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brink of a nuclear war (the ‘Caribbean Crisis’ in 1962) and, consequently, nuclear
powers were convinced of the need to sign the Strategic Arms Limitation (SALT)
and and reduce nuclear capability of the USSR and the US.
The collapse of the ‘Evil Empire’ (R. Reagan) had an impact not only on the
political and economic situation in the world. First, it transformed the value system
of people, caused not only a fundamental change in the socio-economic structure
of the society, but also led to a dramatic rethinking of a man's place in the society.
These shifts generated a specific cultural situation, the development of which was
very difficult to predict and analyze.
2. New place of science and industry in the cultural system. Culture
and philosophy
The science dominating in the culture of the Enlightenment experienced a
profound. Relativism (from Latin relativus - «relative») as a methodological
principle prevailed in all areas of intellectual development: science, philosophy, art
in the XXth century. Relativism recognized the changeable nature of scientific
theory, moral norms or cultural traditions.
The relativistic paradigm rose in the XIX-XXth centuries due to the need of
the philosophical reflection on the revolution in physics and inventions of Einstein
(theory of relativity), quantum theory of light by Niels Bohr. These findings, as
well as a new theory of the atom, which is the basis of quantum mechanics, laid the
foundations of the philosophy of science in the XXth century. A significant role in
the development of the modern scientific world was played by the work of V.
Vernadskiy (the first president of the Academy of Science of Ukraine), the founder
of the theory of the ‘neosphere’ - one of the planetary spheres (including the
lithosphere, biosphere, atmosphere) where the human mind dominated. French
philosopher, scholar and Catholic theologian P. Teilhard de Chardin also wrote
about the ‘neosphere’ seing the radical restoration of the Christian doctrine through
its agreement with the achievements of modern science.
Prominent scientist of the XXth century American mathematician H. Wiener
was one of the founders of cybernetics. Wiener addressed the issue of developing
intelligent machines capable of learning and self-renewal, a relationship between a
human and computer devices.
The technological revolution caused the emergence of industrial society,
which is typical for a high level of industrial production, based on the mass
production of durable goods (TVs, cars). The advent of television brought an
unprecedented revolution in human consciousness, comparable only with the
change of world view on a space flight. However, the television not only revealed
new horizons of knowledge of the world (a huge amount of information), but
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