Global problems of mankind. The problem of morality and the global crisis of society Global crises of mankind and spirituality

The culture of the 20th century reflected the crisis into which technogenic civilization was slowly entering. Man faces the most important questions: about his place in space, about the essence and value of progress and science, about the future of the Earth and humanity itself. The ideal that European culture has been striving for since the Renaissance is the ideal of a self-developing creative personality. Its main characteristics were uniqueness and originality. In the future, the exaltation of man, on the one hand, and the protrusion of low instincts by mass culture, on the other, contributed to the development of extreme individualism and a decrease in the general level of cultural needs. In previous eras, the ideal of comprehending the truth was a priority. In modern life, the cult of life reigns. In the 20th century, the system of worldview attitudes, the establishment of European and American egocentrism, becomes dominant. Today, most of the world's population lives in underdeveloped countries. There is mass poverty, insolvency, social instability, aggressiveness, envy. Human intervention in biospheric processes upset the balance between nature and society. The growth of the earth's population leads to an increase in the shortage of natural resources. Global is the problem of the constant threat of nuclear, chemical and biological warfare. The system of worldview attitudes is offered by science, mass culture, but not by religion. The collapse of traditional religious values ​​contributes to the establishment of nihilism - the denial of generally accepted values: ideals, moral norms, culture, forms public life. Culture develops, reflecting the needs of a new life, uses the achievements of science and technology, creates comfort and prosperity. Modern culture is rapidly transforming the environment, society, and people's way of life. In the XX century, according to researchers, there was a break in the social and cultural cycles. The pace of cultural change has become faster. The usual way of life is rapidly collapsing, things that recently constituted the meaning of being are becoming a thing of the past. Orientations change. Shrines are falling down. Social and cultural life is being transformed. All these problems can be effectively solved with the humanistic use of the achievements of scientific and technological progress: healthcare and education should become accessible, psychophysical conditions for life in the information society can be created, programs to combat environmental pollution, unemployment, stress, etc. should be introduced. The fate of the 21st century will be determined not only by scientific and technological achievements, but also by the cultural and worldview of people

CONCLUSION

Sociology is interested in culture in three main aspects:

1. as a shared system of values, norms, symbols and meanings;

2. as the basis of the socialization of the individual, i.e. as an object of assimilation by a person in the process of his life;

3. something that is passed down by people from generation to generation.

So, social culture is a system of socially significant values, norms and rules of behavior, representations of ideas, beliefs and traditions that are common to people, associated with a certain way, socially acquired, transmitted from generation to generation and serving to streamline experience and social regulation within the framework of the whole society or social group.

This work was devoted to the problems of spirituality in Ukraine, the influence of mass culture on public consciousness. The phenomenon of mass culture offers standard ideological and cultural and artistic ideas about the world around. Many programs are tuned directly to youth. Advertising the American way of life - "look like a million" distracts from pressing issues today: fight against poverty, against AIDS, against the threat of war and ecological catastrophe. Entertainment genres do not allow a huge number of TV and Internet viewers to get in touch with the great masterpieces of true art. Attracting young people to the gaming business becomes dangerous for the family and society. The promotion of alcoholic beverages and violence is incompatible with the norms of morality and law. Today, many problems of spirituality in Ukraine are associated with the development of post-industrial society. Medical technology is a subject of controversy and condemnation of the church. Despite the emergence of a huge number of non-traditional religions for Ukraine, nevertheless, the basis of spirituality is the 10 biblical commandments. Spirituality in Ukraine is inextricably linked with national culture. To artistic culture national revival can be attributed to the works of I.P. Kotlyarovsky, G. Kvitka-Osnovyanenko, N. Kostomarov, A. Metlinsky, T. Shevchenko, P. Mirny, L. Ukrainka, I. Franko, V. Vinnichenko, M. Rylsky. At present, despite the dominance of mass culture, many cultural and educational organizations have resumed their work. Relations between the state and religious confessions are developing on democratic principles. The development of the cultural potential of the Ukrainian people is possible only if the entire society is seriously interested in the prosperity of education, science, art, literature, the revitalization of church life, the establishment of democracy with a guarantee of freedom of creativity, conscience, speech and the protection of intellectual property.

1. Heidegger, M. Letters on Humanism. The problem of man in Western philosophy. - M., 1988
2. Shadrikov, V.D. Origin of humanity. - M.: "Logos", 2001.
3. Belozertsev, E.P. Education as a spiritual task for man: In Sat. Philosophy of national education: history and modernity. - Penza, 2009.
4. Rozanov, V.V. Twilight of Enlightenment. - M., 1990.

From the point of view of a universal approach, the contradictions of social progress at the present stage accumulate in the global problems of mankind. The main global issues are:

Prevention problem wars and statements peace on the ground.

Problems caused by the ecological crisis.

Demographic problems (populationist and depopulationist).

Problems of human spirituality (education, healthcare, culture) and lack of spirituality (loss of universal human values ​​as internal guidelines for a person).

The problem of overcoming the negative consequences of scientific and technological revolution, computer revolution, information explosion.

The problem of overcoming human disunity caused by various economic, political, spiritual development of countries and peoples.

These and other problems are global, because, firstly, in essence, they affect the interests of all mankind and its future. They are global, their unresolved threatens the future of all mankind, and this threat goes in two directions: the death of mankind or regression in conditions of prolonged stagnation.

Secondly, these are the problems that require the unification of the efforts of all mankind for their solution.

Thus, the global nature of these problems stems not from their "ubiquity" and, moreover, not from the "biological nature of man", as many ideologists claim, but from the ever-increasing internationalization of all social activities on Earth, as a result of which they directly or indirectly affect humanity as a whole. .

The global problems of our era are a natural consequence of the entire modern global situation that has developed on the globe in the last third of the 20th century. For a correct understanding of the origin, essence and possibility of their solution, it is necessary to see in them the result of the preceding world-historical process in all its objective inconsistency. This position, however, should not be understood superficially, considering modern global problems as simply grown to planetary proportions. traditional local or regional contradictions, crises, troubles. On the contrary, being the results (rather than a simple sum) of the previous community development humanity, global problems act as a specific product of the modern era, as a result of the extremely aggravated unevenness of socio-economic, political, scientific, technical, demographic, environmental, cultural development in a completely new, unique historical situation.

Ecological crisis, in essence, it's a social crisis. He is result of contradictions between the operation of the laws of society and the natural laws of nature. These contradictions led to the fact that for a very short term were undermined the mechanisms of self-regulation biosphere, and man became the most vulnerable in it. If the lower biological organisms in a very short time they adapted to these changes, and some of them mutated in an unknown, and in this case, unsafe direction for humans, then a real danger of physical and mental degradation arose in front of a person.

Thus, today it can be argued that technological development has gone "not where nature required." Mankind has crossed the threshold of the possibilities of the biosphere. One of the latest resource models of the state of the Earth in five main parameters: population, resources, industrial products, food, pollution of the environment, shows that if the growth rates of population, economy, depletion of resources are the same as the last decade, then the Earth will suffer a catastrophe , around 2040.

There are many causes and components of the ecological crisis, and they are not equal in importance: a population explosion (the biosphere was stable until the Earth's population exceeded two billion people); imperfection of engineering and technology; colossal chemical pollution of the environment; unplanned urbanization, etc. material, objective reasons. But perhaps the most main reason – low level spiritual culture, expressed, among other things, in the ecological ignorance of man and mankind. This needs to be remembered and spoken about today.

