Globalization, civilizations, and stadial universalism

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National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine

Kychkyruk T.V., PhD in Philosophy, Associate Professor of the Department of Philosophy

Abstract

The contradictions between the various paradigms of civilization and the related problems of world globalization, as well as the interaction of civilizations are the subject of many sciences. Globalization is interpreted as the interaction of civilizations. Thus, civilization becomes one of the main categories in the process of explaining and understanding the world. Today there is no generally accepted definition of the term “civilization” - it is defined and interpreted differently. Sometimes it is used as a synonym for the term “culture”. Civilization can also refer to society as a whole. The “embryos” of the civilizational-stadial approach to the historical development appeared in the eighteenth century, when the concept of civilization was introduced into scientific circulation; and the representatives of this approach grounded their ideas on the unity of the world history. According to the stadial approach to the development of society, the historical process is characterized by progressiveness and gradual development. This approach is based on the linear time model. The paper aims to investigate such phenomena as “civilization” and “stadial universalism”.

Keywords: civilization, globalization, society, stadial universalism, world history.

Анотація

ГЛОБАЛІЗАЦІЯ, ЦИВІЛІЗАЦІЯ ТА СТАДІАЛЬНИЙ УНІВЕРСАЛІЗМ

Кичкирук Т. В.

Суперечності між різними цивілізаційними парадигмами та пов'язаними з ними проблемами світової глобалізації, а також взаємодія цивілізацій є предметом багатьох наук. Глобалізація інтерпретується як взаємодія цивілізацій. Відтак, цивілізація перетворюється на одну з основних категорій у процесі пояснення та розуміння сучасного світу. Сьогодні не існує загальновизнаного визначення поняття «цивілізація» - воно визначається і трактується по-різному. Іноді його використовують як синонім поняття «культура». Цивілізація може також описувати суспільство в цілому. «Зародки» цивілізаційно-стадіального підходу до історичного розвитку з'явилися у XVIII столітті, коли поняття цивілізації було введено в науковий обіг; і представники цього підходу ґрунтували свої ідеї на єдності світової історії. Відповідно до стадіального підходу до розвитку суспільства, історичний процес характеризується прогресом та поступовим розвитком. Цей підхід заснований на лінійній моделі часу. Метою статті є дослідження таких феноменів як «цивілізація» та «стадіальний універсалізм».

Ключові слова: цивілізація, глобалізація, суспільство, стадіальний універсалізм, світова історія.

Introduction

Nowadays, the principle of multipolarity of the world acts as a basic norm and ideological guideline. However, in real life, this approach comes into direct conflict with the ideology of unifying globalism. Differences in the vision of the future structure of the universe lead to political and economic clashes, as well as to the formation of the dangerous strategies that consume enormous resources and put the world on the verge of collapse that does not exclude military methods. In this process, the collective national intellects are involved in the struggle for their “projects” of the future world development. Since the early 1990s, two opposing views in the theory of international relations - F. Fukuyama's “single liberal world” and S. Huntington's concept of the “clash of civilizations” - have been at the forefront of this ideological battle.

While F. Fukuyama believes that after the collapse of the Soviet system, the liberal democratic wave will cover the whole world and a single world order for all nations should be established, S. Huntington stresses that state rivalry will move from military-political to cultural-civilizational sphere and interethnic and interreligious conflicts will dominate the next century [3]. These theories reflect the globalization process, the growing interdependence of states and the simultaneous deepening of regional cooperation and confrontation of the regional blocs.

Analysis of researches and publications. The contradictions between the various paradigms of civilization and the related problems of world globalization, as well as the interaction of civilizations are the subject of many sciences [10; 11]. There are virtually no branches of humanities in which these problems would not be considered. Significant ideas were developed in economic and political theory, sociology, cultural studies, philosophy and psychology. By the end of the twentieth century, the interaction of civilizations became an independent direction of philosophical thought, which is essential in connection with the growing need to prevent the conflict of civilizations by establishing a dialogue of cultures. G. V. Bongard- Levin, L. S. Vasilieva, F. Grebner, J. Elliot, T. Y. Conrad, M. T. Stepanyants, F. Ratzel, S. Huntington, K. Jaspers, I. Wallerstein, K. Marx, F. Engels contributed greatly to comparative-historical and comparative-sociological methodology. Their studies of the interaction of civilizations are of great importance. However, the increasingly complex and contradictory conditions of social development require new understanding of the civilizational process [2].

