Civilization at the Crossroads

Abstract

A part of humanity has managed to create a sociality that has significantly limited social evil. Civilization as something artificial was born in the EuroAtlantic world. Christian ideas of value and dignity of every life crystallized in it's main social institutions. In the other part of humanity, however, sociality has a different nature — legal consciousness is not developed, there is no state of taw; violence and lack of rights are far from being eliminated. Sometimes the old concept of “barbarism” is used in relation to this social order. Hence the question: why did some nations created a civilization, while others preserved and reproduced its antipodes? The author is looking for an answer based on the philosophy of Consciousness with its ideas about Consciousness-Being as a priori knowledge of the “forever present”. The concept of “history” is considered in this article in the light of the idea of Consciousness-Being. In other words, the criterion is the humanization of the world. This is a process that brings a specifically human dimension to evolution. To what extent does today's “West” manage to maintain the status of civilization? In a globalizing world, the basic foundations of civilization seem to be degrading. The emergence of a mass society as well as the secularization were an epoch-making shift in the realm of spirit. Western civilization, built on a foundation of Christian values, but neglecting them now, has largely come to moral relativism. Mass society is characterized primarily by deindividuation and the dominance of illusory consciousness. As a result, the legal order is distorted and the individual is suppressed. Will Western civilization be able to endure in the new century, or will it succumb to the onslaught of the “new barbarism”? This question remains open.