The ecological catastrophe before our eyes has turned from a gloomy forecast of the Club of Rome into an inevitable reality. Today, the question is not about how to avoid it, but about how to survive it, mitigate and slow down the negative consequences of technogenesis, first of all. A technical civilization that destroys nature did not arise on its own, but within the framework of a culture with values ​​and ways to achieve them, orienting humanity to the unlimited development of technical means of exploiting natural forces. The idea of ​​the practical limitlessness of these reserves and the right of a person to dispose of them uncontrollably was laid in the spiritual culture. Such a view is not only detrimental to nature. This is a secondary problem. The primary misfortune is anthropological, that is, the destruction of man in man, the "damage" of human essence, the choice of erroneous guidelines and values ​​by him.

In the second half of the XX century. there was an overlap in time of these two catastrophes. Sometimes one gets the impression that environmental disasters have befallen our country, Russia, with particular force. But isn't it really? Are we not the height of lack of culture, irresponsibility, unsuitable organization of our political, moral and environmental education? But still, the ecological catastrophe, like the anthropological one that caused it, is global character. And they are generated by a number of fundamental mistakes of mankind in the choice of value orientations, or rather, a deviation from universal human values, which are moral imperatives inherent only in human nature. They are not chosen, they are. The problem is how adequately they are embodied in human culture, including in the culture of this or that nation.

Proceeding from such an approach to man, to society, to civilization, it is necessary to understand a simple truth: a person can protect nature only when he himself remains a man in the spiritual sense, a man not only reasonable, but also conscientious, since reason and conscience are the only the dignity and property of Man, which allows him to know and appreciate what he "does".

In the current state of ecological research, we cannot determine exactly where and when man took the decisive step in shaping the current situation. But the fact that it was people who played the main role here is beyond doubt. In historical terms, most likely, it was the era of the New Age, when science and production entered into a "marriage", combining theoretical and practical approaches to nature. The philosophical, ideological meaning of this approach was expressed by R. Descartes: scientific knowledge gives technical power over nature, and the goal of science is to restore the paradise abundance lost by man due to the fall. To do this, he needs to conquer nature, to master and dominate it. T. Hobbes continued this idea, arguing that a person is initially independent and absolute and enters into relationships with others (people and nature) only to satisfy selfish interests.

Thus, this is one way to search for the main cause that caused the modern ecological catastrophe.

But it is reasonable to look even deeper into the origins of the ecological crisis, because how people treat their environment depends on what they think about themselves. It is absolutely unambiguous that the earliest person spoke about himself and the world around him in religion, including the Christian one. If in the period of paganism with its deities a person treated nature with respect, then in the Christian period the attitude of people to nature becomes different. According to biblical history God, step by step, created the Earth and everything on it, including man, declaring to him that every natural creature has no other purpose than to serve the goals of man. So man, by the will of God, was blessed to exploit nature for his own ends.

The Christian doctrine of creation, in a certain sense, opened up the psychological possibility of destroying nature with impunity. It is reasonable to believe that such a view could not but influence (in historical terms) the formation of modern environmental consciousness. In fairness, one cannot discount the alternative Christian approaches contained in Franciscanism and other interpretations of Christianity, which prohibit the utilitarian attitude of man to nature.

So, for all the problematic nature of the above, one cannot but agree that when analyzing the origins and causes of the ecological crisis, the subjective factors, norms and values ​​that caused this trouble, embedded in human consciousness, including Christian values, should be taken into account. And thus, in order to prevent further deepening of the ecological crisis and its negative consequences, not only material measures are needed, but also a reorientation of consciousness in its relation to nature, a whole system of environmental education is needed, which primarily carries moral values.

The demographic situation is also changing significantly on the planet. It is known that, along with nature, population acts as a material factor that determines the possibilities for the development of society. That is, being the basis and subject of social development, the demographic factor has an impact on all components of social development, although he himself is at the same time subject to their influence. There is no doubt that every historically determined economic order, a certain social organization, has its own laws of population growth and overpopulation. But in reality, these connections are not so unambiguous and straightforward. Based on the facts, one can agree with T.R. Malthus, who warned as far back as the 18th century that if people do not limit their sinful inclination, then in time they will plunge themselves into hell, predetermined for them by the forces of nature and society.

The facts are that today there is an absolute increase in the population. So, only by 1820 the population of the Earth reached 1 billion people. And then it took only 107 years for it to double (1927), and then 33 years for the next billion to be added, the fourth billion in 16 years, and the fifth in less than ten years. Thus, by the year 2000, according to the average version of the forecast, the population of the Earth will be approximately 7 billion people.

Today, on average, the Earth is growing by 83 million people per year, 12 thousand per hour. The average growth rate is 1.9% with a fluctuation step from -0.3% (natural decline) to +6% (biological maximum). Naturally, such growth rates could not but lead to a "population explosion". And despite the fact that this phenomenon is practically local, occurring in Asia, Africa and part of Latin America, with its consequences it has created a world global problem. Uncontrolled population growth here is undermining the resource base of the entire Earth, rapidly approaching the maximum allowable load on the natural environment.

The population growth caused by the "demographic explosion" is associated with serious economic problems and consequences, I would like to think that only for these countries themselves, since here there is an intensive increase not in "working hands", but first in "mouths". But this is hardly the case. It is known that if the population is growing at a rate of 1% per year, then "demographic investment" in the economy should be 4%, so that the rate of economic growth does not fall and the standard of living does not decrease in all respects. Naturally, with Western population growth rates, such investment "infusions" into the economy are beyond the power of either these countries themselves or developed countries that provide this or that support to developing countries. The consequence is hunger, the growth of poverty, both material and spiritual. But will the peoples of this region make claims against developed countries and demand compensation from them for their poverty? In the brilliant analysis of the "population explosion", given by Ch. Darwin - the grandson in the book "The Next Million Years", it is stated that there are facts of this kind. Consequently, the question posed is not idle, but one or another of its solutions will create additional problems for world civilization.

We cannot discount the possible political consequences of a "population explosion" in developing countries ah for the whole world, which finds its expression today, for example, in the geopolitical claims of some of them.

However, it would not be correct to reduce the global demographic problem of modern civilization only to a "population explosion". Mankind cannot but be concerned about the minimum rate of natural population growth in developed countries, the effect of the causes that cause them, and the consequences that this process may "turn around" for them.

Russia also began to die out (by the way, demographic processes are no less threatening in the countries of the former USSR, especially in Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltic states). In our country, due to ongoing social cataclysms and social instability, since the beginning of the 1990s, the death rate has exceeded the birth rate by more than 1 million people a year. The age and sex structure of the country's population has been seriously changed. Life expectancy is falling. Today, according to this indicator, Russia is below many developing countries. No less dangerous are the socio-economic, moral (including family instability) problems and consequences caused by the current demographic situation.

But it is especially necessary to dwell on the medical and biological problems of modern mankind. They arose at the intersection of the demographic, ecological, economic, moral crises of modern society and are their generalizing result. This is not only about bodily health, which in a civilized society has always been one of the first places in the system of human values.

"A healthy mind in a healthy body" - the ancient Greeks said. And it is all the more alarming to hear the growing warnings of biologists, geneticists, physicians that we are facing the danger of the destruction of humanity as a species, the deformation of its bodily foundations. For example, the "achievements" of genetic engineering open up not only new horizons, but also ominous possibilities for getting out of control of "mutated genes" that can distort human evolutionary adaptations, the mass production of artificial mutant bastards. The danger of breaking the main genetic code as a result of ill-conceived interventions in its structure. The genetic burden of the human population is growing. A sharp weakening of the human immune apparatus under the influence of xenobiotics and numerous social and personal stresses is recorded everywhere.

