Kravchenko S.A. Challenges of ‘modern evil’ for the sustainable development: A request for cooperation of scientific and theological knowledge ...

Òåêñò ñòàòüè íà ñàéòå æóðíàëà URL: https://journals.rudn.ru/sociology/article/view/32033 (äàòà îáðàùåíèÿ 10.01.2023)

Abstract

The  author  considers  the  latest  challenges  for  the  sustainable  development as  determined by ‘modern evil’. Its essence is not limited to specific sanctions or war: it is  multifaceted — expressed in simulacra and fakes, ‘non-events’ and post-truth; producing ‘moral blindness’, neo-nationalism, xenophobia and Russophobia, ‘cultural racism’, and ‘normal traumas’ in the society and nature. Actually, ‘modern evil’ embodies a parallel entity in the form of a  new Antichrist acting among us on   behalf of a  ‘higher reason’ and ‘progressive humanity’, while introducing chaos and instability into people’s life worlds. The author uses interdisciplinary methods to examine specific manifestations  of ‘modern  evil’: temptations  of novelty,  hyper-consumption  and  ‘conspicuous consumption’,  global,  pragmatically  oriented  digitalization,  which  spreads  destructive  content. These manifestations of ‘modern evil’ should be replaced by the sharing of goods and services, movement towards the ethics of modesty and national-sovereign digitalization. The demand for cooperation of representatives of scientific and theological knowledge for the sake of new forms of  sustainable  development  meets  the  requirements  of the  realities  of global  complexity  and nonlinearity. Such cooperation can become a driver of the humanity’s active production of good and humanism — as the main factor of movement to the ‘sane society’ functioning in harmony with humanized scientific-technological innovations and authentic nature.