Between the Need for Freedom and Universalism and the Need for Spiritual Security and Particularism

Abstract

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The dispute between the supporters of the vision of the cosmos and humanity as harmony and order (deeply structured) and the supporters of the vision of the cosmos and humanity as a conflict, the “struggle of opposites”, goes back to the beginning of philosophy. The doctrine of the Pythagoreans was harmonious, the doctrine of Heraclitus was dynamic. I will follow the dialectical path of Heraclitus (which is closer to me), reflecting on the conflict of values. Thus, I think that contradictions—also in what people consider to be precious, good and valuable—are “the driving force of history.” It seems—and this is the main thesis of this article—that we are currently dealing (on a global scale) with a conflict of two sets of values: on the one hand, it is the need for freedom, related to universalism and individualism, and on the other hand, the need for spiritual and social security, related to particularism and collectivism. This tension is one of the causes of the “acceleration of history” and not of the “end of history”: first, it is related to the tendency to “escape from freedom”, namely to move away from liberal democracy (with tripartite powers) towards centralized and authoritarian regimes; secondly, it is related to the formation—in the geopolitical sphere—of a new bipolar system, the catalyst of which is the war in Ukraine.