Mental Foundations of the Cultural Specificity of Eastern Christian Civilization
The article considers the mental foundations of the cultural specificity of the Eastern Christian civilization based on the cultural-historical method. The purpose of the article is to clarify the historical model which formed the mental differences between Western European and Russian cultures. It is shown that the roots of the civilizational division of Europe into Western and Eastern ones are largely determined by the special way in which “barbarian” ethnic groups were attached to the Christian and ancient traditions. Therefore, in Western Europe, the cultural stereotype of an active and aggressive attitude to the world then led to the formation of anti-traditionalist, innovative development trends, anthropocentrism and individualism. Those Eastern Europeans who were subjected to coercive Westernization then got an inferiority complex and the contempt for their native cultural environment – a destructive phenomenon which is widespread in our time, and is a powerful brake on their own original cultural development. However, the principle of individualism eventually turned into a dehumanization of all spheres of life. Without overcoming the destructive cultural “self-colonization”, the independent development of Eastern Christian civilization is impossible. The conceptual novelty of the article consists in the formulation of the principle of “cultural homeland”, as well as in clarifying the historical source of mental differences.
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