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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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