Movement in the opposite direction. Civilizations: formation and development exam questions Movement of civilization in the opposite direction crossword puzzle

This is a rather powerful, but also difficult mental technique. In some cases, it's just natural to "move backwards." I want to get from London to Edinburgh. I know that as soon as I get to Newcastle, it will be very easy to get to Edinburgh from there. But how do I get to Newcastle? So, if I get to York, it's not difficult to get to Newcastle from there. But how do you get to York? You just need to drive to Peterborough, and from there it will be easy to get to York. Now we have to somehow get to Peterborough. The easiest way to get there is from London. So the route has been chosen. Problem solved.

In some cases, you can move methodically. If I get to this point, then it is not difficult to reach from there ultimate goal. But now that this point has become a target, how do you hit it?

If goods were unavailable, shoplifting would stop. But how do you make items unavailable? Put them behind a door that would only open on presentation of a credit card. Or simply exhibit samples of goods, and give out the goods to the buyer only at the checkout. If shoplifters were easy to catch, they would be wary of stealing. But how to show the thieves that they can easily be caught? Putting video cameras everywhere, giving out rewards to all customers who help catch shoplifters, publicly announcing the names of those caught in the act, etc., are all ways to prevent shoplifting.

If it were impossible to take stolen goods out of the store, then there would be no point in stealing them. How to make stolen items impossible to take out of the store? It is possible, for example, to saturate all goods with a special smell, which would be eliminated only at the checkout, and put an angry dog ​​at the exit, which would sniff all the customers who leave the store. In a sense, the "reversal" method is a form of "revision" or "transformation" of the problem.

Going backwards usually requires one or more ideas as steps, as shown in the shoplifting example. In a sense, the fan of concepts is one of the forms of movement in the opposite direction. You can reach point A from point B. But now how do you get to point B? From point B. So, how are we going to get to point B?

Situation a. The problem is the lack of parking spaces.

Generalization method. Need more parking space. This could mean either expanding the existing car park, adding a second tier or creating an underground platform, or building an additional car park at a different location but with bus service to the destination.

situation B. A new restaurant whose owner wants to grow his business as quickly as possible.

Generalization method. People need to find out about the new restaurant as soon as possible. Create a scandal around him. Invite celebrity look-alikes to dinner. Allow women to visit the topless restaurant.

Situation B. The problem of graffiti on the wall.

Generalization method. Make the labels invisible. During the day, throw a special curtain on the wall that would cover the inscriptions that appeared at night.

Fan of concepts

It is part of the generalization method.

On the right side of the page, we write the purpose of our thinking. It must always involve the achievement of some result. There is a problem to be solved. There is a result to be obtained. There must be improvement in a certain direction. The concept fan does not work with a model or an open, creative situation. The end goal must be clearly defined.

Then we say which general concepts (called directions) will lead us to the final goal. Suppose we are considering the problem of a shortage of skilled workers. General concepts can be as follows:

Increase the supply of qualified personnel.

Reduce the need for qualified personnel.

Increase the productivity of existing employees.

We then take each of these concepts and define it as an end goal. How can we reach it? How can we move in this “direction”?

So, how to increase the number of skilled workers?

Additionally, hire several professionals.

Upgrade the skills of existing employees.

Recruit skilled workers from another enterprise to work out of state (external source).

How to reduce the need for qualified personnel?

Reduce the complexity of operations.

Enter automation.

Reduce the number of transactions.

Lower work standards.

How to increase the productivity of existing employees?

Increase motivation to work.

Extend the working day.

Constantly use the special skills and abilities of employees.

Make full use of their working time.

After that, we take each of these "concepts" and try to find practical ways to implement it. This should be done with every concept. Now the fan has opened, offering many ways to solve the problem. Instead of going through every concept, here are just a few examples.

Concept: improve the qualifications of staff.

Idea: train your own workers.

Idea: entrust the work to your own employees, setting them the task of self-improvement.

Idea: Together with other employers facing the same problem, set up an institute to improve the skills of workers.

Concept: automation.

Idea: use expert systems to make decisions. Idea: introduce computer control technology.

Idea: electronic scanning and file creation of all documentation.

Concept: constant use of special skills and abilities of employees.

Idea: provide workers with special skills with assistants to perform work that does not require the use of these special skills.

The two main issues involved in using the concept fan are:

1. How does it work? This question sends us to the wide end of the fan, where all the ideas are. What is the real mechanism of this technique? How can buses help solve traffic congestion? Very simply - they will increase the "density" of movement: more people per vehicle.

2. How can this be achieved? This question sends us to the narrow end of the fan where certain concepts are located. What specific concepts can help bring this idea to life? How can this concept be applied and where? How to reduce the number of trips during rush hour? Adjusting in a special way the hours of operation of enterprises. Communicate what time rush hour is so people can avoid it.

The same question can be in various areas fan of concepts. For example, the "do without" solution is both a broad direction, or idea, for solving the problem of water scarcity and a concept serving the idea of ​​"reduce consumption". The concept fan does not involve analysis, so you can repeat the same concept an unlimited number of times.

Usually, several concepts fan models are required. First, you create your first fan, but then you supplement and improve it, getting a second model. There may also be a third. This is a pretty powerful technique, but it takes practice.

In describing the generalization method, I have already said that several ideas of varying degrees of generalization can be used simultaneously. In the concept fan, there are different levels for this. The first level is the most generalized, it is also called the main "direction". Then there are concepts. Finally, the very last level is the "practical idea".

Sometimes there can be several levels of concepts between a "direction" and a "practical idea". But each subsequent level is always more specific than the previous one.

We will now apply the concept fan to each of the three thought situations and then move on to the third part of the generalization method.

Situation a. The problem is the lack of parking space.

Fan of concepts . General directions may be as follows:

Expand the parking lot;

Reduce the size of cars;

Reduce the number of clients;

Make people content with the current situation.

We can follow any of these directions, but as an example, consider just one - how to get people to be content with the current situation:

We let them decide how to use the parking lot;

We set a reward for those who do not use the parking lot;

We are drawing lots;

We provide them with the best parking.

We let them set up a committee to develop a strategy for using the parking lot. Let them themselves choose one of the options proposed by the committee by voting.

We are increasing the wages of those who voluntarily give up their right to use the parking lot. We allow those who do not use the parking lot to come to work later (or leave work earlier).

Every month, those who will use the parking lot that month are selected by lottery. “This will help to avoid envy and talk about preferring someone.

We organize general fund machines. Special minibuses are bought for the fund. We will organize a direct bus service to the new parking lot.

situation B. New restaurant.

Fan of concepts. The main directions here might look like this:

Attract local customers;

Conquer the regulars;

Attract people from afar.

For regulars, the concepts might be:

Creation of a special club of regular visitors;

Introduction of permanent vouchers for them;

Providing special privileges for regulars.

As practical ideas In order to secure special privileges for regulars, the following options can be considered:

Guarantee the availability of a free table at any time or the opportunity to dine for free next time;

Fix the names of their regular customers at the tables;

Enter a discount on wines;

Free regulars from having to pay tips.

To grant regular customers the right to rent a restaurant for private celebrations and events.

You can go in any direction and develop some practical ideas for each concept. Here we have given only a few particular examples.

Situation B. Label problem.

Fan of concepts. The main directions can be:

Punish those who draw on the wall;

Make drawing on the wall impossible;

Make sure that the inscriptions can be easily removed;

Make these inscriptions attractive;

Hide labels.

Let's go in the direction of "make the inscriptions attractive." How to achieve this? By using:

special rules;

Competitions;

licenses.

How can the concept of “competition” be put into practice?

Idea: groups compete for the right to paint on the wall during the week. First, their ideas are presented to the commission in the form of a sketch. The authors of the best sketch get the right to use the wall for a week.

Idea: the wall is divided into several areas, and the competitors work on topics - each area is dedicated to a different topic. The public acts as a jury and chooses the best work.

Idea: those who voluntarily agree to wash the wall for a certain period receive the right to use it for the same period of time, that is, those who agree to wash the wall for a month receive the right to paint on it for a whole month.

In all of the examples above, I have not gone into detail on every concept of a fan, as that would be very tedious for the reader. Working with the concept fan method takes time, as there is a lot of thinking involved.

One of the main advantages of the concept fan is the ability to consider several final goals of our activity: “How to achieve such and such a result?” It turns out the effect of a cascade, since each new goal leads to the emergence of a number of alternative options, each of which itself becomes a goal, again giving a certain number of new alternatives.

Historical and cultural knowledge is information about the emergence of civilizations and cultures of different types as forms of existence of society; about signs of civilizations and cultures of different historical eras; about the place and role of the individual as a subject and creator of culture; about the interaction between cultures of different types, between nature and man.

The origins of the word "civilization" date back to ancient times, the culture of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The main type of political system in antiquity was the self-governing community of free citizens, the city-state, which the Greeks called "polis" and the Romans called "civitas". The concept of "civitas" was associated among the Romans with ideas about the well-organized life of a free state, the foundation of which are reasonable and fair laws established by wise people.

The Latin noun civitas itself means "citizenship, civil society, state, city". And it is quite natural that from the point of view of the Romans, Rome itself was the model of "civitas". Beyond the boundaries of the Roman state extended the world of barbarians and Eastern despot kings. "Civitas" among the Romans was associated with the city, which was very different from the "uncivilized" village.

The very concept of "civilization" appears in the 18th century, during the Enlightenment, and bears the imprint of the culture and worldview of this era. Her ideals were rationality, science, citizenship, justice, which were to become the foundations of public and private life of people. The figures of the Enlightenment believed that all this was opposed by the dark world of barbarism, ignorance, prejudice, and religious fanaticism. It was as the opposite of this world that the concept of civilization was put forward.

Just as in the time of the Roman state, in the Age of Enlightenment, civilized Europe, modern to the Enlighteners, and the uncivilized peoples of antiquity, the Middle Ages, all non-Europeans, were opposed. According to the Enlighteners, the civilization of European nations is evidenced not only by their desire to follow the laws of reason, but also by their achievements in the development of crafts, technology, science, and art. So, as we can see, initially in the concept of "civilization" the motive of the superiority of Europeans over other people was very strong.

