The Institute of Universology of New York

Crisis of general culture, education, simplification of ideals in all spheres of life

We are now witnessing an unprecedented orgy of immorality resulting from a falling level of culture, the substitution of higher human values ​​and ideals of beauty by pseudo values of animalistic nature of a human being. Culture as a means of human development and improvement is substituted by pseudo culture which serves as a means of entertainment and contributes to the manifestation of the lowest in the human. Most people only seek to achieve material comfort, powerful desires and meet the growing emotional needs through low-grade shows, alcohol and drugs. The standard of living started to be measured by the satisfaction of material needs, and the prospects for development by the availability of resources. Academician D.S. Likhachev wrote that "... without culture there is no morality. Without basic morals social laws do not work. Low level of culture has a negative impact on our social life, work and international relations. "

Nowadays it is the media that has the most devastating effect on the population, especially TV-screen characters demonstrating constant shoot-outs. Media give wide publicity to the vices of the society showing them to adults, adolescents and children, and thus impose a distorted image of life on fragile consciousness of the younger generation, whose worldview is not yet formed.

Children trust what they are offered and are vulnerable to the flow of brutality and violence. They grow up with the knowledge that this is a standard of life, and the world is initially cruel and aggressive. Thus, those programs that do not carry any positive charge and count on the worst human’s qualities threaten both the psyche of each individual and moral health of the society.

What is real culture? N.K. Roerich once said that culture determines the evolutionary stage of human development. This is reflected in his words: "The ignorant man must first become civilized (to know the universality of the world)," and then educated (to be able to communicate knowledge to others). Becoming educated, he becomes intelligent (being able to apply knowledge for the benefit), then follows sophistication to the needs of the world (the ability to see the true value), and the sense of synthesis (the known and the applied), which is concluded by the adoption of the concept of Culture.

Thus, the way to the achievement of the evolutionary development of a human and the humankind is already shaped, and it could lay the basis for the educational process in our schools. But education is in deep crisis, it does not perform its global purpose, because it does not promote moral progress. It is technological and does not apply the acquired knowledge to socially useful practice, does not give any idea of a real picture of the universe, of human’s and nation’s purpose of life, of the human’s role in the Planetary Humankind. Distorted worldview impedes the formation of true guidelines for the evolutionary development of a human, family and society.

Moral and psychological problems on the personal level (social individualization). The mechanism of socialization works through morality, ethics, and culture. Bright personality manifestation is possible both through egoism and altruism.

Thus, the effective solution to this crisis that gives birth to simplification of ideals through media which imposes a distorted way of life, the prevalence of self-interest over common ones, will lie in the creation of continuing education and public self-administration.

Crisis of uneven socio-economic development, rise of terrorism, threat of a world war

The current world socio-economic crisis shows the imperfections in the existing theories of society that do not take into consideration the regularities of socio-economic relationships, methods of production and forms of ownership. Hence the inability to see the prospects of state development. To overcome the crisis requires a comprehensive universal doctrine of development, which takes into account the laws of humanity and the planet as a single organism.

The most negative effects of this crisis are: the rise of international terrorism, wars, interethnic and religious conflicts.

The rise of terrorism is due to social apathy, lack of self-realization, man being unwanted and lonely. Hence the anger towards the society. A striking example is terrorism in the Caucasus republics, where many people (especially young) do not even have a permanent job. And as soon as the authorities pay due attention, terrorism goes. Example – Chechnya, Kadyrov.

Violence and terror in the world are the evidence of the urgent need to change the social order by building a civil society, which will allow to involve a person in all spheres of life giving them the opportunity for self-realization.

To return to a person the feeling of their importance it is necessary to develop a social self-government system in parallel with the existing state social security system, which will provide feedback from the person to the State responding to the emerging needs and requirements. Granting a person a chance for self-realization in any conditions and by teaching them to combine all that is useful (wage labor) with all that brings joy (experiment, search, discovery) can lead to territorial, industrial and social self-government with civil centers. It is social self-government which is able to solve the deepest problems of the society.

War is always a way of destructive actions that come as a result of uncoordinated interests, egoism and self-isolation. And it is the usual state of the humankind. For the last 5 thousand years (since 3200 BC) the humankind has lived only 290 years in peace. The state of war, aggression, seizure, robbery is a sad norm of people’s life in centuries-old history.

However, recent advances of civilization along with the geographical expansion of conflicts and their globalization can fully destroy the humankind. The greatest threat of expanding conflicts comes from interethnic and religious controversies.

The peculiarity of our time is the information battle for people’s minds. It was found out that people used to actions, violent computer games and American shows hardened to the extent that their lives became worthless, and every death in the war is regarded as one more point in the game. Computer games enhance person’s inclination to violence, stimulating the parts of the brain responsible for vision and movements, slowing down the parts controlling negative emotions.

