Chapter XVIII. SOCIAL PROGRESS

2. The contradictory nature of the development of truth The main thesis of materialist dialectics in the doctrine of truth is the recognition of its objective nature. Objective truth is the content of human ideas that does not depend on the subject, i.e.

Humanity does not stand still, but is constantly growing in all areas. The life of society is improving with the development of technology, mechanical engineering and processing valuable resources. The inconsistency of social progress lies in the philosophical assessment of human actions.

What it is?

In a broad sense, progress is a systematic development from lower to higher. That is, a constant desire to grow upward, improve and modernize. Progress is not fast or slow, it is determined by the degree of movement. With progress, the number of internal organizational connections increases and their level becomes more complex. The opposite of progress is regression.

There is also social progress, it is determined by the criteria of social progress and shows how developed humanity is in scientific, technical, moral and other directions. Our species progressed from wild apes to Homo sapiens.

Problems of progress in society

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, maintained by the university of the same name, freely available online and constantly updated with hundreds of articles from the world's leading experts, identifies three important questions that relate to progress.

1. Does progress lead humanity to well-being? If so, why?
2. Where does progress come from and what are its historical laws?
3. What is the empirical evidence for the theory of progress?

It consists in the impossibility of defining it unambiguously as a positive or negative phenomenon in a person’s life. Researchers of progress understand the well-being of society in different ways. One part of theorists is of the opinion that the standard of living is measured in material terms. And others completely deny the above, claiming a spiritual basis. The main values ​​are: freedom, self-realization, personal actualization, happiness, public support. In another case, a person’s values ​​may not be related to each other.

Modern discussion

The concept of social progress arises with the development of history. During the Enlightenment, the main theses of human development and his role in world history were formulated. Researchers tried to find patterns in the historical process, and based on their results they planned to predict the future.

At that time, the opinions of key philosophers were divided. Hegel and his followers considered ideas that would promote universal development and improvement. And the famous socialist Karl Marx believed that it was necessary to increase the growth of capital and, as a consequence, the material well-being of mankind.

Criteria for social progress

There is currently no consensus on how to measure progress. As noted, philosophers identify three key issues for development. And since it is unrealistic to consider progress as a negative or positive phenomenon, we can highlight the criteria for progress:

• Scientific and technological development, which is supported by the state.
• Expanding freedom of expression, freedom of speech and respect for human rights.
• Development of morality.
• Gradual progress in the field of human intelligence.

The described criteria together often contradict each other in terms of assessing any progress (social, economic). For example, technological development contributes to pollution environment. However, it is extremely useful for the development of society and is also harmful for the person himself, since it worsens his health and moral social development declines. Progress can negatively affect the development of another area of ​​human activity.

Another striking example is the creation of the atomic bomb. Early research into nuclear fusion showed humanity that nuclear energy could be converted into electricity. With progress in this direction, a by-product appeared nuclear bomb. And if you go deeper, a nuclear warhead is not so bad. It provides relative stability in world politics, and the planet does not see global wars for more than 70 years.

Progress in society. Revolution

This is the fastest but cruelest way to abruptly change one socio-political system to another. A revolution is started when there is no other possibility of changing power.

Examples of social progress that occurred through a violent change of power:

• October Revolution of 1917 in Russia.
• Turkish Kemalist Revolution of 1918-1922.
• The Second American Revolution, when the North fought against the South.
• Iranian revolution of 1905-1911.

After the establishment of the power of the people, the proletariat, the military and other leaders of the revolution, the lives of ordinary citizens, as a rule, worsen. But then it gradually recovers. During mass actions with the use of weapons, participants in protest events forget about civil norms and rules. And in most cases, during a revolution, mass terror begins, a split in the economy and lawlessness.

Progress in society. Reforms

Revolutions do not always occur with the rattling of weapons. There is also a special form of change of power - this is palace coup. This is the name given to the bloodless seizure of power by one of the political forces from the current rulers. In this case, no special changes are planned, and the improvement of the economic, political, and social situations occurs through reforms.