The whole history of the concept of "civilization" is closely connected with the history of the concept of "culture". For the last two centuries, these concepts in most cases act as synonyms, unambiguous terms. Just like “culture”, “civilization” means non-biological forms of human reality, a system of phenomena that distinguishes a person from nature, a set of things and ideas artificially created by a person.

In addition, the concept of "civilization" (as well as the concept of "culture" in some cases) indicates one or another form of the historical life of people, limited by the spatial framework or boundaries of an epoch. For example, they talk about “Eastern civilization”, “European civilization”, “ancient civilization”, etc. A scientific approach based on the desire to accurately establish the geographical and historical coordinates of civilization (more precisely, civilizations) is called the theory of local civilizations.

One of the meanings of the concept of "civilization" is the level, stage of social and cultural development. From this point of view, the “pre-civilized” stage and the era of civilizations stand out in the history of mankind. However, they not only follow each other, but can exist simultaneously in the face of civilized and uncivilized (wild, primitive) peoples. This interpretation goes back to the ancient opposition of the cultured Greeks and Romans to the barbarians. American anthropologist L.G. Morgan in the 19th century singled out savagery, barbarism and civilization as periods of evolution of society and culture. At the first stage of this evolution, people lived by appropriating the finished products of nature (hunting, fishing, gathering), at the second, agriculture and cattle breeding appeared, and at the third, craft, trade, and the state. Morgan's periodization has long been recognized as obsolete, but the understanding of civilization as a stage of historical development is preserved.

"Civilization" can also be interpreted in the sense of the totality of the achievements of the material and spiritual culture of certain living beings or beings endowed with intelligence, not necessarily people. For example, supporters of ufology (a science that studies unidentified flying objects) talk about “extraterrestrial civilizations”, science fiction writers talk about “robot civilization”, “insect civilization”, etc.

The theory of civilization: main schools and concepts.

Theories of civilizations represent with

Both are a set of various socio-philosophical concepts in which philosophers and sociologists analyze the origin and development of modern societies.

An "ethnographic" concept of civilization began to take shape, the basis of which was the idea that every nation has its own civilization (T. Jouffroy).

At the beginning of the XIX century. F. Guizot, laid the foundations of the ethno-historical concept of civilization, which suggested that, on the one hand, there are local civilizations, and on the other, there is also Civilization as the progress of human society as a whole.

Civilization, Guizot believed, consists of two elements: social, external to man and universal, and intellectual, internal, which determines his personal nature. The mutual influence of these two phenomena, social and intellectual, is the basis for the development of civilization.

A. Toynbee considered civilization as a special socio-cultural phenomenon, limited by certain spatio-temporal limits, which is based on religion and clearly defined parameters of technological development.

M. Weber also considered religion to be the basis of civilization. L. White studies civilization from the point of view of internal organization, the conditioning of society by three main components: technology, social organization and philosophy, and his technology determines the remaining components.

Most scholars tend to define civilization “as a socio-cultural community with qualitative specifics.

Thus, Kant already outlines the difference between the concepts of civilization and culture.

Spengler, representing civilization as a set of technical and mechanical elements, opposes it to culture as the realm of organic life. Therefore, he argues that civilization is The final stage development of any culture or any period of social development, which is characterized by a high level of scientific and technical achievements and the decline of art and literature.

In addition, some scientists, regardless of their ideas about what underlies civilization, consider it as an external world in relation to man, while they interpret culture as a symbol of his inner heritage, as a spiritual code of life.

Civilization theory in the works of N. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, N. Berdyaev.

The Russian sociologist was the first to look at civilizational relations through the prism of non-Eurocentric self-consciousness Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky, who in his book "Russia and Europe" (1869) contrasted the aging European civilization with the young Slavic. The Russian ideologue of pan-Slavism pointed out that not a single cultural-historical type can claim to be considered more developed, higher than the rest. Western Europe is no exception in this respect. Although the philosopher does not endure this thought to the end, sometimes pointing to the superiority of the Slavic peoples over their Western neighbors.

The next significant event in the development of the theory of local civilizations was the work of the German philosopher and culturologist Oswald Spengler"The Decline of Europe" (1918). It is not known for certain whether Spengler was familiar with the work of the Russian thinker, but nevertheless, the main conceptual provisions of these scientists are similar in all important points. Like Danilevsky, resolutely rejecting the generally accepted conditional periodization of history into " Ancient world- Middle Ages - Modern Times", Spengler advocated a different view of world history - as a series of cultures independent of each other, living, like living organisms, periods of origin, formation and death. Like Danilevsky, he criticizes Eurocentrism and proceeds not from the needs of historical research, but from the need to find answers to the questions posed by modern society: in the theory of local cultures, the German thinker finds an explanation for the crisis of Western society, which is experiencing the same decline that befell the Egyptian , antique and other ancient cultures. Spengler's book contained not so many theoretical innovations in comparison with the previously published works of Ruckert and Danilevsky, but it was a resounding success because it was written in bright language, replete with facts and reasoning, and was published after the end of the First World War, which caused complete disappointment in Western civilization. and exacerbated the crisis of Eurocentrism.

N.A. Berdyaev critically reinterpreted Spengler's The Decline of Europe in his essay The Meaning of History. He wrote the article "The Will to Power and the Will to Culture" (1922). It attempts to compare the concepts of "culture" and "civilization" in the spirit of Spengler.

According to N.A. Berdyaev, culture has always been the great loser of life. It is civilization that is trying to realize life. In any culture, at a certain stage of its development, principles begin to appear that undermine the spiritual foundations of culture.

Every culture (even material culture) is a culture of the spirit.

Civilization is technical in nature, in civilization every ideology, every spiritual culture is just a superstructure, an illusion, not a reality. Civilization, in contrast to culture, is not already religious in its basis; the reason of "enlightenment" wins in it. Civilization, in contrast to culture, is not symbolic, not hierarchical, not organic. It is realistic, democratic, mechanistic. It wants not symbolic, but "realistic" achievements of life, it wants real life itself, and not likenesses and signs, not symbols of other worlds. In civilization collective labor supplants individual creativity. Civilization depersonalizes. The liberation of the individual, which civilization is supposed to carry with it, is fatal to personal originality. The personal beginning was revealed only in culture. The will to the power of life destroys the personality.

Danilevsky N.Ya. (1822-1885) - Russian philosopher, put forward the idea of ​​"cultural-historical types" (civilizations). They are in constant struggle with each other and with the environment. Each civilization goes through periods of maturation, aging and death in its development. From Danilevsky's point of view, the most promising cultural-historical type is the "Slavic type".

Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) German idealist philosopher. Following Nietzsche, he proceeded from the concept of organic life and unlimited expansion. Understanding culture as an "organism" that has a rigid unity and is isolated from other cultures. Culture arises, develops and dies. Culture is denied by civilization. The transformation of culture into civilization coincides with the transformation of creativity into sterility, of heroic "deeds" into mechanical work.

Civilization theory in the works of P. Sorokin, A. Toynbee, S. Huntington.

Russian-American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin in his fundamental work "Social and Cultural Dynamics" presented a detailed theory of cultural supersystems. From the point of view of Sorokin, the main factor determining the behavior of individuals and the characteristics of social systems is the factor of culture.

The basic principle of culture is value. Culture, according to Sorokin, is the value system. Without values, culture is impossible. "Deprived of their meaningful aspects, all phenomena of human interaction become mere biophysical phenomena and, as such, form the subject matter of the biophysical sciences."

And since the whole spectrum of cultural phenomena reveals itself through values, then through the analysis of values ​​it is possible to typify culture, describe the process of its development, and predict the future. The criterion for identifying the type of culture in Sorokin is the dominant worldview. In accordance with this criterion, he distinguishes three main types of culture: 1. Ideational - based on the principle of supersensibility and superreason of God as the only value and reality; 2. Idealistic - Sorokin characterizes it as mixed, intermediate between the first and third, because its basic principle is the recognition of the fact that reality is partly supersensible and partly sensible, i.e. idealistic culture, in other words, is oriented towards both God and man; 3. He defines modern culture as sensual. The sensory type of culture is characterized by direct sensory perception of reality.

The basic principle of this culture is that objective reality is sensual, this culture is free "from religion, morality and other values."

Sorokin believed in the progressive development of mankind, to replace the culture that had lost its humane character, he believed, a culture of a different type should come, which would be based on new creative values ​​and open up new opportunities for human self-realization.

A much more significant contribution to the study of local civilizations was made by the English historian Arnold Toynbee. In his 12-volume work "Comprehension of History" (1934-1961), the British scientist divided the history of mankind into a number of local civilizations that have the same internal development scheme. The rise, rise and fall of civilizations has been characterized by such factors as external Divine impulse and energy, challenge and response, and departure and return. There are many common features in the views of Spengler and Toynbee. The main difference is that Spengler's cultures are completely isolated from each other. For Toynbee, these relations, although they have an external character, are part of the life of civilizations themselves. It is extremely important for him that some societies, joining others, ensure the continuity of the historical process.

The merit of the English historian and sociologist Toynbee consists, first of all, in creating a concept of the development of civilizations, which allows not only to characterize in detail various cultures, but also to predict the further development of civilizations.

The meaning of the theory Samuel Huntington, formulated by him in the article "The Clash of Civilizations", is reduced to the following:

The apparent geopolitical victory of Atlanticism on the entire planet with the fall of the USSR, the last stronghold of continental forces disappeared, in fact, affects only a superficial cut of reality. The strategic success of NATO, accompanied by ideological formation, the rejection of the main competitive communist ideology, does not affect the deep layers of civilization. Huntington argues that a strategic victory is not a civilizational victory; western ideology liberal democracy, market, etc. became uncontested only temporarily, since civilizational and geopolitical features will soon begin to emerge among non-Western peoples.

The rejection of the ideology of communism and shifts in the structure of traditional states, the collapse of some entities, the emergence of others, etc. will not lead to an automatic alignment of all mankind with the universal system of Atlanticist values, but, on the contrary, will make deeper cultural layers freed from superficial ideological clichés again relevant.

Huntington argues that along with Western civilization, which includes North America and Western Europe, one can foresee the geopolitical fixation of seven more potential civilizations: 1) Slavic-Orthodox, 2) Confucian (Chinese), 3) Japanese, 4) Islamic, 5) Hindu, 6) Latin American and possibly 7) African.

