A Modern Theory of Civilizations

Let's trace the basic provisions of a modern theory of civilizations as it is represented by the Russian civilizational school.

The Concept and Types of Civilizations

Civilization is the highest level of organization and development of human society, highest both in a logic and historical aspect. Society as a totality of interconnected, interactive individuals consists of a number of hierarchical levels.

The primary social unit, a cell, a brick on which all structure of society is based is family.

It is exactly here reproduction of the major atom of all social universe – human is made, its biosocial genotype forms, a larger part of the end product made is consumed. A decay of family, decrease of its role in society constitutes the prime sign of crisis that hit society, and all civilization.

The second level comprises the unions of people. They may be established either for joint residence (villages, cities) or joint production activity (enterprises, institutions) or joint social-political activity (trade unions, political parties, etc.).

The third level comprises ethnoses, nations. Although, these forms of interaction among people residing on a more or less ample territory are different by nature, but they have similar structuring signs – communion of language, order of life, traditions, historical experience, and beliefs.

The fourth level – states that unite several ethnoses or nations and have characteristic, recognized institutes – boundaries, state power, nationality, economic and cultural space, and its history.

Finally, the fifth highest element in the structure of society is civilization that unites all humanity being at a certain level of development, or its large part.

Civilizations may coincide in their boundaries with the state, but it is not always the case. The main point in civilization is a certain system of values worked out and supported by long historical experience, general or similar conditions of existence and development.

In their turn, we consider civilizations in a three-dimensional space-temporal aspect:

• global civilization is a part (or all) humanity that reached the level of civilizational development and passing through certain levels, stages of a life cycle;
  
  
• local civilizations as the prime integral parts of global community that differ in the system of civilizational values, conditions of dwelling and activity, and historical experience. They also pass through certain stages of a historical path – change of generations of local civilizations and phases of a life cycle of each civilization and each of their generation;
  
  
• world civilizations as major stages in the development of the global civilization and cycles of generations of local civilizations, period in the development of humanity as a uniform mega system.

Each of the said types of civilizations fulfils its function in the formation and dynamics of civilizations. At the initial stage (after the Neolithic revolution) a narrow field of a global civilization forms. It gradually expands, its differentiation occurs into local civilizations. By lapse of time their number increases, and its body changes in the general historical flow of dynamics of the global civilization. The system of civilizations evolves continuously, and qualitative leaps in its development recurrently occur and find its expression in the change of world civilizations and generations of local civilizations.

The Structure of Civilizations

Civilization is a complex, multi-layer higher social organization. Its structure may be represented in the form of a "pyramid" of civilizations comprising several "floors" and many "apartments" .

The top of this pyramid is occupied by spiritual sphere that forms and transmits the system of civilizational values from generation to generation that is the main point that distinguishes one civilization from another.

The spiritual sphere (or the sphere of spiritual reproduction) includes the following elements:

• science – the level of cognition of regularities of nature and society and skill of their use for the development of technological, economic and ecological modes of production, in socio-political structure of society;
  
  
• culture – esthetic perception of nature and society, their harmony in dynamics, sense of beauty;
  
  
• education – methods of conveying accumulated knowledge and experience, scientific and cultural heritage permitting the oncoming generation to perceive a social genotype, adapt to the environment and changes in it;
  
  
• ethics - the system of rules of human behavior in society, ethical accounts of acts, compliance with social standards;
  
  
• religion – ideas of man and society about the world, system of goals and motives for people's activity based on their ethical standards and relations with other denominations.

All these elements are closely connected, intertwined and differ from civilization to civilization, change from period to period.

A socio-political system that characterizes the forms and modes of union and differentiation of people by large social groups (social stratification), ethnical and national identity, forms of political activity, and state-legal structure is found on a lower "floor". This system changes regularly as a result of wars and revolutions.

Economic mode of production makes the third "floor". Its major institutes include:

• forms of ownership, appropriation of means of production and products produced;
  
  
• modes of distributions of product produced (including surplus) between various social groups;
  
  
• forms of exchange, development of the market with all its categories (money, price, credit, etc.);
  
  
• dynamics of the structure of economy by functional purpose of products produced (reproduced structure) and by other criteria;
  
  
• forms and methods of management of economic activity.

