It is argued that Arnason’s approach opens up great potential for intercultural analysis through its hermeneutics of encountering social formations, while Eisenstadt’s is still burdened by an ‘objectivistic’ conceptualisation of civilisations associated with traditional civilisational thinking. It pays particular attention to the versions of the civilisational paradigm developed by Johann Arnason and Shmuel Eisenstadt and evaluates these against the historical experiences of American civilisations. This paper aims to explore how far the critical reconsideration of civilisation goes in achieving intercultural goals. A contentious notion of civilisation remains at its conceptual core, however, despite the uses and abuses of the term ‘civilisation’ in current-day political discourse. It has been a robust basis for the critique of existing conservative scholarship of civilisations of the Samuel Huntington variety. The critical reconstruction of classical perspectives and world history as contemporary civilisational analysis brings a fresh and alternative approach to twenty-first-century social science. Both (russkiy mir and interfaith dialogue) are connected with state security and soft power. Religion appears in the state concepts of Russia's policy: Russia is depicted as a “civilisational pole” with its own cultural space (russkiy mir) and mission (i.e. These internal processes have consequences for Russia's external activity.
For many Russians, including the political elite, religion is a crucial component of tradition and as such the foundation of values for spiritual recovery of Russian society and Russia's regaining its power status. This is, to a certain degree, a consequence of processes taking place in Russia, namely, first and foremost, the solving of the crisis of identity and values, and, closely connected with this, the renaissance of religion in Russian political and social life.
The Russian Federation is shaping its religious diplomacy (i.e., in brief, the use of the religious factor in foreign policy) and exercises it with a growing efficiency.
0 kommentar(er)
