The concept of man-made civilization: problematization and characterization

Rozin Vadim Markovich Doctor of Philosophy Chief Scientific Associate, Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences  109240, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Moscow, ul. Goncharnaya, 12 str.1, kab. 310 rozinvm@gmail.com Other publications by this author

The author of this concept V.S. Stepin characterizes it, firstly, culturologically, contrasting the technogenic type of civilization with the traditional one, secondly, in terms of content (comparisons in these types are carried out on the basis of the concepts of personality, its ideas about nature, the future, power, social action), thirdly, pointing to the processes of expansion of the technogenic civilizations. "And there is another type of civilization,‒ writes V. Stepin ‒ he arose later, in the era of the great spiritual revolution of the Renaissance, then the Reformation and, finally, the Enlightenment. I designate this type of civilization as a man-made civilization. It is often called the civilization of the Modern project, they often talk about Western civilization, but this civilization is no longer Western, it already exists in the east, goes all over the world, and there is its own value structure and its own genotype, according to which it is reproduced… In man-made cultures, a person is perceived as a creative being who changes the world around him, and human creative abilities are considered fundamental. And activity is considered as a transformative activity, building completely new states of nature and human social existence. There is no such thing in traditionalist cultures, a different understanding prevails there. There, a person must fit into the world around him, adapt to it…Today, the process of globalization is essentially the “conversion” of the entire planet into a system of values of man‒made culture, where they should be basic and dominant. This, of course, does not mean that traditionalist values will disappear ‒ they will be transformed, adapted, but the leading role should be for man-made values" ^{[22, p. 5, 7]}.

V. Stepin's concept is very holistic and impressive, nevertheless, I have questions about it. In addition to cultural discourse, for example, comparing the types of civilizations and the statement that each civilization goes through a "closed cycle" ^{[22, p.5]}, two more discourses are used in the work ‒ synergetic and systemic. This is how V. Stepin introduces the idea of self-developing systems, understanding their development in the logic of synergetics. In the second half of the 20th century, he writes, "science drew complex, self—developing systems into the orbit of its research... self-development is a transition from one type of homeostasis to another type through a phase transition, and this transition is dynamic chaos, it is described by nonlinear dynamics, synergetics. It is characterized by the fact that there are bifurcation points, there are several development scenarios" ^{[22, p. 7]}. The first question is: how are these two discourses related or correlated with each other with cultural studies, is it possible, for example, to say that the modern civilization was formed as a result of the self-development of a certain traditional civilization (the question is, which, medieval?) and what points of bifurcation and factors determined its formation?

The second question concerns such types of traditional civilization as antiquity and the Middle Ages. "Traditionalist societies ‒ writes V. Stepin, ‒ a lot: Ancient India and Ancient China, the Slavic world, the European medieval and ancient world, all these are traditionalist societies" ^{[22, p. 5]}. The fact is that antiquity and the Middle Ages, in accordance with modern research, are prerequisites of modernity, for example, the idea of science and nature were developed in these cultures (civilizations) and have been assimilated and reinterpreted in modernity. In this case, how can we compare these traditional civilizations with the modern civilization?

The third question is how to understand modern civilization, is it equal to itself in historical time? This is one thing in the XVI-XVII centuries, when this civilization was just taking shape, another in the XVIII-XIX century, when it had already formed, the third in the XIX and XX centuries, when it entered a period of crises; at present, modernity is undergoing a complex transformation, and one of the development scenarios ends in postmodernism and catastrophe.

A close fourth question is about the traditional type of civilizations: there are very different whole (cultures, societies), can they all be summed up under one concept? In my opinion, no. The idea of V. is clear. Stepina, to understand modernity as a man-made civilization by comparing it with traditional civilizations. To do this, the latter had to attribute characteristics unusual for these cultures (Ancient India and Ancient China, the Slavic world, the European medieval and ancient world) and combine them into one type.