The structure and nature of such "floor" is determined in many ways by a technological mode of production that follows it. The latter includes the following elements:

• instruments of labor, the system of tools (machinery), buildings, structures, transportational routes, etc.;
  
  
• sources of energy both in production activity and everyday life,
  
  
• goods of labor – natural and processed;
  
  
• technologies, modes of uniting manpower with the instruments and goods of labor using power sources;
  
  
• social, sectoral and trade division of labor in productive activity;
  
  
• forms of organization of production, its specialization, concentration, cooperation, and diversification.

The efficiency level of production, extent of satisfaction of human demands depends on interaction among all these elements.

The foundation of the pyramid of civilization is population – its size, rates of dynamics (birthrate, death-rate, and natural increase), family structure, sex-age structure, migration, level of demands and extent of their satisfaction (level and quality of life). The resulting effect of functioning and dynamics of civilizations manifests itself on a lower "floor".

However, one more floor is found below this "floor" that determines outward conditions where civilizations function – nature and ecology, scale of territory of civilization; climate conditions, density of population (demographic pressure on the environment), endowment with various natural resources, level of environmental pollution and interference in biosphere processes. It is here that the area of interaction between nature and civilization is found, area of their co-evolution.

As is evident each of "floors" of civilizations fulfils its functions and has its structure. But they constantly interact and transform concordantly and balanced thus expressing the essence of the law of proportionality in the structure and dynamics of civilization, strict harmony in their development. A breach of this law, especially in the transitional periods, impairs effectiveness of civilizational system.

The Evolvement of Civilizations in Time

Civilization is a changeable category, continuously transforming. Its evolvement in time may be traced in three aspects:

Each civilization has its life cycle. It consists of several stages:

• nascence (in the depths of preceding society);
  
  
• establishment in the epicenter, diffusion (in space) and improvement by structure;
  
  
• maturity, full implementation of the potential inherent to it;
  
  
• crisis, decay (giving way to the next civilization);
  
  
• existence in the remnant, relict state at the next stage of development of society, in a new civilizational system.

Life cycles are inherent to both local, world, and global civilizations. Not all local civilizations pass through all stages of their life cycle, evolving in time in full scale. A cycle of some of them is terminated due to natural catastrophes (it was the case with the Minoan civilizations and legendary Atlantis) or clashes with other cultures (pre-Columbian civilizations of Central and South America, and the Scythian proto-civilization).

Dynamics in time finds its expression in a regular change of generations of local civilizations changing by their nature and structure. The 1st generation emerged on the planet at the end of the 4th – beginning of the 3rd millennium B.C. when the formation of the "pyramid" of civilization completed – a socio-political "floor" was built (classes, state, and law emerged) and economic "floor" changed radically (private property emerged and market with the institutes inherent to it – in the expanded form). Local civilizations changes each other and at the threshold of the 21st c. time came to form its regular, fifth generation.

Global civilization evolves in time through a change of world civilizations. Their countdown runs from the Neolithic revolution, establishment of productive economy and a gradual sophistication of the structure of society. We call the first four millennia of that period the Neolithic world civilization, although it was more likely a proto-civilization in the nascent "pyramid" still incomplete. Only at the next stage, with the formation of the 1st generation of local civilizations and "completion" of all its "floors" and "apartments", it is possible to speak about the existence of world and global civilization in its full scope. According to our classification early class, ancient, medieval, early industrial and industrial world civilizations changed each other. At the end of the 20th c. time came for the formation of the post-industrial civilization and this rhythm will continue in future.

I should be noted one more change of a global civilization in time – change of historical super cycles uniting the triad of allied world civilizations and one-two generations of local civilizations. Super cycles are the largest of the element of temporal dynamics of civilizations. The first historical super cycle (end of the 4th millennium B.C. – middle of the 1st c. A.D.) united the Neolithic, early class and ancient world civilizations and the 1st and 2nd generations of local respectively. Its chronological framework – the Second historical super cycle (6th – 20th cc.) included the Medieval, early industrial and industrial world civilizations, 3rd and 4th generations of local. The third super cycle begins in the 21st c., only its first levels are known – post-industrial world civilization and the 5th generation of local civilizations.

