Abstract
Information and technical civilization and the neo-liberalist social and economic system embedded in it causes a number of unfavourable changes in the psychical, mental, personal, somatic and health spheres of life of the modern man.
They have a particularly negative impact on man’s subjectivity and spirituality, quality and style of his life, internal development and traits that constitute humanity.
Among characteristic manifestations of changes discussed here it is necessary to include: emotional and empathic impoverishment of many individuals, weakening and intentional unilaterality of inter-human relations (transformation of such relations into instrumental relations, based on interest, making them formal and functional), trivialization and simplification of lifestyles, depriving life of deeper sense, falling into irrational consumerism and commonplace hedonism, into a life characterized by the premise of “to have” and not “to be”, to become enriched internally and to aim for self-fulfillment.
Further manifestations of the changes that are of interest to us are the increasing symptoms of nervous weakening of many people, especially young people, disintegration or confusion of their personality, uniformisation and dulling of their mentality, lowering the skill of understanding and comprehending the reality in which we live, frequent confusion of what is real with what is virtual, increasing anxieties and internal frustrations, worrying types of various new neuroses and social diseases.
The basic causes of such anthropological changes which take place in the context of technical and information civilization in the area of modern globalization process are, inter alia, the overwhelming impact on mentality, stances and behaviour of an average media person (i.e. inadequate, unilateral and frequently deformed), picture of reality, excessively accelerated and continuously speeding up technological developments whose results – in the form of various constructs, devices, items, IT programmes, etc. – are used so commonly and so mindlessly with respect to their internal mechanisms and technical functionality, especially from the side of various and long-term negative effects of their too frequent usability.
Among further causes of anthropological changes discussed here is the all-powerful impact on the mentality and emotionality of the modern man of various types of mass culture, frequently of very mediocre and spiritually blunt genre, successfully supplanting the impact of homo-creative high culture.
The discussed anthropological, social and cultural changes not only deform and distort the sphere of spirituality, consciousness and behaviour of man, posing a serious threat for correct development and survival of man as a species, but they also have a probable impact on a more long-term homo-creative process – on further social and cultural evolution and, to a certain degree, also on the natural and biological evolution of man.
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Notes
- 1.
Cf. Konrad Lorenz, Regres człowieczeństwa, translated by Anna Danuta Tauszyńska (Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warsaw 1986), p. 35 (title of the original: Der Abbau Des Menschlichen (R. Piper & Co. Verlag, München 1983); J. Levine, D. Suzuki, Tajemnica życia, translated by Gasparska, B. Skarżyńska (KiW, Warsaw 1996), Henryk Skolimowski, Święte siedlisko człowieka. O magii i pięknie życia, translated by Robert Palusinski (Centrum Uniwersalizmu przy Uniwersytecie Warszawskim, Warsaw 1999) (title of the original: A Sacred Place to Dwell Living with Reference Upon the Earth (1993), op. cit., p. 77; Zdzisława Piątek, Ekofilozofia (Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Cracow 2008), p. 94–115.
- 2.
Cf. Henri Bergson, Ewolucja twórcza, translated by Florian Żnaniecki, Warsaw 1913 (title of the original: L’évolution créatrice, Paris 1907); Teilhard de Chardin, Człowiek, translated by J. G. Fedorowscy (Warsaw 1962) (title of the original: Le Phénomène humain, vol. 1, Paris 1955); L’Apparition de l’homme, vol. 2, (Paris 1956); Henryk Skolimowski, Święte siedlisko człowieka (Biblioteka Dialogu, Warsaw 1999); Konrad Lorenz, Regres człowieczeństwa, Translated by Anna Danuta Tauszyńska (Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warsaw 1986); Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka: Życie w pełni logos. Księga I, Metafizyka Nowego Oświecenia (Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, Poznań 2011) (title of the original: The Fullness of the Logos in the Key of Life, Book I, The Case of God in the New Enlightenment, Springer 2009).
- 3.
