a high standard of living. Developed countries tend to have a large stock of produced capital and a population that is mostly engaged in highly specialized activities. Developed countries are also called industrialized countries or industrialized countries. Third World (developing countries) - those countries that lag behind in their development from the industrialized countries of the West with a free market (First World) and the industrialized former socialist countries (Second World). Today there is one trend - the poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer. The so-called "civilized world" (USA, Canada, Japan, Western European countries - about 26 states in total - approximately 23% of the world population) this moment consume 75% of the energy produced in the world, 79% of the extracted fuel, 95% of wood, 72% of the smelted steel, while the source of raw materials is precisely the "Third World", in which humanitarian problems are acute today, including the problem of hunger Dugin A. Fundamentals geopolitics // M.: ARCTOGEYA-center, 2000. - 928 p. . The problem of relations between the "First" and "Third" worlds was called the "North - South" problem. Regarding it, there are two opposite concepts: the first one claims that the reason for the backwardness of the countries of the poor "South" is the so-called "Vicious circle of poverty", in which they fall, and due to which they cannot begin effective development. Many economists of the "North", adherents of this point of view, believe that the "South" itself is to blame for its troubles. Another concept argues that it is the “civilized world” that bears the main responsibility for the poverty of the countries of the modern “Third World”, because it was with the participation and under the dictation of the richest countries in the world that the process of forming the modern economic system took place, and, naturally, these countries found themselves in a knowingly more profitable position, which today allowed them to form the so-called "golden billion", plunging the rest of humanity into the abyss of poverty, mercilessly exploiting both the mineral and labor resources of countries, thanks to the spread of colonialism and neo-colonialism.
Thus, the problem of "North - South" should be considered from two sides, analyzing two points of view on this problem.
The countries of the South and the "vicious circle of poverty". Scientists explain the reasons for the formation and even increase of the gap between the countries of the world in different ways. Most scientists of the 19th century were inclined to think that people from the southern latitudes were too spoiled by nature, which spoils them with sun, warmth and an abundance of food all year round. In such conditions, their only concern is not the search for food, but the continuation of the family. In 1998, the six billionth inhabitant was registered on Earth. At the same time, the population is growing most rapidly in the less developed socioeconomic countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, which sharply exacerbates the problems of housing, education, medical care and food in them. Due to rapid population growth, residents of the southern countries are rapidly facing poverty. These states themselves, through their own vein, fall into a “vicious circle of poverty”.
Low per capita income in poor countries limits the ability to save and save. As a result, low labor productivity and low incomes persist. In addition, rapid population growth can immediately absorb the increase in per capita income and thus negate the possibility of breaking out of the “vicious circle of poverty”.
The North-South problem is the problem of economic relations between developed countries and developing ones.
Its essence lies in the fact that in order to overcome the gap in the levels of socio-economic development between developed and developing countries, the latter require various concessions from developed countries, in particular, expanding access for their goods to the markets of developed countries, increasing the flow of knowledge and capital (especially in the form of aid), debt relief, etc.
The backwardness of developing countries is potentially dangerous not only at the local, regional and interregional levels, but also for the global economic system as a whole. The backward South is its integral part and, therefore, its economic, political and social problems will inevitably find and are already finding manifestation outside. Concrete evidence of this can, for example, be large-scale forced migration from developing countries to developed ones, as well as the spread in the world of both new and previously considered infectious diseases. That is why the North-South problem can rightly be interpreted as one of the global problems of our time.
New international economic order
The North-South problem began to receive international resonance in the second half of the 1960s. 20th century after a broad wave of decolonization, which led to the development of the concept of a new international economic order and the movement among developing countries for the establishment of this order.
The key ideas behind this concept were:
First, the creation of a preferential regime for participation in international economic relations for developing countries;
Secondly, the provision of assistance by developed countries to developing countries on a stable, predictable basis and in volumes corresponding to the scale of the socio-economic problems of these countries, as well as alleviating their debt burden.