M. Heidegger also tried to solve the same problem (to understand the essence of modernity in relation to technogenicity). "People say that modern technology is something completely different in comparison with all the old ones, since it is based on the exact sciences of the New time... The decisive question remains: what is the essence of modern technology, if it has reached the point where exact natural science is used in it?" ^[24]. In the article "M. Heidegger's phenomenological understanding of technology (based on the material of the article "The Question of technology"), "I show that M. Heidegger failed to satisfactorily solve this problem. "Heidegger has not explained how the technology of modern times is created on the basis of natural science. There are separate considerations about the role of nature, calculations, the impact of production, management and provision ("management and provision are made the main features of the ongoing disclosure"), but in general there is no reconstruction explaining modern technology. Only one side of the technique is well explained, called "postage", which I refer to the "technical environment" ^{[16, p. 56]}.

The solution of the problem posed by M. Heidegger and V. Stepin ‒ an explanation of modernity taking into account technogenicity or a characteristic of the essence of a technogenic civilization, in my opinion, does not imply a cultural comparison, although it can also be used, but as one of the aspects of the solution, but the genesis of modernity, including in terms of clarifying the problem of technogenicity. This also includes the explanation of the real explosion in the development of technology and its concepts, starting from the second half of the XVIII century, and the replacement in the same period and especially from the second half of the XIX century of the natural environment with elements of technology with an artificial technical environment ^{[17, pp. 169-173]}. This is the difficult task I set for myself. I will outline its solution schematically, leaving a detailed reconstruction for later.

The XIV-XVI centuries in Europe are characterized by the transition to a New Time. For our topic, it is important to pay attention to four processes. The first is the transition from a single Catholic world and empire to Protestantism and Calvinism, to countries with different faiths and state structure (the "Westphalian World"). The second process is the withdrawal from the stage of the history of class relations and the formation of new social communities with the proclamation of equality and freedom of their participants. The third is the formation of a new way of managing and trading, focused on accurate calculations and forecasting (the beginning of the modern economy ^{[18, pp. 84-85]}). The fourth process is the change of the sacred picture of the world, in accordance with which the world was created by God, who determines all processes, to nature, obeying natural, eternal laws, although established by the Creator, but existing independently of Him. Svetlana Month believes that "the most complete new understanding of nature was expressed in the concept of Renaissance naturalism. In it, "the nature created by God immediately acquires independence and develops further according to its own laws" (^{[12, p. 349]}, as well as ^{[19, p. 82]}).

The first three processes created serious problems (challenges) that needed to be resolved. Different faiths and state structures, with the weakening of the unified Christian doctrine and empire, led to social conflicts and wars; equality and freedom of participants in new social communities caused anarchy and conflicts that made social order impossible; new ways of managing and trading required reflection and justification. These problems were partially mitigated and resolved by the formation of the European state and law, but only partially, since, in turn, the European state and law needed justification (for example, why it was now necessary to obey not kings, who were still sacred figures, but rootless officials and laws that were established by jurists and approved by those the same officials?) ^{[18, pp. 86-87]}).

There was another circumstance that needed to be resolved. The fact is that the medieval "semantic project of European civilization" by the XIV-XV centuries. it was mostly completed. I think many people know this project, although they do not identify it as a project. Briefly, this is the idea that God created the world and man; the world will pass away and there will be a second coming, and the Last Judgment; in order for a person to be ready for it, he must turn from the "old" into a "new" Christian, live in accordance with the Holy Scriptures. Thanks to the great work done by the Christian Church, by the XIV-XV centuries, the European man really became a Christian, and "parousia" (promised through Divine revelation the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ in Glory at The Second Coming) was pushed by the same church into an uncertain future, because it interfered with life by creating unnecessary expectations. In addition, by this time, man, having mentally left heaven and God, was increasingly living with earthly concerns, the cultural meaning of which was unclear to him, since it was not expressed in words. In short, a new cultural project was needed, which gave meaning to earthly deeds, solving the above problems.