There are real consequences of this phenomenon. AIDS. This misfortune that befell mankind is the first global pandemic in history that sows death. A number of researchers believe that this is not just a disease, but a certain stage in the biological existence of the human race, which is associated with the unbridled mass intrusion of people into the natural foundations of their own being. AIDS today is no longer a medical, but a truly universal problem.

The ocean of chemicals in which our daily lives are now immersed, abrupt changes in politics and crises in the economy - all this affects the nervous system, reproductive abilities and somatic manifestations of millions of people. There are signs of physical degeneration in a number of regions, an uncontrollable, truly epidemic spread of drug addiction, alcoholism with all their biological, social and moral consequences.

Finally, among global problems, a no less terrible threat is the crisis of human spirituality. Virtually all secular and religious, world and regional, ancient and new ideologies cannot today even provide any convincing answer to any question. actual problems era, nor to the eternal demands of the spirit.

Tossing about in the eternal search for truth, human thought in many cases turns out to be unable to embrace the present, to maturely evaluate the past, or to foresee the future with at least a minimum of accuracy. There are currently no reliable social theories and philosophical and anthropological concepts within which it would be possible to more or less definitely characterize our today and even more so tomorrow. Fear, anxiety, anxiety pervade all spheres of human existence.

There is no fresh outlook on the world. Two great ideas - socialist and scientific and technological, which came to the twentieth century from the nineteenth century, are currently experiencing a deep crisis.

At the beginning of the XX century. it was believed that, relying on these ideas, the people of the Earth would build not only a paradise, but also a fair, free, human-worthy society.

Both of these ideas are practically in ruins. Both of them collided with the boundaries set by the biospheric global possibilities of human existence. Noble was the long-standing primordial dream of people about a society of justice, equality, brotherhood and the satisfaction of all demands - material and spiritual. This is the idea of ​​communism. Alas, not to mention its ugly distortion by real practice, it is internally vulnerable, because the motto "to each according to his needs" cannot be based on the realities of life. The proof of this is a simple calculation. If the consumption standard of the population of developing and former socialist countries(approximately five billion) to raise the population of developed capitalist countries to the standard of living (approximately one billion), then it is necessary to double the consumption of all resources in 50 years and increase energy production by 500 times. Not forgetting at the same time that over these 50 years the population will increase at least 1.5 times. With existing technologies and consumer orientations, the planet's biosphere will not withstand this.

The same applies to technocratic optimism. Technique carries not only good, but also evil. Therefore, these ideas are now in such a state that it is difficult, and sometimes even dangerous, to rely on them. The socialist idea raised social justice to the shield, the technocratic idea raised economic efficiency. Their association did not take place. But our 20th century did not give birth to new unifying ideas either. It seems that we will not sin against the truth, saying that humanity is now in an ideological vacuum. This applies both to philosophical socialist ideas and to religions of various levels and shades, which did not go beyond the call "to the other world."

These are the threats to humanity. These are the problems. They are global. They are real. They are tragic. But there is also hope for their solution. One can agree with A.I. Solzhenitsyn that the world has now come, if not to death, then to a turn in history, in significance equal to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. And it will require new deeds and a new person, thinking in a new way, creating in a new way.

Even today, one can point to some certain hopes, prerequisites for overcoming global crisis collisions that will help to ward off the universal threat from humanity.

First- deployment of the information revolution. It can create an objective substantive basis that will make it possible to avert the thermonuclear and environmental threat hanging over humanity.

Second - approval as the dominant type of world economy of a mixed market and socially protected economy with elements of a convergent type. This form of economic relations will contribute to linking the interests of different economic entities, finding a balance between economic efficiency and social justice.

Third- the formation of the principle of non-violence and democratic consent in all types of social and personal relations. It is necessary to debunk the opinion, which has been established since ancient times in the minds of people, that "violence is an organic way for people to communicate" (Nietzsche), that "aggressiveness is an irremovable moment of human behavior" (Freud). The ideal of non-violence, which was talked about by many, from Jesus Christ to V. Lenin, can cease to be only an alluring distant goal, an ideal, and turn into a defining regulator of human relations.

Fourth- unifying (ecumenical) processes of spiritual life in both secular and religious versions. Tolerance (tolerance), rejection of spiritual confrontation illuminated by ideology. Pluralism of opinions. This is a reasonable recognition that the world is multidimensional, diverse and cannot and should not be otherwise. And we all need to live in this world, and the elimination of intolerance, xenophobia, patronizing messianism is one of the main conditions for the life of present and future humanity.

Fifth - it is a steadily ongoing interethnic and intercultural integration while maintaining the autonomy and uniqueness of each ethnic group and each culture. The universalization of culture and the preservation of originality, originality, the interpenetration of cultures and the borrowing of "finds of peoples from each other."

sixth- a breakthrough in the field of intelligent search. The transition of the human intellect from "a state of mental satisfaction to a state of puzzlement, surprise", which implies the interpenetration of traditional, dating back to Heraclitus and Hegel, dialectical ways of thinking with the concepts of modern formal-logical mathematic systems. Natural intelligence coupled with "artificial" intelligence, supplementing the creative capabilities of the human brain with the creative capabilities of computer systems.

It is worth noting that now there is an acute issue of finding acceptable contacts between the rational and non-rational, scientific and technical, aesthetic and mystical in the development of reality.

Introduction
1. Spiritual life of society
2. Dialectics of the spiritual life of society
3. The crisis of spirituality in modern society
4. The problem of spirituality in the modern world
Conclusion
List of used literature

Introduction

According to scientists, the 21st century will be a century of practices and sciences not only about the social, but also about the bodily. The proposals put forward today for the “improvement” of human corporality stimulate a new discussion of the old philosophical problem: what is a person, what is the norm and pathology, both in relation to physical health and in relation to spiritual life. The socio-philosophical analysis of the problems of human spirituality and physicality is especially relevant in our time due to the anthropological "turn" in modern philosophy, the development of science and technology, the negative impact of the scientific and technological revolution on the essential forces of man, his physical, spiritual and mental development, in connection with a real threat to live a person in artificial world, in the technosphere, which is incompatible with the existence of man as a natural, bodily being, incompatible with dangerous experiments on man.

Among the problems of modern civilization, scientists identify three main global problems: environmental, social and cultural-anthropological.

The essence of the environmental problem is the uncontrolled growth of the technosphere and its negative impact on the biosphere. Hence it makes sense to talk about the ecology of spirituality and corporality. For example, the crisis of the spirituality of society has created devastation in the environment. And in order to overcome this crisis, it is necessary to restore the original harmony of man with nature.

The anthropological problem is the growing disharmony between the development of the natural and social qualities of man. Its components are: the decline in human health, the threat of destruction of the human gene pool and the emergence of new diseases; detachment of man from biospheric life and transition to technospheric conditions of life; dehumanization of people and loss of morality; splitting culture into elite and mass; an increase in the number of suicides, alcoholism, drug addiction; the rise of totalitarian religious sects and political groups.

Essence social problem is the inability of the mechanisms of social regulation to the changed reality. Here it is necessary to highlight the components: the growing differentiation of countries and regions of the world in terms of consumption natural resources and level of economic development; a large number of people living in conditions of malnutrition and poverty; growth of interethnic conflicts; the formation in developed countries of the lower stratum of the population.

All these problems are directly related to the spirituality and physicality of a person, and it is not possible to solve one of these problems without solving the others.

The spiritual side of human being arises on the basis of his practical activities as a special form of reflection of the objective world, as an additional means of orientation in this world, as well as interaction with it. The genetic (by origin) connection of the spirit with the practical activity of a person is never interrupted: this was the case during the formation of mankind, this is happening now, during the formation (socialization) of each individual person. After all, abstract thinking is not our natural ability. It is not inherited biologically, but is formed in the process of introducing an individual to a specific social way of life and activity.