The authorities are systematically building a new society. Social progress is achieved through planned changes and, as a rule, affects only one area of ​​life.

A little history and deeper meaning of the term

Social progress is massive historical process development of society. In a broad sense, it implies the desire for the highest, from the primitivism of the Neanderthals to civilization modern man. The process is carried out through the development of scientific, social, political, cultural and other areas of society.

The French publicist Abbé Saint-Pierre made the first mention of the theory of progress in his book “Remarks on the Continuous Progress of the Universal Reason” (1737). The description in the book is very specific for modern people. And, of course, you shouldn’t take it for the only true thing.

A famous publicist said that progress is God's providence. As a phenomenon, the progress of society has always been and will be, and only the Lord is able to stop it. At the moment, research is ongoing.

Social criterion

It indicates the level of the sphere. It means the freedom of society and people, the standard of living, the correlation of the amount of money among the population, the level of development, taken as an example of a separate middle-class country.

The social criterion is achieved through two meanings: revolution and reform. If the first implies a harsh change of power and a radical change in the existing system, then thanks to reforms society develops systematically and not so rapidly. Reforms will also absorb expected changes in power and crises. It is impossible to give any assessment to them or the revolution. One can only consider the opinions of political and philosophical schools.

One group of researchers believes that the only correct way to change power is by armed force. Democratic protests with banners and peaceful slogans often turn out to be ineffective. This method is extremely effective if an authoritarian regime is established in the country and power is usurped.

If there is an adequate leader in the country who understands his inadequacy, then he can cede power to the opposition and give the opportunity to carry out reforms. But are there many such cases? Therefore, most of the radical population adheres to the ideas of the revolution.

Economic criterion

Acts as one of the forms of social progress. Everything related to economic development falls within this criterion.

• GDP growth.
• Trade connections.
• Development of the banking sector.
• Increase in production capacity.
• Production of products.
• Modernization.

There are quite a lot of such parameters, and therefore the economic criterion is fundamental in any developed state. Singapore can be taken as a striking example. This is a small state located in South-East Asia. There is absolutely no inventory here. drinking water, oil, gold and other valuable resources.

However, in terms of living standards, Singapore is ahead of oil-rich Russia. There is no corruption in the country, and the welfare of the population is growing every year. All this is impossible without the following criterion.

Spiritual

Very controversial, like all other criteria of social progress. Judgments about moral development vary. And it all depends on the state in which any issue is being discussed. For example, in Arab countries, sexual minorities are godless and obscurantist. And their equality with other citizens will be a social regression.

And in European countries ah, in which religion does not act as a political force, sexual minorities are equated with ordinary people. They can have a family, get married and even adopt children. There are definitely factors that unite all countries. This is non-acceptance of murder, violence, theft and social injustice.

Scientific criterion

It is no secret that today people are in the information space. We have the opportunity to buy whatever our heart desires in the store. Everything that a person did not have a little over 100 years ago. Communication issues have also been resolved; you can easily call a subscriber from another country at any time.

There are no more deadly epidemics, viruses that killed millions. We forgot about time, because the speed of movement from one point on the planet to another is minimal. If our ancestors traveled from point A to point B in three months, now we can fly to the moon in this time.

How does social progress happen?

We will look at an example an ordinary person his formation from a primitive individual to a mature personality. From birth, the child begins to copy his parents, adopting their style and behavior pattern. During the period of awareness, he greedily absorbs information from all sources.

And the more knowledge he gains, the easier the transition to school uniform training. From first to fourth grade, the child actively interacts with the external environment. Skepticism and distrust of society have not yet appeared, but friendliness has developed along with childish naivety. Next, the teenager develops in the way that society needs. That is, he develops basic skills of mistrust; it is not recommended to express feelings and emotions. There are other stereotypes imposed by society.

And from the ninth grade, the teenager enters puberty. At this time he is actively developing reproductive system, the first facial hair appears. And at the same time, the mental system within the individual is reformed, and the teenager himself experiences incredible difficulties in self-determination.

