As President Putin says, the world is now undergoing a tectonic shift of global transformation. But what is it, exactly? What is the transformation in question? What exactly is the crisis about? What has caused it and what are the solutions? What will be the exit point that needs to be implemented? The answers to these questions are vital to our entire society. Without them, we will not be able to deal successfully with current and future challenges and threats and will be forced to suffer the damages. Until we find the right answers.
In any case, this is definitely a unique period in history. It marks the end of an era and brings into focus the need to change the entire model of human living and the society as a whole, as well as all individual areas of life. Everything must be revised and readjusted, starting with the humans themselves. The old model was created around building financial gains, and the general consensus was that we needed to achieve that point as a goal, as a point of stability, a point of satisfaction the moment it is reached and thereafter. Throughout human history, we thought that generating financial gains would solve all other problems automatically, or that at least these problems would not be too hard to tackle. But now that we, as a society in general, have reached the goal enough to feel its effects, it is becoming increasingly evident that the problems actually multiply and, most importantly, that the old model fails to solve them. We can see the failure of the old model in every area of life in that it fails to address the problems faced by the society.
Together we will build positive changes, first in one country and then in the whole world.
The reason is we have hit the limits of the current phase in human and social development, while the time does not stop here; it goes on, urging us to move to the next level. The problem, however, is that the current level of our development is deeply, fundamentally different from the next phase, and those differences must be analyzed, accepted, and then brought into life. In the old model, a person could exist as a standalone object, with limited local responsibility, not building his or her own life but passively reacting to what life throws into his or her local area, adapting to the environment and the relevant circumstances. The idea was that one could build one’s own separate happiness by successfully adapting. In the new model, however, the person is a subject, a master of life, actively shaping life and taking responsibility not only for his or her local area, but also for the life of the entire society. You cannot have a healthy liver when your entire body is sick. In order for the liver to stay healthy, one needs to deal with the health of the entire body.
To turn from an object into a subject, the person should understand who he or she is and whether they are capable of effecting the change, and if so, then follow the program for change. It is necessary to develop the person rather than the things around him or her. It is a fundamentally different approach that changes life entirely. It means building everything around the development of the person, his or her qualities and competencies, building life according to a formula: "Everything that contributes to human development is good; everything that does not contribute to development or contributes to degradation is bad." It means realizing that a person’s financial gains are secondary to their personal development. There can be no devastation in a society of developed people. It also means that all the problems we have in life are the result of our underdevelopment, and it is our responsibility to fix it.
There are two fundamental positions to live by:
1. I am ok already, life is not.
2. Life is ok, I am not ok yet.
The first case is the model of developing and improving the environment around a person; the second is the model of developing oneself, and the environment changes as a result of this. We have already tried the first model and came to where we are now; we have not started acting upon the second model yet.
You can take this approach to look at the current state of different countries and parts of the world. From this point of view, the West is a civilization where the main idea is that of financial gains; the East is mainly a civilization of the spirit prevailing over physical life; the South is a civilization attempting to combine the spiritual and financial aspects of life, which, while prioritizing the former, is too focused on its own exclusivity, and is therefore unable to propose an agenda uniting the world; and finally, Russia is also a civilization that combines the spiritual and financial with a focus on the spiritual, but one that has an idea of inclusivity, not exclusivity embedded in its genes.
At previous stages in the society’s development, before we realized the need for a fundamental change in the life order, Russia could not reveal itself and its qualities to the fullest, as other tasks were more relevant for the time: the society was busy building financial gains, something Russia is not very good at. But now Russia’s time has come. Now is the time no one can respond to challenges and threats individually, in isolation. You cannot solve international security problems for any single country, you cannot solve global economic challenges for any single country. Same goes for environmental problems, resource problems, political problems, and so on. In the past, when all countries and nations lived on their own, everyone arranged their lives the way they saw fit. But today the world is technologically and informationally united. Now we all have to get together and answer one question: "How are we going to live together?" The question is non-prejudiced. There is no undoing or eliminating the existing uniting factors. There is no turning time back either. This means we have to build a united world, one way or another. But in order to do this, we need something that will unite us. What idea is fit to rule this world? This is a question we all have to answer.
It is important to understand there are no alternatives to being united, like it or not. The challenges and threats of today, and the risks they carry, are already making us realize this. This realization will only grow with each passing day.
Unification can be voluntary or forced. Forced unification is unification basing on external factors. And these factors are likely to be violent to some extent, or at least very unpleasant to us. This form of unification implies external regulation of human lives and activities. Unification is needed to stabilize the system, to ensure safety and to avoid destruction. Whenever a system cannot stabilize itself, it requires external stabilization. Otherwise it will enter a self-destructive state and eventually collapse. External regulation always implies suppressing the functions that the system is unable to operate and take under control. The voluntary unification procedure, on the other hand, assumes developing the system, so it can perform its functions efficiently enough to manage and stabilize itself.
In the new model, however, the person is a subject, a master of life, actively shaping life and taking responsibility not only for his or her local area, but also for the life of the entire society.
Since the current global challenges cannot be tackled locally by each country acting on its own, and warrant a common unified system-wide response, the society must be united to find a voluntary and favorable way out of the situation. This requires a common denominator for all people, one that can be used to build a common system, common rules, a common world. This must be a universal value that is acceptable and rewarding for everyone. Without this universal value, global challenge cannot be efficiently addressed. We need to solve the equation of life for all people on Earth by finding a universal answer that fits everyone and is shared by everyone.