The purpose of the study. The paper aims to investigate such phenomena as "civilization” and "stadial universalism”.

Research results and their discussion

Nowadays, there are many approaches to the problems of globalization. Some theorists consider it as an objective and natural process, while others believe that it occurs under the influence of certain subjects of social interaction. Globalization is interpreted as the interaction of civilizations. It should be noted that the impact of globalization is significantly "felt” in the cultural and spiritual sphere, as far as globalization causes the interaction of civilizations and cultures. Thus, civilization becomes one of the main categories in the process of explaining and understanding the world.

It is impossible to give a single definition of "civilization”. Civilization is often understood as a set of material and spiritual values, which expresses a certain level of historical development of any given society. The term "civilization” is believed to have first appeared in the middle of the eighteenth century in the book "L'ami des hommes, ou Traitй de la population” authored by the Marquis de Mirabeau - a French economist and philosopher [7]. In his treatise on civilization, he writes: "If I asked the majority what civilization is, they would answer: civilization is the softening of customs, courtesy, and knowledge disseminated in order to follow the rules of decency and to play these rules the role of the laws of coexistence - all this is only a mask of virtue, not its face. Civilization does nothing for society if it does not give it the basis and form of virtue” [1, p. 49].

Thus, the term "civilization” was introduced to denote a certain qualitative characteristic of society, a level of its development. In England, one of the first concepts of "civilization” was introduced into science by the philosopher A. Ferguson in his "An Essay on the History of Civil Society” [5]. He has been called the father of modern sociology for his contribution to the early development of sociology. According to A. Ferguson, civilization as a stage of social development is characterized by the separation of society from nature and the emergence of contradictions between natural and artificial factors of society. Social factors of human life are beginning to prevail, the rationalization of thinking is progressing. Society is becoming a holistic system with stable mechanisms of self-reproduction, transmission of social experience and spiritual traditions.

Civilizations are social constructs different from traditional societies. The concept of "civilization” is sometimes interpreted as a word that simply means "life in cities” [9, p. 25], i.e., those who are not engaged in agriculture, are grouped in cities for other types of work and trade. Compared to other human associations, civilizations have a complex political structure, namely the state. "State” societies are characterized by significant social differentiation with a large difference between social classes. The ruling class is usually concentrated in the cities; it controls the wealth through government, bureaucracy, technocracy, plutocracy, meritocracy, and the military.

Today there is no generally accepted definition of the term "civilization” - it is defined and interpreted differently. Sometimes it is used as a synonym for the term "culture”. Civilization can also refer to society as a whole. For the English anthropologist of the nineteenth century E. Tylor, civilization, for example, represents a comprehensive social continuity of humankind [12]. In other words, civilization is a set of human knowledge and culture represented by the most developed society at a certain time.

The "embryos” of the civilizational-stadial approach to the historical development appeared in the eighteenth century, when the concept of civilization was introduced into scientific circulation; it characterized the patterns of development and features of socio-cultural life in the Western Europe. Insisting on the unity of the world history, the proponents of this approach took the civilization model of the Western Europe as a sample or model for the other civilizations. Emerging during the Enlightenment, the paradigm of Eurocentrism is still the basis of theoretical thinking and socio-practical strategy of the West. The term "civilization” is often associated with a sense of superiority on the part of the Western culture. But in order to truly understand the past, the scientists must avoid this assumption and study the past rejecting the prism of Eurocentric values as much as possible. civilization stadial universalism

According to the stadial approach to the development of society, the historical process is characterized by progressiveness and gradual development. This approach is based on the linear time model. The famous American ethnologist G. Morgan in his book "Ancient Society or the Study of the Lines of Human Progress from Wildness through Barbarism to Civilization” [8] formulates a number of propositions, which became the result of almost forty years of the study of the primitive societies. L. Morgan distinguishes two types of societies - primitive-communist, pre-class and civilized, class, or, as he himself emphasizes - two plans of government. The first is based on personality and purely personal relations and can be called society (societas), while the second is based on territory and private property and can be called the state (civitas). L. Morgan divides the entire history of human society into three epochs: wildness, barbarism and civilization, in turn dividing each of them into lower, middle and higher levels according to the level of production. Each of these periods, according to L. Morgan, represents a certain stage of the development of society and differs in the ways of life. Thus, civilization is the highest stage of the development of the human community [8].