During this period, the young man chooses a social model for himself, which will be almost impossible to change in the future. Under unfavorable circumstances, a teenager grows up to be an underdeveloped personality whose needs revolve around alcohol, sexual pleasures and watching TV. These are the people who make up the majority of the electorate in poor countries with poor education.

Or a person is born who has his own opinion and sees himself in society. This is a creator, he never criticizes, because he always offers. Such people become in a society where there are many middle class people, an active political system, and a developed economy.

Society and its development

There are two ways for a group of individuals to form. This is their collective interaction, described in the works of Karl Marx and other socialists, and their individual interaction, reflected in the book “Atlas Shrugged” by the writer Ayn Rand (Alice Rosenbaum).

In the first case, the outcome is well known. Soviet society collapsed, leaving behind the achievements of science, better medicine, education, industrial enterprises, and infrastructure. And most of the immigrants from the Soviet Union formally still live on the benefits of a collapsed country. Unfortunately, modern Russia will not leave anything behind after its collapse. At the same time, individualism reigns in it.

Now about America, it is also dominated by the ideology of individualism. And it is the most militarized country that has military bases all over the world. He spends huge amounts of money on the development of science and reaches certain heights; he also develops medicine, education, etc. And what is very strange is that what is good for one society is deadly for another.

It is very important to understand the direction in which our society is moving, constantly changing and developing. This article is dedicated to this purpose. We will try to determine the criteria for social progress and answer a number of other questions. First of all, let's figure out what progress and regression are.

Consideration of concepts

Social progress is a direction of development that is characterized by a progressive movement from simple and lower forms of organization of society to more complex, higher ones. The opposite of this term is the concept of “regression”, that is, the reverse movement - a return to outdated relationships and structures, degradation, the direction of development from higher to lower.

The history of the formation of ideas about the measures of progress

The problem of criteria for social progress has long worried thinkers. The idea that changes in society are precisely a progressive process appeared in ancient times, but finally took shape in the works of M. Condorcet, A. Turgot and other French enlighteners. These thinkers saw the criteria for social progress in the development of reason and the spread of education. This optimistic view of the historical process gave way in the 19th century to other, more complex concepts. For example, Marxism sees progress in changing socio-economic formations from lower to higher. Some thinkers believed that the consequence of moving forward is the growing heterogeneity of society and the complication of its structure.

In modern science, historical progress is usually associated with a process such as modernization, that is, the transition of society from agrarian to industrial and further to post-industrial.

Scientists who do not share the idea of ​​progress

Not everyone accepts the idea of ​​progress. Some thinkers reject it in relation to social development - either predicting the “end of history”, or saying that societies develop independently of each other, multilinearly, in parallel (O. Spengler, N.Ya. Danilevsky, A. Toynbee), or considering history as a cycle with a series of recessions and ascents (G. Vico).

For example, Arthur Toynbee identified 21 civilizations, each of which has distinct phases of formation: emergence, growth, breakdown, decline and, finally, decay. Thus, he abandoned the thesis about the unity of the historical process.

O. Spengler wrote about the “decline of Europe.” “Anti-progressism” is especially vivid in the works of K. Popper. In his view, progress is movement towards a specific goal, which is possible only for specific person, but not for the story as a whole. The latter can be considered both as a movement forward and as a regression.

Progress and regression are not mutually exclusive concepts

The progressive development of society, obviously, in certain periods does not exclude regression, return movements, civilizational dead ends, even breakdowns. And it is hardly possible to talk about an unambiguously linear development of humanity, since both leaps forward and setbacks are clearly observed. Progress in a certain area, in addition, can be the cause of decline and regression in another. Thus, the development of equipment, technology, and tools is a clear indication of progress in the economy, but it is precisely this that has put our world on the brink of global environmental disaster, depleting the Earth's natural reserves.

Society today is also accused of a family crisis, a decline in morality, and lack of spirituality. The price of progress is high: for example, the conveniences of city life are accompanied by various “urbanization diseases.” Sometimes the negative consequences of progress are so obvious that a natural question arises as to whether it can even be said that humanity is moving forward.