My assumption is that such a meaning and solutions were proposed by Francis Bacon, who formulated the project of mastering nature under the condition of restructuring human consciousness, creating a new science (natural science) based on it "new magic" (in fact, engineering), industry based on scientific knowledge and engineering; and all this should It was provided by a new social organization ("New Atlantis"). "Let the human race," writes Bacon, "only seize its right to nature, which has assigned it divine grace, and let it be given power..." [p. 193]. "The building of this World of ours and its structure represent a kind of labyrinth for the human mind contemplating it, which meets here everywhere so many confusing roads, such deceptive similarities of things and signs, such winding and complex loops and knots of nature<...> We need to guide our steps with a guiding thread and, according to a certain rule, secure the whole road, starting from the first perceptions of feelings<..but before it is possible to approach the more remote and intimate in nature, it is necessary to introduce a better and more perfect use of the human spirit and mind<...> the way to this was opened to us not by any other means, but only by a just and legitimate belittling of the human spirit" ^{[4, pp. 68-69]}.

D.L. Saprykin notes that Julian Martin's book draws "attention to a certain similarity and even almost complete parallelism of Bacon's plan for the reform of science, including the creation of a new type of scientific organization, and his plan for the reform of state and law ^[25] ... that "New Atlantis" is not only a work about a new scientific organization, but above all about a modernized state ‒ empire" ^[21]. In this case, we are not interested in the British Empire, but in the fact that Atlantis is ruled by scientists who, although they revere Christianity, nevertheless make decisions based on rational considerations.

Project F.Bacon was not really a project, this is how we retrospectively identify and comprehend it. In fact, Bacon wrote scientific treatises and, ending his life, created a work like utopia. If compared with Plato's "State", he did not discuss whether the ideas and schemes contained in these works could be implemented and what conditions were needed for this (both of these points are characteristic of design). However, we know from history that Bacon's ideas attracted many people of that time, and they began to bring them to life. From the point of view of modernity, it looks like the implementation of a project.

In the works of F. Bacon, the goals of science in comparison with antiquity and the Middle Ages are radically changing: they are interpreted purely pragmatically, respectively, from the knowledge of the processes of nature, a scientist and an engineer should benefit people and society. "Finally," writes F. Bacon in the work “The Great Restoration of the Sciences", ‒ we want to warn everyone in general that they should remember the true goals of science and strive for it not for entertainment or competition, not for the sake of looking arrogantly at others, not for the sake of benefits, not for the sake of fame or power or similar inferior goals, but for the benefit of life and practice, and so that they perfect and guide it in mutual love" ^{[4, p. 71]}. In the New Organon, F. Bacon argues that "correctly found axioms lead to whole groups of practical applications" and the true goal of science "cannot be other than endowing human life with new discoveries and benefits" ^{[3, pp. 95, 147]}.

The benefit of F. Bacon was based on a new understanding of nature, not only as a natural phenomenon, according to Aristotle, but also as an artificial one, according to Galileo, who showed that for mathematical modeling of natural processes, an experiment is needed in which nature is transformed in the way necessary for man (F. Bacon said "shy of art"). "As for the content,‒ writes F. Bacon, then we make up the History not only of nature free and left to itself (when it spontaneously flows and does its work), what is the history of celestial bodies, meteorites, earth and sea, minerals, plants, animals; but, to a much greater extent, of nature bound and constrained, when the art and service of man brings out it is out of its usual state, affects it and forms it... the nature of Things affects more in constraint through art than in one's own freedom" ^{[3, pp. 95, 96]} (my italics. ‒ V.R.).

Anatoly Akhutin, in his wonderful book on nature, shows that Nikolai Kuzansky outlined and developed a new understanding of nature even before Galileo and Bacon. Unlike the understanding of nature as a living organism and forces that existed at that time (let's call this concept of nature "vital"), the laws of which were better revealed in their works by artists than by scientists, Kuzansky interprets nature, firstly, as separate from the Creator and independently existing, secondly, mathematically and inductively-deductively revealed, thirdly, as transformed by man (a kind of experiment design). Let's compare the first concept with the second (let's call it conditionally "mental").