The idea of creating a preferential regime for developing countries to participate in international economic relations arose as a reaction to the dissatisfaction of developing countries with the international trade system, in which the income from the export of processed goods exceeded (due to the presence of greater value added in these goods) the income from the export of raw materials, and developing countries interpreted this as a manifestation of unequal exchange in North-South trade relations. And the idea of providing adequate assistance to developing states was directly linked to the socio-economic consequences of the colonial period in the history of these countries and the moral responsibility of the former metropolises for these consequences.
By the mid 80s. 20th century The movement for the establishment of a new international economic order has achieved a number of positive results. Developing countries asserted their sovereignty over national natural resources and achieved its international recognition, which in some cases (for example, in the case of energy resources) contributed to an increase in the export earnings of developing countries. In general, it was possible to expand the sources of international assistance for development needs, reduce the severity of the debt problem, and also approve the principle of a differentiated approach to regulating external debt at the country level, depending on the size of per capita GNI Fortunatov V.V. History of world civilizations. St. Petersburg: 2011. - 560 p. .
But then the movement for the establishment of a new international economic order began to lose its positions and by the end of the 80s. actually ceased to exist. There are two main reasons for his failure:
The first is a serious weakening of the unity of the developing countries themselves in upholding their demands, caused by the rapid differentiation of these states and, above all, the separation of such subgroups as the newly industrialized countries and oil-exporting countries.
The second is the deterioration in the negotiating positions of developing states: with the entry of developed countries into the post-industrial stage, the possibility for developing states to use the raw material factor as an argument in the North-South dialogue has significantly narrowed.
As a result, the movement for the establishment of a new international economic order was defeated, but the North-South problem remained.
There are three ways to solve the North-South problem:
Liberal;
anti-globalization;
Structuralist.
Supporters of the liberal approach adhere to the point of view that it is precisely the inability to establish a modern market mechanism in the national economies of developing countries that prevents these countries from overcoming backwardness and taking their rightful place in the world. international division labor. In their opinion, developing states should adhere to the course of ensuring macroeconomic stability, economic liberalization and privatization of state property, i.e. Washington Consensus. In recent decades, the liberal approach has been quite clearly expressed in the positions of many developed countries at multilateral negotiations on foreign economic issues.
Anti-globalists believe that the current system of international economic relations is unequal, and the world economy is largely controlled by international monopolies, which in turn makes it possible for the North to actually exploit the South. Claiming that developed countries are deliberately seeking to reduce the level of world prices for raw materials, while inflating prices for processed goods, anti-globalists demand a radical revision of the entire system of North-South economic relations in favor of developing countries in a strong-willed manner. In other words, they act in modern conditions as ultra-radical followers of the supporters of the concept of a new international economic order. The history of world civilizations from ancient times to the end of the 20th century. 10 -11 cells. Khachaturyan V.M. 3rd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Bustard, 1999. - 512p. .
Structuralists agree that the existing system of international economic relations creates serious difficulties for developing states. But unlike anti-globalists, they admit that without structural changes in the developing countries themselves, ensuring the sectoral diversification of their economies, and increasing their competitiveness, it is simply impossible to change the position of these countries in the international division of labor. The existing system of international economic relations, in their opinion, needs to be reformed, but in such a way that the changes introduced into it facilitate the implementation of reforms in the developing states themselves. As a result, in multilateral economic negotiations, supporters of this approach insist that developed countries take into account the peculiarities and objective difficulties of the economic growth of developing countries and the expansion of the system of trade preferences for them by developed countries. It is precisely such a balanced approach to the North-South problem that in modern conditions is increasingly recognized by the international community, and it is with its implementation that it is legitimate to associate the prospects for solving the problem of economic relations between developed and developing countries.
In order to solve the existing problem and draw attention to cooperation between developed and developing countries, the UN General Assembly established the United Nations North-South Cooperation Day.
