We are living in a time of vast and deep global social crisis. We do not feel this crisis acutely because it is spread over time.

Whose crisis is this? What kind of crisis is it and what is its scope and depth?

We are witnessing the weakening of the social state in the leading Western powers. The inequality of countries, the inequality of social groups within countries has reached a critical level. The difference between positive and negative values is being erased. Good and evil become relative. Society is fragmenting into small, isolated, aggressive groups. More and more workers are alienated from the results of their labor. The breakdown of the family, now same-sex marriage is the norm. The degradation of culture. The gap between culture for the chosen few and culture for the masses. Ecological crisis. Digitalization, artificial intelligence. Geneticists promise to breed new types of people.

Will this crisis become tragic for humanity and for each person, or will it be possible to overcome it without severe consequences?

Pitirim Sorokin is one of the world's greatest sociologists, and his major work is the book Social and Cultural Dynamics, which is the key to understanding what is happening to the world now, and the key to understanding how to get out of this dramatic crisis. This striking analysis allowed Pitirim Sorokin to distinguish three types of culture, three types of the state of society, three types of sociocultural systems - sensate, ideational or supra-sensate, and integrated. Sorokin considered the third type of culture to be preferable - integrated, when elements of both sensate and supra-sensate culture are equally present. This means that a person does not neglect material things, but does not fall into hedonism. At the same time, he is aware of the supersensible, the immaterial, but he does not become an ascetic fanatic.

Pitirim Sorokin's theory quite adequately describes the crisis in which the West is now, and with it, since the West dominates the world, in which the entire planet is. The essence of the crisis is that the sensate sociocultural system that has dominated the West for five or even six centuries has completely exhausted itself. And there is a transition to a new sociocultural system ahead. What kind of system? Supra-sensate, integrated? - this is a question to be discussed.

The grand historical, centuries-long cycle of the Western sociocultural system has been passed from the beginning to almost the end. This cycle can be illustrated by four images, four works of art. European culture from Leonardo's Vitruvian man to Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe has fully completed its grand cycle. What remains is the label. The living man is no longer here. And if there is no human being, what humanism is there? The erosion of moral values, the loss of understanding of what is good and what is evil; the fragmentation of society into small groups without a common platform of values; the impossibility in these conditions to pursue a coherent public policy that would be shared by the majority; the disintegration of the family as a union of man and woman; the disintegration of contract law; the spread of political tyranny; the disregard for human rights - all this was predicted by the great sociologist Pitirim Sorokin 70 years ago.

The centuries-long cycle of the European Western socio-cultural system has come to an end. The end of the cycle is accompanied by a deep crisis. What's next?

Now TikTok and other garbage has become a major trend, something that defines modern life. Distance education has become hugely popular in recent years. Now it is said that only a select few will receive a proper education, communicating with professors, interacting with other students. It is believed that the stratification of people into higher and lower castes is inevitable. The idea of control, essentially rationally unmotivated, begins to dominate the minds of the bureaucracy. This is a very dangerous tendency. The society in networks is fragmenting into many small groups, these groups are closing in on themselves, practically not interacting with each other. The world seems much simpler to them than it really is. One of the fashionable images of the future is promoted by transhumanism. Its adherents believe that there are many technical possibilities that will allow to improve a human being, starting from artificial organs, ending with the fusion of the brain with a supercomputer, up to the achievement of immortality. An unconditional basic income is considered to be one of the indispensable features of the future.

What they are trying to impose on us, isn’t it a tyranny?

The thesis that democracy is a prerequisite for the prosperity of nations has become almost a dogma. But the problem is that there is a severe crisis in the West, and the achievements of the West are being lost right before our eyes. And there are many examples of successful development not in line with the Western system at all.

Craig Calhoun, a prominent contemporary intellectual and sociologist, speaks of three ideas that influence Western politicians and the public, and, in addition, these ideas are exported by the West to all other countries of the world, including Russia, and which, of course, are well known in our country. Craig Calhoun called this situation a game of thimbles. These are the three theories and the Western political forces put these three thimbles on the table in front of you. You and I have experienced this first hand. The theory used by our Russian reformers is simply false. That is why the consequences of using this theory are so tragic. Including in the field of human rights. What has become of the right to life in Russia? What happened to the right to labor? What became of the right to pensions? It was not much different from the Soviet situation reflected in an old anecdote. “Do I have the right? Yes, you do. So I can? No, you can't.”

