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UDC 316(075.8)
Вестник СПбГУ Философия и конфликтология. 2021. Т. 37. Вып. 4
The mystery of development: An unenchanted future
A. N. Danilov
Belarusian State University,
4, pr. Nezavisimosti, Minsk, 220030, Belarus
For citation: Danilov A. N. The mystery of development: An unenchanted future. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies, 2021, vol. 37, issue 4, pp. 598-606. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbul7.2021.402
The article examines the actual problems of civilizational development and the mechanisms for the emergence of a new world. The process of civilizational development is complex, dynamic, and multivariate. The consumer society, which dominates the world today, is often considered as the only possible perspective of modern civilization, and its ideals and values are presented as a role model. It is assumed that the value attitudes of this kind of society have a number of advantages over all other social and cultural types of organization of social life and offer endless opportunities for economic development for those regions that accept them. The problems that arise in the course of implementing the consumer society's value attitudes are becoming more and more obvious today. The only question is, are these problems transient difficulties in the transformation of this type of society in order to triumph on a global scale, or do they indicate its historical limitations and by no means the unconditional continuity of its value orientations? The latter issue is all the more important for societies where this type of organization of socio-economic and cultural life is not organic and where other prospects for the development of civilization are possible. In the conditions of global instability, we can observe arising connections and interactions that establish some kind of new integrity. Here, from a methodological point of view, it is important to define the positions from which we can consider this integrity. The mechanism itself and the motives for choosing a new one, the role of the clash of cultures in this action, the conflict of values, the emergence and rooting of new life meanings merit attention. Therefore, it is important to identify some general development trends to understand how our future is born and what history will choose this time.
Keywords: development, values, value conflict, choice methodology, new life meanings, future.
Introduction
When something new occurs, there is always a phase transition process. It is accepted, firstly, that increasingly complex systems always give a rise to a higher level of order — these are hierarchical systems. In this situation, the idea, which was expressed by Marx but originally comes from Hegel, that a new level of organization ends with the emergence of a new quality, new integrity, is often overlooked. And a new level of organization always affects the previous levels, changing them. Moreover, this may be possible due to the emergence of new laws of development. Laws are not given immediately, rather they arise over time. And appearance of a new level of development is accompanied by new regularities,
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which can limit the effect of the previous regularities and exert an opposite effect on them. Meanwhile, each time new laws appear, the previous levels of development are influenced, and the previous levels are limited.
In the globalization process, a completely new world emerges; this is a matter of a new type of civilizational development. Civilizations and types of civilizational development differ, first of all, in the system of values and in the meanings of life that constitute the spiritual matrix of society according to which people live (this is the understanding of human beings, nature, human activity, traditions and innovations, personality, power). Defining the program according to which people conduct their activities, behavior, and communication depends on how life meanings are formed in culture.
The values of new integrity
After a quarter of a century, "the world is still in search of its new face, the contours of which only fragmentarily appear through military clashes, redistribution of territories, the struggle for influence and resources" [1, p. 6]. Before our eyes, a global world is emerging, and such connections and interactions that establish some new integrity are appearing. From a methodological point of view, it is important to define the positions from which we can consider this integrity.
In the variety of new challenges, risks, conflicts, all kinds of transformations, the development strategy is chosen and the ideal of the future is formed. Here, exactly the word "choice" seems to be the keyword. The mechanism itself and the motives of this choice, the role of the clash of cultures, the value conflict, the emergence and rooting of new life meanings are interesting in this regard. Therefore, it is important to identify some general development trends to understand the mechanism for creating the future's image and its implementation in practice.
In the globalization process a completely new world emerges; this is a matter of a new type of civilizational development. "In humanity's history, two types of civilizational development can be distinguished — traditionalist and technogenic. Their compositions include the corresponding types of civilizations that differ from each other by specific species, but at the same time they are united by common typological features. In the standard civilization concept, the emphasis is placed on the specifics of different types of civilizations. Their difference is determined by the specific features of the cultural-genetic code, following which they are reproduced" [2, p. 7].
V. Stepin called modern civilization technogenic because technologies play the main role. This is what Marx called the "inorganic human's body", the objective world in which the human lives. The connections between people and their attitudes are changing, as well as their communications, the ways of seeing the world, consciousness and culture. These areas interact all the time, and thus development takes place here. The spiritual matrix of the old civilization in which we now live has already been formed. And, naturally, a corresponding type of civilization development has been established. It contains a great variety of values, that grow over time. Here we can find features that distinguish traditionalist civilizations from technogenic ones. In fact, the types of these technogenic civilizations are different, and Western capitalism is one type of implementation of technogenic civilization. However, there was another type — Soviet socialism. This is also a technogenic society, only on a different basis.
