Civilization of meanings. The future dimension. A report by Alexandra Ochirova at the International Forum on Spiritual Harmony

On October 26, 2022, Moscow hosted the International Forum on Spiritual Harmony timed to the 30th anniversary of the Congress of Spiritual Concord. Alexandra Ochirova, Co-Chair of the General Council of the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, presented a report in which she touched upon the issue of moral values as the foundation of the world order.

Dramatic social, political, cultural, environmental, humanitarian and other properties of today’s world provoke deep thoughts about the future of the civilization.
For many reasons, the world has become a dangerous place, both in the West and in the East. At the same time, scientific and technological progress that has significantly outpaced the humanitarian development of humankind and has changed the nature of labor has made the world an integrated and technically interconnected place. And now this integrated world requires integrated solutions and new efficient and safe strategic development models.
We should also be aware that new information and cognitive technologies bring not only increased opportunities for development, but also challenges of a global scale that are yet to be fully recognized and turned into targets for the development of civilization with the use of strategic management.
This is why the battle for the new world order is taking place today not only in the military sphere or in economics or financial markets, but also in the socio-ideological spheres, where certain spiritual, moral and cultural values, traditions and meanings are being formed, preserved or destroyed. This is explicitly stated by the supporters of the unipolar world who want to govern it using colonial methods, ignoring the sovereignty and identity of all other states and peoples.
History shows that the destruction of meanings and values has always led to the loss of cultural and national identity, to moral degradation, to the fall of civilizations and states, and to self-destruction of human personality. The value-based approach has always played a key role in the socio-cultural dynamics of the humanity and determined the choice of development goals, motivation and actions of peoples.
Peoples cannot move forward without their own meanings and goals. So today, the focus on the human dimension and national-cultural identity is a strategic vector towards the preservation of peoples and humanity, towards new moral order and civilization of meaning. I share the view of scientists and politicians who, in search of new strategies and development models, consider morality and the intrinsic value of human life as the main strategic regulator while emphasizing that the next stage of human development will have humanitarian priorities.
Only a moral and responsible person can now save the world that is overcome with contradictions, poverty and hunger, inequality, epidemics, and, what is especially scary, the misanthropic ideas of fascism, nationalism, extremism and terrorism, ideas that must be forever ejected from the spiritual and ideological landscape of mankind.
That is why the issues of humanitarian security and humanitarian modernization should be embedded into all protocols of interaction between countries and peoples, into national policies and legislations.
The whole modern world needs humanitarian modernization that should bring spiritual and moral values in the forefront as the main strategic resources for sustainable and safe human existence and development.
The formation of Humanity as a new subject with its planetary consciousness towards the civilization of meaning is a necessary evolutionary stage that all peoples must advance to, adopting a single ideological paradigm that combines cognitive and axiological meanings.
The level of development of a civilization should be determined by morality, and only a moral person will save the world — these words need to be said today. As the great writer Leo Tolstoy once said, “The whole life of humanity, with all the activities so complex and divers and seemingly independent of morality, including state, scientific, artistic, and commercial ones, has no other purpose than clarification, affirmation and ensuring accessibility of moral truth.” This idea expressed by the great thinker should become the foundation for the establishment of a clear and understandable global agenda as an imperative of security and sustainability of a civilization with a human face.