THE PROBLEMS OF MODERNITY DUE TO THE CRISIS OF THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION

Abstract

The article examines what are the essential characteristics of a person and his activities, such as spirit and spirituality. It is determined that the concept of «spirt» has a twofold meaning - in the case of direct correlation with a person, we are talking about it as an immanently inherent rational will that ensures the desire for transformation oneself and the world. If we talk about activity, then the spirit acts as its idea, that is, as something that does not allow us to reduce activity to simple functionality. In connection with the revealed dual possibility of the orientation of the spirit, spirituality is defined as the orientation of a person to the highest values, which are usually referred to as good, truth, beauty, freedom and justice, that is, what defines humanity in a person. Due to the fact that the spirit, spirituality is something that escapes procedural rationality, in the modern super-pragmatic world, they believe that nothing will be lost if they get rid of such «useless» aspects of the person and his being. The article analyses whether this is the case. The possible consequences of further neutral or negative attitudes towards existential entities such as spirit and spirituality are evaluated. The problem is illustrated by John B. Calhoun's famous psychological experiment «Universe 25». By analogy, it turned out that the consumer society, stuck at the level of satisfaction of material needs, is fragmented and degenerates into a set of individuals who have lost the social and spiritual components of the human essence.