Human thinking is essentially the same subject activity, only it is connected not with really tangible objects, but with their ideal substitutes - signs, symbols, images, etc.

In other words, all mental operations are formed as a result of a kind of transfer of external object actions to the internal ideal plan. It is this circumstance that creates the objective basis of a seemingly purely subjective human spirituality.

As for the spiritual values ​​themselves, around which people's relations in the spiritual sphere are formed, this term usually denotes the socio-cultural significance of various spiritual formations (ideas, norms, images, dogmas, etc.). Moreover, in the value ideas of people there is certainly a certain prescriptive-evaluative element.

Spiritual values ​​(scientific, aesthetic, religious) express the social nature of the person himself, as well as the conditions of his being. This is a peculiar form of reflection by the public consciousness of the objective tendencies of the development of society. In terms of the beautiful and the ugly, good and evil, justice, truth, etc., humanity expresses its attitude to the present reality and opposes to it some ideal state of society that must be established. Any ideal is always, as it were, “raised” above reality, contains a goal, desire, hope, in general, something due, and not existing.

This is what gives the proper appearance of an ideal essence, seemingly completely independent of anything. On the surface, only its evaluative and prescriptive character. The earthly origins, the roots of these idealizations, as a rule, are hidden, lost, distorted. There would be no big trouble if the natural-historical process of the development of society and its ideal reflection coincided. But this is not always the case. Often the ideal norms, born of one historical epoch, oppose the reality of another epoch, in which their meaning is irrevocably lost. This indicates the onset of a state of acute spiritual confrontation, ideological battles and emotional upheavals. It is these features that characterize the crisis and problems of spirituality in the modern world.

1. Spiritual life of society

The spiritual life of man and humanity is a phenomenon that, like culture, distinguishes their being from natural and gives it a social character. Through spirituality comes the awareness of the world around us, the development of a deeper and more subtle attitude towards it. Through spirituality there is a process of cognition by a person of himself, his purpose and life meaning.

The history of mankind has shown the inconsistency of the human spirit, its ups and downs, losses and gains, tragedy and enormous potential.

Spirituality today is a condition, a factor and a subtle tool for solving the problem of the survival of mankind, its reliable life support, sustainable development of society and the individual. How a person uses the potential of spirituality determines his present and future.

Spirituality is a complex concept. It was used primarily in religion, religious and idealistically oriented philosophy. Here it acted as an independent spiritual substance, which owns the function of creation and determining the fate of the world and man.

At the same time, the concept of spirituality is widely used in the concepts of "spiritual revival", in studies of "spiritual production", "spiritual culture", etc. However, its definition is still debatable.

In the cultural and anthropological context, the concept of spirituality is used when characterizing the inner, subjective world of a person as the "spiritual world of the individual." But what is included in this "world"? By what criteria to determine its presence, and even more development?

Obviously, the concept of spirituality is not limited to reason, rationality, culture of thinking, level and quality of knowledge. Spirituality is not formed exclusively through education. Of course, there is no and cannot be spirituality outside of the above, but one-sided rationalism, especially of the positivist-scientist type, is not sufficient to define spirituality. The sphere of spirituality is wider in scope and richer in content than that which relates exclusively to rationality.

Equally, spirituality cannot be defined as a culture of experiences and sensory-volitional exploration of the world by a person, although outside of this, spirituality as a quality of a person and a characteristic of his culture also does not exist.

The concept of spirituality is undoubtedly necessary to determine the utilitarian-pragmatic values ​​that motivate the behavior and inner life of a person. However, it is even more important when identifying those values ​​on the basis of which meaningful life problems are solved, which are usually expressed for each person in the system of “eternal questions” of his being. The complexity of their solution lies in the fact that, although they have a universal basis, every time in a specific historical time and space, each person discovers and solves them anew for himself and at the same time in his own way. On this path, the spiritual ascent of the individual, the acquisition of spiritual culture and maturity is carried out.

Thus, the main thing here is not the accumulation of various knowledge, but their meaning and purpose. Spirituality is the acquisition of meaning. Spirituality is evidence of a certain hierarchy of values, goals and meanings, it concentrates problems related to the highest level of human exploration of the world. Spiritual development is an ascent along the path of acquiring "truth, goodness and beauty" and other higher values. On this path, the creative abilities of a person are determined not only to think and act utilitarianly, but also to correlate their actions with something "impersonal" that constitutes the "human world".

An imbalance in knowledge about the world around us and about oneself gives contradiction to the process of forming a person as a spiritual being, who has the ability to create according to the laws of truth, goodness and beauty. In this context, spirituality is an integrative quality related to the sphere of meaningful life values ​​that determine the content, quality and direction of human existence and the “human image” in each individual.

The problem of spirituality is not only the definition of the highest level of human mastery of his world, his attitude to it - nature, society, other people, to himself. This is the problem of a person going beyond the limits of a narrowly empirical being, overcoming himself of "yesterday's" in the process of renewal and ascent to his ideals, values ​​and their realization on his life path. Therefore, this is the problem of "life-creation". The internal basis of self-determination of the individual is "conscience" - a category of morality. Morality is the determinant of the spiritual culture of the individual, which sets the measure and quality of the freedom of self-realization of a person.

Thus, spiritual life is an important aspect of the existence and development of man and society, in the content of which a truly human essence is manifested.

The spiritual life of society is an area of ​​being in which objective, supra-individual reality is given not in the form of an external objectivity that opposes a person, but as an ideal reality, a set of meaningful life values ​​that is present in him and determines the content, quality and direction of social and individual being.

The genetically spiritual side of a person's being arises on the basis of his practical activity as a special form of reflection of the objective world, as a means of orientation in the world and interaction with it. As well as subject-practical, spiritual activity generally follows the laws of this world. Of course, we are not talking about the complete identity of the material and the ideal. The essence lies in their fundamental unity, the coincidence of the main, "nodal" points. At the same time, the ideal-spiritual world (of concepts, images, values) created by man has fundamental autonomy, and develops according to its own laws. As a result, he can soar very high above material reality. However, the spirit cannot completely break away from its material basis, because, in the final analysis, this would mean the loss of orientation of man and society in the world. The result of such a separation for a person is a departure into the world of illusions, mental illness, and for society - its deformation under the influence of myths, utopias, dogmas, social projects.

2. Dialectics of the spiritual life of society

A characteristic feature of the modern spiritual situation is its deepest contradiction. On the one hand, there is hope for a better life, breathtaking prospects. On the other hand, it brings anxieties and fears, since the individual remains alone, lost in the grandeur of what is happening and the sea of ​​information, loses the guarantees of security.

The feeling of inconsistency in modern spiritual life is growing as brilliant victories are won in science, technology, medicine, financial power increases, people's comfort and well-being grows, and a higher quality of life is acquired. It turns out that the achievements of science, technology and medicine can be used not for the benefit, but to the detriment of a person. For the sake of money, comfort, some people are able to mercilessly destroy others.

Thus, the main contradiction of the time is that scientific and technological progress is not accompanied by moral progress. Rather, on the contrary: captured by the propagandized bright prospects, large masses of people lose their own moral supports, see in spirituality and culture a kind of ballast that does not correspond to new era. It was against this background that Hitler's and Stalin's camps, terrorism, and the devaluation of human life became possible in the 20th century. History has shown that each new Age brought much more victims than the previous one - such has been the dynamics of social life until now.