Of course, these potential civilizations are by no means equivalent. But all of them are unanimous in that the vector of their development and formation will be oriented in a direction different from the trajectory of Atlanticism and the civilization of the West. So the West will again find itself in a situation of confrontation. Huntington believes that this is almost inevitable and that the realistic formula should be taken as a basis already now: "The West and The Rest" ("The West and All the Rest").

The problem of civilization in the works of the classics of Marxism, K. Jaspers, E. Fromm.

In the 19th century, the concept of civilization was also developed from scientific materialistic positions. Within the framework of this direction, civilization was considered as a society that overcame dependence on nature, reached a higher standard of living, but compared to the period of savagery, characterized by a productive type of economy, a spiritual culture that arose on a professional basis, and has a certain systemic organization. The most prominent representative of this approach was K. Marx and F. Engels, who studied society as a stadium developing entity in connection with the type of technology and the social factor. The founders of Marxist philosophy considered civilization as the result of the achievements of material and spiritual culture, the types of which are determined by the content of socio-economic formations. Speaking about the stages of development of world civilization, they emphasize its concrete historical character, determined by the level of development of social production, and justified the need for a transition to a new communist type of civilization.

Marxist philosophy considers culture as a specific characteristic of society, expressing the achieved human level of historical development, which includes a certain relationship of man to nature and society, as well as the development of the creative forces and abilities of the individual. Culture is understood not only as a purely spiritual problem of human upbringing and enlightenment, but also as a problem of creating necessary conditions, including material ones, for the comprehensive and holistic development of the individual. Culture can be understood not from itself, but only in connection with society, with labor; it is not only the totality of its results, but also the very process of human activity.

Then the meaning of the term expands and, in addition to having good manners and the skills of "civilized behavior", it began to be used to characterize the stages of human development. L. Morgan, and after him F. Engels, consider civilization as a stage in the development of society that has come after savagery and barbarism. At this time, the concept of civilization is also used as a characteristic of European capitalism as a whole.

Theory of Culture by Karl Jaspers

The central idea of ​​the cultural views of the German philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) was the idea of ​​the unity of human history and culture, the common origin of mankind. He opposed the Spenglerian method of analyzing culture, which, according to Jaspers, does not allow one to see the patterns of development of culture, and therefore (for all the differences in cultures) there is a single origin and a single path for the development of culture. At the same time, Jaspers was critical of the Marxist understanding of history, denying the existence of objective laws of historical development, believing that the development of culture is influenced mainly by spiritual processes, and not economic ones.

In the genesis of culture, Jaspers singles out 4 periods. The first, which he called the "Promethean era", he defines as the prehistory of mankind. During this period, languages ​​​​appear, the first tools of labor appear, a person tames fire. In the "Promethean era" the formation of man as a species takes place.

The second period is the time of the "great cultures of antiquity", when high cultures were born simultaneously in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and later in China. These cultures are considered by Jaspers as local; their unifying characteristics are the existence of writing and "specific technical rationalization".

The third period is called by Jaspers the "axial time" (between 800 and 200 BC). This era is characterized by him as the "spiritual foundation of mankind", which occurred simultaneously and independently of each other in China, India, Persia, Palestine and Greece. During this period, a type of a new, modern man was created. During the "axial time" religious and ethical teachings arose, universal values ​​were developed, which exist today. At this stage, the formation of a single history of mankind took place. The "axial peoples" - the Chinese, Iranians, Jews, Greeks and Indians - made a great breakthrough in the "axial time", they laid the foundation for the spiritual essence of man and his true history as a single world history. Since the "axial peoples", standing at the origins of a single world history, belong to both the East and the West, Jaspers draws a conclusion about the spiritual unity of all peoples. Common spiritual foundations make it possible to overcome the division of world history into opposite polar models - East-West - and create a single world culture.

The fourth period, according to Jaspers, is the era of the "development of technology", characterized by new sources of energy, new technologies. Jaspers tends to be optimistic about the future of mankind. Through world history, humanity, he predicts, is moving towards a distant new "axial time", the time of the true formation of man, the time of genuine "cosmic-religious" cultural unity.

In the course of rethinking the main provisions of classical psychoanalysis, another direction arose - neo-Freudianism - the largest and most significant representative of which was Erich Fromm (1900-1980).

The neo-Freudian concept of culture seeks to find ways to resolve the inconsistency of human existence, to propose ways to destroy various forms of alienation, to determine the prospects for the exit of Western civilization from the crisis, to indicate the direction of the free development of the modern personality.

Fromm, rethinking the Freudian interpretation of the unconscious, focused not on repressed sexuality, but on conflicts caused by socio-cultural reasons, showed the connection between the individual's psyche and the social structure of society. Describing post-industrial culture, Fromm points out the loss of oneself by a person, the loss of the main meaning of culture - the self-improvement of the human personality, as the main reason for its crisis. The goal of modern culture has become the development of technology, from a means it has become the goal of civilization, while man is increasingly becoming a slave to the machine. The development of technology leads to an ever greater rationalization of human life.

Noting the inhumane nature modern society, which does not contribute to the harmonious development of a person, but, on the contrary, deprives him of his individuality, "selfhood", Fromm offers the following way out. It is necessary, from his point of view, to build a society on the basis of humanistic ethics, humanistic management, which should lead to a spiritual revival, which, in turn, will be expressed in the creation of new aesthetic values ​​and ethical standards, and, ultimately, will cause the birth of a new religion, at the center of which will be a renewed person.

Primitiveness as a stage of pre-civilizational development of mankind.

Primitive history covers a long period of time when mankind existed in the form of separate groups, united by blood-kindred characteristics. This stage begins with the appearance of the first person, society, culture and ends with the emergence of civilization, which means that we consider primitiveness as a stage of pre-civilizational development of mankind. The first civilizations are states in the valleys of the Tigris, Euphrates and Nile rivers at the turn of the 3rd and 4th millennia.

The emergence of centers of civilization does not mean the disappearance of primitiveness as a phenomenon. Until today, in geographically isolated regions of the Earth, there are communities that have retained the features of primitiveness, but they do not determine the essence of progress and the path of development of society.

Primitive history can be divided into two sections: 1) the origin of man and society - which includes the formation of the main social and cultural institutions: family and marriage, organization of power and social control, types of economic activity (hunting, gathering, farming, animal husbandry), religion, morality , art; 2) the existence of primitive societies that existed alongside and in parallel with the state.

"Neolithic Revolution" and the beginning of the transition to civilization.

The prerequisites for the formation of civilization began to take shape in the Neolithic era (new stone age) - 4-3 millennia BC, they are associated with the Neolithic revolution - the transition from appropriating forms of farming to producing ones.

During the Neolithic period, 4 major social divisions of labor occur:

1. Allocation of agriculture, cattle breeding,

2. Highlighting the craft;

3. Allocation of builders,

4. Appearance of leaders, priests, warriors.

Some researchers also call the Neolithic period the Neolithic civilization. Her characteristic features:

1. Domestication - domestication of animals,

2. The emergence of stationary settlements, among which the most famous are Jericho (Jordan) and Chatal-Hyuyuk (Turkey) - the first urban-type settlements in the history,

3. Approval of the neighboring community instead of consanguineous and communal property,

4. Formation of large associations of tribes,

5. Non-literate civilization.

Thus, the Neolithic Revolution is the transition of human communities from a primitive economy of hunters and gatherers to agriculture based on farming and animal husbandry. According to archeology, the domestication of animals and plants occurred at different times independently in 7-8 regions. The earliest center of the Neolithic revolution is considered to be the Middle East, where domestication began no later than 10 thousand years ago.

The term "Neolithic Revolution" was first proposed by Gordon Child in the middle of the 20th century. In addition to the emergence of a productive economy, it includes a number of consequences that are important for the whole way of life of a man of the Neolithic era. Small mobile groups of hunters and gatherers that dominated the previous Mesolithic era settled in cities and towns near their fields, radically changing the environment by cultivating (including irrigation) and storing the harvested crops in specially erected buildings and structures. The increase in labor productivity led to an increase in population, the creation of relatively large armed detachments guarding the territory, the division of labor, the revival of commodity exchange, the emergence of property rights, centralized administration, political structures, ideologies and new systems of knowledge that made it possible to transfer it from generation to generation not only orally, but also in writing. The appearance of writing is an attribute of the end of the prehistoric period, which usually coincides with the end of the Neolithic and the Stone Age in general.

The consequences of the Neolithic revolution meant a radical change in the way of life of primitive societies. Agriculture allowed a sharp increase in population density, which, in turn, predetermined the division of labor and social differentiation. All this became the main prerequisite for the emergence of early states and high civilizations.

Civilizations of Ancient Mesopotamia: general characteristics.

There were three centers of early agricultural societies in the ancient east: the Jordanian-Palestinian one, the center in Asia Minor, northern Mesopotamia, and western Iran. In addition, there are also centers in Greece, Bulgaria, Moldavia, and the Caucasus. The first civilizations grow out of those agricultural societies where there was a high productivity of agriculture and high rates of social development. This happens in 3-4 thousand BC. in Mesopotamia, where the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations are formed, in Egypt, India and China they all belong to the type of river civilizations.

Sumerian civilization.

Let us proceed directly to the consideration of the civilizations of the ancient East, the first of which was the Sumerian civilization. Sumerian civilization arose in 4-3 thousand BC. e. in the southern part of Mesopotamia on the territory of modern Iraq. Its history is divided into 2 stages: the period of the Ubaid culture, which is characterized by the beginning of the construction of an irrigation system, population growth and the emergence of large settlements that turn into city-states. A city-state is a self-governing city with its adjacent territory. The second stage of the Sumerian civilization is associated with the Uruk culture (from the city of Uruk). This period is characterized by: the appearance of monumental architecture, the development of agriculture, ceramics, the appearance of the first writing in the history of mankind (pictograms-drawings), this writing is called cuneiform and was produced on clay tablets. It was used for about 3 thousand years, but then it was lost and deciphered by Henry Rowlenson only in 1835. What did the Sumerian civilization give to mankind?

1. The invention of the letter, which the Phoenicians first borrow and on its basis create their own script, consisting of 22 consonants, the Greeks borrow the script from the Phoenicians, who add vowels.

Latin was largely derived from Greek, and many modern European languages ​​exist on the basis of Latin.

