ETHNOS AND GLOBALIZATION: Ethnocultural Mechanisms of Disintegration of Contemporary Nations. Monograph. A. L. Safonov

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introduced by Karl Jaspers – the secession and the setting apart of the political sphere and, as a consequence, the appearance of the largest global denominations that defined the global history for ages to come.126

      Consequently, globalization is not a gradual evolutionary approach to the only possible equilibrium point, but a global crisis during which catastrophic and, accordingly, essentially unpredictable major changes occur in the global society, linked to the establishment, development and extinction of a wide range of social agents as a result of an increasing global confrontation that is not limited by spatial barriers.

      As a consequence, a global economic empire, even if it swallows the whole world, gives rise to new processes of structuration and divergence inside itself, undoubtedly begetting the possibility of a historical choice, a bifurcation of the historical process.

      At the same time, the main consequence of the variability of global development and the increase in the number of agents in a new global world is the undoubtedly uncontrollable nature of global sociohistorical development that reaches its peak during historical crises.

      The concept of the dialogue of civilizations, justifiably assuming that the sociocultural sphere is not a carbon copy of economic processes, proposes the principle of equality of civilizations, cultures and peoples, and sees the ideal global society as unity in diversity.

      In fact, the concept of the dialogue of civilizations is a cover for the global periphery already formed to counter the pressure of the West in terms of the unification of culture and values, and to work out its own project for the existence in a united world. Seen from this angle, globalization is a challenge for the cultural, civilizational and national identity, which is applicable to all development scenarios, including the concept of the dialogue of civilizations.127

      Nevertheless, it should be noted that the process is currently happening in a somewhat different way – that is to say, an ideology of the supremely wide community, the people of the Western world, the “golden billion’, is being formed, which caters for global confrontation in the sphere that is responsible for material wealth. A confrontation is inevitable within a new global community, as the fight for natural resources is gaining momentum due to the exponential increase in population size, in particular. Ideology is a subjective, collective look at the reality.

      At the same time, the idea of the dialogue of civilizations as an ideal and almost conflictless development, presented as an alternative to the reality of globalization and the real strategy of globalization, is not an actual alternative: at best it is an ideal tendency, if not wishful thinking. The idea is rooted exclusively in theory and fails to make it not only through the test of societal practice, but through detailed work, a creation of a local applied model of such a dialogue. While real interests and agents of the global process are behind globalization, the universal theoretical idea of the dialogue of civilizations does not seem to be powered either by economic interests that would outweigh the benefits of globalization for elites, including local ones, or by agents, not only interested in symmetrical, equitable dialogue, but capable of organizing it.

      There does not seem to be a referee overlooking the fight, someone interested and capable of forcing dialogue participants to reach a consensus that is not simply defined by economic or some other kind of power wielded by the participants during which life or death issues are being solved. The result of direct interaction between a wolf and a lamb, without any mechanical or spatial barriers, is evident; the weaker side calls for equal dialogue notwithstanding.

      Ultimately, the idea of the dialogue of civilizations is at best one of the forms taken by the losers’ plea with the winners for mercy, a form of integration into a Western model of globalization.

      Another form of local outsiders’ appeal for mercy aimed at the leaders of global development is the idea of the preservation of civilizational (cultural) diversity, clearly repeating the slogan urging the “preservation of the biodiversity” of the environment. Preservation of the biodiversity is nothing short of a strategy to maintain the physical being of the ethnocultural community at the price of the loss of historical agency and transformation from an agent into an object of guardianship, the transformation of a local community into a guarded biological entity.

      Nevertheless, the status of a guarded object has become a relatively successful solution for the trap of globalization for many primitive ethnic groups (aboriginal peoples, few in number, with a traditional economy).

      Overall, when globalization is pressuring local social communities and groups, two types of reaction manifest themselves: a short circuit – an establishment of a guardian-like collective consciousness, the transformation of local communities into diasporas; and the urge for local and regional communities politically shaped into states to enter globalization on their own terms, as advantageous as possible.

      A third option is available – a creation of one’s own global project – but that route requires plenty of resources and is unequivocally available only to China.

      In any case, in criticizing, or rejecting, globalization in its Western, expansionist variant, one should recognize that the problem and relevant challenges will not go away, as the causes of globalization – globalization of the economy, the transformation of local social communities into open systems, the opening of spatial and information barriers, the growing crisis of resources and demographics – do objectively exist and increase.

      Therefore, the majority of well-known theories and concepts of globalization are based on the reduction of globalization as an all-encompassing phenomenon into separate, albeit essential, phenomena of an economic or political nature.

      Contemporary Russian studies of globalization focus on several theoretical approaches that inadvertently reflect the power dynamics in Russia and around it.

      The neoliberal approach to the processes of globalization that has been largely accepted as the official concept of the reformation and development of Russia reflects the views of contemporary Russian elites, whose interests are to a great extent tied to the resource-based economic cycle and global economic structure.

      It is essentially a matter of the local adaptation of such classics of neoliberalism as Hayek128, Friedman129 and Popper.130 Correspondingly, negative consequences of the total liberalization of spheres of human being are presented as objectively inevitable and, as a result, as ungovernable phenomena without any alternative, such that an attempt to control them may result in an even worse outcome.

      In general, liberal approaches to globalization as an extreme version of economic determinism are characterized by denial of the systemic complexity of social development that, in principle, cannot be reduced to phenomena and patterns of an economic and material kind.

      Therefore, the neoliberal concept of globalization that has been taken up by the elites and which presents a condensed expression of their interests, takes on the character of an objective historical factor. Chubais and Popov are typical and influential representatives of neoliberal philosophy and ideology that are also part of the Russian elite.

      On the whole, neoliberalism is interesting not so much as a theoretical model of a descriptive type, but rather as a prescriptive theory, which, put into practice in economic policies, is a typical manifestation of globalization.

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