Criteria for social progress: history

The question of the measures of social development is also relevant. There is also no agreement in the scientific world here. French enlighteners saw such a criterion in the development of reason, in increasing the degree of rationality public organization. Some other thinkers and scientists (for example, A. Saint-Simon) believed that the highest criterion of social progress is the state of morality in society, approaching early Christian ideals.

G. Hegel had a different opinion. He connected progress with freedom - the degree of its awareness by people. Marxism also proposed its own criterion of development: according to supporters of this concept, it consists in the growth of productive forces.

K. Marx, seeing the essence of development in man's increasing subordination of the forces of nature, reduced progress in general to a more specific one - in the production sphere. He considered only those conducive to development social relations, which at this stage correspond to the level of productive forces, and also open up space for the improvement of the person himself (acting as an instrument of production).

Criteria for social development: modernity

Philosophy has subjected the criteria of social progress to careful analysis and revision. In modern social science, the applicability of many of them is disputed. The state of the economic foundation does not at all determine the nature of the development of other spheres of social life.

The goal, and not just a means of social progress, is considered to be the creation of the necessary conditions for the harmonious and comprehensive development of the individual. Consequently, the criterion of social progress is precisely the measure of freedom that society is able to provide to a person to maximize his potential. Based on the conditions created in society to satisfy the totality of the needs of the individual and his free development, the degree of progressiveness of a given system and the criteria of social progress should be assessed.

Let's summarize the information. The table below will help you understand the main criteria for social progress.

The table can be expanded to include the views of other thinkers.

There are two forms of progress in society. Let's look at them below.

Revolution

A revolution is a comprehensive or complete change in most or all aspects of society, affecting the foundations of the existing system. Until quite recently, it was regarded as a universal universal “law of transition” from one socio-economic formation to another. However, scientists could not detect any signs of a social revolution during the transition to a class system from a primitive communal one. Therefore, it was necessary to expand the concept so that it could be applied to any transition between formations, but this led to the destruction of the original semantic content of the term. And the mechanism of a real revolution could only be discovered in phenomena dating back to the era of modern times (that is, during the transition to capitalism from feudalism).

Revolution from the point of view of Marxism

Following the Marxist methodology, we can say that a social revolution means a radical social revolution that changes the structure of society and means a qualitative leap in progressive development. The deepest and most general reason for the emergence of a social revolution is the otherwise insoluble conflict between the productive forces, which are growing, and the system of social institutions and relations, which remain unchanged. The aggravation of political, economic and other contradictions in society against this background ultimately leads to revolution.

The latter is always an active political action on the part of the people, their main goal it puts the control of society into the hands of a new social class. The difference between revolution and evolution is that the first is considered concentrated in time, that is, it happens quickly, and the masses become its direct participants.

The dialectic of such concepts as revolution and reform seems very complex. The first, as a deeper action, most often absorbs the latter, thus the action “from below” is complemented by the activity “from above”.

Many modern scientists urge us to abandon the excessive exaggeration of the significance of social revolution in history, the idea that it is an inevitable pattern in solving historical problems, because it has not always been the dominant form determining social progress. Much more often, changes in the life of society occurred as a result of action “from above,” that is, reforms.

Reform

This is a reorganization, transformation, change in some aspect of social life, which does not destroy the existing foundations of the social structure, retains power in the hands of ruling class. Thus, the understood path of step-by-step transformation of relations is contrasted with a revolution that completely sweeps away the old system and order. Marxism regarded the evolutionary process, which preserved the remnants of the past for a long time, as too painful and unacceptable for the people. Adherents of this concept believed that since reforms are carried out exclusively “from above” by forces that have power and do not want to give up it, their result will always be lower than expected: reforms are characterized by inconsistency and half-heartedness.

Underestimation of reforms

It was explained by the famous position formulated by V.I. Lenin, that reforms are “a by-product of the revolution.” Let us note: K. Marx already believed that reforms are never a consequence of the weakness of the strong, since they are brought to life precisely by the strength of the weak.