2. The Sumerians discovered copper, i.e. we can say that they opened the door to the Bronze Age.

3. The first elements of statehood. In peacetime, the Sumerians were ruled by a council of elders, and during the war a supreme ruler was elected - lugal, gradually their power remains in peacetime and the first ruling dynasties appear.

4 Temple architecture, a special type of temple appeared there - a ziggurat, this is a temple in the form of a stepped pyramid

The first reforms in the history of mankind. The first reformer was the ruler of Urukavina.

Akkadian civilization.

Akkad is a city located north of Sumer, which was the center of the Akkadian civilization. The population of this territory belonged to the Semitic group of tribes. They learned the Sumerian culture, religion, writing.

Its characteristic feature is the creation of the first large state with a monarchical form of government and Sargon became the first despot monarch. He was a talented commander and politician who connected Sumer and Akkad and created a single state that lasted about 200 years. In the future, despotism becomes the main form of state power in the ancient East. Despotism - from the Greek word meaning unlimited power. Its essence was that at the head of the state was a despot who had unlimited power and performed 5 main functions:

1. He was the owner of all lands

2. For the duration of the war, he became the supreme commander

3. Acted as a priest

4. He was the supreme judge

5. He was the supreme collector of all taxes.

The stability of the despotisms was based on the belief in the divine origin of the rulers. The power of the despot was exercised by a huge bureaucracy that collected taxes, monitored agricultural work and the state of the irrigation system, recruited recruits, and also ruled the court.

The second feature of the Akkadian civilization is that it was here that an attempt was made to systematize knowledge for the first time. The same ruler Sargon paid great attention to writing books. Mathematical knowledge developed rapidly here. During this period, a time measurement system was introduced: 60 minutes were allocated in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute, a 7-day week was introduced.

Babylonian civilization.

The Babylonian civilization was created by a group of nomadic tribes of Ammorites, of Semitic origin, who conquered Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and created the largest civilization of the ancient East - Babylonian, with its center in the city of Babylon. It entered world history as the first civilization in which a legislative system was developed and created. The code of laws was compiled and written on a huge stone slab during the reign of King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC). The Code of Hammurabi contained 282 laws, it was there that the principle was formulated: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." This set of laws contained provisions that later became part of the biblical commandments: “do not kill”, “do not steal.” Also, the Babylonian civilization is an important source of biblical legends.

In the 8th century BC. under King Tiglath-pilassar, Assyria, a state in the north of Mesopotamia, was strengthened, which was inhabited by a very warlike people, and in the 7th century Assyria subjugated Babylon, from that time the stage of coexistence of the Assyrian-Babylonian civilization began. Under Tiglathpalassar, a regular army was created for the first time in history. But, despite the militancy of the Assyrians, it was here that the first library appeared under the ruler Ashurbanopal. The most famous ruler of the joint Assyrian-Babylonian civilization was Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BC). It was under him that the Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens were created.

Conclusion: Mesopotamian civilization as a whole contributed: writing, legislation, courts, monumental construction, the first systematization of knowledge.

Values ​​and achievements of civilizations of Ancient Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamia is one of the most important centers of world civilization and ancient urban culture. The pioneers in the creation of this culture were the Sumerians, whose achievements were assimilated and further developed by the Babylonians and Assyrians. The origins of Mesopotamian culture date back to the 4th millennium BC. when cities began to emerge. Throughout the long period of its existence (until the 1st century AD), it was characterized by internal unity, continuity of traditions, and the inseparable connection of its organic components. The initial stages of Mesopotamian culture were marked by the invention of a peculiar letters, which later became cuneiform. Exactly Cuneiform was the backbone of the Mesopotamian civilization, which united all its aspects and allowed to preserve traditions.

One of the most amazing achievements of Mesopotamian culture was the invention at the turn of the 4th - 3rd millennium BC. e. letters, with the help of which it became possible to first fix numerous facts Everyday life, and pretty soon also to convey thoughts and perpetuate the achievements of culture.

Of particular importance to the Mesopotamian civilization were natural conditions. Unlike other centers of ancient culture, Mesopotamia had no stone, let alone papyrus, on which to write. But there were plenty clay, which gave unlimited opportunities for writing, requiring essentially no costs. At the same time, clay was a durable material. Clay tablets were not destroyed by fire, but, on the contrary, they acquired even greater strength. Therefore, the main Clay was the material for writing in Mesopotamia.

So, the central figure of the Mesopotamian civilization was scribe, who was the main creator of the richest cuneiform literature. Rulers, temples and individuals depended on the services of scribes. Some of the scribes held very important posts and had the opportunity to influence the kings, took part in important diplomatic negotiations.

One of the greatest achievements of Babylonian and Assyrian culture was the creation libraries. In Ur, Nippur and other cities, starting from the II millennium BC. e., for many centuries scribes collected literary and scientific texts, and thus sprang up extensive private libraries.

Among all the libraries in the Ancient East, the most famous was the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (669-c. 635 BC), carefully and with great skill collected in his palace in Nineveh. For her, throughout Mesopotamia, scribes made copies of books from official and private collections, or collected the books themselves.

The library of Ashurbanipal kept royal annals, chronicles of the most important historical events, collections of laws, literary works and scientific texts. In total, more than 30,000 tablets and fragments that reflect the achievements Mesopotamian civilization.

Civilization of Ancient Egypt: general characteristics.

The ancient Egyptian civilization developed in Northeast Africa in the Nile River valley. Thanks to the periodic floods of this great river, excellent conditions for agriculture have developed in a narrow valley with a width of 4 to 30 km.

Approximately 5 thousand years ago, a single state was formed on the territory of modern Egypt, which became an important element of the ancient Egyptian civilization, which lasted 3 thousand years, i.e. longer than the Babylonian or Sumero-Akkadian. Here, as in any other civilizational culture, there were periods of rise, prosperity, then breakage and decline, as well as rare periods of social upheaval. Another important feature of the Egyptian civilization was that it was the brainchild of one ethnic group.

In ancient Egypt, the united Hattian tribes formed into a powerful ethnic group and created an extensive social system. There were pharaohs and advisers, nome princes and warriors, priests and scribes, merchants, farmers and poor laborers. The system became more complex as clashes with foreigners. Conquests in Nubia and Syria were made by professional troops, treaties with Babylon (and the Hittites) were concluded by experienced diplomats, and canals and palaces were built by specialist engineers trained from childhood. The ramified system survived the Hyksos invasions and was reborn with renewed power.

Ancient Egypt is the first ancient Eastern civilization that became known to Europeans after centuries of oblivion. An essential factor in the development of ancient Egyptian civilization was natural conditions. The grandiose contrast between the desert, devoid of life, and the flourishing oasis, which the country owes to the Nile, can explain a lot in the world view of the ancient Egyptian. The soil in the Nile Valley is very fertile, and there have long been two harvests a year. However, such prosperity was localized only in the territory along the Nile, which is 3.5% of the territory of all of Egypt, while the rest of the territory is a barren desert. The Nile Valley is still home to 99.5% of the population.

Approximately the same ratio was in the era of the pharaohs - it was not for nothing that the Egyptians called their country "the gift of the Nile." Natural conditions contributed to the isolation of the country, which in turn determined the peculiarities of the ancient Egyptian's picture of the world, in particular, the phenomenon of ethnocentrism characteristic of him (in the ancient Egyptian language, the word "people" means only "Egyptians").

The rise of the ancient Egyptian civilization, to a large extent, was the result of its ability to adapt to the conditions of the river valley and the Nile Delta. Regular annual floods, fertilizing the soil with fertile silt and the organization of an irrigation system for agriculture, made it possible to produce crops in excess quantities, which ensured social and cultural development. The concentration of human and material resources in the hands of the administration contributed to the creation and maintenance of a complex network of canals, the emergence of a regular army and the expansion of trade, and with the gradual development of mining, field geodesy and building technologies, made it possible to organize the collective erection of monumental structures. The coercive and organizing force in Ancient Egypt was a well-developed bureaucratic apparatus of priests, scribes and administrators, headed by the pharaoh, who, in a complex system of religious beliefs with a developed cult of funeral rites, was often deified.

Values ​​and achievements of the civilization of Ancient Egypt.

Ancient Egypt left a huge cultural heritage for the world civilization, the works of its art in ancient times were exported to various parts of the world and widely copied by masters of other countries. Peculiar architectural forms - majestic pyramids, temples, palaces and obelisks have inspired the imagination of travelers and explorers for many centuries. Egyptian craftsmen created beautiful wall paintings and statues, mastered the production of glass and earthenware, poets and writers created new forms in literature. Among the scientific achievements of the ancient Egyptians was the creation of an original writing system, mathematics, practical medicine, astronomical observations and the calendar that arose on their basis.

The most important monuments:

Rosetta stone. For the reconstruction of the history of ancient Egypt, it is uninformative, but for the historiography of science, it is of fundamental importance. A turning point in Egyptology is associated with this monument. It was thanks to him that she became a full-fledged science, because with the help of him it was possible to discover the secret of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Annals of Thutmose III - a description of the campaigns of the great warrior pharaoh of the 18th royal house.

The Amarna Archive is an archive of cuneiform clay tablets discovered at the end of the 19th century near the town of El Amarna, where the residence of the heretic pharaoh (or reformer pharaoh, as some Egyptologists call him) Akhenaten was previously located. The Amarna archive includes the correspondence of the rulers of Western Asia of the middle - late 18th royal house.

The Pyramid Texts is the oldest written source in the history of mankind, which reflects ideas about the afterlife. The Pyramid Texts is a collection of various texts from several pyramids of kings of 5-6 royal houses.

“Texts of sarcophagi” are inscriptions on ancient Egyptian coffins (and not sarcophagi - it’s just that such a name has become established in Russian science. In Russian Egyptological literature, another term that has not yet taken root was used - “Texts of arks”). These inscriptions probably originated from the Pyramid Texts. For the first time, classical texts on coffins appear in the era of the Old Kingdom.

