Modernity and Russian critics of liberal civilization

Abstract

The article draws parallels between the criticism of Russian thinkers of the 19th century of the foundations of Western liberal civilization and the judgments of modern authors who see crisis features in the development of Western society. V.F. Odoevsky argued that society based on the principle of benefit and the cult of material values contradicts people's aspirations for spiritual values. Modern critics of neoliberalism write about the same thing: liberalism understands man as an active and active being, and the ideal of a self-regulating market is based on this principle, which should provide prosperity for all members of society and development of society as a whole, including in the spiritual sphere; but in reality competition leads to primitivization and hardening of people; besides, they, finding themselves from rigid competition, willingly take up a marginal social position, which leads to their personal degradation. B.N. Chicherin showed that the liberal state for self-preservation must manipulate the minds of citizens, striving for complete control over their behavior. These same processes, indicating the transformation of Western liberal society into a totalitarian one, are also recorded in the recently published collective monograph "Democracy in trouble: an international investigation": the growth of independent sources of information leads to the fact that people cannot independently assess its objectivity and become a plaything in the hands of those who impose the necessary point of view on them.