Successful solutions to development problems are usually transferred from countries in the North to countries in the South or spread across the countries of the South. To help part of the poorest population escape the "poverty trap" that often spans many generations of the poor, Mexico's "Oportunidades" conditional cash transfer program was chosen as a model, adapted to the new conditions.
Wherever they exist, conditional cash transfer programs share a common goal: to break the vicious cycle of poverty that often engulfs many generations of the poor. Instead of distributing food or vouchers, instead of "handouts" through community organizations - which are part of traditional anti-poverty programs - cash under conditional cash transfer programs are given directly to families if they demonstrate certain achievements. In order to continue receiving bi-monthly benefits, participating households must meet certain conditions, including the following:
1. Regular attendance at educational institutions and high academic performance.
2. Medical care and regular medical and dental check-ups.
3. Full-time work or study without interruption from work The history of world civilizations from ancient times to the end of the 20th century. 10 -11 cells. Khachaturyan V.M. 3rd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Bustard, 1999. - 512p. .
When participants open a bank account, they also receive a small monetary reward for this. Estimates show that conditional cash transfer programs lead to lower school dropout rates, improved family health and increased employment opportunities, all of which are elements that help lift families out of deep poverty.
A World Bank evaluation of the Oportunidades program found that the number of poor among program participants decreased by 4.9 percent in the first year and by 18 percent in the second year.
Thus, according to one of the concepts in the gap between the North and the South, the South itself is the culprit with its inability to break out of the “vicious circle of poverty”.
Along with the assertion that the "South" itself is to blame for the "North-South" problem, from the very beginning and above all, a directly opposite point of view has been developed - it is primarily the "North" that is to blame. The main idea of these works is that international economic relations were originally formed by industrially more developed countries and, therefore, primarily reflect their interests, i.e. economic interests of the “North” History of world civilizations from ancient times to the end of the 20th century. 10 -11 cells. Khachaturyan V.M. 3rd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Bustard, 1999. - 512p. .
2.2 The illusion of the "rich North" in the modern world
Modern geopolitics uses the concept of "North" most often with the definition of "rich" "rich North", as well as "developed North" Dugin A. Fundamentals of Geopolitics // M.: ARCTOGEYA-center, 2000. - 928 p. . This refers to the totality of Western civilization, which focuses on the development of the material and economic side of life. The “Rich North” is rich not because it is smarter, more intellectual or spiritual than the “South”, but because it builds its social system on the principle of maximizing the material benefits that can be derived from social and natural potential, from the exploitation of human and natural resources. The "rich North" is racially associated with those peoples who are white, and this feature underlies various versions of overt or covert "Western racism" (especially Anglo-Saxon). The successes of the “rich North” in the material sphere were elevated to a political and even “racial” principle precisely in those countries that were at the forefront of industrial, technical and economic development, i.e. England, Holland, and later Germany and the USA. In this case, material and quantitative well-being was equated with a qualitative criterion, and on this basis the most ridiculous prejudices about the "barbarism", "primitiveness", "underdevelopment" and "subhumanity" of the southern (i.e., not belonging to the "rich North") developed. "") peoples. This "economic racism" was especially evident in the Anglo-Saxon colonial conquests, and later embellished versions of it entered the most crude and contradictory aspects of the National Socialist ideology. Moreover, often Nazi ideologists simply mixed vague guesses about purely “spiritual Nordism” and “spiritual Aryan race” with vulgar, mercantile, biological-commercial racism of the English type. (By the way, it was this very substitution of the categories of sacred geography for the categories of material and technical development that was the most negative side of National Socialism, which eventually led it to political, theoretical and even military collapse). But even after the defeat of the Third Reich, this type of racism of the "rich North" by no means disappeared from political life. However, its carriers were primarily the United States and its Atlanticist collaborators in Western Europe. Of course, in the latest mondialist doctrines of the “rich North”, the issue of biological and racial purity is not emphasized, but, nevertheless, in practice, in relation to the undeveloped and developing countries of the Third World, the “rich North” even today shows a purely “racist” arrogance, characteristic of both for the British colonialists, and for the German National Socialist orthodoxes of the Rosenberg line Dugin A. Fundamentals of geopolitics // M.: ARCTOGEYA-center, 2000. - 928 p. .