The inquiry into the history of civilizations has made us to draw a conclusion that compression of historical time is regular. Each next step in the history of civilizations (world, generations of local) is characterized by a shorter life cycle, speedup of the historical advance rate, quickening of the pulse of cyclical dynamics of society. While a temporal space of the first world civilizations and generation of local made several millennia, then the latter – only several centuries. Such tendency seems to persist in future.

The Diffusion of Civilizations in Space

The history of civilizations began on a relatively small area of the firm land to the north of the equator on the Afro-Eurasian continent and to the north and south of the equator – in America. The other populated part of the earth (oecumene) was still at the pre-civilizational stage of development, and ample territories were wild at all.

A Stage by stage, one world civilization by another civilizational space was extending, ties between separate local civilizations expanded and strengthened. The development of transport roads (river, sea, land) conduced to it, the emergence of new means of vehicles – horses and camels, river and sea vessels, steam-engines and steamboats, motor cars and aicraft. The age of the Great Geographical Discoveries in the period of the early industrial civilizations ended with the inclusion of nearly all territory of the earth in the global civilizational space (except Antarctica, some regions of the far north, separate regions of primeval tropical forests and deserts). It embraced all oecumene and left the boundaries of the planet – space conquering began.

However, it does not mean that civilization distributed throughout the earth as an even and homogeneous "layer". The congelations of civilizational energy – vanguard civilizations – exist on the planet. They are followed by (in the second echelon) allied, close by their level of development. Lagging behind civilizations which are late for one-two rhythms are climbing the second step are found on the periphery of the progress. The fourth echelon – less-developed civilizations and countries which are unable unassisted to wrest out from the sucking down bog of the backwardness.

Consequently, the territory of the Earth, global civilizational space is a varicolored "quilt" in each specific period of time, in which civilizations on various stages of development are tightly "stitched together". The color of such "quilt" changes from time to time as either one or other civilizations take up becoming the leaders of a civilizational advance, and other retreats to the second, third echelon.

The unity of space-temporal dynamics of civilization may be pictorially represent as a spiral of civilizational progress with whorls expanding in space and changing in time.

The first whorl of the spiral covers the life cycle of the Neolithic civilization. It is the longest by its duration – covering (in the epicenter) more than four and a half millennia – nearly a half of all historical time. The genotype of civilization was formed that period, and the outlines of the "pyramid" of civilizations were gradually taking shape, its "floors" and "apartments" become occupied.

The second whorl began from the second half of the 4th millennia B.C. when the 1st generation of local civilizations formed, classes, states, law, private property, and market emerged. All "floors" and "apartments" had been already occupied, the system of civilizations – world, local, and global formed (although they settled on a small part of the oecumene – about 15-20%).

The third whorl includes the period of the prevalence of the ancient world civilization and the 2nd generation of local civilizations when their geographical range expanded to 35% of the oecumene, the first world empires sprang up. This is the peak of the development of the first historical super cycle.

A transition to the fourth whorl of the spiral – medieval world civilization and the third generation of local – turned to be hard and long as it coincided with the change of historical super cycles. The center of a civilizational progress shifted to the East (India, China), the western European civilization that was in a permanent state of a military conflict with a newly emerged Moslem and other civilizations began to form. The latter was also aggressive in their turn (the conquest of nearly all Eurasia by the Mongolians). The ideational socio-cultural system prevailed, the dominance of world religions consolidated in the spiritual and political spheres.

The start of the fifth whorl of civilizational spiral was marked by a transition of humanity to the early industrial world civilization, manufactory, technological mode of production, beginning of the development of industrial capital, classes of capitalist wage workers, the first bourgeois revolutions (Netherlandish and English) and formation of the bourgeois democracy as a political system – after the period of absolutism in the vanguard countries.