The whole world today is in a state of value transformation. The current consumer society, which has formed in some European countries and the United States, is no longer considered the only possible perspective of modern civilization. Its ideals and values are no longer presented as a model for the imitation of the social order.
It is assumed that the value attitudes of a consumer society have a number of advantages over all other social and cultural types of organization of social life, and that they offer endless opportunities for economic development for regions that accept them. Admittedly, there are quite serious grounds for such assumptions. Individual consumption, often in no way connected with an individual's real needs, is becoming more and more massive, and the processes of globalization, strongly supported by countries where a consumer society has already formed, contribute to the spread of the corresponding value systems to all regions of the world.
At the same time, today, the problems arising in implementing the value attitudes of the consumer society are becoming more obvious, and these problems are generated by this society per se. The only question is, are these problems transient difficulties in the transformation of this type of society in order to triumph on a global scale, or do they indicate its historical limitations and by no means the unconditional continuity of its value orientations? The latter issue is all the more important for societies where this type of organization of socio-economic and cultural life is not organic and where other prospects for the development of civilization are possible.
In this situation, the following question emerges: if the world is in the process of globalization, what values and life meanings should we focus on? There are Western society's values and their implementation in Western consumer societies (primarily Western Europe, the USA), and then there is the rest of the world with many, so to speak, "remnants" or traces of traditionalist cultures that have been transformed in their own way through the process of modernization. Actually, the process of modernization is the transfer of spiritual matrices, first of all, from Western societies with the borrowing of technologies and education systems (through science, technology, and an education system) onto traditionalist ground. This process has resulted in a certain kind of hybrid fusion of development.
Currently, there are practically no traditionalist societies in their pure form — all societies are modernized. Therefore, among modern technogenic societies, societies of two types can be distinguished: those that grew on their own basis (the countries of Western Europe and North America) and countries which went through the era of modernization and retained traces of traditional cultures and many of the values of these cultures. This gives rise to another question: how to proceed further? How can societies enter this new transition?
Nowadays the West positions itself in the following manner: we have tradition, we have history — try to adopt our ideas and our values, follow them and you will live prosperously, just like us. This idea is consistently repeated and reproduced in modern liberal programs. In the case of yet another possible modernization, this can be a feasible solution. Nevertheless, the fact is that now the technogenic civilization has entered a stage of development resulting in a global crisis which it can no longer deal with (these are ecological and anthropological crises). This leads to more specific crises: economic, financial crisis, and a culture crisis. Therefore, it refers us to the choice of new development strategies. And if new development strategies are chosen, the question arises, how can the
values that led to these crises be put into the basis of the new development strategy? Is it possible to prolong them further, and will this be a happy path for humanity? Or should we be critical of them? The question can then be posed as follows: on what basis will we combine different values and develop a new value base for the new globalizing world? If everything is changing now, what trends can be defined in this development?
There are two main processes that characterize the development of the technogenic world: this is the sphere of economic development and all areas that are associated with the phenomenon of an "economic man", with an understanding of how to organize the economy, and with a vision of a person as a representative of a consumer society. This is one block of issues (containing the policy and legal basis). The second block of issues is connected with the first one (all values are interconnected, and each of them implicitly represents all the others) — this consists of scientific and technological progress, rationality and personality, and understanding the place of reason; everything that today is also problematized in the consumer society.
The Age of Enlightenment, the era of industrialization, laid the classical foundations for capitalism. It included everything expressed in the idea of human rights, the value of innovation, progress, and economic development as a source of human well-being. All of the above is now interpreted in a completely different way than it was, for example, in the classical stage of the technogenic civilization's development (when there was a pre-industrial and industrial era). In the post-industrial world, when a consumer society has emerged, rationality is interpreted differently and science is viewed differently. In addition, the economic life of society is also viewed in a different manner. From this perspective, it would be interesting to identify what changes in values have taken place in the consumer society. And from this point of view, it is useful to consider new growth points for the future and changes that simply exacerbate the already emerging global crisis. The problem of values is the problem of developing a certain general content which is intended to help in overcoming the global crisis. If this does not happen, it will mean that these values are not values that can be adhered to.
Currently, it is impossible to say what new system of values will be in the new civilization, because it is just emerging. There are only growth points which can mark it well. Access to these points may not be present in the West at all, but possibly in those cultures that have preserved their traditional foundation under the influence of modernization processes. These values are formed through the education system and science. We have now changed the strategy of education in order to connect with the West, and we see that we have lost many good features from the previous education system. It has disappeared, and this process continues today.