The Book of the Dead is a genetic continuation of the Sarcophagi Texts and the Pyramid Texts. The Book of the Dead is a collection of disparate funeral prayers of spells, which was placed along with the buried. That is why this collection received such a name: the first papyrus scrolls, which were found together with ancient mummies in the early - middle of the 19th century, were called by the Arabs the "Books of the Dead", this name was subsequently established in European science. This old name of the collection is being replaced by a new one - “The Book of Ascension to the Light” (or, even better, “The Book of Enlightenment”), as the ancient Egyptians called it. After all, life for an Egyptian is light, and in the book, spells are just given so that the deceased defeats all dark forces and passes into eternal life with Ra - the source of light. This name has taken root especially well in Western Egyptology.

The so-called “Palette of Narmer” and “Mace of Narmer” are a stone palette from Hierakonpolis dating back to the reign of King Narmer, the unifier of Egypt. According to the existing legend, before Narmer there was no united Egypt - there were two independent countries. Narmer (whom some scholars identify with Menes) may have unified Egypt, and was the first to put on the crown of a united Egypt, and this palette recorded, according to most Egyptologists, the process of military unification of Egyptian land.

Papyrus Westcar - now - papyrus of the Berlin Egyptian Museum No. 3033, named after the first owner, Henry Westcar. Its first researcher was the German Egyptologist Adolf Erman. The manuscript belongs to the era of Hyksos rule, and contains a literary work of the Middle Kingdom - "Tales of the sons of Khufu".

In addition, city and royal necropolises (in Saqqara, Giza, Dahshur, Abydos and other places) serve as good sources, mummies are the most beautiful anthropological material, and, of course, archeology is urban, underwater.

Formation and development of ancient Greek civilization before the era of Hellenism.

Ancient Greek civilization arose on the Balkan Peninsula and it also included the western coast of Asia Minor (the western part of present-day Turkey). The Balkan Peninsula is washed by three seas from three sides: the Ionian from the west, the Mediterranean from the south, and the Aegean from the east. You can also remember, if you mentally imagine the Balkan Peninsula, that it is mainly represented by mountainous terrain, very few fertile valleys and the main type of economy was mainly cattle breeding (raising sheep and goats). They were also engaged in agriculture (they grew grapes (wine) and olives (olive oil)), but only in two valleys. It should also be noted in connection with the convenient coastline that fishing and navigation were developed. As for minerals, the regions of Ephracia and Macedonia were rich in gold mines. In the south (near Philopones) iron was mined. Tin was mined in the region of ancient Greece. The building material, especially valued and located in Greece, is marble.

Ancient Greek civilization is divided into three periods:

1. Archaic (8th-6th centuries)

2. Classical (5th-4th centuries)

3. Hellenistic (4th-1st centuries)

In historical science, there is an opinion that the ancient Greek civilization did not develop overnight. What was like two attempts to form a civilization. The first experience of civilization was associated with the Crete-Minoan culture or simply the Minoan culture. In this case, the ancient Greek civilization was preceded by several civilizations, such as: Xlat (originated on the islands of the same name mentioned in ancient Greek myths) which, in turn, contributed to the emergence of a new, vibrant civilization, the so-called Minoan civilization (on the island of Crete, it got its name from the name of the king Minos who lived in the city of Sknox).

The Minoan civilization arose at the turn of 3-2 thousand years BC. and it lasted about 500 years. This civilization (Minoan) was discovered by the English archaeologist Arthur Leva in the area of ​​the city of Knossos. He discovered the unique palace buildings that belonged to King Minos. Based on the findings of A. Lev, one can imagine the life of the population of that time on the island of Crete. The Minoan civilization is characterized in the first place by the dawn of the agricultural culture. The entire area suitable for cultivation of the land was mastered here. Cattle breeding also played an important role. There was progress in handicrafts. It was a strong centralized state headed by King Minos. In addition, it should be noted that the inhabitants were engaged not only in agricultural work, but also in active sea piracy. King Minos was considered the lord of the sea. Also, the Minoan civilization can be found under the name of the palace civilization because of the monumental palaces, the construction of which, according to scientists, was borrowed from the Egyptians. But in the 15th century BC. The island of Crete has experienced a terrible catastrophe.

There are two versions regarding the death of civilization. According to one of them, on one of the small islands, which are located somewhere in 120 km. a volcanic eruption occurred north of Crete, with a large emission of ash and a tsunami. There is another version that the civilization died as a result of the invasion of the aggressive Aderiks, who came from the mainland to the island. Until now, there is no single point of view on the death of the Minoan culture.

To replace the Minoan civilization in this region, as if on the eve of the ancient Greek civilization, the Mycenaean civilization appears.

To the north of the city of Athens, the city of Mycenae is looming, on the site of which the Mycenaean civilization arose.

Heinrich Schliemann discovered the Mycenaean civilization. Looking for Troy in this region, he stumbled upon magnificent palace buildings, which opened the Mycenaean civilization, or as the Archean culture is also called, from the name of the Archean tribe. This civilization is very well described in Homer's poems Hellas and Odyssey.

The Mycenaean civilization can be characterized by the following features. Such as the development of palace construction, but also grandiose tombs were built, which were called Tollos. About 600 clay tablets were found in the area of ​​Mycenae and the island of Crete. These tablets were a certain type of writing.

From the end of the 13th century, for 100 years, army culture was destroyed. Scientists are also arguing about the reason for the disappearance of this civilization.

Before the dominant hypothesis, the opinion is expressed that this civilization was destroyed by the tribes of the Greek Dorians. Cities were destroyed, part of the population moved to the islands, and part to the western coast of Asia Minor.

In the 11th - 9th centuries BC. in the history of Greece are designated as "dark" ages.

They got their name due to the fact that in modern history there is no complete, clear idea of ​​​​what happened in these centuries in Greece. Everything we know is based on the analysis of Homer's poems Hellas and Odyssey. This period is characterized by the primitive development of agriculture, tools, and handicrafts.

All this period, the Minoan, Mycenaean civilizations all preceded the appearance of the ancient Greek civilization. This can be compared, as it were, with the first experience of the formation of Greek civilization.

The second experience began in the archaic era (8-6 centuries BC). Actually, this was the direct construction of the ancient Greek civilization.

This was facilitated, firstly, by the increased technological base and the economic level of development of society in the conditions of the victory of iron production. Secondly, the deepening of the social division of labor. Third, the formation of genuine urban centers. Fourth, the formation of a developed type of slavery.

archaic era. "Iron Revolution". The role of navigation in the life of ancient society.

The emergence of ancient Greek civilization coincides with the beginning of the Iron Age (1 thousand years, BC). In terms of technological production, a number of changes have taken place. First of all, the transition to steel production was a defining moment. At that time, the Khalib tribes (north of Asia Minor) were the monopolists in the extraction of iron.

Only in the massive separation of steel production can we talk about the victory of the Iron Age over the Bronze Age. The appearance of steel made it possible to successfully cultivate the land, more productively deforestation for mudflow. household land, simplified the creation of irrigation canals. A number of crafts have also been revolutionized. Shipbuilding, blacksmithing, carpentry and weapons crafts appeared. The advent of iron and steel revolutionized the art of war.

The period of formation of the ancient Greek civilization coincides with the so-called great Greek colonization (8-6 centuries BC). For 3 centuries, the Greeks were forced to leave their homeland and move to other countries. This was due to the lack of sufficient land suitable for agricultural activities. The removal of social tension and overcrowding also played a role. And, finally, trade was a very important stimulus for the process of colonization. The colonization movement was carried out in 3 directions.

The first direction is west. The population of Greece moved to the island of Sicily, to the south of Italy, to the south of France. The second direction is south. This is North Africa and Levan. The third direction is the east direction.

The Greeks quite early mastered the move from the Aegean to the Black Sea, which they first called "inhospitable", and then it was called "hospitable". They mastered the coast, almost the entire coast. Black Sea. In the south, in the region of present-day Turkey, they created a colony of such repasts in the aftermath, which became the Trapezoan empire. Moving east they built the city of Fasi, the famous city of Ketch which was called by the Greeks Pahikopeia. Further Khersones and Koliya. If we go along the western coast, we will see such colonies as Tomy and Odessa.

What did these three colonization centuries give the Greeks. First, the colonization of the Greeks brought the Greek world out of its state of isolation. In which she ended up after the collapse of the Mycenaean culture. Historians have long believed that the Greeks were very knowledgeable in terms of historical geography, that they had a good idea of ​​who lived around them. But as recent studies show, the Greeks had a very vague idea, before the period of colonization, about what the world outside their own territories represented.

Secondly: it served to increase the knowledge of the Greeks. For example, the Greeks borrowed a letter from the Phoenicians. In this letter, which consisted of only consonants, they introduced vowels. Thus the Greek alphabet was created. They learned how to make glass from the Phoenicians. The Greeks mastered the technology of making glass from sand. From the Egyptians they learned how to build monumental structures. The Greeks mastered the technology of coinage from the Lygians. They had their own monetary standards, first obols, and then drachmas. Colonization made Greek society more mobile, more receptive, more dynamic. There is room for personal initiative.

The Greeks created colonies, which turned into genuine centers of trade. But the most important condition and consequence of the entire colonization movement is that handicrafts have definitively separated from agriculture.

The main result of colonization is the transition from natural economy to the stage of commodity-money circulation. Their banknotes appear, monetary standards appear. "Money makes a man" - becomes the motto of the archaic era. In modern historical literature, there has been an attempt to introduce the concept of "ancient capitalism". At the head of the colonization movement were the ancient Greek "polises".

The ancient Greek civilization is also called the polis civilization.

Socio-political organization of ancient Greek society.

The main unit of society in ancient Greece was the community of policies.

Polis is a city of the state, it is a city with a territory adjacent to it.

The archaic polis is the capital of the "dwarf" state. The structure, which included not only cities but also villages. The first policies were very small.

They numbered about a thousand people. And by the end of the ancient Greek civilization, the largest policy was a population of about one hundred thousand people. The main living space of the policy was the Agora. Agora is a square where people's meetings gathered, where people walked, where there was an exchange of information, where trade took place, where people made appointments for each other.

The policy itself essentially represented the following picture. Here it should be mentioned that ancient Greece is a mountainous area. Usually a temple was built on the very top of the mountains. A temple to that leading god of this or that policy.

The treasury was also nearby. At the foot was the upper part of the city, which was called the Acropolis. Below were various settlements in which the population of the policy lived.

The main values ​​and achievements of the civilization of the ancient Hellenes.

