Cultural Maelstrom Around Man of the End of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

The paper analyzes the cognitive and intellectual situation concerning above all man. The author claims that it results from the dominating currents of modern and contemporary philosophy whose principal lines may be laid down in three interrelated theorems:
1. The culture of the recent centuries has run the course starting from understanding man as “homo sapiens” to “homo demens”, that is people first confided unconditionally in reason and made it the ultimate authority, and then gave up reason. In other words, they started from radical Rationalism of the seventieth century, especially the rationalism of the Enlightenment, and then gave up truth and ended up in radical irrationalism in the period of Post-modernism,
2. from deification of man by endowing him with divine attributes to reification and subduing man to his own products, that is from superman to post-man,
3. from absolute freedom postulated by many philosophers to actual enslavement by things (the attitude of consumption), the mass media which impose attitudes and life styles, and politics (democracy founded on radical liberalism may easily become totalitarianism).

Despite the fact that negative phenomena stand out, contemporary culture is not yet am aggregate of what is false and evil. One may notice there many crumbs of truth and good. Undoubtedly, philosophy has exposed the position of man; Christianity, notwithstanding its often opposition, is still present in life and culture. The Catholic Church, and in particular John Paul II, makes ever new efforts to defend human dignity of man. “The Church ever anew stands to struggle with the spirit of this world. This struggle is nothing else but a struggle for the soul of this world, the soul of man”. (John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Lublin 1994).