In fact, the “rich North” geopolitically means those countries in which the forces that are directly opposite to Tradition, the forces of quantity, materialism, atheism, spiritual degradation and spiritual degeneration, have won. "Rich North" means something radically different from "spiritual Nordism", from the "Hyperborean spirit". The essence of the North in sacred geography is the primacy of spirit over matter, the final and total victory of Light, Justice and Purity over the darkness of animal life, the arbitrariness of individual addictions and the dirt of low selfishness. The "Rich North" of mondialist geopolitics, on the contrary, means purely material well-being, hedonism, a consumer society, a problem-free and artificial pseudo-paradise of those whom Nietzsche called "the last people." The material progress of technical civilization was accompanied by a monstrous spiritual regression of a truly sacred culture, and therefore, from the point of view of Tradition, the "wealth" of the modern "developed" North cannot serve as a criterion of genuine superiority over the material "poverty" and technical backwardness of the modern "primitive South".
Moreover, the “poverty” of the South at the material level is very often inversely related to the preservation of truly sacred forms of civilization in the southern regions, which means that spiritual wealth sometimes hides behind this “poverty”.
At least two sacred civilizations continue to exist in the spaces of the South to this day, despite all the attempts of the “rich (and aggressive) North” to impose their own standards and development paths on everyone. This is Hindu India and the Islamic world.
There are different points of view regarding the Far Eastern tradition, as some see even under the cover of "Marxist" and "Maoist" rhetoric some traditional principles that have always been defining for the Chinese sacred civilization.
Be that as it may, even those southern regions that are inhabited by peoples who remain committed to very ancient and half-forgotten sacred traditions, still, in comparison with the atheized and extremely materialistic "rich North", seem to be "spiritual", "full" and "normal", while the “rich North” itself, from a spiritual point of view, is completely “abnormal” and “pathological” Dugin A. Fundamentals of geopolitics // M .: ARCTOGEYA-center, 2000. - 928 p. .
Conclusion
In conclusion, the work can be concluded that in the modern world, the West and the East are united in search of a solution to the problems of the spiritual development of mankind and the formation of higher human existence. More precisely, the initiative to a greater extent comes from the West, because The triumph of Western thinking has never provided a final solution to the problems of man. Moreover, the philosophy of life generated in the West, based on force, competition and self-affirmation, showing linear progress and unlimited growth, has led, on the one hand, to the development of the highest technologies by modern science, and on the other hand, to a social, environmental, moral crisis. It has become clear that the obstacles to progress are not in the realm of technology, but in a realm that can be attributed to human nature. That is why the West turns to Eastern philosophical systems, to their traditions of psychophysical improvement.
The material progress of technical civilization was accompanied by a monstrous spiritual regression, and the wealth of the modern and "developed" North cannot serve as a criterion of true superiority over the material "poverty" and technical backwardness of the modern "primitive South".
In addition to the sacral-geographical determinism along the East-West axis, the problem of another, vertical, axis of orientation of the North-South axis is extremely important.
The term "poor South" considered in this paper - a synonym for the Third World - appeared during the Cold War, when, according to mondialists, the developed countries of the West acted as the First World, the countries of the socialist system acted as the Second World, and the Third World is territories where there are many cheap natural and human resources, these are primarily the countries of Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.
If earlier the symbolic North unequivocally corresponded to positive aspects, and the South to negative ones, then in a purely modern geopolitical picture of the world, everything is much more complicated, and in some way, even vice versa.
Bibliography
1. Dugin A. Fundamentals of geopolitics // M.: ARCTOGEYA-center, 2000. - 928 p.
2. History of world civilizations from ancient times to the end of the 20th century. 10 -11 cells. Khachaturyan V.M. 3rd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Bustard, 1999. - 512p.