At the same time, the most cruel atrocities and repressions were committed in various socio-political conditions and countries, including those with a developed culture, philosophy, literature, and high humanitarian potential. They were often carried out by highly educated and enlightened people, which does not allow them to be attributed to illiteracy and ignorance. It is also striking that the facts of barbarism and misanthropy have not always received, and still do not always receive, widespread public condemnation.

Philosophical analysis makes it possible to identify the main factors that determined the course of events and the spiritual atmosphere in the 20th century and retained their influence on turn of the XXI in.

The unprecedented progress of science and technology determined the unique originality of the 20th century. Its consequences can be traced literally in all spheres of life. modern man. The latest technology rules the world. Science has become not only a form of knowledge of the universe, but also the main means of transforming the world. Man has become a geological force on a planetary scale, because his power sometimes exceeds the forces of nature itself.

Faith in reason, enlightenment, knowledge has always been a significant factor in the spiritual life of mankind. However, the ideals of the European Enlightenment, which gave birth to the hopes of the peoples, were trampled on by the bloody events that followed it in the most civilized countries. It also turned out that the latest developments in science and technology can be used to harm people. Passion for opportunities, automation in the 20th century fraught with the danger of ousting unique creative principles from the labor process, threatened to reduce human activity to the maintenance of an automaton. The computer, information and informatization, revolutionizing intellectual work and becoming a factor in the creative growth of a person, are a powerful means of influencing society, a person, and mass consciousness. New types of crimes are becoming possible, which only well-educated people with special knowledge and high technologies can prepare.

Thus, scientific and technological progress acts as a factor in complicating the spiritual life of society. It is characterized by the property of the fundamental unpredictability of its consequences, among which are those that have destructive manifestations. A person, therefore, must be in constant readiness in order to be able to respond to the challenges of the artificial world generated by him.

The history of the spiritual development of the 20th century testifies to the intense search for answers to the challenges of science and technology, to the dramatic realization of the lessons of the past and possible new dangers, when the understanding of the need for tireless and painstaking work to strengthen the moral foundations of society comes. This is not a one-time solution. It rises again and again, each generation must solve it independently, taking into account the lessons of the past and thinking about the future.

The 20th century demonstrated an unprecedented growth in the power of the state and its impact on all spheres of social and individual life, including the spiritual. There are facts of total dependence of a person on the state, which has discovered the ability to subjugate all manifestations of the existence of the individual and cover almost the entire population within the framework of such subordination.

State totalitarianism should be regarded as an independent phenomenon in the history of the 20th century. It is not limited to one or another ideology or period or even type of political power, although these questions are extremely important. The fact is that even countries that are considered bastions of democracy did not escape in the 20th century tendencies to invade the private lives of citizens (“McCarthyism” in the USA, “prohibitions on professions” in Germany, etc.). The rights of citizens are violated in a variety of situations and under the most democratic state structure. This suggests that the state itself has grown into a special problem and has intentions to subjugate society and the individual. It is no coincidence that at a certain stage, various forms of non-governmental human rights organizations arise and develop, striving to protect the individual from the arbitrariness of the state.

The growth of the power and influence of the state is found in the growth of the number of civil servants; strengthening the influence and equipment of repressive bodies and special forces; creating a powerful propaganda and information apparatus capable of collecting the most detailed information about every citizen of society and to subject the consciousness of people to mass processing in the spirit of a given state ideology.

The inconsistency and complexity of the situation lies in the fact that the state, both in the past and in the present, is necessary for society and the individual.

The fact is that the nature of social existence is such that a person everywhere is faced with the most complex dialectic of good and evil. The strongest human minds have tried to solve these problems. Yet the hidden causes of this dialectic, which guide the development of society, remain as yet unknown. Therefore, force, violence, suffering are still inevitable companions of human life. Culture, civilization, democracy, which, it would seem, should soften morals, remain a thin layer of varnish, under which the abysses of savagery and barbarism are hidden. This layer breaks from time to time in one place, then in another, or even in several at once, and humanity finds itself on the edge of the abyss of horrors, atrocities and abominations. And this despite the fact that there is a state that does not allow to slide into this abyss and retains at least the appearance of civilization. And the same tragic dialectic of human existence forces him either to build institutions to curb his own passions, or to destroy them by the power of those same passions.

And yet, the suffering that the community has to endure from the state is immeasurably less than the evil that would fall to its lot, were it not for the state and its deterrent force, which is the basis of the security of citizens as a whole. As N.A. Berdyaev, the state exists not to create paradise on earth, but to prevent it from turning into hell.

History, including domestic history, shows that where the state collapses or weakens, a person becomes defenseless against the uncontrollable forces of evil. Legitimacy, court, administration become powerless. Individuals begin to seek protection from non-state entities and the mighty of the world this, the nature and actions of which are often criminal in nature. Thus, personal dependence is established with all the signs of slavery. And this was foreseen by Hegel, who noticed that people must find themselves in a defenseless position in order to feel the need for a reliable statehood, or, let us add, a “strong hand”. And each time they had to start anew the formation of the state, unkindly remembering those who led them on the path of imaginary freedom, which in reality turns into even greater slavery.

Thus, the importance of the state in the life of modern society is great. However, this circumstance does not allow turning a blind eye to the dangers emanating from the state itself and expressed in the tendencies towards the omnipotence of the state machine and its absorption of the whole society. Experience of the 20th century shows that society must be able to resist two equally dangerous extremes: on the one hand, the destruction of the state, on the other hand, its overwhelming impact on all aspects of society. The optimal path, which would ensure the observance of the interests of the state as a whole and at the same time of an individual, lies in a relatively narrow gap between the chaos of statelessness and state tyranny. To be able to stay on this path without falling into extremes is extremely difficult. Russia in the XX century. failed to do so.

There are no other means of resisting state omnipotence, except for realizing this danger, taking into account fatal mistakes and learning from them, awakening a sense of responsibility for each and every one, criticizing state abuses, developing civil society, protecting human rights and the rule of law.

“The revolt of the masses” is an expression used by the Spanish philosopher X. Ortega y Gasset to characterize a specific phenomenon of the 20th century, the content of which is the complication of the social structure of society, the expansion of the sphere and the increase in the pace of social dynamics.

In the 20th century, the relative orderliness of society and its transparent social hierarchy were replaced by its massization, giving rise to a whole range of problems, including spiritual ones. Individuals from one social group were given the opportunity to move to others. Social roles began to be distributed relatively randomly, often regardless of the level of competence, education and culture of the individual. There is no stable criterion that determines promotion to higher levels of social status. Even the competence and professionalism in the conditions of massovization have undergone devaluation. Therefore, people who do not have the necessary qualities for this can penetrate into the highest posts in society. The authority of competence is easily replaced by the authority of power and force.

Generally in mass society evaluation criteria are changeable and contradictory. A significant part of the population is either indifferent to what is happening, or accepts the standards, tastes and predilections imposed by means mass media and formed by someone, but not developed independently. Independence and originality of judgments and behavior are not welcome and become risky. This circumstance cannot but contribute to the loss of the ability for methodical thinking, for social, civic and personal responsibility. Most people follow imposed stereotypes and experience discomfort when trying to break them. The “man-mass” enters the historical arena.

Of course, the phenomenon of the "mass uprising", with all its negative aspects, cannot serve as an argument in favor of restoring the old hierarchical system, as well as in favor of establishing a firm order through tough state tyranny. Massovization is based on the processes of democratization and liberalization of society, which presuppose the equality of all people before the law and the right of everyone to choose their own destiny.

