KRAJ DOMINACIJE I PARTNERSTVO CIVILIZACIJA?
THE PARTNERSHIP OF CIVILIZATIONS AND THE END OF DOMINATION?

Summary/Abstract: This work probes into the known logic of historical processes, demonstrated by the contacts, the mutual influence and the conflicts between civilizations, by the rise and fall of some of them and the sequence in the order of domination. The basic premise for this study is the irrefutable coming into existence of a planetary humanity, a fact which has left a particular mark on the twentieth century. The work determines that the experience of the twentieth century embodies the culmination of historical processes which as a rule close by giving rise to the question of the sequence of domination but, at the same time, the twentieth century introduces new possibilities, harboring a new historical logos which will give way to a partnership of civilizations instead of perpetually reviving the question of domination. The study is founded on factors which demonstrate that the isolation of civilizations has been surmounted and that all civilizations, albeit in unequal measure, have accepted common postulates in scientific, technical, communicational and informative processes. The realization and development of any of these postulates, which in the new era have lent an advantage to the West, demands a broader space than that offered by the confines of any particular civilization - the space of the entire planet and the potential of humanity as a whole have become the necessary prerequisites. It is this fact which both sets limits to persistence in the tendency towards domination as we have known it for the past few centuries, and lends a new perspective to the question of the respective and common survival of civilizations. The study also determines that the new logic of economic development, expressed in the supremacy of the functional over the territorial principle and manifested by the growth of modern corporate systems suppresses the importance of military power, just as the very destructiveness of military arms has a somewhat restraining effect on possible military conflicts and expansion. Namely, from the standpoint of economy, territorial expansion has lost its previous significance, while from the viewpoint of humanity, the use of modern arms has become highly dangerous. The conclusions reached in this study speak against views which predict the occurrence of determining conflicts between civilizations and the seizing of a final position of supremacy by any one of them. An analysis of the twentieth century, on the contrary, points to an already existent alternative road which can, given a minimum of rationality, painstakingly but definitely, put an end to a particular historical process and not to history itself and can make a new, planetary history of humanity possible.

• Details
• Contents