The 21st century, with its new global threats, requires that an extraordinary and highly priority issue be placed on the agenda: the self-preservation of humanity! The starting point for solving this problem must be a transition from a spontaneous, technocratic, abnormally rapid and extremely destructive type of development to a consciously regulated, humanistically guided type of humanity. This can be achieved through the humanistic transformation of the most important socio-cultural formation of the modern era – global civilisation. It is in the achievement of this goal that the humanism of the current century should consist.
So much has been written about humanism in the world that this topic may even seem exhausting. In fact, this is far from the case. Humanism is a multifaceted phenomenon with many aspects and manifestations that depend, first and foremost, on the era and its general tone. In connection with new global threats, the 21st century raises a completely extraordinary humanistic problem, which is truly grandiose in nature.
Until recently, humanism, humanistic ideology and activity were associated only with feelings of compassion, empathy and sympathy, love... mercy towards those in need of help. These kinds of feelings and activities will naturally continue to exist in the future, but now as components of a holistically expressed humanistic type of activity. It must find its expression in long-term efforts aimed at survival, as well as the means to achieve these goals, embodied in new systemic models for the further development of humanity. The most serious problem, however, is that this type of activity requires a qualitatively new scientific and educational system.
It is necessary, first of all, to find ways out of the planetary crisis by developing a comprehensive strategic programme for the survival and development of humanity. The outdated, one-sidedly specialised, mono-disciplinary scientific and educational culture that still dominates throughout the world is not designed to solve these problems. In order to cope with the problems, it is necessary to bring the socio-cultural, biological, physical and engineering sciences closer together as soon as possible through their integrative interaction. The starting point for all this should be a system of integrative theories and concepts capable of explaining the laws of evolutionary self-organisation of the type of life inherent in human society.
All of the above gives reason to assert that the world is facing the need for a humanistic revolution as a condition for the survival and development of nations and all of humanity. This requirement is determined by the very nature of the tasks facing humanity. Unlike its previous, largely spontaneous development, it must now be consciously directed and regulated. This requires qualitatively new scientific knowledge, a new type of science and education.
It is precisely this circumstance that should radically change the attitude towards the study of people's social life. One of the features of the 21st century is that a radical change in priorities is required in the development of humanity and its way of life. There is as yet no awareness of the need for these changes. Moreover, in the currently dominant theoretical and organisationally disintegrated model of the socio-cultural world order, people will simply not be able to survive.
The essence of the problem is that the most important condition for the self-preservation of humanity should be seen in a radical change in the dispersed, technocratic type of development that is characteristic of the modern world. Only in this case does the development of the essential characteristics of a person acquire a certain self-worth. Such destruction and rates of development are incompatible with life processes. Humanity will survive only if a certain balance can be established in the development of all the main links of modern civilisation.
The humanistic transformation of civilisation will require the development of qualitatively new knowledge about life and its specific manifestations. It must find its expression in all spheres of human life, including various types of incentives. If this area of science has fallen out of the priorities of science and education development within the framework of the holistic methods of production and use of knowledge and specialists that they form, then the very nature of the modern era dictates the need to transform this area into the most priority sphere of scientific knowledge. Such interaction is only just beginning to emerge in the interaction between the social, physical and biological sciences, but it is inevitable.
The fact is that only through the integration of the main groups of sciences is it possible to develop a comprehensive strategic programme for survival and development. Many scientists rightly believe that one of the most vulnerable aspects of modern civilization is the existing, theoretically extremely disintegrated knowledge about society. Often, representatives of other, significantly more developed groups of sciences even exclude it from the realm of scientific knowledge itself! By presenting an extremely distorted view of the phenomenon of human social life, they in no way meet the requirements of the modern era.
An extremely vivid example of such distortion is the tradition of reducing culture to art, which prevails in the world. One of the consequences of this state of affairs is the cognitive trap in which people find themselves as a result of such an arbitrary interpretation of culture. Undoubtedly, the problem of integrative interaction between the sciences of socio-cultural, biological and physical natural states is very complex, and there are many obstacles, scientific, organisational and psychological. We must not forget the powerful force of inertia that is characteristic of the one-sidedly specialised scientific and educational culture that has developed over the last centuries and continues to dominate throughout the world.
We must embark on the path to overcoming this inertia as soon as possible, for it is necessary for the survival and development of humanity. Therefore, in this regard, we must first of all give serious thought to what the first steps in the required direction should be and what initial prerequisites will be needed to begin their methodical implementation. It seems that these prerequisites should be: a system of views capable of providing a common vision of the path to be followed, as well as an institution open to innovation, whose leadership, recognising the great social significance of these innovations, is ready to facilitate discussion of this system of views with a view to institutionally implementing its principles.