A “Delicate Flower” of Civilization

Abstract

In his study, Gregory S. Kiselev argues that social norms do not rest on laws of nature. Hence, the author proposes to rethink the term “civilization”. He is specifically interested in the concept that defi nes “civilization” as a process that brings in the notion of evolution as a specifi cally human, supra-natural quality, which is inherently tied to ethics and eventually the state of law founded on it. The author emphasizes the fact that in this particular meaning, the term “civilization” acquires a probabilistic character, and, as such, unfolds as a paradoxical historical discontinuity (or discreteness); as human beings are weaved of twofold existence: that of the nature and that of the spirit. An individual is capable of either rising above the mundane and can overcome its immanent evil character or can simply decide to ignore it. The “outbreaks” of self-imaginings of humanity and formation of civilization, when world evil is controlled or overcome, shifts between the periods of degradation of humanity and those that have an elemental semblance of forms of sociability. This is why, argues Kiselev, historical processes do not guarantee an all-encompassing, overarching progression. The result of such “outbreaks”, the author claims, was the emergence of Western civilization that brought the notions of political and civil freedoms into play. All the same, one observes the signs of degradation in the contemporary world with its “mass-communities” and “mass-humans” and the prevalence of “mass-cultures” together with manipulation of the individual. Undervaluing the notion of freedom is aided by other mundane, local socio-cultural communities, in which the freedom principle never got a chance to overtake.