The future is multivariate
Considering the genesis of the origin of Western and Eastern values, their formation, it can be argued that they were polar opposite in the historical context. What can we observe today in the conditions of forming a new type of civilizational development and globalization? West and East are trading places in their values, in their lifestyle, even in mentality, and they copy political systems. There is no need to look far and wide for an example. For instance, we can take China as an oriental culture. What type of civilizational development is it today: Western or Eastern? From the point of view of classical ideas
about the West and Western values, it seems that China is already the West, because the political system is transforming, and the economic system is quite liberal. The traditionalism of culture that was characteristic of Chinese civilization is today one of permanent modernization and technologization of life.
Nowadays, a new type of civilizational development is emerging and, naturally, a new type of sociality which, according to E. Durkheim, is "divine social." With this term, Dur-kheim denoted the binding force underlying any society or association of people. The seeming pretentiousness of the term is not accidental, if we take into account the following words of the author: "From my point of view, this choice (between God and society. — A. D.) is not very significant, since I see in the deity only society, transformed and conceivable symbolically" [3, p. 337]. It was important for him to understand how and by what immanent means society maintains its integrity, existence and dynamics. This, according to Durkheim, becomes possible only due to the effect of the social — power connections, tissue, no matter how it is identified.
Let us now consider classical approaches to the structure of sociality. The political profile is currently characterized by the following transformations. This involves primarily social policy, new functions of the state in the management of social policy. In essence, it comes down to the balance of interests between the state and the private sector, the directive function of government, and the self-government institutions of civil society. It is involves the formation of a new model of economic relations. It is necessary to heed the lessons of previous development and take a different look at the market as a kind of positive instrument for social regulation, economic, and political development.
Here, we come to the model of the post-industrial economy and post-industrial values. What lies at the root of the post-industrial economy? It is the concept of a service, resulting in a service economy. Here we should overcome the negative stereotype in understanding the concept of "service". In the post-Soviet mentality, it is difficult for us to get used to the fact that there can be an educational service, a tourist service, and other types of services. In fact, the Soviet economy worked precisely within the framework of the concept of service, that is, supply and demand. Its aim was to produce the goods which consumers needed. In essence, it was oriented towards delivering services to the population, the consumers. Even in the categorical-conceptual apparatus these mechanisms need to be changed, as well as ideas.
Further, let us consider the cultural and civilizational profile of the transformation of sociality. A large contradiction here is connected with the fact that civilization subordinates culture as a spiritual phenomenon to itself because a civilizational phenomenon is a pragmatic, technological development. This problem can be revealed in the relation "intellectuals — intelligentsia". Modern society relies on intelligence, intelligent technologies, which per se is correct in terms of civilization. However, on the other hand: what is culture? Who are the bearers of cultural property? The bearer of cultural values are intellectuals. There is a contradiction between intellectualization and the preservation of national, cultural values which are crystallized in the concept of "intelligence" because intelligence is always understood in the national and cultural framework.
Finally, the transformation of a person's worldview should also be mentioned as an important element. Here we can refer to current statistics on suicides, computer and information addiction, and new types of diseases associated with new technologies. The modern type of civilizational development is opposite to the traditional pre-industrial
type in the sense that the nature of the latter is not virtual. Individuals, culture, and human consciousness has dealt with real things. Nowadays, consciousness has plunged into the world of virtual relationships. We place emphasis on intelligent technologies, knowledge, and information. These are important phenomena, but they are non-material. Consciousness is losing the usual boundaries of verification associated with previous eras when a person could verify the conditions of behavior and value ideals. And the modern world is the world of virtual relationships. It also introduces noticeable changes, the transformation of value consciousness — the human mindset.
The peculiarity of a qualitative transition is that global crises are growing, and it is not clear how to handle them, where their roots are, and how to define them. It is essential now to identify scenarios that can lead to catastrophic consequences so as not to fall into these traps or, at least, to predict them. Therefore, the task is not to proceed and claim "it will be like this, act like this", but to identify the dangerous scenarios and the probability of their occurrence. This is necessary in order to prevent the "escalation regime" because such a state can be viewed as a point of no return, and there is no opportunity to change course at this point.
How was the very idea of rationality, which Weber wrote about as the basis of market organization, transformed in the transition to a Western consumer society? Rationality always imposes some inner limitations where freedom is possible only in such a way where one person's freedom ends where another person's freedom begins. Outside the rational organization of life, within the framework of the idea that man is a machine of desire, there is no opportunity to manage a society of law.