The heritage of ancient Greece is infinitely rich in its spiritual content, diversity and perfect in its artistic forms. It has had and is still exerting its influence on the culture of other peoples. But especially - on European culture. The legacy of the ancient Greeks rests on the greatest creations created by nameless demiurges (highly skilled craftsmen, artisans) and famous philosophers, scientists, writers, poets. Let's name just a few of them.

We believe that we should start by mentioning the heroic epic, which was called the Iliad and the Odyssey. Tradition attributes this cycle of songs to the blind singer Homer. In all likelihood, the singer lived around 800-750 BC. e. He processed a number of songs that had already been composed before him, some of them he composed, perhaps himself, combined them into a cycle, uniting them with an original composition. The poems "Odyssey" (it was created earlier than the "Iliad") and others formed the so-called "Trojan cycle", which included other poems "Fireweed", "Small Iliad". It is in these poems that the myth about the cause of the war is given: an apple, with the inscription "Most Beautiful", which was thrown by the goddess of discord, Eris.

Subsequently, a number of imitation poems are created. The creators of such works began to be called epigones (followers): the Epheonides, the Destruction of Ilion (Arktin), the Little Iliad (Leskhes), Telegonia, etc. are created. Hesiod (7th century BC) occupies a special place among the epigones. . e.). He creates three new genres: cosmogonic - "Theogony", genealogical - "Catalogue of Women", didactic (edifying) - "Works and Days". It is in Hesiod that we find the first attempts to philosophically comprehend the origin (arche) of this world. In "Theogony" ("The Origin of the Gods"), the poet asks the Muses: "... what was born first of all?" To which he receives the answer: "Earlier than anything, chaos arose." Cosmos is order, organization is a later, secondary phenomenon. The epic poems of Homer, Hesiod and other archaic poets will subsequently nourish the entire ancient Greek spiritual culture - poetry, theater, philosophy.

One of the most important achievements of the Minoan culture was writing, which consistently went all the way from pictographic through hieroglyphic to linear writing. The spread of writing in Crete, as far as one can judge, was closely connected with the needs of large palace households. The writings were found mainly on long and narrow clay tablets resembling palm leaves with their outlines. I have found very many such tablets; a considerable number of inscriptions have come down to us on seals, vessels and some other items. Undoubtedly, a large number of inscriptions were made on less resistant materials, for example, on palm leaves, possibly on papyrus, etc. The use of ink noted above also testifies in favor of a relatively widespread use of writing.

Minoan art was also peculiar. From the simplest dotted and linear ornaments through bright multi-colored complex geometric figures, Cretan artists gradually moved to a realistic depiction of flora and fauna. The frescoes on the walls of the palaces, especially at Knossos, can safely be put on a par with the best works of art of the ancient world. Minoan artists of the middle of the II millennium BC. they skillfully reproduced even the appearance and details of the toilet of participants in magnificent processions, noble women, etc.

The Greeks made a huge contribution to the development of world civilization, in Greece for the first time there was a theater, a museum, democracy, oratory, an alphabet ... We still use almost all of these achievements. We go to the theater and the museum, and they appeared in Greece, we study mathematics, history, geography. And these names are Greek, because the sciences themselves appeared in Greece. In the old days, people did not have such means of communication as they do today. He hardly overcame such distances, seas, mountains. Only gradually people learned about each other, together with people they crossed the borders and things, inventions, ideas. The cultures of individual countries, like streams, merged into a single stream. Every nation - even the smallest - has contributed to the culture of all mankind.

Hellenistic civilization as a Greco-Eastern "symbiosis".

Hellenistic civilization - a period of intensive Greek-Macedonian colonization of the eastern Mediterranean.

The main centers of Hellenism: Alexandria in Egypt, Antioch in Syria, Pergamum in Asia Minor, the island of Rhodes, Athens.

An artificial term introduced into the history of I.G. Droyzen, describing only one feature that unites European and Middle Eastern civilizations after the conquest of vast territories in the spaces from Greece to India by A. Macedon and the formation, after the collapse of his empire, of states claiming the political and cultural heritage of his power.

The starting point of the era is considered to be the years when Alexander conquered the Achaemenid state, its “end” is the year of the death of the last queen of Ptolemaic Egypt Cleopatra, however, the interpenetration of the features of Greek and Eastern cultures began much earlier than the end of the 4th century BC. BC e. and did not stop with the conquest of Greece and the Near East by Rome.

The main features of the period can be considered a unique combination of forms of Greek statehood (policies, democratic institutions, etc.) with Eastern despotism, recognizing the royal power as unlimited and divine, the widest distribution of the Greek language and culture - literature, theater, art, cults - in the East , from Asia Minor to Northern India, the emergence of syncretic cults (the most striking example is Serapis in Egypt, which combined the cults of Greek Zeus, Hermes and Egyptian Osiris), the construction of a huge number of cities, the population of which united both Greeks and Macedonians, and the local population hence the phenomenon of a kind of mutual ethnic and cultural assimilation.

Based on the traditions of Greek classical art, using its entire repertoire, Hellenistic art was looking for new ways of expressiveness and originality.

In the art of this world, grandiose and miniature, emotionality, passion and classical simplicity and clarity coexist.

In sculpture and painting, there are now images of different ages (statues of old people and children), which was avoided by the Greek classics, which sought the laws of ideal typification, charm and grace (numerous statues of Aphrodite), genre scenes (statues of fishermen, plowmen, gardeners, etc.) , inhuman suffering, pain ("Laocoon", reliefs of the Pergamon altar), frank eroticism; Fundamentally new to Greek art is the image of a deified ruler (a statue of the Diadochus, rulers in the images of various deities, etc.).

Fundamentally new forms are not created in architecture, and monuments of the symbiosis of cultures have not created their own types, however, architectures are distinguished by their desire for enormity - a kind of megalomania has also become a sign of the era (an example of this is the desire to turn Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander the Great, in whose one hand he must there was a city, through another - a mountain stream rushed down).

The era of Hellenism is extremely inventive in the field of technical engineering (ingenious devices for warning ships and determining the direction of the wind at the Pharos lighthouse in Alexandria, ships of colossal capacity, with gardens and palaces, Syracusan siege engines created by Archimedes, etc.), this is the heyday of science (Archimedes, Eratosthenes, etc.).

The contrasts of art have parallels in literature: Apollonius of Rhodes creates the epic Argonautica in the spirit of Homer, while Callimachus writes epigrams and hymns at that time, declaring his renunciation of the big genre, a completely new genre of the novel appears, in which unexpected ups and downs in the fates of heroes are combined with psychologism unknown to Greek literature (Heliodor and others), comedy replaces the place of tragedy and breaks away from its cult source, the epigram, the epistolary genre flourish, bucolic poetry is born - the elegant garden and park art of Hellenistic literature.

Love for the beautiful, refined, complex and exciting, the unthinkable becomes the taste of the era.

The main centers of the Hellenistic civilization were Egypt under the rule of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty, Syria of the Seleucids, the Kingdom of Pergamon, the island of Rhodes, Asia Minor semi-Greek-semi-eastern states: Bithynia, Pontus, etc.

Formation and development of ancient Roman civilization.

Roman civilization is not an independent civilizational stage, it is just a period of crisis in the development of ancient civilization, the last stage of Greco-Roman civilization.

The cradle of Roman civilization, the city of Rome arose in the southwest of Europe, on the Apennine Peninsula, which the Greeks called Italy, after the name of one of the tribes that inhabited this territory. According to some reports, another ancient Roman maritime civilization appeared in the center of the Mediterranean Sea on the Apennine Peninsula. Its creation was facilitated by favorable geographical and climatic conditions.

Ancient Roman civilization was formed under the influence of several factors:

Availability pan-Italian cultural fund, in particular, tribal traditions, traditions in ceramics and jewelry;

presence Greek influence, including through the colonists;

highlighting a significant role Etruscan influence.

Ancient Roman civilization covers the period from the VIII century. BC. (from the founding of Rome) to the 5th c. AD (August 23, 476, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed). Civilization goes through three stages in its development: era of kings(VIII-VI centuries BC), Republic (VI-I centuries BC), empires(I century BC - V century AD). The era of the Empire, in turn, is divided into Early imperial period(principate era): 31 BC 284 AD, and Late imperial period(epoch of dominance): 284 - 476 years.

Stage 1 -era of the Kings. The state structure of archaic Rome had the following forms, at the head was the king, who served as a priest, commander, legislator, judge, the highest authority was the Senate Council of Elders, which included one representative from each clan, the other supreme authority was the people's assembly or an assembly of curiae - curate commissions. The main socio-economic unit of Roman society was the family, which was a miniature unit: at the head was a man, a father, to whom his wife and children were subordinate. The Roman family was mainly engaged in agriculture, and participation in military campaigns, which usually began in March and ended in October, was of great importance in the life of the Romans. In addition to the patriciate in Rome, there was another layer - the plebeians, these were those who came to Rome after its foundation or residents of the conquered territories. They were not slaves, they were free people, but they were not part of the clans, curiae and tribes, and therefore did not take part in the people's assembly, they did not have any political rights. They also did not have rights to land, therefore, in order to obtain land, they entered the service of the patricians and rented their lands. Also, the plebeians were engaged in trade, crafts. Many of them were rich.

In the 7th century BC. the rulers of the Etruscan city of Tarquinia subjugate Rome and rule there until 510 BC. The most famous figure of that time was the reformer Servius Tullius. His reform was the first stage in the struggle between the plebeians and the patricians. He divided the city into districts: 4 urban and 17 rural, conducted a census of the population of Rome, the entire male population was divided into 6 categories, no longer by ancestry, on the basis of, but depending on the property status. The richest were the first rank; the lower category was called - proles, these were the poor, who had nothing but children. The Roman army also began to be built depending on the new division into categories.

A conspiracy was arranged and Tullius was killed, after which the senate decides to abolish the institution of the king and establish a republic in 510 BC.

Stage 2 - epochsRepublic . The republican period is characterized by a sharp struggle between patricians and plebeians for civil rights, for land, as a result of this struggle, the rights of the plebeians increase. In the Senate, the post of people's tribune is introduced, who defended the rights of the plebeians. Tribunes were elected from among the plebeians for a period of one year in the amount of first two, then five, and finally ten people.