3. History of world culture (world civilizations). ed. Drach G.V. 5th ed. // Rostov n/a: Phoenix, 2007 - 533 p.
4. Moiseev L.A. History of civilizations. Lecture course. // Rostov n / a: 2000. - 415 p.
5. Svechkareva V.R. Dichotomy West-East in socio-demographic context: the phenomenon of "aging population" // Healthy lifestyle for all ages (based on the materials of the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference. Saratov, November 23, 2006) / Edited by Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Professor M.E. Elyutina. - Saratov: Publishing Center "Science", 2007. - S.186-191.
6. Svechkareva V.R. Transformation of the socio-cultural sphere of civilizational interaction between East and West // Proceedings of the 57th Scientific and Technical Conference of the Astrakhan State Technical University. April 25-27, 2007. - Astrakhan: ASTU Publishing House, 2007. Abstracts.
7. Fortunatov V.V. History of world civilizations. St. Petersburg: 2011. - 560 p.
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The most urgent issue for Russian society is the question of the relationship between Western and Eastern cultures and civilizations, the place of Russia in the dialogue of these cultures. From the point of view of the civilizational approach, the West and the East are considered not as geographical, but as geosociocultural concepts.
specificity of Western civilization. Modern researchers under the term "West" understand that special type of civilizational and cultural development, which was formed in Europe around the 15th - 17th centuries. This type of civilization is most commonly referred to as technogenic. The characteristic features of this civilization are the dynamic development of technology and technology, the systematic application of scientific knowledge in the production. As a result, scientific and scientific-technical revolutions radically change the place of man in production and his relationship to nature. As technology develops, the “second nature” created by man is rapidly changing, which in turn causes a significant transformation of social ties. Sometimes within one or two generations there is a change in lifestyle and the formation of a new type of personality.
Western culture in its modern form is based on the prerequisites that were formed in the period of antiquity and the Middle Ages. The most significant factors of this historical period, which determined the face of Western civilization, can be summarized as follows:
the experience of democracy in the ancient polis,
formation within the framework of the polis culture of various philosophical systems and the emergence of science in its current understanding,
· Christian tradition with its ideas about human individuality, the concept of morality, the understanding of man and his mind as created "in the image and likeness of God."
In the Age of Enlightenment, those prerequisites and ideological attitudes were formed that determined the subsequent development technogenic civilization. Among these attitudes, one should, first of all, emphasize the special value of the progress of science and technology, the belief in the possibility of a reasonable rational arrangement of society. Usually in socio-historical In terms of Western civilization, it is identified with the period of formation and development of capitalist economic relations and the bourgeois form of state democracy, with the formation of civil society. AT technical and technological aspect, Western civilization is identified with industrial and post-industrial society.
The formation of this civilization took place in a close interweaving of material and spiritual factors. German explorer M. Weber in the famous book "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" showed the role of the Protestant Reformation and the religious spirit of Calvinism in the formation of the basic spiritual values of capitalist society. Among these values: dynamism, orientation to novelty; affirmation of dignity and respect for the human person; individualism, installation on the autonomy of the individual; rationality; ideals of freedom, equality, tolerance; respect for private property.
Features of a traditional society. It is known that world history began from the East, it is he who is the center of civilization. The oldest social and political institutions arose and acquired stable forms here. No wonder the ancient Romans respectfully said: "Light - from the East." In the geopolitical aspect, this type of civilization is associated with the cultures of Ancient India and China, Babylon, Ancient Egypt, and the state formations of the Muslim world. Each of these cultures has its own identity. So, in ancient China, the son of a peasant could, through education, get into the upper strata of society, and in India there were closed castes; Japanese samurai treated the lower strata of society with contempt, and the knights of China considered it their duty to stand up for the offended and uphold justice.