Nowadays, we can observe that in those fields of activity that require a lot of knowledge and effort, which require dedication, people often do not pursue them. People are looking for easy things to do. A vast mass of people has appeared who are looking for easy activities, entertainment and do not want to limit themselves, but, on the contrary, they want to exploit the instincts that provide satisfaction (sexual instincts, the instinct for food) more intensively. These trends indicate that some transformations and a rejection of the values that have driven Western civilization for a long time are taking place. Therefore, we can argue that all these general problems of marketization and the like, which lead to certain costs, are now characteristic of not only post-Soviet countries but also the West.
As noted earlier, there are two types of countries that have undergone technogenic development: these are Western countries and countries that have modernized while preserving many traditionalist values, adapting them to the ideas of progress. The idea of progress comes from technogenic societies that have arisen on their own basis. In traditionalist cultures, the idea of progress is generally absent — there is a different understanding of time, traditions and innovations (innovations are not an intrinsic value: a well-known Chinese proverb says that the worst era for a person is an era of change). This is not at all what Marx called the locomotive of history that brings a happy future. None of the traditionalist sages would view innovation and creativity as values per se. They can be considered as intrinsic values only if they are inscribed in traditions, and therefore innovations are masked there as traditions. We often do not even know the inventors of the great technological discoveries from such areas, which, however, were there too. We regularly cannot identify many authors who created great works of art (especially the masters of the Middle Ages). At the same time, we can define the tendencies according to which previously designated ideas, as ideas of progress and the like, are now transforming into
their opposite. V. A. Lektorsky sees the way out of this situation in the preservation of national cultures. In particular, he writes that "we can resist the dehumanization of humans and culture only if we are able to preserve traditional human values and at the same time adapt them to modern realities, including the challenges created by the development of science and technology. And traditional values exist and are transmitted from generation to generation within the framework of existing national cultures" [4, p. 619-621].
When it comes to globalization, one is supposed to talk about the future and what will happen next. Before looking for an answer to such questions, it is essential to determine the stage of the process we are in today. We noted above that this stage is a crucial stage of qualitative changes in civilization, a phase transition. However, if this is a phase transition, then a state of dynamic chaos is inevitable. It is not the case that in phase transitions nothing breaks and everything smoothly turns into something new. Points of bifurcation always arise when there is a possibility of several development scenarios. "The future of humanity is not defined unambiguously. It is always multivariate. The scientific elite and representatives of culture largely determine which option will be chosen" [5, p. 21]. Nevertheless, these options are not infinite because they are determined by the system's previous development and its current state. And among these scenarios, there are necessarily a large number of catastrophic ones that can destroy the system. For instance, they can simplify it or they can undermine the highest level of its organization, and then instead of becoming more complex, systems are simplified and cease to exist as a unified entity crumbling into certain subsystems. This is the law of large systems, the law of self-developing systems. If we apply this to the current state of society, it is clear that here we cannot definitively say what kind of a scenario will be implemented, and which one of the possible scenarios can be defined as the most important and most promising.
It is already evident in practice that ".. .every country, every society is included in the global social process in its own unique way" [6, p. 543]. S. Eisenstadt in his last work The Modern Scene: Multiple Modernities wrote that modernization indeed affected the whole world, "but did not lead to the emergence of a single civilization or a universal institutional model; on the contrary, different modern civilizations are developing or, at least, civilization patterns, i. e. civilizations with some common features, but with a tendency to develop different institutional dynamics" [6, p. 543]. History has ceased to be a natural-historical process and is turning into a socio-historical one [7, p. 290-292].
Under these circumstances, we should mention that the humanities are lagging behind in comprehending extremely rapid and global changes. "It is important to comprehend the changes taking place in various spheres of modern culture, and to figure out whether there arise new life meanings and values which will then become the embryonic forms of a new cultural and genetic code that provides a new type of civilizational development" [8, p. 737]. With the change in the types of civilizational development, a new system of values should appear, a new spiritual matrix that regulates human life.
Conclusion
How can we define what will be established as the basis of a future civilization? Globalization is now leading to a multipolar world, causing significant problems, which are apparent, associated with wars, instability, and crises. However, how can this multipolar world become an integral system? After all, what is a global society? It is a system where a
new level of human relations management will emerge on a global scale. Here, of course, some values should be taken as a basis. However, should we use these values as they are formulated in the history of Western civilization and currently offered to us as the foundation of the future united humanity? Finding an answer to this question is problematic. At least there are some limits... It is clear that the universal marketization of everything in the world leads to the dehumanization of life. Here it is appropriate to recall Marx's remarkable passage that in normal human society one pays for intelligence with intelligence, for friendship with friendship, and for love with love, while in a society where commodity-money relations become dominant, an individual can pay for intelligence with money, for friendship with money, and also for love. But when a person acts in this way, they lose these qualities and, as Marcuse said, such a person becomes a one-dimensional person. This is where the boundaries of universal marketization lie.