(The vital concept of nature) "Of course," Akhutin writes, "the discovery of nature as an artistic discovery belongs to the epoch of the XVI century. to the Baroque era, and this discovery is extremely far from any idyll... Nature sticks out, breaks through and terrifies, without entering into any shapes and grooves. It is present as a kind of unheard-of variety, formless productivity, an overabundant fountain of forms, indifferently multiplying, obeying a single hidden force, a hidden law. It is clear why the appearance of this new character on the stage of European culture was the first to be felt by art" ^{[1, p.41]}.

(The mental concept of nature) "All our wise and divine teachers," writes Nikolai Kuzansky, "agreed that the visible is truly the image of the invisible, and that the creator, thus, can be seen by creation as if in a mirror and likeness… These are mathematical subjects. It is not for nothing that the sages skillfully found examples of intelligible things in them, and the great lights of antiquity began difficult things only with the help of mathematical similarities <…>

Truly, God used arithmetic, geometry and music together with astronomy in the creation of the world ‒ the arts that we use when exploring the proportions of things, elements and movements..." ^[11]. Attributing his views to the legendary Hermes Trismegistus, Kuzanets writes: "Man is the second God. As God is the Creator of real entities and natural forms <...> the cognitive task is not so much to reproduce the ultimate randomness of the natural world around him, but so much to penetrate with his help into the universal methods of natural creativity…The natural thing must be transformed by human art so that the universal forms of natural art, which constitute the universal essence of all things, appear in it. This is how the idea of the experiment is formed" ^[11]

The vital concept of nature also contributed to the development of the corresponding technique ("vital"): These are pets, windmills and watermills, as well as wood-fired stoves. The vital concept and technique have been competing with the mental concept and the "mental technique" for two centuries. The latter began to develop rapidly after the pioneering work of X. Huygens, who created the first sample of engineering products (precision watches) on the basis of the laws revealed in natural science. Huygens solved, if compared with Galileo, the inverse problem: knowing the law expressed in mathematical form, to determine the real process of nature that was supposed to work for man. Based on his knowledge of the mechanism of free fall of bodies described by Galileo and his research on the swing of the pendulum, he determines the conditions under which a real natural process will behave in the right way (he showed that the clock will go exactly if the pendulum of the clock falls along a cycloid). The rest was a matter of technique: Huygens manufactures a metal guide strip in the form of a cycloid and makes a number of other inventions, for example, a fork that supports the uniform swing of a pendulum. ^{[1, pp. 160-161]}

It was only in the second half of the 18th century that mental technology began to displace vital technology, which gave rise to the first environmental crisis in Europe. This process, as you know, was, among other things, one of the most important prerequisites for the first industrial revolution. "In France,‒ notes F. Braudel, ‒ on the eve of the Revolution, Lavoisier numbered 3 million bulls and 1,780 thousand horses, including 1,560 thousand employed in agriculture…And this is for France with its 25 million inhabitants. With equal proportions, Europe should have had 14 million horses and 24 million bulls <...> In any case, if in other localities the ratio between watermills and the population was the same as in Poland, there should have been 60 thousand of them in France on the eve of the industrial revolution and about 500-600 thousand in Europe <...> According to the calculations of one expert, in these times preceding the XVIII century. the average metallurgical plant, whose furnace gave smelting for 2 years, alone devoured 2 thousand hectares of forest in two years. Hence the tension, which was constantly aggravated with the rise of the economy in the XVIII century. “The trade in firewood has become the trade of all inhabitants in the Vosges, everyone cuts down as much as possible, and soon the forests will be completely destroyed.” It is from this crisis, latent for England since the XVI century, that the coal revolution will eventually be born" ^{[2, pp. 373, 381, 391]}.

A few decades later, the whole of Europe was already using machines based on coal and gasoline; their creation, although not calculated entirely on the basis of scientific knowledge, was fueled by the "spirit of natural science."

