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EDUCATION OF A FUTURE HUMAN IS THE KEY TO SOLVING THE GLOBAL PROBLEMS FACING HUMANITY
Olga Khrystenko — Ph.D, Associate Professor, Temopil State Medical University (Ternopil, Ukraine)
E-mail: [email protected]
The present research considers two Global problems of the humanity: intercivilizational contradictions and the pandemic of abortion as serious conflicts, the solution of which depends on the relevant public educational policies. The tension in the relationship between the Islamic World and the West, caused by the so-called "caricature scandal", encourages to understanding the conflict and the ways of its solution. There is also the problem of massive numbers of abortions in the world that requires a scientific analysis and relevant conclusions. The research revealed that both sides of intercivilizational conflicts are responsible for it. The freedom of speech as an ingredient of democracy cannot exist only for itself. It should be based on the human values, including respect for other nations, religions, cultures, as well as the protection of human life. The second part of the research concerns the pandemic of abortion.
Based on the achievements of modern embryology, sociology and bioethics, four levels of this conflict were defined. The first level is a conflict concerning the life of the unborn child. The second one is a conflict concerning a mother. The third one is a conflict with the nation. The fourth one is a conflict with God. On these issues, the survey was conducted among the first year medical students at Ternopil State Medical University.
It was also concluded that it would have been useful to present the model of state policy aimed to prevent conflictsbetween civilizations, aswellasthepandemicofabortiontothestudents. Thispolicy should include: information policy (promotion of the idea that human life is the highest value, and human relationships should be based on the principles of tolerance); education policy (education in today's youth of the culture of interpersonal relationships based on honesty, responsibility); social policy (creation of the material conditions for young families, single mothers); policy in the health sector (providing high quality medical services, maternal and child health); policy in the sphere of law (the adoption of laws that will protect the lives of unborn children).
Keywords: conflict, policy, intercivilizational contradictions, abortion.
Introduction
A conflict that means irreconcilability, contradiction, the clash of opposing ideas, values, and interests is a permanent feature of society and its development. The motivating force of its changes is constructive or destructive. In the context of political science, a conflict (along with collaboration and competition) is one of the forms of international cooperation.
However, this research does not concern the typical conflicts between the states, for instance, territorial, trade, economic, diplomatic, "cold" or "hot" wars. Our aim is to show the separate and global problems of modern society, in particular, intercivilizational contradictions and the pandemic of abortion as large-scale conflicts, which characterise a human of the 21st century negatively.
© Khrystenko Olga, 2016
The aggravation of relations between the Islamic and Western European worlds, which is connected with the so-called "caricature scandal" (the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published by European media, triggered reactions in many Arab countries and a series of terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists), induces to the comprehension of this conflict, the ways of its solving. The problem of mass abortions (according to World Health Organization, approximately 53 million abortions performed each year worldwide [Tereshkevych, 2014: p. 108] also needs careful scientific analysis and corresponding conclusion.
Not incidentally, we consider these problems in one research subject. Consequently, we have a reason for asserting that they are concentrated within the only tendency, the opposition between Liberalism and other systems of values. In fact, intercivilizational contradictions represent a conflict between liberal values (freedom of speech) and Islamic culture, which does not allow to use disrespectful expressions against religious figures. Mass abortions indicate a conflict between liberal values (women's freedom) and Christian personalism that proclaims the life of man (as well as an unborn child) as the greatest value. Besides, in our research we tried to explain why an abortion as a personal and social phenomenon is a multistage conflict.
We believe that this approach will allow us to demonstrate the essence of ideological values to students; the initiators of the conflicts mentioned above usually act for or against them. This analysis will help the students to understand better reasons, a content and consequences of intercivilizational contradictions and mass abortions, as well as to seek the ways of their prevention or a wise solution.
Methodology
We agree with the opinion of a researcher Matsiievskyi, who was convinced that "involving "a conflict approach" for the explanation of the most educational themes on political science, it would encourage the maintenance of critical perception of political reality, the disavowal of prevailing ideologies and the formation of civic, political culture" [Matsiievskyi, 2004: p. 61]. As a matter of fact, our research is an attempt to apply a conflict approach for the explanation of the global problems of humanity, in which we represent intercivilizational contradictions and the pandemic of abortion as global conflicts.