Is it worth learning from the West now, or should it be discarded? From our point of view, it is worth it because there are a lot of things that we still have to master. However, perhaps, there are also some things in traditionalist cultures which may be extremely valuable for the future.
References
1. Danilov, A. N. (2017), New geopolitical realities of a future civilization, Journal of the Belarusian State University. Sociology, no. 4, pp. 4-12. (In Russian)
2. Stepin, V. S. (2017), Civilization in the epoch of changes: search for new development strategies, Journal of the Belarusian State University. Sociology, no. 3, pp. 6-11. (In Russian)
3. Durkheim, E. (1995), Sociology. Its Subject, Method, Purpose, Moscow: Kanon Publ. (In Russian)
4. Lektorsky, V. A. (2018), Person and Culture, St. Petersburg: Sankt-Peterburgskii gumanitarnyi univer-sitet profsoiuzov Publ. (In Russian)
5. Abalkin, L. I. (2009), Search for ways of understanding civilizations, in Zapesotskii, A. S. (ed.), Dialogue of cultures and partnership of civilizations. 9th International Likhachev's scientific readings, St. Petersburg: Sankt-Peterburgskii gumanitarnyi universitet profsoiuzov Publ., pp. 20-21. (In Russian)
6. Danilova E., Kozlova P. et al. (eds) (2019), Sociology of Yadov: methodological conversation, Moscow: Novyi khronograf Publ. (In Russian)
7. Sztompka, P. (1996), The Sociology of Social Change, Moscow: Aspect Press Publ. (In Russian)
8. Stepin, V S. (2019), Person. Activity. Culture, St. Petersburg: Sankt-Peterburgskii gumanitarnyi universitet profsoiuzov Publ. (In Russian)
Received: March 15, 2021 Accepted: September 17, 2021
Author's information:
Alexander N. Danilov — Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Dr. Sci. in Sociology, Full Professor; a.danilov@tut.by
Таинство развития: нерасколдованное будущее
А. Н.Данилов
Белорусский государственный университет, Республика Беларусь, 220030, Минск, пр. Независимости, 4
Для цитирования: Danilov A. N. The mystery of development: An unenchanted future // Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Философия и конфликтология. 2021. Т. 37. Вып. 4. С. 598-606. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu17.2021.402
В статье рассмотрены актуальные проблемы цивилизационного развития, механизмы возникновения нового мира. Сам по себе процесс цивилизационного развития сложен, динамичен и многовариантен. Общество потребления, доминирующее ныне в мире, зачастую рассматривается в качестве единственно возможной перспективы современной цивилизации, а его идеалы и ценности представляются в качестве образца для подражания. Предполагается, что ценностные установки такого рода общества обладают целым рядом преимуществ перед всеми прочими социальными и культурными типами организации общественной жизни и открывают безграничные возможности экономического развития для тех регионов, которые их принимают. Все более очевидными становятся и проблемы, возникающие в ходе реализации ценностных установок потребительского общества. Вопрос лишь в том, являются ли эти проблемы преходящими сложностями в движении такого типа общества к торжеству во всемирном масштабе или же они свидетельствуют о его исторической ограниченности и об отнюдь не безусловной преемственности его ценностных установок. Последний вопрос важен прежде всего для обществ, где данный тип организации социально-экономической и культурной жизни не является органичным и где возможны иные перспективы развития цивилизации. В условиях глобальной нестабильности возникают связи и взаимодействия, которые фиксируют некую новую целостность. Здесь с методологической точки зрения важно установить, с каких позиций мы эту целостность будем рассматривать. Интересны сам механизм и мотивы выбора нового, роль в этом действе столкновения культур, конфликт ценностей, зарождение и укоренение новых жизненных смыслов. Поэтому так важно определить некоторые общие тенденции развития, чтобы разобраться: как все же рождается наше будущее и что выберет история на этот раз. Ключевые слова: развитие, ценности, ценностный конфликт, методология выбора, новые жизненные смыслы, будущее.
Статья поступила в редакцию 15 марта 2021 г.; рекомендована к печати 17 сентября 2021 г.
Контактная информация:
Данилов Александр Николаевич — чл.-корр. НАН Беларуси, д-р социол. наук, проф.; a.danilov@tut.by