His Russian follower strengthened his denial of the possibility that the “tops” have their own incentives when starting reforms. IN AND. Lenin believed that reforms are a by-product of revolution because they represent unsuccessful attempts to dampen and weaken the revolutionary struggle. Even in cases where reforms were clearly not the result of popular protests, Soviet historians still explained them by the desire of the authorities to prevent encroachments on the existing system.

The “reform-revolution” relationship in modern social science

Over time, Russian scientists gradually freed themselves from the existing nihilism in relation to transformations through evolution, first recognizing the equivalence of revolutions and reforms, and then criticizing revolutions as a bloody, extremely ineffective path full of costs and leading to an inevitable dictatorship.

Now great reforms (that is, revolutions “from above”) are considered the same social anomalies as great revolutions. What they have in common is that these methods of resolving contradictions are opposed to the healthy, normal practice of gradual, continuous reform in a self-regulating society.

The “revolution-reform” dilemma is replaced by clarifying the relationship between reform and permanent regulation. In this context, both revolution and changes “from above” “treat” an advanced disease (the first with “surgical intervention”, the second with “therapeutic methods”), while early and constant prevention is perhaps necessary in order to ensure social progress.

Therefore, in social science today the emphasis is shifting from the “revolution-reform” antinomy to “innovation-reform”. Innovation means a one-time ordinary improvement associated with an increase in the adaptive capabilities of society in specific conditions. It is precisely this that can ensure the greatest social progress in the future.

The criteria for social progress discussed above are not unconditional. Modern science recognizes the priority of the humanitarian over others. However, a general criterion for social progress has not yet been established.

Social progress - this is a global historical process of development of society from lower to higher, from a primitive, wild state to a higher, civilized one. This process occurs thanks to the development of scientific and technical, social and political, moral and cultural achievements.

First theory of progress described by the famous French publicist Abbé Saint-Pierre in his book “Remarks on the Continuous Progress of Universal Reason” in 1737. According to his theory, progress is inherent in every person by God and this process is inevitable, as natural phenomena. Further progress research as a social phenomenon continued and deepened.

Progress criteria.

Progress criteria are the main parameters of its characteristics:

• social;
• economic;
• spiritual;
• scientific and technical.

Social criterion - this is the level of social development. It implies the level of people's freedoms, quality of life, the degree of difference between rich and poor, the presence of a middle class, etc. The main engines of social development are revolutions and reforms. That is, a radical complete change in all layers of social life and its gradual change, transformation. Different political schools have different views on these engines. For example, everyone knows that Lenin preferred revolution.

Economic criterion - this is the growth of GDP, trade and banking sector, and other parameters of economic development. The economic criterion is the most important, as it affects the others. It's hard to think about creativity or spiritual self-education when there is nothing to eat.

Spiritual criterion - Moral development is one of the most controversial, as different models of society evaluate differently. For example, unlike European countries, Arab countries do not consider tolerance towards sexual minorities to be spiritual progress, and even vice versa - regression. However, there are generally accepted parameters by which spiritual progress can be judged. For example, condemnation of murder and violence is characteristic of all modern states.

Scientific and technical criterion - this is the presence of new products, scientific discoveries, inventions, advanced technologies, in short - innovations. Most often, progress refers to this criterion in the first place.

Alternative theories.

Progress concept has been criticized since the 19th century. A number of philosophers and historians deny progress as a social phenomenon completely. J. Vico views the history of society as a cyclical development with ups and downs. A. Toynbee gives as an example the history of various civilizations, each of which has phases of emergence, growth, decline and decay (Maya, Roman Empire, etc.).

In my opinion, these disputes are related to different understandings of the determining progress as such, as well as with different understandings of its social significance.

However, without social progress we would not have society in its modern form with its achievements and morals.

The idea of ​​progressive development entered science as a secularized (secular) version of the Christian belief in providence. The image of the future in the biblical stories was an irreversible, predetermined and sacred process of development of people guided by the divine will. However, the origins of this idea are discovered much earlier. Next, let's look at what progress is, what its purpose and meaning are.