Cf. Konrad Lorenz, Regres człowieczeństwa, op. cit.; H. Skolimowski, Górecki J. K., Zielone oko Kosmosu. Wokół filozofii w rozmowie i esejach (Wyd. Atla 2, Wrocław 2003); Zdzisława Piątek, Pawi ogon czyli o biologicznych uwarunkowaniach kultury (Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Wyd. I, Cracow 2007); A. T. Tymieniecka, Logos and Life: Impetus and Equipoise in the Life – Strategies of Reason (Book 4, Analecta Husserliana, Volume C, Springer 2009).
- 4.
Cf. Konrad Lorenz, Regres człowieczeństwa, op. cit., p. 35, 158.
- 5.
Cf. Henryk Skolimowski, Święte siedlisko człowieka, op. cit., p. 12, 162.
- 6.
Cf. Ks. Józef Tischner, Spór o istnienie człowieka, op. cit., p. 67–78.
- 7.
Cf. Henryk Skolimowski, Święte siedlisko człowieka, op. cit., p. 164.
- 8.
Ibidem, p. 162.
- 9.
Cf. Jose Luis Sampedro, Nadchodzi lepszy świat, “Gazeta Wyborcza”, 21–22 April 2012, p. 15–16.
- 10.
Cf. So Is There Going to be a War? Tomasz Kwaśniewski asks and Professor Zygmunt Bauman answers, “Gazeta Wyborcza” daily, April 15, 2012, p. 14–17.
- 11.
Cf. Teodor Krzysztof Toeplitz, Dokąd prowadzą nas media (Wydawnictwo ISKRY, Warsaw 2006); Wiesław Sztumski, Quo ruis, homo? Środowisko życia, czas, ludzie (Wydawnictwo Naukowe “Śląsk”, Katowice 2008); Zygmunt Bauman, Socjalizm. Utopia w działaniu, translated by M. Bogdan, Warsaw 2010; (title of the original: Socialism: The Active Utopia, George Allen & Unwia Ltd., 1976); Jan Szmyd, Odczytywanie współczesności. Perspektywa antropologiczna, etyczna i edukacyjna (Oficyna Wydawnicza AFM, Cracow 2011).
- 12.
Mark Henderson, Cząstka Boga i prędkość światła, “Gazeta Wyborcza”, February 1, 2012, p. 7.
- 13.
A Different Point of View, Interview of G. Miecugow with Professor M. Różyczka of PAN, astronomer (TVP 24, 1.01.2012)
- 14.
This postulate of K. Marx formulated in the nineteenth century regarding the role of philosophy (philosopher) as can be seen, has not lost its significance at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
- 15.
Cf. Jan Szmyd, Odczytywanie współczesności. Perspektywa antropologiczna, etyczna i edukacyjna (Oficyna Wydawnicza AFM, Kraków 2011); Chapter II: Wielokierunkowość filozoficznego i naukowego odczytywania świata ludzkiego; Chapter III: Czy filozofia współczesna “odzwierciedla” kulturę moralną; Chapter IV: Cywilizacja współczesna z perspektywy filozofii edukacji, p. 35–68.
- 16.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Życie w pełni logos. Księga I, Metafizyka Nowego Oświecenia. Translated by M. Wiertlewska, op. cit., p. 14
- 17.
Ibidem, p. 15, 16.
- 18.
Ibidem, p. 17.
- 19.
Ibidem, p. 11.
- 20.
Ibidem.
- 21.
This mainly refers to previously quoted works of Teilhard de Chardin, K. Lorenz, H. Skolimowski, Z. Bauman, Priest J. Tischner and others.
- 22.
Cf. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka: Życie w pełni logos. Księga I, Metafizyka Nowego Oświecenia, op. cit., p. 11–23.
- 23.
Ibidem, p. 13.
- 24.
Ibidem, p. 16.
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Szmyd, J. (2014). Anthropological Regression in the Modern World Versus Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s Metaphysics of Ontopoiesis of Life. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Phenomenology of Space and Time. Analecta Husserliana, vol 116. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02015-0_9
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