However, there are much more similarities between traditional culture societies than differences. We note their most significant common features. Traditional societies are focused, first of all, on the reproduction of established social structures, on the stabilization of the existing way of life. Considered as the highest value traditional algorithms behaviors that accumulate the experience of ancestors (hence the “traditional” society). The types and goals of social activity change very slowly; for centuries they are reproduced as stable stereotypes.
It was the huge role of tradition in the life of the civilization under consideration that determined the duration of its existence. If modern Western civilization is considered to have existed ca. 300-400 years, then the researchers of the East determine the life span of traditional civilization over a huge interval of 3 thousand years - from ser. II millennium BC according to the XVII - XVIII centuries. AD with the preservation of the essential characteristics of this civilization to the present.
It would be a mistake to think that the East stood still. It evolved, but the dynamics of its development differed from the Western one. Those innovations that could threaten the stability of the East were rejected. In Europe, the engine of progress was citizen-owner. In the East, only those innovations were selected that corresponded to the norms of corporate ethics and interests states, were aimed at strengthening the effectiveness of power or the stability of the state.
The East is very flexible, it turns out to be able to absorb and process many alien elements. If for Rome the invasion of barbarian tribes meant the end of civilization, then for China the invasion of “barbarians” (nomadic tribes on the borders with China, who, like the Huns who captured Rome, were at the stage of decomposition of the primitive communal system) did not even interrupt the existence of the Chinese state, because the indigenous the population assimilated the newcomers and instilled in them the values of their civilization.
Alexander the Great conquered the entire Middle East, founded a vast empire. After him, the system of Hellenic states remained. But the East digested both the Seleucids, and the Ptolemies, and the magnificent culture of the ancient Greeks brought to the conquered countries, which, it would seem, was established there forever. Once everything returned to normal - to its eternal order. Especially characteristic is the ability to assimilate for Japan, which in many ways followed the path of borrowing and transformation in its own way from the philosophy, traditions, sciences, and martial arts of other peoples.
In the spiritual sphere of traditional society, religious and mythological ideas and canonized thinking styles dominate. Scientific rationality in these societies is opposed by a moral-volitional attitude towards contemplation, serenity, intuitive-mystical merging with being, with the world. Unlike the West, there were many religions in the East, and even Islam, irreconcilable to Western Christianity, coexisted with Eastern beliefs. The man of the East imagined the existence of all living things as an eternal cycle in a closed cycle, which gave rise to the famous Eastern fatalism as a belief in the impossibility and uselessness of changing the fate destined by God.
The division of the world into the world of nature and the world of man, into the natural and the supernatural, is not typical for the Eastern worldview, it has a synthetic approach “all-in-all”. Therefore, the freedom and dignity of the human personality, its autonomy are alien to the spirit of Eastern culture, which is characterized by an orientation towards collectivism. Oriental man not free, but obliged. He is obliged to observe traditions, rituals, systems of subordination (higher - lower, parents - children, husband - wife), he is obliged to lead a certain way of life.
Oriental society has never lost touch with nature. The Europeans compensated for their weakness before the forces of nature by creating technical devices, thereby opposing themselves to nature and not feeling themselves part of it. The goal of the people of the East was the desire to live in harmony with nature, knowing its laws. The favorite idea of Eastern philosophers is that peoples and states should develop in a natural way, taking an example from nature in everything, where there is nothing superfluous, nothing accidental in the life of plants and animals. A thorough knowledge of nature allowed oriental man accurately predict its effect on the body. In particular, Oriental medicine has no equal in effectiveness.
| signs of civilization | Western civilization | Eastern civilization |
| Lifetime | About 300 years | About 3 thousand years |
| Type of material production | Intensive | Extensive |
| System-forming factors | Scientific and technical progress | Traditions |
| Attitude towards nature | Conquest | fixture |
| The most valued social stratum | Youth-transformer of society | Aksakals - bearers of traditions |
| Dominant type of thinking | Rational | Emotional, irrational |
| Preferential type of development | Revolutionary | Evolutionary |
| Attitude towards a person | Valuable in itself | Subject to society and the state |
| Type of political systems | Democratic | Despotic |
| Adequate name | technogenic | Traditional |
Table 1. Comparative signs of civilizations.