Their person was considered sacred and inviolable. The tribunes had great rights and power: they were not subordinate to the senate, they could veto the decisions of the senate, they had great judicial power. During this period, there is a restriction on the growth of land among the citizens of Rome, each could have no more than 125 hectares. earth. In the 3rd century BC. the Roman patrician-plebeian community is finally formed. The organs of state power were the senate, the people's assembly, the magistracy-executive authorities.

In 133 BC, Tiberius Gracchus, elected tribune of the people, proposed a land reform to the Senate, the essence of which was as follows: he proposed to limit the amount of land that the citizens of Rome received on lease from public fields. This reform met with resistance from large landowners, and eventually Tiberius Gracchus and 300 of his supporters were killed. Thus, land reform stalled. But 10 years later, Gaius Gracchus, brother of Tiberius Gracchus, who was the governor of the province in Sicily, the first Roman province, was also elected a people's tribune and proposed to the Senate to continue the land reform, as well as to grant civil rights to Rome's allies, the Italics, as all the tribes inhabiting Apennine Peninsula. However, the Senate did not agree to these reforms. Gaius Gracchus was also killed.

As a result of the Punic Wars, the territory of the Roman state was growing, and a strong one-man power was needed to effectively manage it. There were two attempts to gain dictatorial powers in the Roman Republic. The first of them is associated with the name of the commander Sula. To which, in the first half of the 1st century BC, at a tense moment of confrontation between the optimates and the populi, which threatened to escalate into a civil war, the senate granted dictatorial powers. Vessel's harsh measures prevented the outbreak of civil war.

The second figure who received dictatorial powers was Gaius Julius Caesar, a famous and talented commander, who received dictatorial powers in the following way: a triumvirate was organized, i.e. the entire authority of power was concentrated in the hands of three persons. Pompey, Crassus and Caesar, who was in Gaul. After the death of Crassus, Pompey became the de facto sovereign ruler in Rome, the Senate, in order to prevent the sole power of Pompey, turned to Caesar so that he would return to Rome to limit Pompey's power. January tenth, 49 B.C. Caesar crossed the Rubicon River and uttered the famous phrase: "The die is cast" i.e. he sided with the Senate and soon Pompeii was overthrown, Caesar was given unique perpetual dictatorial powers. But soon, however, Pompey's supporters conspired and killed Caesar, this happened on March 15, 44 BC.

After the death of Caesar, a struggle for power unfolded after a series of intrigues, in which the main participants were Caesar's associate Antony, his great-nephew Octavian and the Senate, as a result of which Octavian becomes the only ruler of a huge state, who is proclaimed Augustus (divine), this happened in 30 BC. AD With this, the Roman Republic ceased to exist, and the period of the Roman Empire began.

Stage 3 - epochsempires . The initial period of the Roman Empire, which lasted from 30 BC. to 284 AD The period of the Principate was called, this name came from the naming of Octavian Augustus "Principal", which means - the first among equals. The second stage of the Roman Empire is called - the period of dominance from the word "dominus" (master) -284-476 AD. The first steps of Octavian Augustus: stabilization of relations between different strata of society. The reign of Octavian is the period of the rise of science, literature, and especially Roman historiography. Features of the Roman civilization of the principate era:

1. One-man power opens up opportunities for both wise and despotic rulers. Examples: Marcus Aurelius, Nero

2. Roman legislation is being actively improved, which is the basis of many modern legal systems.

3. Slavery fails. The army began to recruit slaves due to lack of population.

4. Italy is losing its role as the center of the Roman Empire.

5. Construction development (roads, water pipelines)

6. Strengthening the education system, increasing the number of literate people.

7. Spread of Christianity.

8. Holidays (180 days a year)

Emperor Anthony Pius - the golden age of the Roman Empire - the absence of conflicts, economic recovery, calm in the provinces, but this period did not last long. Already in 160 AD, one of the wars began, which determined the fate of Roman civilization, the beginning of a catastrophe. The Roman Empire coexisted with a multifaceted barbarian world, which included Celtic tribes, Germanic tribes and Slavic tribes. The first clash between the barbarian world and the Roman civilization took place under the emperor Marcus Aurelius in the provinces of Retius and Noricum, also Panonia - modern. Hungary. The war lasted approx. 15 years, Marcus Aurelius managed to repel the onslaught of the barbarian tribes. Subsequently, during the 3rd century, the pressure of the barbarians intensified, lined up along the Danube and the Rhine "limes" - a border consisting of checkpoints and paramilitary settlements. On the "limes" trade was carried out between Rome and the barbarian world. In the 3rd century, tribes stand out, among the barbarians, waging wars with Rome, on the border along the Rhine, these are the Franks, and along the Danube, the Goths, who repeatedly invaded the territory of the empire. At the same time, in the 3rd century, Rome for the first time in history loses its province, this happened in 270, the imperial army left the province of Dacia, then the loss of the "Tithing Fields" occurs - in the upper reaches of the Rhine. At the end of the 3rd century, the era of the principate ends: the emperor Diocletian in 284 decided to divide the empire into 4 parts, for more effective management.

The co-rulers were: Maximian, Licinius and Constantine Clore, for himself and Maximian he left the title of Augusts, and for the other two, the title of Caesars. Although after the death of Diocletian, Clore's son Constantine again becomes the sole ruler, but it was this division that marked the beginning of the collapse of the Roman Empire. In 395, the emperor Theodosius finally divided the empire into two parts between his sons, one of them Arcadius became the ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire, and the other Honorius of the Western Roman Empire. But the situation developed in such a way that the young Gonorrhea could not govern the state and the actual ruler was the vandal Stilicho, who led him for 25 years, the barbarians begin to play a huge role in the army of the Western Roman Empire, this fully reflects the crisis of the empire.

Under the pressure of the Huns in the 4th century, the Goths moved to the territory of the Eastern Roman Empire, who, under the leadership of Allaric, in search of land for living, invaded the territory of Italy and captured Rome in the 4th century.

Then, in 476, Odoacer, the leader of the Scirs, finally overthrew the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus. This date is the date of the final fall of the western part of the Roman Empire, its eastern part lasted for about 1000 years. The era of domination reflects the crisis of Roman civilization.

Signs of a crisis: I desolation of cities, 2 cessation of tax payments, 3 decrease in the number of trade transactions, 4 disruption of ties between provinces.

Thus, we can say that the Roman civilization was broken by three blows: 1 - socio-economic, 2 - spiritual crisis, 3 - the great migration of peoples.

16. The main achievements of the civilization of Ancient Rome.

The history of ancient Rome lasted from the founding of the city of Rome in 753 BC. e. until the fall of the Roman Empire created under him in 476 AD. The period is divided into three main stages: royal (mid-VIII century BC - 510 BC), republican (510-30 BC) and imperial (30 AD). BC - 476 AD).

Ancient Rome is one of the most powerful ancient civilizations, named after its capital, Rome. The culture of the Etruscans, Latins and ancient Greeks had a strong influence on the formation of ancient Roman civilization. Ancient Rome reached its peak of power in the 2nd century AD. e., when the peoples of North Africa, the Mediterranean, Europe and the Middle East were under his rule.

Ancient Rome created the cultural ground for European civilization, having a decisive influence on medieval and subsequent history. Ancient Rome gave the modern world Roman law, some architectural forms and solutions (for example, the cross-domed system) and many other innovations (for example, a water mill). Christianity as a creed was born on the territory of the Roman Empire. The official language of the ancient Roman state was Latin, religion during most of the period of existence was polytheistic, the unofficial coat of arms of the empire was the golden eagle (aquila), after the adoption of Christianity, labarums with chrism appeared.

The Romans createdstate, the principles of which have been preserved in many countries to this day.Alexander the Greatproved the possibility of the existence of a world empire. The Romans created a world empire that lasted for several centuries and left to their descendants the imperial idea, the idea of ​​a special mission.Romewhich passed through many subsequent civilizations. The Romans created a system of law that is still the core of the legal systems of many countries. The Romans had the ideal of a citizen and a system of civic values: virtus, ius, libertas (courage, justice, freedom). The Romans, not abandoning their gods (Vesta, Janus), being tolerant of the gods of Egypt and other countries, accepted the Greek gods without worship, but with reverence for them, as a force capable of acting for the goodRomeand a Roman. One of the results of the development of the Ancient Roman civilization was the adoption and spread of Christianity, a newmonotheisticreligion of salvation, which in the following millennia had such a powerful influence on the entire course of civilizational development. The Romans created the language that all educated Europe spoke in the Middle Ages, and which formed the basis of a whole group of European languages.

The Romans were rational and practical people. But it is in ancientRomethose sciences (astronomy, mathematics, agronomy, etc.) that were turned to solving earthly practical problems, whether it was war, the construction of temples and roads, the cultivation of fields, or the treatment of wounds and diseases, received their development. And the Roman Colosseum amazes us no less than the Greek Pantheon, and the Romanbasilicabecame the architectural basis of many temples of subsequent centuries.

The Romans left us so many magnificent sculptural portraits that surprise with their psychological depth and reality. And the wall paintings of the Romans and their mosaics were not inferior to the Greek ones. Appeal to the earthly man, his thoughts, feelings and actions was also characteristic of Roman literature.Virgilwrote a mythical storyRome, erectinggenusquite earthly Emperor Augustus. And he also writes Georgiki a poem about agriculture.HoraceAndOvidcreate beautiful poetry. The Romans created a new literary genre - the novel, which received its brilliant development centuries later.

Ancient Roman civilization was measured out its historical period. But, like the Greeks, the Romans proved the possibility of the historical immortality of their civilization. Ancient Roman civilization is alive today in the constitutions and laws of states, in the mentality of many peoples, in world culture.