Thus, the entry of the masses into the historical arena is one of the consequences of people's awareness of the opportunities that have opened up before them and the feeling that everything in life can be achieved and there are no insurmountable obstacles for this. But here lies the danger. Thus, the absence of visible social restrictions can be considered as the absence of restrictions at all; overcoming the social class hierarchy - as overcoming the spiritual hierarchy, which implies respect for spirituality, knowledge, competence; equality of opportunity and high standards of consumption - as a justification for claims to a high position without well-deserved grounds; relativity and pluralism of values ​​- as the absence of any values ​​of enduring significance.

In addition to the fact that such a situation is fraught with social chaos or the establishment of a dictatorship as a consequence of the desire to avoid such chaos, there are dangers of a purely spiritual nature.

The “man-mass” is not able and does not want to evaluate himself both from the bad and from the good side, he feels “like everyone else” (X. Ortega y Gasset) and does not worry about it at all. He likes to feel "like everyone else." He does not demand much from himself, does not strive for self-improvement, prefers not to complicate life and tends to go with the flow. By focusing on the material side of life, he can achieve success, prosperity and comfort.

"Man-mass", solving any mental problem, is limited to the first thought that comes to mind. This style of thinking is fundamentally different from the higher one, which accepts as worthy and adequate only such a thought that requires tension of the spirit and intellect. He also does not feel an internal need for high aesthetic values, and even more so in following them. High discipline of the spirit, exactingness to oneself are alien to him. He does not want to admit someone else's rightness, nor to be right himself, trying simply to impose his opinion or join the generally accepted one. At the same time, it is infected with energy and dynamism. The world appears to him as a wide field for the application of energy and enterprise.

The "average" person has a sense of superiority in relation to the past, based primarily on advances in science, technology and information. However, at the same time, he does not notice that this progress is not at all his merit, moreover, it does not mean the same progress forward in the field of spiritual, cultural, moral. Therefore, the masses, without bothering to reflect, easily accept simple slogans, rather than serious reflections, and readily respond to simple decisions. And almost always there are demagogues who use this feature of the masses in their own interests, not caring about the consequences. Hence, a step to violence, which, being in other conditions the last resort, in this case acts as the first step, thus blocking the path to dialogue and partnership. To justify failures and difficulties, the image of the enemy is best suited, which is easy to construct on the basis of the unknown, rumors and conjectures.

This is how the terrible danger and disease of our time arises and is cultivated on the waves of mass consciousness - aggressive nationalism. The processes taking place in the world - the acquisition of sovereignty and independence, as well as interdependence and mutual influence - provide some grounds for this. Healthy nationalism is a reflection of national interests and patriotism. However, its extreme form, growing on the unpretentiousness of the mass man and his consciousness, is aggressive and poses a threat to humanity.

Another danger that has become real against the background of the massification of modern life is the growing influence of religious fundamentalism in its extreme forms and sectarianism, especially of the totalitarian type. This became possible against the background of the loss of traditional values ​​by people, separation from historical roots, and disappointment in promising theories. Religious fundamentalism and totalitarianism, capitalizing on the gullibility of people, restricts a person's right to privacy, cuts off an individual from social ties, with the exception of religious ones, and most often takes the soil of extremism and terrorism.

"Man-mass" is not a layer, but a type of modern average person, which is common in all groups and spheres of society. He can also be in an environment that considers itself elite and intellectual. His features are found everywhere and at the same time he seems to be nowhere. This is due to its variability, i.e. the possibility of self-change. The mass man is such that he has the potential of his own overcoming. There are no external obstacles to this, all obstacles are internal in nature, and therefore can be overcome.

The possibilities of overcoming the worst features of a mass person depend on the characteristics of the time, technological and other achievements. Today he is more informed than previous generations, he knows much more. True, this knowledge and information are rather superficial. Today, however, nothing prevents them from becoming deeper, except for the lack of desire and will to overcome their own inertia and mental slumber. The background and opportunities for such growth are unlimited technological possibilities, the expansion of communications between people and other factors.

Classical art was distinguished by conceptual clarity and certainty of visual and expressive means. The aesthetic and moral ideals of the classics are as distinct and easily recognizable as its images and characters. Classical art elevated and ennobled, as it sought to awaken the best feelings and thoughts in a person. The line between high and low, beautiful and ugly, true and false in the classics is quite obvious.

Non-classical culture (“modern”, “postmodern”), as noted, is emphatically anti-traditionalist in nature, overcomes canonized forms and styles and develops new ones. It is characterized by blurring of the ideal, anti-systematic. Light and dark, beautiful and ugly can be put in one row. Moreover, the ugly and the ugly are sometimes deliberately put in the foreground. Much more often than before, there is an appeal to the area of ​​the subconscious, making, in particular, impulses of aggressiveness and fear the subject of artistic research.

As a result, art, like philosophy, discovers that, for example, the theme of freedom or lack of freedom cannot be reduced to a political-ideological dimension. They are rooted in the depths of the human psyche and are associated with a desire for domination or submission. Hence comes the realization that the elimination of social unfreedom does not yet solve the problem of freedom in the full sense of the word. The “little man”, so sympathetically spoken of in the culture of the 19th century, turned into a “mass man”, showed no less craving for the suppression of freedom than the old and new rulers. The irreducibility of the problem of freedom to the question of the political and social structure, and of human existence to sociality, was revealed in all its acuteness. That is why in the 20th century there is great interest in the work of F.M. Dostoevsky and S. Kierkegaard, who developed the theme of freedom, referring to the depths of the human psyche and the inner world. Subsequently, this approach was continued in works filled with reflections on the nature and essence of aggressiveness, rational and irrational, sexuality, life and death.

For all the controversy and problematic nature of non-classical culture and art, their appeal to the dark sides of human nature is not only an element of outrageousness, but also a means of achieving a cleansing effect. It is known that ignorance, silence, concealment give rise to anxiety and aggressiveness. Highlighting the hidden is able to clarify its content and, therefore, neutralize aggressiveness. By virtue of its ideal nature, an artistic or other image of evil, ugly, lack of culture can reduce their chances of being realized in life, because a person, horrified by what he sees on stage or canvas, will try to avoid this in reality. In addition, modern non-classical culture as a complex combination of rational, irrational and super-rational appeared precisely because the rationalism of culture of the Enlightenment type was insufficient to prevent the most monstrous crimes; moreover, it turned out that “monsters are born” not only by the “sleep of reason” (F. Goya), but also by its “arrogance” (F. Hayek). Rational projects and schemes are capable of ugly deforming reality, while at the same time not preventing the wildest passions and instincts from breaking into the light. Forced to turn to the low and dark in man and society, culture warns.

3. The crisis of spirituality in modern society

The crisis of spirituality in society is not something abstract and cannot be schematized in terms of a set of traits and signs such as a “fall in morals”, the degeneration of social institutions, or the loss of religiosity. The assessment of the essence and meaning of a spiritual crisis is always specific and depends on the subject's understanding of the essence of spirituality, on his views on the nature of a person's relationship to spiritual reality.

For a researcher who limits the sphere of spirituality to public consciousness, lack of spirituality will inevitably look like a combination of various unfavorable tendencies and states of public consciousness, such as: the strengthening of nihilistic, chauvinistic and racist sentiments, the decline in the prestige of knowledge, the dominance of mass culture, and the like. Individual lack of spirituality manifests itself in this case as the infection of individual people - to a greater or lesser extent - by these products that are social in nature.

The crisis of spirituality with this approach is localized in the socio-cultural zone and is a consequence of the decline of the established centers of spiritual experience. It was in this socio-cultural context that the philosophy of life and existentialism developed the problem of the crisis of European spirituality. Since the starting point of any culture is the recognition of higher supra-individual goals, meanings and values ​​of being, the loss of these latter by modern culture naturally led to nihilism, which conceptually expresses and consolidates the crisis of spirituality.