These features of Eastern civilization predetermine the specifics of the socio-political and state structure. The spirit of democracy and civil society is alien to traditional civilization, so attempts to instill the norms of Western democracy on Eastern soil produce very bizarre hybrids. In the southern republics of the Soviet Union, even the structural organization of the Communist Party correlated very closely with the traditions of the tribal organization of society.
It should be borne in mind that the considered schemes are nothing more than theoretical models of two civilizations, in reality the situation is much more complicated, and real societies act as a result of the interaction and interdependence of all currently existing cultures and civilizations. At the same time, the considered model is a fairly reliable starting point for the classification of modern societies.
Civilization of Russia. An attempt to single out the originality and historical role of various cultures and civilizations for Russian citizens is connected with the need to comprehend national history, determine the place of Russia in world civilization, identify the significance of Western and Eastern cultural heritage for culture in Russia, answer the question: is it possible and necessary to have an original path development of Russia?
This problem was posed in the 30s of the XIX century by the Russian philosopher P.Ya. Chaadaev, who, regarding the special path of Russia, argued that it was necessary prove that humanity, in addition to its two sides, defined by the words - West and East, has a third side. The ideologists sought to present such proof. Slavophilism: I.V. Kireevsky, A.S. Khomyakov, K.S. Aksakov. They linked the idea of the originality of the Russian path with the commitment of the Russian people to Orthodoxy. From their point of view, Orthodoxy acts as a source of specific features of the “Russian soul”: deep religiosity, heightened emotionality, collectivist values, commitment to autocracy.
Their opponents were Westerners”: K.D. Kavelin, A.I. Herzen, N.G. Chernyshevsky, B.I. Chicherin and others. They considered Russia as in many respects still an Asian country, which needed to adopt the best examples of Western culture and way of life, to be civilized in a Western way.
After the October Revolution, this issue was actively discussed by the Russian philosophical emigration, primarily in a number of major works ON THE. Berdyaeva, V.V. Zenkovsky, G.P. Fedotova, G.V. Florovsky and others in the book ON THE. Berdyaev“Russian idea. The main problems of Russian thought in the 19th and early 20th centuries” spoke about the impossibility of a strictly scientific definition of people's individuality, in which there is always something incomprehensible. For Russian individuality, according to ON THE. Berdyaev, deep polarization and inconsistency are characteristic: “The Russian people are not a purely European and not a purely Asian people. Russia is a whole part of the world, a huge East-West, it connects two worlds. And always in the Russian soul fought two principles, eastern and western.
From point of view Berdyaev, the Russian people were a people of revelations and inspirations, and not an ordered rational culture. The Russian soul is based on two opposite principles: the pagan Dionistic element and the ascetic-monastic Orthodoxy, which led to the duality of the spiritual qualities of the people: the hypertrophy of the state and anarchism; a propensity for violence and a propensity for kindness; individualism, heightened consciousness of the individual and collectivism; the search for God and militant atheism; humility and arrogance; slavery and rebellion. Berdyaev believed that these features predetermined the complexity and cataclysms of Russian history.
The theme of the original foundations of Russian history and culture is solved in a somewhat different way in the works of representatives of the so-called Eurasian movement ( P. A. Karsavin, Ya. S. Trubetskoy, P. P. Stuchinsky etc.). Eurasianism arose and existed as a socio-political and ideological trend of the Russian émigré intelligentsia from the beginning of the 1920s to the end of the 1930s. 20th century The historical and cultural concept of Eurasianism considers Russia as Eurasia - a special geographical and ethnographic world occupying the middle space of Asia and Europe. This world has an original culture, "equally different from European and Asian". The Eurasianists emphasized the predominant Asian features of Russian culture, highlighting the continuity of Russia with the empire of Genghis Khan and stating that "the Russian revolution opened a window to Asia."