In our research, we refer to the interpretation of a conflict as a "clash of civilizations" of Samuel Phillips Huntington and various value systems: Liberalism, Christian Personalism, and Islam.
We also refer to the concept of Oleg Bazaluk about the essence of the philosophy of education as practice. We confirm (by analyzing two global problems of humanity) that the philosophy of education as practice is an educational technology (the current model), backed by science (the philosophy of education and the full range of interdisciplinary research that it covers), policy (public policy in the sphere of education) and practice (the public education system, which through educational institutions of various forms of ownership provides educational influence on the younger generation) [Bazaluk, 2015]. Thus, our little research is one of the examples of the interpretation of the philosophy of education as practice.
The sources of our research are the scientific works of specialists in the field of philosophy, conflictology, political science, bioethics, embryology, as well as the
results of the survey among the first year medical students at Ternopil State Medical University.
We use the methods of historical analysis, content analysis, questionnaires, statistical analysis.
Freedom of speech is on the fringe of life, or what is appreciated by modern
civilizations
Samuel Huntington, highlighting a number of civilizations (Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and African), argues that in future the main conflicts will take place between the states of different cultural and civilizational types [Huntington, 2003].
The realities show that conflicts between Islamic fundamentalists and members of Western liberal democracy became not just a conflict of ideologies, and "a conflict of the worlds." The publication of the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in the Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten in August 2005 (in which the illustrations for self- censorship and freedom of speech were presented) caused a wave of aggression and global mess. The embassies were on fire, the first casualties, trade wars were declared, millions were promised to those who would find the authors of the caricatures. In November 2011, in Paris, the office of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was burned after it announced the prophet Mohammad by its editor-in-chief and reprinted the caricatures from the Danish newspaper. On January 7, 2015, Islamists organized terrorist act in the building of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. As a result of that act, 12 people were killed, eight of them were journalists. Other 11 people were injured [Charlie Hebdo, 2015]. Two days later, one-armed man took eight people hostage in a kosher shop in the eastern part of Paris, he shot four of them.
However, despite the casualties, the edition "Charlie Hebdo" decided to continue the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad. Also, on 11 January, in the French capital, National March Against Terrorism and National Unity took place, which was called "unprecedented", it was the action of solidarity with the victims of terror attacks, who spoke in defence of freedom of speech.
On the other hand, mass protests swept across Islamic countries, which were provoked by the next publication of "Charlie Hebdo" ( a front — cover caricature portraying Mohammed weeping into his hands), which was published on January 14, in the first edition after the terrorist act occurred in the office. In Pakistan, thousands of protesters demanded a ban of the magazine, burning flags of France. In the action, in the city of Lahore, in the east, the leader of the Islamic organisation Jamaat-ud- Dawa, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed urged Muslim leaders to convince the United Nations to declare any form of blasphemy an international crime. In Nigeria, the enemies of "Charlie Hebdo" burnt 45 churches as well as a Christian school and a house of refuge. The protesters attacked several police stations, as a result of the crackdown on the crowd ten people were killed, 128 were wounded [Kovalchuk, 2015].
From this brief survey, we understand that the conflict between the values of democracy (which is often confused with permissiveness) and Islamic religion (whose members decided to revenge by the price of human lives) does not hold water. The absurdity and cynicism of such conflicts are obvious. On the one hand, why someone offends people and hurts their religious feelings, on the other hand, how you can kill people ... A personality
with European democratic values for insult could express his views in other media, he can go to court and demand compensation, or just ignore these insults, the Ukrainian journalist Alexander Andreychuk says [Andreychuk, 2007, p. 225].