First mentions

Before we talk about what progress is, we should give a brief historical description the emergence and spread of this idea. In particular, in the ancient Greek philosophical tradition there are discussions about improving the existing socio-political structure, which developed from the primitive community and family to the ancient polis, i.e., the city-state (Aristotle “Politics”, Plato “Laws”). A little later, during the Middle Ages, Bacon tried to apply the concept and concept of progress in the ideological field. In his opinion, knowledge accumulated over time is increasingly enriched and improved. Thus, each next generation is able to see further and better than its predecessors.

What is progress?

This word has Latin roots and translated means “success”, “moving forward”. Progress is a direction of development of a progressive nature. This process is characterized by the transition to the higher from the lower, from the less to the more perfect. The progress of society is a global, world-historical phenomenon. This process involves the ascent of human associations from savagery, primitive states to the heights of civilization. This transition is based on political, legal, moral, ethical, scientific and technical achievements.

Main Components

The above describes what progress is and when they first started talking about this concept. Next, let's look at its components. During the improvement, the following aspects develop:

• Material. In this case, we are talking about the most complete satisfaction of the benefits of all people and the elimination of any technical restrictions for this.
• Social component. Here we are talking about the process of bringing society closer to justice and freedom.
• Scientific. This component reflects the process of continuous, deepening and expanding knowledge of the surrounding world, its development in both the micro and macro spheres; liberation of knowledge from the boundaries of economic feasibility.

New time

During this period, they began to see progress in natural science. G. Spencer expressed his point of view on the process. In his opinion, progress - both in nature and in society - was subject to a general evolutionary process of increasing complexity of internal functioning and organization. Over time, forms of progress began to be visible in literature and general history. Art did not go unnoticed either. In different civilizations there was a diversity of social orders, which, in turn, determined different types progress. A so-called “staircase” was formed. At its apex were the most developed and civilized societies of the West. Next, at various stages, stood other cultures. The distribution depended on the level of development. There was a "Westernization" of the concept. As a result, such types of progress as “American-centrism” and “Eurocentrism” appeared.

Modern times

In this period a vital role was assigned to a person. Weber emphasized the tendency to rationalize the universal in the management of diversity. Durkheim gave other examples of progress. He spoke of a trend toward social integration through "organic solidarity." It was based on the complementary and mutually beneficial contribution of all participants in society.

Classic concept

The turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is called the “triumph of the idea of ​​development.” At that time, the general belief that scientific and technological progress could guarantee continuous improvement of life was accompanied by a spirit of romantic optimism. In general, there was a classical concept in society. It represented an optimistic idea of ​​the gradual liberation of humanity from fear and ignorance on the way to increasingly refined and higher levels of civilization. The classical concept was based on the concept of linear irreversible time. Here progress was a positively characterized difference between the present and the future or the past and the present.

Goals and objectives

It was assumed that the described movement would continue continuously not only in the present, but also in the future, despite occasional deviations. There was a fairly widespread belief among the masses that progress could be maintained at all stages, in every basic structure of society. As a result, everyone would achieve complete prosperity.

Main criteria

The most common among them were:

• Religious improvement (J. Buset, Augustine).
• Increase in scientific knowledge (O. Comte, J. A. Condorcet).
• Equality and justice (K. Marx, T. More).
• Expansion of individual freedom in combination with the development of morality (E. Durkheim, I. Kant).
• Urbanization, industrialization, improvement of technology (K. A. Saint-Simon).
• Dominion over natural forces (G. Spencer).

The inconsistency of progress

The first doubts about the correctness of the concept began to be expressed after the First World War. The inconsistency of progress consisted in the emergence of ideas about negative side effects in the development of society. F. Tennis was one of the very first to criticize. He believed that social development from traditional to modern, industrial, not only did not improve, but, on the contrary, worsened people’s living conditions. The primary, direct, personal social connections of traditional human interaction were replaced by indirect, impersonal, secondary, exclusively instrumental contacts inherent in modern world. This, according to Tennis, was the main problem of progress.

