СОПЕРНИЧЕСТВО ЦИВИЛИЗАЦИЙ ЗА ЛИДЕРСТВО В ИСТОРИИ: АМЕРИКА КАК ТИП ЦИВИЛИЗАЦИИ В ХХ ВЕКЕ (КУЛЬТУРОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ АСПЕКТ)

Abstract

The article is a fragment of a bigger work on the relationships of three civilizations – America, China and Russia – at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries, based on the principle of the «Other». It focuses on the formation of America as aspecial type of civilization in the pace of the past century. It is recorded that in the twentieth century America ceased to be a mere part of the Old World and became an independent type of civilization, and, beginning with Hiroshima, claimed the status of a civilization-leader in geopolitics. The aim of this article is to give an answer to the cultural and philosophical question of where America stands during the early decades of the 20th century from a civilizational perspective. The author proposes a new methodological and conceptual way of reflection connected with shifting from the ideas of O. Spengler, who did not include America in the list of independent civilizations, and extrapolating E. Gibbon's conclusion with regard to the Roman civilization (which America is often compared with) that its fall began at the peak of its development. On the basis of representative empirical material of American cinema (F. F. Coppola's Apocalypse Now, A. Penn's Little Big Man) the author identifies and analyzes the intentions of American culture, showing its transition to the next stage of its history with such signs as the dramatic ideological confrontation between the images of the «empire of trust» and the «empire of evil», the degradation of personality and society affected by the imperial complex, the awareness of the apocalyptic genocide of the ancient Indian civilization. The study provides convincing evidence that contemporary American cinema is becoming a powerful means of both diagnosing the situation of America as it is today and de-mythologizing American «heroic» history. Thus, cinema brings Americans back from their own virtual history-simulacrum to reality, opening up the possibility of a deeper understanding of America both as a civilization type and as a specific collective identity of Americans. Understanding no longer from the point of view of its ruling elite, but simply of a human being. This fact gives hope for establishing deeper human relationships between America and other civilizations which it views as the «Others».