The thing is that West is West, and East is East. The roots of Western democracy are hidden in Christianity, which proclaims that man, his dignity and life, his rights and freedoms are the highest values. However, Christian personalism does not imply permissiveness and provides relations to man by the relevant laws (commandments), foremost of which is love for God and love for neighbour (the word "neighbor" means to love every person regardless of race, nationality, age, sex, religion, party affiliation). Thus, representatives of democratic culture a priori should be tolerant to all people, because, according to Christian doctrine, all are children of the one God. This peculiar universal humanism acts as a guarantee of peace and unity of the world community. The Western world should not criticize or worse, insult other religions, but on the contrary, people should behave decently, and with high levels of culture, they should show spiritual greatness and moral strength, and humanism of Christian Democratic civilization.
We believe that this approach will educate the younger generation that will not vilify "others" (on the basis of color, ethnicity, religion, etc.), they will take care of their moral improvement, do community service, charity matters and so on. However, students should form a perception that Christianity is not "invertebrate ideology for the weak." The founder himself of the religion — Jesus Christ emphatically banished the traders from the Temple in Jerusalem, which ignored the place of glorification of God, making the house of prayer into "a den of thieves" [The Bible, 2011, p. 1170]. Christian Ethics foresees tolerance to all people and at the same time actively upholds and defends its values, which in its essence are constructive, not destructive, and aimed at preserving human dignity and life, and not for his destruction. Just democratic principles imply the protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens, but not permissiveness. All that can destroy human dignity and harm his or her health or life, cannot justify himself by the principle: "I can say what I want because we have freedom and democracy."
We conducted a survey among the first-year students of the medical university; the question was: "Does freedom of speech mean the right to publish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad or other religious figures?" 11 percent of respondents answered "yes", 71 percent — "no", 18 percent — "I do not care." Thus, we see that the majority of young people demonstrates their tolerance and adequate understanding of the democratic values.
Therefore, the classes in political science and other social sciences should form an understanding in students that freedom of speech as a sign of democracy cannot exist only for its sake. It should be based on human values, including respect for other nations, religions, cultures, and the protection of human life.
Women's freedom is on the fringe of life, or what is appreciated by modern civilizations
It seems that modern society has a conflict not only between the cultures of Western democracy and the Islamic world, but also between the titular nations and immigrants, and in Europe itself — between liberal and personalist Christian democracy. As evidence, abortions are one of the global challenges, which clearly concentrated
in the political plane. According to the Ukrainian researcher G. Tereshkevych, the question of legalization or prohibition of an abortion lies in the cultural confrontation of two tendencies — materialism and personalism. Probably, this is the reason why the value of life was ignored at first in the countries of the socialist system, where the dominant ideology was materialism, and only then, in Western Europe, where the process was painfully slow, but even there people affected by devastating illness of practicality in its various manifestations (utilitarianism, hedonism, liberalism) [Tereshkevych, 2014, p. 97].
According to WHO, annually in the world, 53 million abortions performed. In Ukraine, since 1993 a sharp decline in the birth rate has started, the number of abortions has reached 1 million 200 thousand per year [Tereshkevych, 2014, p. 108, 110]. In 1997, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ukraine ranked third in relation to the number of abortions in the world [Encyclopedia Britannica, 1997, p. 200]. Let us try to analyse and explain why an abortion (which was legalised by the state, was removed from criminal law and is considered as a personal "privileged" right of a woman) is actually a conflict.
First, an abortion is a conflict with God, who gives life. According to the assertion of Prof. B. Staehelin, a human being is a psychosomatic unity of body and soul, and the moment of conception is the moment of ensoulment. [Staehelin, 1999, p. 98]. The German embryologist Dr. Eric Blechschmidt supported the statement about the divine and spiritual origin of man: "... the mystery of man's origin and existence includes the mystery of the human origin as the mystery of God's Acts" [Blehshmidt, 2003, p. 105]. That is, not only philosophers, theologians represent the theological concept of the human being as well as the scientists in the field of medicine. An abortion, in fact, is a denial that human life is a divine gift. According to G. Tereshkevych, the reason lies in the dechristianization of human society. For many people, God has "ceased to exist, at the same time they lost their respect for human life and dignity. Having lost the foundation that was God and faith, and focusing on the value system, it is hard to understand what is good and what is evil [Tereshkevych, 2014, p. 107]. Denying God as the Source of Faith and Lord of life, man (parliament, state) has taken upon himself a function to dispose of the lives of unborn children, in fact, authorise their murder. This suggests that the spiritual degradation of modern society, in which an abortion is a problem of morality, is not only personal problem but also social, and even political. Based on the advanced research in the field of embryology and genetics (more details below), we can assert that an abortion is a conflict with the development of human life, with an unborn child, which is violently and brutally killed. The first victim of the abortion conflict is a child, who has his form that is essentially complete but in miniature, it is not a "cluster of cells" or "fetal tissues"
which were cynically thrown in
the bin, or used in fetal therapy.