Even the ancient Greek philosophers discovered that the cultural, political and social spheres cannot provide space for the deployment of the highest spiritual capabilities of man; this requires highest values: truth as the Good, God as the first principle, faith in the absolute essence of things, and the like. And as long as these values ​​are part of everyday life, no particular flaws in social and cultural life can cause a crisis of spirituality and the nihilistic moods that express it.

The crisis of spirituality, therefore, is generated by a complex cause, which includes three points:

1. Theological, manifested in the loss of religious feeling;

2. Metaphysical, associated with the devaluation of absolute values;

3. Culturological, expressed in the general disorganization of life and the loss of meaningful life orientations by a person.

The paradox of the situation in which modern man finds himself lies in the fact that a spiritual crisis arises and develops against the backdrop of a sharp improvement in people's living conditions. The reason for this improvement is the technization of all aspects of social life, as well as the "progressive education of people"; the first leads to the growth of all forms of alienation and demoralization of society, the second - to the pathological attachment of a person to a cultural environment ideally adapted to satisfy his desires and needs, which grow, crowding out goals and replacing meanings. However, not being an essentially self-sufficient being, man was deceived by his functional self-sufficiency and, shutting himself up in himself, fenced himself off from the Spirit, from its life-giving source.

The crisis of spirituality is thus the result of a catastrophic loss of spiritual experiences, the mortification of the spirit, which is so literally reflected by the term "spirituality". Against the background of the practical absence of a living spiritual experience, the information overflow of a person and society looks especially depressing. Paradoxical as it may seem, the development of a person's creative forces ultimately leads to lack of spirituality, when they cease to be supported by a spiritual, moral principle and, as a result, turn into an end in itself in his life.

In the early eras, despite the constraint of the creative human potential, it was precisely spirituality filled the lives of the elect with the highest meaning and acted as an organizing and ordering basis for all others. The prerequisites for the loss of the integrative function of human existence by the spirit developed in the New Age, when, after the Middle Ages, "man went the way of autonomy of various spheres of creative human activity ...". In this situation, a separate and partial - political systems, economics, technology, forms of social division of labor - as factors in the organization and rationalization of social life, they begin to claim totality and integrity. However, the total rationalization of the world turned out to be a myth, and the individual consciousness, having exhausted mental means in an attempt to “disenchant” the world, came to the conclusion about the absurdity and meaninglessness of being.

Spirituality, therefore, has deeper roots than moral corruption, political reaction, or economic and cultural decline. Moreover, its foundations are laid just in the epochs of the highest flourishing of culture. If spirituality is understood as the conjugation of a person with the Spirit, one will have to admit that, due to the extreme scarcity of living spiritual experience, the modern person is characterized by the underdevelopment of the individual spirit, in which all of it is concentrated on intellectual activity, because only this is enough for its strength. In moral terms, this underdevelopment is expressed in identifying oneself exclusively with the external person, narrowly focused on the social environment and limiting himself to its norms and values, because he does not recognize any other values. His conscience can be sharpened, painfully sensitive to situations connected with social life, that is, with this worldly existence of a person, but is not able to see any spiritual meaning behind them. Such a person is moral in the sense that I. Kant puts into this concept, in whose concept morality is understood as obedience to a general universal law.

Carrying out the Kantian concept of "moral man" to its logical end, K. Popper and F. Hayek subsequently simply replaced the moral concept of conscience with the socio-ethical concept of "justice". Meanwhile, true spirituality is not a moral category, but a moral one. It is addressed to the inner, subjective feelings and experiences of a person. Without elevating moral principles into law, it relies in solving moral and meaningful problems on the spiritual experience of knowing God, ascent to God, and as absolute guidelines relies on the spiritual experience of people who have reached the highest form of spirituality - holiness, a state in which the inner, spiritual person is completely subjugated the external - social, earthly man. Since such experience is always concrete, unlike an abstract moral principle, it cannot be used to justify anything and everything. spiritual man in his aspiration to the Spirit, he sees and knows with the spirit, often contrary to the usual logic and habitual ideas. His conscience easily comes to terms with external, social or personal, injustice; external virtues (as opposed to thoughts) are not very significant for it; he reacts sharply precisely to that in which the outer man has no part at all, for example, to original sin, while from the point of view of the outer man there is nothing more absurd than this idea.

The solution of the question about the essence of any phenomenon is possible only if its developed forms are studied. The higher forms are the key to the analysis of the lower ones, and not vice versa. It is useless, for example, to try to draw conclusions about the structure of man on the basis of studying higher primates, just as it is useless to study the phenomenon of corporeality using the example of angelic existence only on the grounds that angels, as created entities, have a refined (compared to human) corporality. And if we, knowing that somatism was an essential feature of the ancient worldview, that it was in ancient Greek thinking that corporeality was elevated to the highest principle and resulted in a literal, sculptural design, we suddenly neglect this fact and turn to angelology for the purpose of studying the phenomenon of corporeality, which deals with corporeality as a relative property that literally disappears from our human dimension - can we expect to see anything significant behind this phenomenon? The same is the case with spirituality, when we refuse to study its higher refined forms and remain within the world of human consciousness - individual and social. Does spirituality manifest itself somehow at this level? Certainly, since consciousness is spirit.

Appeal to the problem of spirituality opens up new facets of the relationship between mysticism and scientism. Science, for all its effectiveness, is unable to quench a person's passion for knowing the secrets of being and himself. Awareness of this circumstance led in the 20th century to a break in the existing worldview attitudes and attempts to go beyond the traditional confrontation between scientific and extra-scientific, including religious knowledge. In this regard, it is necessary to voice a warning against the propaganda of broad worldview pluralism that has recently unfolded, calling for recognition of the same status for science, on the one hand, and parascience, occult and religious teachings, on the other. These appeals do not look convincing: the elimination of the demarcation line between science and religion, science and mysticism poses a real threat to culture, because the syncretic form that has arisen as a result of such a mixture will destroy both science and religion, which will lead to a further decline in religiosity, as a result of which lack of spirituality may become irreversible.

4. The problem of spirituality in the modern world

Today, everyone is well aware of the spiritual and moral problems of our society. I write and talk a lot about this, but only awareness of the problems is not enough to find their solution. In the process of formation of civil society, the role of spirituality of each individual increases many times over.

Moral fundamentals are the main filters for creating and maintaining a system of the state, in which the dignity and freedom of the individual should come first. A person must be able to distinguish between alien and hostile. Spirituality should protect us from wrong deeds and destructive actions in relation to others and ourselves.

The big problem is that the level of spirituality, and, consequently, of public consciousness is declining imperceptibly. The manifestation of this is indifference, increased aggression and cruelty, the emergence of consumer desires. Slow dissolution of conscience undermines moral memory, reduces general intellectual abilities. As a result of the above, the destruction creativity and the cessation of human spiritual development.

Distracting for a second from our physical and material needs, we can notice that a “worldview catastrophe” is taking place. In society, the internal structure and the general spiritual and psychological climate are changing. With the absence of the imposed political ideology that was practiced by the government in the middle of the last century, the mind of the citizens was at a loss - what to believe in and what ideals to follow?

But consciousness cannot be empty, and new trends come to replace the "ideology of Marx". One of them is the appearance in the minds of a passionate desire to fill their world with material values, consumer desires and fight for a fictional success imposed by the same confused minds. Now the majority of representatives of our society openly reject the spiritual component of human existence, attempts to know the soul, to contemplate the beauty in the world around us and the eternity of being seem alien to them. The industry of consumer desires is developing. And the success of materialism is due not only to the absence of ideals, but also to the methods of modern pedagogy, politics, and even psychology.