The decisions that politicians make and on which the lives of millions, hundreds of millions of people depend, are they rational or not?

It is common to see the US interfering in the affairs of other countries, up to and including military interventions. In the 20th century there were more than 50 such interventions. Recent examples are Iraq and Libya.

Did the US want to destroy the social and political systems of Iraq and Libya? On the one hand, the Americans are solving practical problems of current politics. But on the other hand, their foreign policy has very solid, very serious, far-reaching moral foundations. The US foreign policy ideology is built on these grounds. And the core of these moral foundations is American exceptionalism, the concept of which began to take shape in the 19th century. Americans believed that they had built the best society and the best political system in the history of mankind, and had the moral right to tell everyone else how to live. Now the weapon of freedom is the main tool for promoting American ideas, the American way of life, the promotion of liberty. And any power that disagrees with the position of the United States must be destroyed. It is called despotic. And which power will be called despotic is determined by the United States itself.

What is rationality, rational action? It is important for understanding how to find a way out of the crisis in which Western civilization, and with it the whole world, finds itself.

Max Weber distinguished two types of rational action. These are goal-rational actions and value-rational actions.

Why these arguments about goal rationality and value rationality? What does this reasoning have to do with the problem of the age-old crisis we are discussing here?

We are witnessing the decay of the worldview of the revivalist and enlightenment man. We are witnessing the decline of the energy that has propelled the Western world over the past centuries. This decaying worldview must be replaced by a new worldview, certainly a humanistic one. Decay must be countered by wholeness and activity. Humanity will have to find a way out, otherwise greed and selfishness will destroy us.

This is the story of the Dominican friar Savonarola, the head of the Inquisition Cardinal Bellarmino, and the great scientist Galileo Galilei.

Savonarola was actually the ruler of Florence for several years in the late 15th century. This monk passionately denounced human vices, the departure of people from living according to Christian precepts. He believed that the Vatican was indulging too much in the arts and forgetting the Lord, whom it should glorify in its churches.

But the Catholic Church was able to take the arts into its parish. We all know the grandiose splendor of the Vatican palaces, but now this splendor was no longer for the glory of God, but for the glory of the Roman throne.

The most vivid example of the struggle of the “obscurantist” Catholic Church with science was the persecution of the great scientist Galileo Galilei. “And yet it spins,” - this phrase is known to all, it has become a symbol of scientific freethinking.

Synthesis of science and church in the 17th century did not work out. Now this task of such a synthesis, profane and sacred, is becoming urgent.

To overcome the global socio-cultural crisis, a new worldview is needed. The path to this new worldview lies through the integration of the values of antiquity, renaissance and new times.

Eminent modern sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein has said and written in recent decades that a radical shift towards value rationality is necessary. So far this has not been accomplished, but the task is becoming increasingly hot.

Only widely educated, only well-prepared people and a well-prepared society can answer the grandiose challenges facing humanity and Russia. A person must understand and orient himself in this complex world, he must be able to distinguish good from evil, he must at least roughly understand the values that humanity has developed over the millennia - science, art, literature, music and religious values.

Climate change is now the number one topic on the world agenda.

If we accept the hypothesis that anthropogenic factors are responsible for the rise in the Earth's temperature, the question arises: who is to blame for the unbridled growth of emissions? Are we willing to consume less in order to reduce emissions?

Many questions arise. How do we distract consumers from the consumer rage? If car manufacturers produce fewer cars, what will their profits be? How can we reduce consumption without losing quality of life? Can this be done without restricting people's rights? How can the economic system be transformed in order not to lose entrepreneurial incentives? What will happen to employment in those industries that have switched to such an economic regime? If employment declines, what will the freed workers be offered?

Only one thing is clear so far. The vicious consumer cycle must be broken.