The Civilizatonal Dimension of Modern World Development: Problems and Approaches

The article is devoted to the problem of civilizational perspectives and alternatives to modern world development. The purpose of the study is the demarcation of global trends in this development: preservation or weakening of the highest spiritual principles of social change regulation. The basis for the formulation of this problem is the ongoing philosophical, scientific and political discussion in the world about trends and prospects of modern globalization in terms of its impact on the world order, the possibility of managing world processes. The first two sections of the article are devoted to this topic. One of the main results of this discussion can be considered as recognition of a decline in controllability of social change, a growing danger of weakening and disintegration of world civilizations, consisting in social costs and criminal consequences of globalization: the spread of corruption, conventional and organized crime linked to terrorism; the fall of the previous globalization of high culture. It is noted that cultural globalization in all its complexity factors, processes and trends cannot be reduced simply to the spread of modern patterns of behavior and consciousness. No less, and even more important with regard to the moral and ethical content of these patterns, is closely related to their global transfer disorder deviant behavior of different social groups. In these conditions, the question of civilizational prospects of world development is of great scientific and practical importance. The article deals with the alarmist views on the future of world civilization, which are widespread in the scientific and expert community: “return to history”, “threats of modern barbarism”, the actualization of archaism. The last section of the article examines civilizational risks of modern world development associated with simplified variants of self-organization and self-regulation of global social changes that go beyond the civilizational principles and values of “decent” and “right” behavior or undermine them. It is concluded that there is an increase in tension – spiritual, moral, intellectual – in perception of the main landmarks of world development (focus on rapid social success, unlimited freedom of action versus focus on the highest, transcendent principles and values) and in views on its trends (global interdependence of countries and peoples versus possible split of the world and humanity). The global danger is not the prospect of a clash of civilizations, but civilizational disorder.