Increased criticism

After World War II, it became obvious to many that development in one area entails negative consequences in another. Industrialization, urbanization, scientific and technological progress were accompanied by environmental pollution. Which, in turn, provoked a new theory to emerge. The belief that humanity needs continuous economic progress has given way to the alternative idea of ​​“limits to growth.”

Forecast

The researchers calculated that as the consumption level approaches different countries By Western standards, the planet could explode from environmental overload. The concept of the “golden billion”, according to which only 1 billion people from wealthy states can be guaranteed a secure existence on Earth, has completely undermined the main postulate on which the classical idea of ​​progress was based - focusing on a better future for all living without exception. Conviction in the superiority of the direction of development followed by Western civilization, which dominated for a long period of time, gave way to disappointment.

Utopian vision

This thinking reflected highly idealized ideas about the best society. This utopian thinking, presumably, was also dealt a powerful blow. The last attempt to implement this type of vision of the world was the world socialist system. At the same time, humanity at this stage does not have in stock projects “capable of mobilizing collective, universal actions, capturing people’s imagination,” which could orient society towards a bright future (this role was very effectively played by the ideas of socialism). Instead, today there are either simple extrapolations of existing trends, or catastrophic prophecies.

Reflections on the future

The development of ideas about upcoming events is currently going in two directions. In the first case, a reigning pessimism is determined, in which gloomy images of decline, destruction and degeneration are visible. Due to disappointment in scientific and technical rationalism, mysticism and irrationalism began to spread. Reason and logic in one area or another are increasingly opposed to emotions, intuition, and subconscious perception. According to radical postmodern theories, reliable criteria by which myth was distinguished from reality, ugly from beautiful, virtue from vice, have disappeared in modern culture. All this indicates that the era of “highest freedom” from morality, traditions, progress, in the end, has begun. In the second direction, there is an active search for new concepts of development that can give people positive guidelines for the coming periods and rid humanity of unfounded illusions. Postmodernist ideas mainly rejected the theory of development in the traditional version with finalism, fatalism and determinism. Most of them preferred other examples of progress - other probabilistic approaches to the development of society and culture. Some theorists (Buckley, Archer, Etzioni, Wallerstein, Nisbet) in their concepts interpret the idea as a possible chance of improvement, which can occur with a certain degree of probability, or may go unnoticed.

The principle of constructivism

Of all the variety of approaches, it was this concept that served as the theoretical foundation for postmodernism. The task is to find the driving forces of progress in the everyday normal life of people. According to K. Lash, the solution to the riddle is ensured by the confidence that improvements can occur solely through human efforts. Otherwise, the problem is simply unsolvable.

Alternative Concepts

All of them, which arose within the framework of activity theory, are very abstract. Alternative concepts appeal to the “man as a whole” without showing much interest in cultural and civilizational differences. In this case, in fact, a new type of social utopia is visible. It represents a cybernetic simulation of social cultures of ideal order, viewed through the prism of human activity. These concepts return positive guidelines, a certain belief in probable progressive development. Moreover, they name (albeit at a highly theoretical level) the sources and conditions of growth. Meanwhile, alternative concepts do not answer the main question: why humanity, “free from” and “free for,” in some cases chooses progress and strives for a “new, active society,” but often the guideline for it is decadence and destruction, which , in turn, leads to stagnation and regression. Based on this, it can hardly be argued that society needs progress. This is explained by the fact that it cannot be proven whether humanity will want to realize its creative ability in the future. There are no answers to these questions in cybernetics and systems theory. However, they were analyzed in detail by religion and culture. In this regard, sociocultural ethicocentrism can today act as an alternative to constructivist modernism in the theory of progress.

Finally

Modern Russian philosophers are increasingly returning to " Silver Age". Turning to this heritage, they are trying to hear again the originality of the rhythms of the national culture, to translate them into a strict scientific language. According to Panarin, the biomorphic structure of cognition shows a person the image of the cosmos as a living, organic integrity. Its space awakens in people a motivation of a higher order, incompatible with irresponsible consumer egoism. Today it is clearly clear that modern social science requires a serious revision of existing basic principles, priorities and values. It can suggest new directions to a person if he, in turn, finds enough strength in himself to use them.