Thus, why we should perceive an unborn child as a competent person, but not as an object that is possible for manipulation? The result of the multi-year research of
E. Blechschmidt in Law and Identity: "Individuality of a living man is kept from a moment of fertilization, development and to death; a phenotype (an appearance) is only changed. Today, it is a fact and elementary principle of biology. It is an erroneous statement to investigate the developmental stage of a human being appearance from human zygote..." [Blechschmidt, 2003: p. 24-25].
Probably, such knowledge would help not only women to refuse an abortion with all its negative effects. Therefore, an abortion is also a conflict with a woman, who agrees or decides to terminate pregnancy artificially. Specialists affirm that every woman, regardless of the worldview assurance and attitude to abortion, undergoes an internal conflict consciously or subconsciously. Such type of conflict arises when some incompatible social roles are combined in one person from the view point of Sociology. In this case, the personality of a woman, who has an abortion, combines two social roles — a mother (she already carries a new life in her womb) and a killer of the own child (she agrees to terminate pregnancy artificially); these two roles contradict each other, and they are incompatible. There is an internal conflict of a woman, which is the second (after a child) victim of abortion.
Finally, an abortion is a conflict with the nation, state that loses the young unborn generations of citizens. Therefore, there is a demographic crisis. Instead, society has the damaged (often destroyed) physical and psychical health of the reproductive age women, some of them lose ability to deliver a baby in the future, others become the mothers of dead-born children, the rest delivers the children with different defects. The genocide of nation is formed accordingly. In fact, "Program of abortion, sterilisation and contraception" ("Nuremberg" № 2325) was included in the fascist program of the Slavic people depopulation within the occupied territory [Tereshkevych, 2014: p. 109].
Paradoxically, but it is a fact: the states, which dispraised fascism (they are civilized and democratic countries today), legalized depopulation of their nations allowing abortions. To clear up the matter of students' attitude to an abortion, we put a question in a questionnaire: "Is an abortion a conflict?" Variants of answers were: "with an unborn child", "with a mother", "with a nation", "with the Creator", "it is not a conflict." Thus, 47 percent of respondents consider that an abortion is a conflict with an unborn child, and with the Creator. 23 percent of interviewees think that an abortion is a conflict with a mother. However, 19 percent of respondents are convinced that an abortion is a conflict with the nation. 11 percent of interviewees are assured that an abortion is not a conflict. Our task is to form a belief for students, women's freedom, as a sign of democratic society, cannot exist only for herself. It must be based on the following universal values: the unborn child life protection, responsibility for the health of the mother, future generations and the nation and respect life as a gift of God.
Conclusion
At the classes on political science, we should use a conflict approach, in particular, provide with explanations in international politics, and the global challenges that the world faced. We propose to teach students to analyze and formulate directions of the state policy to prevent conflicts between intercivilizational conflicts and the pandemics abortion.
According to the spheres of public life, this policy should include: information policy (promotion of the idea that human life is the highest value, and human relationships should be based on the principles of tolerance); education policy (education in today's youth of the culture of interpersonal relationships based on honesty, responsibility); social policy (creation of the material conditions for young families, single mothers); policy in the health sector (providing high quality medical services, maternal and
child health); policy in the sphere of law (the adoption of laws that will protect the lives of unborn children).
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