When the very human life loses its value in the consciousness of a person, it is a really dangerous distortion in the development of the society. Those countries where cruelty and aggression are the norm of life have sad future.

On the personal level problems of mutual understanding and cooperation in team work.

The history of the humankind is an aspiration for coordinated team work, for effective forms of cooperation. Personal egoism has always been a hindrance to it.

Thereby, the way out of this crisis lies in a decrease of polarization in the society, weakening of competition, overcoming social apathy, formation of coordinated team cooperation and realization of a universal socio-economic doctrine of development in all spheres of life.

The crisis of values ​​of human development: crisis of relationships between civilization and kingdoms of nature, disintegration of the plant’s eco-system

New epoch brought a new type of conflict between civilization and nature. A new type of antagonism immerged – anthropogenic and eco-philosophical – contradiction between the old disintegrating and the new synthesizing lifestyle and worldview.

And if development is an aspiration for coordination and regulation of the existing forms of life in the world and on the planet, then we are no longer developing and are on the threshold of a moral, ecological, philosophical and demographic crisis.

The confrontation between nations causes polarization in the depths of the planet, hydrosphere and atmosphere. And it is already taking place. The number and the scale of devastations due to atmospheric turbulences (storms, tornadoes and so on) have increased dramatically in recent years. Not long ago we witnessed a huge tsunami that took away hundreds of thousands of people’s lives in south-east Asia. The number and the scale of earthquakes are also increasing, extinct volcanoes (Elbrus and so on) start to awake. If the humankind doesn’t think better of it and doesn’t change its attitude to the kingdoms of nature and doesn’t form truly civilized relationships between nations, we will all face colossal planetary cataclysms about which the directors of such movies as “The Fifth Element”, “The Day After Tomorrow”, “The Core” and so on were trying to warn us.

Problems on the personal level connected with the lack of knowledge and understanding of Universal laws of development. Laws are objective, but our understanding and implementation of them are subjective, i.e. we see it through the perspective of our personal consciousness and experience.

Thereby, to overcome the human’s loss of belief in the future and their link with the society, nature and the world we need to shape our vision of the future, because if the humankind doesn’t have at least a vague vision of the future, then it won’t be able to direct its thought to building the steps towards the expected result.

Crisis of goals of humankind’s development: Lack of evolutionary strategy, the possibility of humankind’s destruction

A person without a goal loses the aim of life. Their development stops and they start to degrade. The same happens to the society and to the humankind. Lost values bring to devaluation of life, substitution of ideals, degradation of the members of the society and states’ decline.

Problems on the personal level connected with the loss of connection between a person and the world, loss of a goal and sense of life. Use of the creative potential not for the process of world discovery and achieving unity with it, but for alienation, egoism and immersion in the world of illusions. For the last 5800 years the humankind has lived only 290 years in peace. Alcoholism, drug use.

Modern people should posses the knowledge about themselves and their place in the world. This knowledge will help them not only to become actualized personalities, but also to survive in the existing crisis.

Thereby, the way out of this crisis lies in forming a concept of balanced nature and civilization development.

What are the criteria of goal selection? The answer lies in the historic experience of humankind’s development and in the accumulated values of the world culture.

1-st criterion. Succession in the world culture, i.e. the phenomenon must have analogues in history, which is based on the law of energy conservation “nothing does not appear from nothing and vanishes nowhere”.

2-nd criterion. Compliance with universal laws of nature and universal principles, i.e. the phenomenon should be created “in the image and likeness of God”. Knowledge of universal course of events, regularity of life space formation in time (personality, group, society, humankind) gives a philosophical axis in the solution to both global and daily issues of human’s development.

3-d criterion. Aspiration for morality, beauty, depth, purity and coordination of interests in the relationships of a personality, group, society, humankind, nature, planet… Relationships, nobility and grandeur of deeds made for the sake of common evolutionary wellbeing. Thereby, the main direction of humankind’s development is a process of carrying collective forms of co-creation. It is a higher goal on the basis of which the humankind will be able to ascend to a new step of evolution of the planet.

4-th criterion. Practice of life according to the first three criteria. At the turn of the eras the humankind undergoes a deepest crisis of its development, which can’t be yet surpassed by none of the state power structures, the hierarchs of different churches, scientific leaders, cultural and educational leaders.

Global crisis like everything else has two sides.

On the one hand global crisis brings risk of destruction of the humankind as a species. The threat to the very existence of the humankind and the planet is becoming more perceptible.

On the other hand it is a chance to acquire to a new quality of development.

It is from the point of existing conflicts that we are shown potential resources. When these resources start to be in demand, then these most feeble places may become sources of force, which will allow people not only to survive but also to ascend to a new more advanced level of development.