According to the existing theory of the formation of stars and planets, planets are formed from the same building material, as the stars they belong to. Therefore, the direction of their orbits coincides with the rotation of stars. This was considered until 2008, when several astronomical groups from different countries with a difference of one day, two planets were not found orbiting in the direction opposite to the rotation of the stars - the central luminaries.
The first discovery took place as part of the WASP (Wide Area Search for Planets) project, in which all major scientific institutions Great Britain. The planet, dubbed WASP-17 b, is located in a star system about 1,000 light-years from Earth.
Previously, three planets had already been found there, moving more or less correctly relative to the central star. However, the fourth planet of the system - WASP-17b - does not obey general rule and rotates in the opposite direction in an orbit located at an angle of 150 degrees to the plane of motion of other planets.
WASP-17b is a gas giant, half the weight of Jupiter, but twice the diameter of the planet. The planet is located 11 million kilometers from the star - this distance is eight times less than between Mercury and the Sun. And WASP-17b makes a complete revolution around the star in 3.7 days.
The second discovery was made in the HAT-P-7 system, well studied by astronomers. The discovered planet also rotates in the opposite direction around this star. Two groups of astronomers at once - observers from the American Massachusetts Institute of Technology and scientists from the Japanese National Observatory - reported this discovery with a difference of several minutes. And less than 23 hours after WASP-17b's strange orbit was discovered.
Based on the collected data, scientists are trying to determine the reasons for such a strange behavior of the planets. They are not the only ones in their systems, so the planetary collision hypothesis is considered the most popular.
According to it, a change in the direction of rotation of the planets occurred as a result of their collision with the neighboring planets, while the initial speed of the bodies was relatively low, which made it possible to overcome inertia. The Geneva Observatory, which specializes in the study of the gravitational fields of space bodies, took up the verification of this assumption.
Other hypotheses are put forward. One of them says that the discovered "wrong" planets originated in other star systems, and got into the orbit of their current stars as a result of a long interstellar "journey". This means that the planet is twisted in the same direction as its parent star, the authors of the theory say.
Finally, there is a hypothesis about the features of the formation of stellar systems. Some astronomers suggest that the reverse direction of rotation of the planets occurs as a vortex in the stellar disk in the early stages of the birth of the system.
A single disk-shaped cloud of stellar gas appears immediately after the explosion of a supernova. This object consists of "building material" - plasma and particles of matter, which subsequently form stars and planets.
The turbulences that arise in the stellar disk can be caused by various external factors(the invasion of a foreign body or the influence of extraneous gravitational fields), and little-studied features of the physics of stellar gas. This theory also needs to be tested.

Source: http://www.pravda.ru

My comment: "Other hypotheses are also put forward... there is a hypothesis about the peculiarities of the formation of stellar systems...". And why not put forward a hypothesis that the existing theory of the formation of stellar systems, stars and planets from " a single disk-shaped cloud of stellar gas that appears immediately after a supernova explosion"not correct?
The reverse rotation of the planets is not such a rare phenomenon. According to American, Indian, Chinese and other traditions, it used to be characteristic of both the Earth and Venus. From the analysis of these legends, it can be concluded that there are two possible reasons changes in the direction of motion of the planets both around the Sun (in the case of the Earth and Venus) and around its axis:
1) the capture by the Sun of celestial bodies formed in other places of the solar system or even in other star systems and "set off on a free roam" as a result of some catastrophes on a cosmic scale;
2) collision of planets with large asteroids and with each other.
Both of these hypotheses were put forward by scientists in connection with the discovery of counter-rotating planets, though within the framework of the existing concept of the formation of stellar systems, stars and planets.
The possibility of changing the direction of rotation of the planets around the luminaries (the Sun) and their axis as a result of their collision with each other and collision with asteroids confirms the assumption made by me and a number of other researchers about the change in the position of the earth's axis that repeatedly occurred in the past as a result of the collision of asteroids with the Earth (option -

This is a rather powerful, but also difficult mental technique. In some cases, it's just natural to "move backwards." I want to get from London to Edinburgh. I know that as soon as I get to Newcastle, it will be very easy to get to Edinburgh from there. But how do I get to Newcastle? So, if I get to York, it's not difficult to get to Newcastle from there. But how do you get to York? You just need to drive to Peterborough, and from there it will be easy to get to York. Now we have to somehow get to Peterborough. The easiest way to get there is from London. So the route has been chosen. Problem solved.

In some cases, you can move methodically. If I get to this point, then from there it is not difficult to reach the final goal. But now that this point has become a target, how do you hit it?

If goods were unavailable, shoplifting would stop. But how do you make items unavailable? Put them behind a door that would only open on presentation of a credit card. Or simply exhibit samples of goods, and give out the goods to the buyer only at the checkout. If shoplifters were easy to catch, they would be wary of stealing. But how to show the thieves that they can easily be caught? Putting video cameras everywhere, giving out rewards to all customers who help catch shoplifters, publicly announcing the names of those caught in the act, etc., are all ways to prevent shoplifting.

If it were impossible to take stolen goods out of the store, then there would be no point in stealing them. How to make stolen items impossible to take out of the store? You can, for example, impregnate all goods with a special one that would be eliminated only at the checkout, and put an angry dog ​​at the exit that would sniff all the customers who leave the store. In a sense, the "reversal" method is a form of "revision" or "transformation" of the problem.

Going backwards usually requires one or more ideas as steps, as shown in the shoplifting example. In a sense, the fan of concepts is one of the forms of movement in the opposite direction. You can reach point A from point B. But now how do you get to point B? From point B. So, how are we going to get to point B?

Situation a. The problem is the lack of parking spaces.

. Need more parking space. This could mean either expanding the existing car park, adding a second tier or creating an underground platform, or building an additional car park at a different location but with bus service to the destination.

situation B. A new restaurant whose owner wants to grow his business as quickly as possible.

Generalization method . People need to find out about the new restaurant as soon as possible. Create a scandal around him. Invite celebrity look-alikes to dinner. Allow women to visit the topless restaurant.

Situation B. The problem of graffiti on the wall.

Generalization method . Make the labels invisible. During the day, throw a special curtain on the wall that would cover the inscriptions that appeared at night.

The reverse movement in a person's life - the awakening or dissolution of the form - which began either due to old age, illness, weakness, loss of abilities, or as a result of some personal tragedy, carries a huge potential for spiritual awakening - disidentification of consciousness with form. Since there is very little spiritual truth in our modern culture, not many realize that this process contains an opportunity, and when "it" happens to them or to someone close to them, they think that something has happened. terrible, wrong, which should not have been.

Our civilization is extremely ignorant of the human condition, and the more spiritual ignorance you have, the more you suffer. For many people, especially in the West, death is nothing more than an abstract concept, and therefore they have no idea what happens to a person who is on the verge of death. Many exhausted old people are locked up in nursing homes. Dead bodies are hidden, while in earlier cultures everyone could see them. Try to see a dead body now, and you will find out that it is actually illegal, except in cases involving close family members. In funeral parlors, even make-up is put on the face. You are only allowed to see a combed version of death.

Since death is only an abstract concept for most people, they are completely unprepared for the disappearance of form that awaits them. When death approaches, they experience shock, misunderstanding, despair and great fear. Nothing makes any sense to them anymore, because all the meaning and all the goals in their lives were related to accumulation, success, building, protection and a sense of satisfaction. Their life was connected with moving outward and identifying with the form, that is, with the ego. Most people cannot understand what the meaning of their life, their world would be destroyed. And yet, there is potentially even deeper meaning in the backward movement than in the outward movement.

The spiritual dimension traditionally enters people's lives precisely through the sunset in old age, through loss or personal tragedy. In other words, their inner purpose appears only when the outer purpose collapses and the ego shell begins to crack and fall apart. Such events represent the beginning of a reverse movement towards the disappearance of form. Most ancient cultures seem to have intuitively understood this process, which is why old people were so respected and revered. Each was a repository of wisdom and gave the other a dimension of depth without which no civilization could last long. In our civilization, completely identified with the outer dimension and ignorant of the inner dimension of the spirit, the word "old" has a mostly negative connotation. It equates to "useless" and if we call someone "old" it almost sounds like an insult. To avoid using this word, we use euphemisms such as "elderly", "venerable" and "senior". In the old days in the Indian tribes, the elders of the clans were treated with great honor and respect, and the "grandmother" was a figure of great importance. In modern society, the word "granny" means, at best, something diminutive. Why is the old considered useless? Because in old age the emphasis shifts from doing to Existence, and our civilization, lost in doing, knows nothing about Existence. She asks: “Existence? And what are you doing with it?"

For some people, the outward movement in the direction of growth and expansion is severely undermined by the sunset, a seemingly premature turn and the beginning of a reverse movement towards the dissolution of form. In some cases, this undermining is temporary; in others it is permanent. We believe that a small child should not see death, but the fact is that some children have to see the death of one or both parents, for example, due to illness or as a result of an accident, or even look into the face of their own death. Some children have congenital abnormalities that greatly hinder the natural expansion of their lives. Or it happens that a serious limitation enters a person's life at a relatively young age.

The “premature” undermining of extensive development is also capable of launching the process of spiritual awakening in a person. Ultimately, nothing happens that should not happen, in other words, nothing happens that is not part of a larger whole and its purpose. Thus, the destruction or undermining of the outer purpose can lead to the search for the inner one and, therefore, to the emergence of a deeper outer goal in tune with the inner one. Children who have experienced intense suffering often become precocious adults compared to their peers.

What is lost at the level of forms is found at the level of essence. In the traditional images of the "blind seer" or "wounded healer" present in ancient cultures and legends, certain severe loss of ability or disability at the level of form became the door to the world of the spirit. If you have had a direct experience of the impermanent nature of forms, then you will most likely never again overestimate their value and therefore lose yourself in blind pursuit or attachment to them.

The opportunity presented by the dissolution of form, especially old age, is only today beginning to be noticed and accepted in contemporary culture. Most people continue to miss this opportunity tragically because their egos are just as identified with the reverse movement as they were with the outward movement. This leads to the hardening of the egoic shell and is more of a contraction than an opening of the channel. The hurt ego then spends the rest of its days whining or complaining, trapped in fear or anger, self-pity, guilt, blame or judgment, or any other negative mental-emotional state, or else uses escape strategies such as memory attachment, thinking and talking about the past.

When the ego ceases to be identified with the reverse movement, then old age or the approach of death becomes what it should be: a channel into the world of the spirit. I have met people who are the living embodiment of this process. They glowed. Their weakening forms became transparent to the light of consciousness.

On the new earth, old people will receive universal recognition, and old age will be highly valued as a time for the flowering of consciousness. For those who keep wandering in external circumstances of their lives, it will be a time of late return home, if, of course, they awaken to the realization of their internal purpose. For many others, it will be the intensification and culmination of the awakening process.