Bacon's semantic project was based precisely on the mental concept of nature. It allowed us to comprehend and justify the above-mentioned processes. The formation of individual faiths and European states, as well as new social communities, was understood as a natural process of nation formation. "The concept of "nation" became widespread during the formation of modern states that replaced feudal dynastic and religious state formations. The Modern state is characterized by the creation of unified management systems, the market and mass education, which led to the spread of cultural and linguistic uniformity, which replaced local originality. There was an affirmation of common civil and legal norms, a common identity… In the XVIII century, the process of "inventing nations" and their history begins, which includes ideas about "folk traditions" and "historical roots"" ^[13]. These traditions and roots, but especially the language and territory, were understood precisely as a special nature.

Kant and Hegel added to this a dialectical attitude combining the natural freedom of the individual and its reasonable acceptance of the requirements of society (laws and customs). "The state, according to Hegel, is not the product of an agreement of individuals, but an unconditional and self‒fulfilling unity. Freedom achieves its highest right in this unity, but, on the other hand, its highest duty lies in subordination to the state. Rousseau was right, Hegel explains, by pointing out the boundaries of the state in the will; but he understood the will not from the side of its universality and reasonableness, but from the side of its temporary and accidental definition in the conscious agreement of individuals. The state is an organism of freedom, but this organism is at the same time the realization of an eternal objective idea. Thus reconciling the existing with the reasonable and the individual with the state, Hegel did not eliminate either ideal principles or personal requirements: he argued only that these principles and requirements are realized in history, in a gradual process of development, that the existing and the past represent the necessary steps in the transition to the future, that ideal constructions must find for themselves support in reality" ^[7]. Again, the "eternal objective idea" and "history" were understood by Hegel as the nature of the spirit.

The formation of the European economy is also often understood in a natural way. For example, from the point of view of V.A. Kolpakov. "economics was becoming a science capable of competing with physics in the discovery of objective laws, and A. Smith, despite historical, cultural and other interests, followed Newton's main paradigm, finding regularity, harmony and orderliness no longer in the physical world, but in the world of human relations. In the best scientific traditions of his time, he first observed economic relations in order to then explain their nature and patterns. Nature, including human nature, was for Smith a machine created by God, the purpose of which is human happiness" ^{[23, pp. 161-162, 165-166]}.

It is known that the interpretation of social and economic relations as natural faces a number of difficulties, nevertheless, many researchers carry it out and believe that these relations may be special (for example, "second"), but still nature. By the way, Kant also believed in this, as can be seen from his work "Towards Eternal Peace".

Do not think that F. is the only one. Bacon constituted a new semantic project of modernity, there were his followers and other philosophers working on this project and its implementation. For example, these include J.A. Condorcet, who pointed out the connection of science and engineering with industry, and outlined the stages of development of a new civilization. "The progress of the sciences (he writes in the book A sketch of the historical picture of the progress of the human mind."– V.R.) ensures the progress of industry, which then accelerates scientific progress, and this mutual influence, the action of which is constantly renewed, should be counted among the more active, most powerful causes of the improvement of the human race." Condorcet associates with the progress of sciences an increase in the mass of products, a decrease in raw materials and material costs in the production of industrial products, a decrease in the share of hard work, an increase in the expediency and rationality of consumption, population growth and, ultimately, the elimination of harmful effects of work, habits and climate, an extension of human life expectancy…In the last chapter devoted to the tenth epoch, Condorcet outlines the main lines of the future progress of the human mind and the progress based on it in human social life: the elimination of inequality between nations, the progress of equality between different classes of the same people, social equality between people, and finally, the real improvement of man" ^{[14, pp. 149, 151-152; 9]}.

Nevertheless, many historical features are not indicated in the reconstruction of genesis, it is important to highlight the main stages of development and central figures, one of which, in my opinion, is F. Bacon.

