The “green economy” as a factor in forming a spiritual and ecological civilization

Abstract

The author analyzes the idea of forming a new spiritual and ecological type of civilization, which attracts the attention of many researchers, in particular, A. V. Ivanov and Yu. V. Popkov, whose paper “Spiritual and ecological civilizational perspective: the value potential of young people in the Siberian context” was published in the previous issue. It is noted that the often encountered skepticism towards this idea, including on the part of young people, is due not so much to objective reasons as to the inability to comprehensively understand the processes taking place in the world, which indicate not only the lack of alternatives to such a civilizational turn at the moment, but also the appearance of signs of this turn. Proving this thesis, based on the formation and development of the “green economy”, is the purpose of this article. Accordingly, the novelty of the study consists in identifying the socio-cultural and moral foundations of the “green economy” and substantiating their role in the global civilizational transformation. The main methods used in this study are: the systemic-structural approach in the analysis of the concept of the “green economy”; socio-philosophical analysis of the problems of consumer ideology (based, first of all, on the works by E. Fromm); the elements of the historical-genetic method when considering the formation of ecological culture. The author emphasizes that the concept of “green economy” has firmly entered the scientific circulation over the past decades, and the phenomena and processes behind it have become a global trend; at the same time, an increasing number of authors consider the “green economy” as uncontested, primarily in connection with the growing global environmental crisis. The main conclusions of the study consist, firstly, in identifying one of the main problems of the development of the “green economy” associated with the slow formation of an ecological worldview and ecological culture. Secondly, the thesis is substantiated that the ecological worldview, in turn, is full and stable only when it is based on more general moral attitudes and values, which underlie the idea of a spiritual and ecological civilization and gradually transform the main spheres of human life activity. Thirdly, it is noted that the formation of this new type of civilizational relations is not guaranteed and requires conscious joint efforts of peoples and countries, without which there is every reason to expect gradual degradation of both the natural environment and society. This is especially significant for Siberia, the increasing role of which in the development of future civilization is becoming increasingly recognized in Russian society.