The fourth generation of local generations formed. While by population size and GDP output the Chinese and Indian civilizations prevailed that time, but in actual fact the leadership was taken by young and aggressive western European which developed at the priority rates. In the period of the Great Geographical Discoveries it conquered a larger part of the world and destroyed the pre-Columbian civilizations of America. The great scientific revolution of the 15th-17th cc. evolved exactly in Europe, it embraced the bright achievements of the Renaissance, the overturns of the Reformation and Enlightenment of prime significance for the spiritual sphere occurred. Only Eurasian (Russian Empire) and the Moslem (Ottoman Empire) were able to resist the West.

The top of the second historical super cycle was reached at the sixth whorl of the civilizational spiral, in the period of the industrial world civilization, bloom, and then decline of the 4th generation of local civilizations, triumph of the sensual, socio-cultural system. The industrial revolution transformed technological and economic spaces, it speeded up many times the economic growth rates that became one of the factors of a rapid growth of the population size. The Independence War in North America and the Great French Revolution opened the path to radical transformations of the socio-political system and establishment of bourgeois democracy. All these events were accompanied by a train of wars and revolutions happened at the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th cc. and the 20th c. The decline of the industrial civilization was marked by the establishment of totalitarian states, and a deep crisis of culture. In the 19th c. a colonial system of imperialism sprang up that involved many ancient civilizations. The 20th century is characterized by a series of national-liberation revolutions, disintegration of the system of imperialism, and by the end of the century – the world system of socialism, liquidation of the bipolar world. The planet is hit by a deep-seated civilizational crisis associated with the end of the second historical super cycle.

At the threshold of the 21st c. the seventh whorl of the civilizational spiral that will likely include the space of two centuries begins and leading to the radical transformation of the global civilization at the beginning of the third historical super cycle. A humanistically-noospheric post-industrial civilization and the fifth generation of local civilizations are underway, There are signs that a sensual socio-cultural system prevailing in the West is being replaced by a harmoniously integral in its western, eastern and Russian modifications.

At the beginning of the seventh whorl the global civilization encountered three epochal challenges. The first of them – demographic: depopulation, aging of population is observed in most countries. The second – ecological: prime power and other natural resources are nearly exhausted, a threat of a global ecological catastrophe has arisen. Globalization, its neoliberal model tosses the third challenge to humanity, when an abyss between the rich and poor nations and civilizations becomes already insurmountable. A scientific-technological revolution evolving nowadays and formation of the integral socio-cultural system create prerequisites for settlement of the said contradictions, for a worthy response to the challenges of the century. To what extent such prerequisites will be used, on a timely manner and the essence of such response depends whether the global civilization will enter a regular eighth whorl of the civilizational spiral in the 23rd century or humanity will come to an end.

A Civilizational Approach to the History and Future of Humanity

A theory of civilizations is a part of the nucleus of the post-industrial paradigm of social science that will establish as a result of the great scientific revolution evolving in the 21st c. and a new picture of always changing world being formed now. A civilizational approach to the history and future of humanity as a major component of integralism is coming to replace liberal and Marxist formation approaches that prevailed in the period of the heyday and decline of the industrial civilization (in the 19th-20th centuries) and with its seeming antagonism had common roots and features as integral parts of the industrial scientific paradigm.

What are the major distinctions of such approaches?

First, both liberalism and Marxism proceed from the primacy of economy in the structure and dynamics of society – property and market, Homo Economicus (liberalism), productive forces, relations of production as a basis (Marxism). A civilizational approach establishes the priority of spiritual sphere – science, culture, education, ethics, and religion, the priority of the system of civilizational values that determine motivation of human activity in all its aspects. It is the principle the "pyramid" of civilization is based, logic of interaction and dynamics of all its "floors" and "apartments".

Second, both liberalism, and Marxism take as a base the linear-progressive trajectory of the development of society, its direct ascend from step to step. Despite all scientific schools of liberalism and Marxism give attention to the study of cycles and crises, they do so only for proving that deviations from a direct development make exceptions. The theory of civilizations, on the contrary, lays stress on the recognition of cyclical-genetic regularities in the dynamics of society, its fundamental bases necessarily inherent to it in the past, present and future. These regularities are deemed not deviations from the norm, but the norm,. Therefore the inquiries into the cycles and crises in all spheres of society and at all stages of its development are the cornerstone of the theory of civilizations.