Before proceeding to the characterization of technogenicity, it is worth paying attention to two more processes caused by the implementation of a new project: the formation of technology and large technosocial projects (one of the first was the "atomic project"). I show that technology developed around the same period in the second half of the XVIII century and in the XIX century, not as another new type of engineering, but as a rational, scientific organization of industrial production in conditions of capitalist competition. It is characterized by three points: a description of operations and their conditions; a focus on quality, economy, standardization; rational organization and management of activities ^{[20, pp. 173-179]}. Large technosocial projects (nuclear, flight to the Moon, soybeans, nuclear power plants, the Internet, mobile communications, etc.) are an organic synthesis of scientific and engineering developments and technology. ^{[17, pp. 197-199]}

Man‒made civilization began to take shape not earlier than the XVIII century after the successful implementation of two projects - the mastery of nature and Education, as well as the development of industry based on engineering and technology. In the XIX and XX centuries, there was a real explosion in the development of technology, the formation of a technical environment, a technical picture of the world, and a mass technical attitude (consciousness). There were many factors at work here: the creation of technical products based on the study of natural processes, which were discovered (and created within the framework of technopriroda) more and more; a kind of "research ‒ engineering development" tendeme (the former needed experiments and technology, and the latter needed additional research); the interaction of engineering and technology, this too it generated new research and technical developments; research and technical tasks unthinkable before, for example, projects of power plants and long-range transmission of electricity, flight to the Moon, creation of an atomic bomb, mobile communications, SOY, etc. ^{[17, pp. 197-204, 211-217]} The implementation of these developments and projects led to three main civilizational transformations: education instead of a natural environment with elements of technology, a continuous artificial technical environment (first of all, of course, in cities), a change in human lifestyle under the influence of machines, transport, electricity, telegraph, radio, and finally, the formation of a new worldview and vision, technical. These man-made changes are described in the philosophy of technology and fiction. One of the areas of conceptualization of such changes in the philosophy of technology is the study of "technocratic discourse", which can be found in the book by Vitaly Rachkov.

"The most fashionable and popular thesis today," he writes, "is: from now on everything depends on technology, because undoubtedly we are in a society created entirely by technology and for technology... As soon as a person realizes a problem or danger, it can immediately be said that he undertakes to consider and solve it, and it can be said that it has already been potentially resolved. In other words, there is an unspoken attitude that every difficulty in our world, if sufficient technical means, human and monetary resources are allocated to it, is overcome as it is taken seriously. Moreover, any achievement in the field of science and technology is designed to solve a certain number of problems. Or, more precisely, in the face of danger, a specific, limited difficulty, people inevitably discover an adequate technical solution. This stems from the fact that this is the very movement of technology; it also responds to the deep conviction, common to public opinion in industrial countries, that everything can be reduced to technical problems <…>

Ideologically, such consciousness asserts itself on the basis of the ideas of progress and normalization (standardization of everything); technically oriented consciousness is characterized by an attitude of continuous growth, as well as acceleration, and finally, such consciousness blocks all forms of thought that threaten the existence of technical reality" ^{[15, pp. 32, 54-55, 201-205]}.

Technogenic civilization is supported by all the main institutions of modernity, first of all, education and government. They tend to resist proposals aimed at limiting man-made processes. "From the very beginning of its inception," Rachkov writes, "the technical system has been slipping out of the control of public opinion, it has never been possible to reduce a particular technical enterprise due to the risk under the influence of public control. Dominating technical means is becoming more difficult not only for public opinion, but also for specialists. Moreover, most often we do not even understand the problem: we begin to be interested in controlling technology only when it touches on the most trivial problems of traditional morality ‒ biotechnology, artificial generation, fertilization, in vitro, etc. This is worth it to create ethical and supervisory commissions, to convene colloquiums and seminars that can neither really do nor offer anything, but which develop norms and reference points that are no more useful than the Charter of Human Rights, because despite all the good wishes, the mentioned technical means are only a fragment of the totality of a technical system, the control of which is possible only if everything is controlled" ^{[15, pp. 141-142]}.

Summing up, we can specify five main essential characteristics of a man-made civilization. The first, the semantic project of F. Bacon, it can be called the "genome" of a man-made civilization. The second characteristic, "technogenic practices" ‒ natural sciences, engineering, technology, industry. The third is "technogenic forms of consciousness", on the one hand, characteristic of specialists (scientists, engineers, technologists, managers), on the other ‒ for ordinary people, users of technology. The fourth characteristic is "social institutions" that support man-made processes. Fifth, "technogenic forms of conceptualization", starting with technocratic discourse, technical education, propaganda of technology, ending with art (utopias, science fiction novels, works of various genres, touching on technical topics).