Currently, many forms of psychological, psychosocial and alternative means of leaving a person from responsibility for their actions have been created. We can recall such techniques of external programming and coding of someone else's personality as hypnosis, 25-frame, commercials, neuro-linguistic programming, etc. - all this applies to and is based on the foundations of modern philosophy and psychology.

Political actions, such as elections, referendums, and simply demonstrations, also widely use the tools of sociotechnical means of influence. The main goal of such events is to manipulate the "unconscious" of the masses. As a result, the highest social figures get a group of people with a complete apathy for social contradictions and injustice.

Our society has forgotten about God. Some consider it an abstract concept - they believe in the universal mind, Super-I, etc. They believe that it does not matter what to believe in, the main thing is to fill your soul with this feeling. But it is not so. The feeling of the Divine presence should be inherent in everyone. It is precisely because of its absence in modern society that the problems of various forms of youth addiction are catastrophic. Alienation and soullessness destroy life and push people to search for something that will fill their life with anything - drugs, alcohol. If it bothers, then suicide as the last exit.

But worldview problems give rise to another trend - an attempt to find the meaning of life, built on a special, one might even say peculiar, spiritual practice, such as Eastern mysticism, magic and occultism.

Various sects and neo-pagan cults flourish in the public consciousness. The idea imposed on society that we are at a turning point in human development and are discovering more and more knowledge about us and the Universe itself makes people believe in the “Cosmic Mind”, the “Information Society”, which do not need spirituality and faith.

But if you look in more detail at the causes of the ideological catastrophe of our time, you can also see that man himself is the cause of the decadence of spirituality and mercy. He presents himself in consciousness as something incomplete, this is confirmed by a huge number of scientific trends in philosophy and sociology. An example of the above is the emergence of Freudianism, the isolation of the individual from others in the school of Kant, the separation of man as a being that consumes everything and lives only for himself, and the development of such theories.

Such models of man are the product of sciences similar to natural ones. But a person, first of all, is a spiritual person, living not only in the physical, thinking and feeling emotionally. And only according to this definition, it is not possible to enter the life and development of the individual into the strict framework of scientific work.

The properties of the human soul, such as originality, uniqueness, the ability to express themselves, are the basis of our Orthodox culture. They define the meaning of activities and human relationships.

On the this moment The development of society requires, first of all, to reconsider the psychological, political, economic, humanitarian and philosophical views on the individual.

Modern society is obliged to begin a spiritual and moral revival. Education should aim to develop not only the mental abilities and intellect of a person, but also to teach a person to acquire himself, a human image, which will allow him to be himself and share good and evil. Each person must become the subject of historical and cultural actions.

Through education, young people should be included in the continuous process of development of society and their own formation in it. Education is entrusted with the function of introducing new generations to the way of life of the elders, with the acquisition of knowledge and values ​​accumulated over the centuries.

The main sore point of the modern social situation is the alienation and opposition to family traditions, social foundations in general, the destruction of ties between parents and children. The absence of established communities of people can also be attributed here, i.e. those that would have national, spiritual, cultural and social common values ​​and meaning. Now most of the organizations and informal associations are of a destructive nature.

In pedagogy, the concepts of "spirituality" and "morality" are usually linked together, and this has a deep meaning. So, in the most general form, morality is a consequence and cause of the way of life of human communities; it is here that the norms, values ​​and meanings of human society live.

Thus, we can conclude that a modern person faces a difficult choice, how not to commit immoral acts among the ongoing changes and phenomena in the life of society, to be able to draw the right conclusions and choose actions based on the principles of morality and spirituality. Moral humanism, based on the principle of harmony between man and nature, becomes a necessity.

Conclusion

Human spirituality is the ability to go beyond the narrowly selfish desire to survive, succeed, protect oneself from adversity. A life filled with spiritual wealth involves not only the inclusion in the image of one's own "I" of huge - in breadth and depth - information about the world around us, but also the ability to consider one's "I" in the context of the universe. At the same time, a person acts not as a passive link, but as a subject of activity. This is a person who is trying to understand his destiny in this world, striving to fill his life with a certain meaning and actively realizing his potential in the name of certain ideals, and not for purely selfish purposes.

Spirituality cannot be reduced to a high and diversified intellect also because it is not only a problem of self-consciousness, but also an emotional category that provides for the priority of the first in a complex dialogue of good and evil beginnings of being. For some, it is a reliance on the morality of society, on the principles of religious dogmas, for others it is their own conscience, which does not allow them to cross the line beyond which there is a danger of infringing on the interests of other people. If a person does not violate the laws of justice, not out of fear of punishment, but at the behest of his own moral principles, the violation of which threatens him with a loss of self-respect, then this is already a sign of a higher mentality.

Spirituality is a concept that implicitly contains indifference to the surrounding world. This is partiality a positive sign. It is also a desire to fill one's life with passion and interest in different spheres of life, love for one's country, for nature, for people, for something that is not a tool for realizing a pragmatic need. In contrast to ordinary interests aimed at pleasing human flesh, spirituality means a person's focus on other, non-material values.

By now, a situation has developed when such natural essences of human qualities as kindness, love for one’s neighbor, decency, courage, honesty, began to seem like a rudiment, stupidity, became an indicator of the inability to “adapt to life”. Almost every person in his depths is burdened by such a situation, he sees the true meaning of being, and is drawn to it. But the massive and inert reality of negative spirituality, the passivity of a person and his unwillingness to suffer, which is inevitable with an independent path to a worthy meaning in the era of the domination of evil - all this makes a person’s vague attempts fruitless and, ultimately, works for the same negative reality. Therefore, "diagnosing" the spiritual state of our time, we have to admit that humanity is "sick to death."

Different countries and different regions of the world justify the worthlessness of their current existence in different ways: some refer to the responsibility of the strong, who must take care of the growth of democracy around the world, following this process through the slot of an automaton, others relieve themselves of responsibility, referring to the difficulties of the transition period , others strive to keep the won economic positions and "high quality of life" by any means, etc. All this, as in some kind of absurd game, as in a kaleidoscope - flickers, the picture is replaced by a picture; no one is personally responsible for the overall result, and the result, meanwhile, is terrible. The world has become alien to man, it is uncomfortable and hard for a man in it: it is hard for the poor, it is hard for the rich. One barely makes ends meet, the other must constantly hide these ends in the water.

But never before has this “house of mankind” been so well built that there is no place for man himself. The current crisis of human being in the world is fundamentally different from the previous ones: it is not for nothing that a person began to “rush to the stars” in the hope that his new home might be there, but this is unlikely. Here on Earth one must live, but one must live, not pretend.

List of used literature

1. Introduction to philosophy. Textbook for higher educational institutions, 2 vol. / Ed. Frolova I.T. - M., 2009.
2. Mironov V.V. Philosophy. Textbook for high schools. - M., 2009.
3. New Philosophical Encyclopedia. 1-4 v. - M .: Thought. 2008.
4. Radugin A.A. Philosophy. Lecture course. - M., 2007.
5. Spirkin A.G. Philosophy. Textbook. - M., 2009.
6. Tokareva S.B. The problem of spiritual experience and methodological foundations for the analysis of spirituality. - M., 2009.
7. Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary. - M., 2008.

Tokareva S.B. The problem of spiritual experience and methodological foundations for the analysis of spirituality. – S. 91.

Tokareva S.B. The problem of spiritual experience and methodological foundations for the analysis of spirituality. – S. 95.