The German philosopher, one of the founders of Marxism, F. Engels in his work "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”, imitating L. Morgan, identifies three stages of human development - wildness, barbarism and civilization. According to F. Engels, we can generalize Morgan periodization in this way: wildness - a period of predominantly appropriation of the products of nature; man-made products serve mainly as auxiliary tools for such appropriation. Barbarism - a period of introduction of livestock and agriculture, a period of mastering the methods of increasing the production of natural products through human activity. Civilization - a period of mastering the further processing of natural products, the period of industry in the proper sense of the word [4]. For F. Engels, civilization is the stage of social development, in which the division of labor, the exchange between people resulting from this division, and commodity production, which unites these processes, reach full prosperity and revolutionize society as a whole.

Thus, L. Morgan and F. Engels represent a stadial approach to the interpretation of civilizational phenomena, which is still widespread today. This approach is represented by Yu. V. Jakovec and B. N. Kuzyk - the well-known researchers of the civilization process. They define civilization as "the highest level of organization and development of human society, the highest in both logical and historical terms” [6, p. 29]. Human society as a set of interconnected, interacting individuals consists of a number of hierarchical stages. The primary center of organization of society is the family. The second level is the association of people. They can be created either for cohabitation (villages, cities), or for joint production activities (enterprises, institutions), or joint socio-political activities such as trade unions, political parties, etc. The third level is ethnic groups, nations that have similar structural features - common language, way of life, traditions, historical experience, beliefs. The fourth level represented by states that unite several ethnic groups or nations and have characteristic, universally recognized institutions - borders, state power, citizenship, common economic and cultural space, their own history. Finally, the fifth (highest) element in the structure of society is civilization, which unites all humanity. Civilizations may coincide with the borders of the state, but it is not necessary. What really defines any given civilization, it is a certain system of values, which was developed and supported by historical experience, common or close conditions of existence and development [6].

Yu. V. Jakovec and B. N. Kuzyk consider civilizations within three-dimensional spatial-temporal frame:

"Global civilization - part (or the whole) of humanity, that have reached the level of civilizational development and undergo certain stages, phases of the life cycle; local civilizations as the most important components of the global community differing in the system of civilizational values, living conditions and activities, historical experience. They also go through certain stages of the historical path - the change of generations of local civilizations and phases of the life cycle of each civilization and each of their generations; world civilizations as the large stages of the development of the global civilization, as the cycles of generations of the local civilizations, epochs in the development of humankind as a single mega-system.

Each of these types of civilizations performs its functions in the process of formation and dynamics of civilizations. In the initial stage (after the Neolithic revolution) there is a narrow field of global civilization. It is gradually expanding, it is differentiated into local civilizations. Over time, their number increases, and the composition in the general historical flow of the dynamics of the global civilization is changing. The system of civilizations is constantly evolving, there are qualitative leaps in its development, which is expressed in the change of the world civilizations and generations of the local civilizations” [6, p. 29].

The tendency to the stadial univer- salism can be traced in the concepts of the American sociologist, economist and historian W. Rostow, the famous French philosopher, political scientist, sociologist and publicist R. Aron, the American sociologist and publicist D. Bell, the American philosopher, sociologist and futurologist E. Toffler.

Conclusions

Despite the different views, the representatives of the stadial universalism profess the following provisions:

• they assume that human history has a single logic that unites events, which do not seem to be related to each other;

• society appears as an integrated system of components and subsystems that contribute to the preservation and continuity of the whole;

• changes in society occur from primitive to advanced forms, from simple to complex states. This movement is constant and irreversible;

* the impetus for change is in the very nature of human society and is generated by its needs for self-realization and self-transformation.

References

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