The Eurasianists believed that after the October Revolution, old Russia, with all its statehood and way of life, collapsed and sunk into oblivion. A new epoch opens with the world war and the Russian revolution. This era is characterized not only by the disappearance of the past Russia, but also by the disintegration of Europe, a comprehensive crisis of the West. And the West, according to the Eurasianists, has completely exhausted its spiritual and historical potential. The future in this new era they allotted to the renewed Russia, and with it to everything Orthodox world. Thus, the Eurasians largely inherit the traditions of the Slavophiles.
Topics raised in the discussions of Westerners and Slavophiles, ON THE. Berdyaev and Eurasians, continue to be discussed by the modern Russian public, primarily by philosophers. For many of them, it is clear that the development of Western technogenic culture and civilization has led mankind to global problems and a systemic crisis. In this regard, the question is raised: can we perceive Western experience as some kind of ideal, or should this experience itself be subjected to critical analysis?
Perhaps, in order to survive, humanity needs to embark on a new path of civilizational development. And this may mean that the deep crisis that has begun in Russia in all spheres public life and there is a necessary moment that can serve as an impetus for the creation of this new type of civilizational development. In Russian culture, there are significant grounds for developing such a development path, the main values of which would be an orientation not to the unceasing growth of material production and consumerism, but to ascetic moderation based on the priority of spiritual values. Cold economic calculation must be opposed by the warmth of human relations and Christian self-sacrifice, and Western individualism - by fraternal mutual assistance and collectivism. Technological, economic and legal rationalism do not coexist badly with moral faith in the good. Private entrepreneurial activity, tough competition sharply limit the scope of compassion and mercy, deform the moral principles of brotherhood and respect for every individual.
More specific questions are related to the social specifics of the current situation in the states of the former USSR. What are the paths and historical destinies of that community that used to be called Russia, will it come together again or is the process of its disintegration irreversible? Questions of this kind will have to be solved both theoretically and in practice, not only by us, but also by future generations of the peoples of the once great Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
Brief conclusions. Let's try to formulate the conclusions in the form of lessons that, in our opinion, it is advisable to draw from the content of the chapter for the student for future professional activities.
First conclusion. Every person should know and understand the culture, since it is through the system of cultural values that there is a constant interaction between man and mankind, and a man acts not as an isolated individual, but as a representative of society. However, he should be in the culture system. A civilized person also knows culture, but it has not become the content of his convictions, a characteristic of his aspirations and goals. For a cultured person, the values of culture are included in the content of the main motivation his activities.
Second conclusion. The person appears as purpose of culture because human creativity is its main characteristic. Therefore, it is impossible to consider a person only as a means of culture, as its tool. The formation of the necessary personality traits through culture is the most reliable and effective way of personality socialization, although it is the most time-consuming in terms of the applied educational efforts. This conclusion is most important for the future social worker: his client is goal social work, and not a means of self-affirmation of a professional and his career growth.
Third conclusion. Since culture characterizes the quality of a person's performance of his social roles, degree of freedom in specific systems of social relations, then specific types of culture can be distinguished corresponding to specific types of human activity.
It is easy to see that all social roles that link a person with the cultural system require him to consistently and persistently work on himself, tirelessly familiarizing himself with the cultural values of mankind. Those students do the right thing who use their most fruitful student years and the most favorable conditions - the conditions of study at the university - for the assimilation and comprehension of cultural values with the greatest benefit.
Basic questions for self-control
1. Show specifics philosophical analysis culture.
2. Material and spiritual culture: unity and difference.
3. What are the features of the functioning of cultural systems in society?
4. Historical typology of culture.
5. Expand the structure and functions of culture.
6. Give an analysis of the contradictory nature of culture and civilization.
7. Show the connection between elite and mass culture.
8. Expand the content of the culture of social work.