Third, the effect of the differences referred to above is a various approach of the formation and civilization theories to periodization of the history of humanity. Liberalism distinguishes a pre-history, pre-market stage of development, and the history proper when the establishment and diffusion of capitalist market economy and bourgeois democracy occurred; the end of the history when these systems triumphed all over the world. There is nowhere to move further and needn't.

Marxist historical materialism is based on the theory of socio-economic formations changing each other: primitive-community lasted for million years, slave; feudal; capitalist; communist that begins from socialism and will establish itself forever. This is also the end of history, but dishing up in a new form unlike liberalism.

Integralism proceeds from the assumption that a civilizational stage in the development of humanity (beginning of its history) began from the Neolithic revolution; that the rhythm of historical process finds its expression in a regular change of historical super cycles, world civilizations, generations of local civilizations, socio-cultural system; that the regularities of socio-genetics – inheritance, variation and selection underlie such cyclical dynamics.

Finally, fourth, the said three trends of a socio-economic thought have fundamentally different ideas of future of society. Both liberalism, and Marxism views future as a complete implementation and final triumph of the ideals exercised by them – either capitalist market economy and bourgeois democracy or unified and monotonous communist society that surmounted all social differences where "there will be a total flow of wealth" and the principle will be implemented "from each according to his abilities - to each according to his needs" and each kitchen lady will administer society.

On the contrary, the advocates of integralism are sure that cycles and crises, a regular change of historical super cycles, world civilizations and generations of local civilizations will persist until human society exists. The same way new challenges of time will arise and the need to provide adequate responses to them, civilizational diversity will persist. Humanity is not to be quiet in future too: risks will be modified, but not disappear, and people have to exert every effort so that to minimize them.

A Place of the Theory of Civilizations (Civiliography) in the System of Sciences

A theory of civilizations (civiliography) has mainly a fundamental nature, is included in the fundamental researches.

The applied researches are built on them, and not only in the field of social and human, but natural, engineering and ecological sciences.

The major action field and use of the theory of civilizations – social sciences as it makes, as it has already been mention above, a part of the nucleus of the post-industrial paradigm of social science, integralism as a modern expression of such paradigm. However, this theory does not claim an exclusive place in the system of social sciences at all implying the existence of other trends and schools (synergetics, etc.). Being a key element in such sciences as history (first of all the philosophy of history) and archeology, the theory of civilizations is also used in the system of economic, political, cultural and other social sciences.

The theory of civilizations occupies the leading positions in the fundamental, and in particular, applied researches in the field of human sciences – linguistics, art criticism, ethnography, etc. How objects of these sciences will develop is impossible to understand failing to gain an understanding of the essence of change of civilizations, content and interrelation of their elements (spiritual sphere, demographic and socio-political factors).

Knowledge of the theory of civilizations is also necessary for development of ecological sciences, awareness of the role of a natural-ecological factor and the formation of noosphere.

Engineering sciences also has an allied field with the theory of civilizations, especially in the issues of study and use of a technological factor in the development of society, regularities, prerequisites and consequences of the change of technological modes of production, technological orders and generations of technology.

Knowledge of the theory of civilizations is also important for representatives of natural sciences who study cyclical-genetic regularities of the development of science, changes in scientific paradigms, specifics in the diffusion of new knowledge and formation of knowledge-based society in various local civilizations.

Thus, based on first of all social sciences the theory of civilizations is basically of interdisciplinary nature, it penetrates into all branches of knowledge, its understanding is necessary for scientists and specialists of any sciences, although, of course, in various scope and various aspects.

It follows from the said that the theory and history of civilizations should take one of the leading places in the system of education – both general and trade education, and continuous and distance learning. It is necessary not only work out dedicated textbooks on the theory, history and future civilizations (in various languages and various structure for different countries and civilizations), but also incorporate special sections in the textbooks on other specialties.

Sites and portals on the Internet should be constructed covering these problems. All this would allow making civilizational knowledge more accessible for new generations.