But why is man-made civilization going through a crisis and what does it represent? To answer these questions, we need to go back to the beginning of the formation of a man-made civilization and think about its design character. The project involves the implementation, in the case of social design in relation to social objects (sociality). And sociality differed significantly in individual countries: history, culture, traditions, the personality of the ruler, the peculiarity of the elite supporting him, the composition and culture of the population and a number of other points. Sociality is objective, it determines the direction of the country's development, including the choice of democratic or authoritarian (and totalitarian) forms of government. For example, in Russia, sociality has determined interest in the Marxist project, contributed to the victory of the Bolsheviks, blocks liberal democratic institutions, and maintains trust in the existing government. From the point of view of the type of state and power, this type of sociality is better described by the Hobbes State project. In the USA, the type of sociality is more consistent with the project of Locke and Montesquieu.

The implementation of projects of man-made civilization ("F. Bacon", "Enlightenment", "Education", "Industry", etc.) was also conditioned by the sociality, although not of a single country, but by the sociality of Europe as a whole. For example, the followers of F. Bacon were convinced that all phenomena, including social and anthropological, represent nature, its different types, but obey the same eternal laws. Even Kant still thought so, considering, for example, that sooner or later nature would force states to stop wars and come to peace. "The preliminary establishment of nature," he writes, "consists in the following: 1) she made sure that people had the opportunity to live in all corners of the earth; 2) through war, she scattered people everywhere, throwing them even into the most inhospitable lands to populate them; 3) by war, she forced people to enter into relationships more or less based on the law… Just as nature, on the one hand, wisely divides peoples... so, on the other hand, it unites through mutual selfish interest those peoples whom the concept of the right of universal citizenship would not protect from violence and war... It is in this way that nature guarantees eternal peace by the very arrangement of human inclinations, but, of course, with reliability, insufficient to (theoretically) predict the time of its onset, but nevertheless practically achievable and obliging us to achieve this (not so illusory) goal" ^{[8, p. 26]}.

But this turned out not to be the case, already in the XIX century, some thinkers realized that there are no eternal laws for different types of natures (hence, for example, in the second half of this century, the well-known opposition of the "natural sciences and the sciences of the spirit" was formulated). That Bacon's project promised the power and happiness of man (the latter belief is shared by F. Bon, who argued that all the goals of technology development imply human happiness ^{[5, p. 26]}), may not be feasible. This was pointed out by the wealth gap between the poor and the rich, social injustice, world wars and a number of other factors. However, the advantages of implementing man-made civilization projects outweighed these problems for a long time: well-being in general increased, life expectancy gradually increased, lifestyle and opportunities were quite satisfactory and diverse.

Thus, the result of the implementation of man-made civilization projects was twofold: both positive and negative. It was the latter that led, on the one hand, to the nomination of new projects (socialists, Marx, building a welfare state, religious ones), the implementation of which was often thought of in the same technogenic way, on the other ‒ the gradual devaluation of the meaning of technogenic projects. Currently, this devaluation has reached its apogee: nature and technology have become understood not only as a source of well-being, but also as many threats (environmental crisis, pandemics, the possibility of death from space, pollution of the natural environment, man-made disasters, death from nuclear war, etc.); social institutions of man-made civilization, especially the state, in In many ways, they have ceased to perform their functions and are being used for other purposes (corruption, rent-building, seizure by passionate communities, imputation of necessary concepts to the population, etc.) ^[10]. In this regard, shouldn't we assert that man-made civilization (not science and technology, but primarily the European type of sociality) is declining and ending as a culture? I tend to think so, which does not mean death, but the transition to a new stage of life ‒ the formation of the next big culture of "future culture". The question of whether man‒made civilization will be preserved at the same time is a topic of both further research and humanity's choice of the way of its future life.