On individualism and collectivism in view of the c

On individualism and collectivism in view of the current crisis

There is still an ongoing debate about whether the priority is the personality or the state. Opponents trying to prove the validity of their own opinion in practice at present, point to Western countries and China, respectively. In fact, this dispute is nothing more than scholastic, since it does not affect the deep foundations of either the individual or the state. A misunderstanding of these foundations has led Europe, which has been rapidly developing over the past few centuries, to stagnation and decline, and China, which for thousands of years has been "cooked in its own juice," has led to colonization by the West, and its current rise has been achieved, again, at the expense of technology and scientific achievements of the West.

Key words: information, person, consciousness, self-consciousness, development, personality, state, individualism, collectivism.

The global crisis into which the civilization has now fallen may well be its last, differing from all previous crises in that the potential for the extensive capitalist development has already been exhausted in terms of resources, finances, and ideology. This is clearly evident in the actions of the elites of the world's leading countries, some of which can be called reckless, as they lead to a military confrontation on a global scale with no prospects for survival, while others should be called selfish, since this elite hopes for survival and a stable existence through the de facto enslavement of peoples through the use of artificial intelligence—by the West in its region, and by China in its own, respectively, that is, beyond any development.
This process of the civilizational disintegration is inevitable and natural due to the finite nature of any developing structure that has exhausted the means to continue its own development.
However, it makes sense to find an explanation for this disintegration of civilization and, on this basis, to explore the possibility of more or less peaceful transition for the planet's many peoples to a different path of civilizational functioning—if not to the stormy development, then at least to the preservation of a relatively comfortable existence without the complete loss of technology, for example, by replacing states with relatively small domains connected to each other both horizontally and vertically through production and trade, unless, of course, a way out of this crisis can be found that preserves civilizational development in a different form, which is highly problematic.
It must be said that the above-mentioned methods of ensuring the comfortable prosperity of individual elites, still at the expense of destroying a significant portion of the population and turning the rest into service personnel, combined with artificial intelligence, are nothing more than a chimera, which will undoubtedly lead to a very rapid and complete degradation of the entire remaining population and the final collapse of civilization, with the survivors descending into savagery.
Western and Chinese ideologists hold extreme ideological positions regarding the survival of a post-industrial society, that is, the resolution of the current crisis.
The former, concerned primarily with preserving the elite, emphasize the primary role of the personality in history. The latter, believing the "Middle Empire" to be the sole pillar upon which civilization can survive, emphasize the primary role of the state. They agree, however, that, at a minimum, the entire remaining population outside the West and China must be significantly reduced, and the remainder enslaved, relying on the artificial intelligence.
Since these extreme approaches lead to a rather rapid disappearance of civilization due to the indispensable and rapid degradation as the elites are being decomposed in inaction, as well as completely duped remnants of the population, since at first it makes sense to find out what underlies these positions leading to the inevitable disintegration of the civilization, and then try, having analyzed this basis, and perhaps find that "the golden mean," which will be able to prolong the existence of the civilization with the possibility of further development for some time, or - to transfer this technological civilization into the equilibrium-ecological, quite viable for the more or less comfortable existence of a relatively small population for a long time in equilibrium with nature without the development of technology.
***
So, what false premise did the seemingly so natural, rosy and even natural theory of the primary role of the personality in history come from, which by now has been reduced to a completely cavernous view of the elites on everyone else as the cattle, which is not a pity to eliminate for the sake of own preservation?
If we turn to the beginning of the current civilization, then in the minds of people, before the mysterious and surpassing powers of nature, the consciousness reigned that they were controlled by certain forces through their own representatives in the person of rulers, priests or heroes.
At the stage of slaveholding, these mythological ideas about the otherworldly arbiters of people's destinies have been supplemented by considerations about the possibility of a significant influence of individual representatives of the human race on changes in the life of communities, to which the rest of the citizens attributed the most energetic and self-activity people they knew well.
However, in the Middle Ages, the place of these citizens-personalities has been occupied mainly by monarchs and their close associates, who, allegedly, driven by divine providence, knew where society should go.
In the future, it was this idea that was transformed in an atheistic society into its opposite - the recognition of a leading role in the history of personalities.
With the advent of capitalism with its formal equalization of the rights of personalities, the destruction of the estates, the leading role of the personality in history quite naturally shifted from rulers to ordinary mortals, who nevertheless differed in a heroic spirit that allowed them to actively and effectively counter the invaders and protect the people from the oppressors.
British writer, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle attributed this heroic spirit to intellectuality. On this basis, he began to preach the cult of heroes: “... world history, the history of what a person has done in this world, is, in my understanding, essentially a story of great people who worked hard here on earth. They, these great people, were the leaders of mankind, educators, models and, in a broad sense, the creators of all that the whole mass of people generally sought to carry out what she wanted to achieve. Everything that has been done in this world represents, in essence, an external material result, the practical realization and embodiment of thoughts that belonged to great people, sent to our world” [1, p. 7].
Developing own ideas about the role of heroes in changing the world in historical terms on the basis of intellectualism, Carlyle, again, quite naturally for himself, argues that by raising the intellectual level, that is, by upbringing and education on the examples of great people, anyone can be made a hero: "A full world of heroes instead of a whole world of fools... - that's what we want! We, for our part, will put aside all that is base and false; then we may hope to be governed by nobility and truth, but not before… You and I, my friend, can in this perfectly stupid light be, each of us, not a fool, but a hero, if we shall want to" [2, p. 38-39].
Thus, Carlyle, uniting heroes with leaders and prophets, believes that it is they who rule the world, and the masses are often only a tool in their hands.
Surprisingly, it is a fact, that Carlyle has not noticed or did not want to notice belonging to power by no means of the heroes and prophets, but only energetic, not stupid and immoral rogues who seized it.
However, as is known from history, the heroes and prophets do not actually seek to rule the world - they only episodically try, respectively, to save it from the consequences of the mistakes or stupidity of the rulers or direct it to the path which seems to them to be true, and not to rule or govern.
In essence, no a personality, even a genius, is able to know the sign of fate, that is, to know exactly what is better and what is worse for the world or the country.
The fact is that in the process of finding and discovering a solution to a problem that may seem absolutely correct, there is always an inadequate interpretation of incoming data - often contradictory - from incoming information flows, especially since a person's ability to fully cover these flows and choose the necessary information from them is extremely limited both by his upbringing, education, knowledge, the ability to use the latter, memory, traditions, misconceptions of the environment around him, religion, and the ability to quickly think and make adequate decisions.
Therefore, the changes introduced into history by the actions of a personality often surprise that personality himself by the fact that he assumed something completely different. And this means the incompleteness of the control of one's own actions by a person, in which, therefore, some other forces intervene - more significant, although from the outside these forces may seem by the personality himself.
But, ultimately, we, and not only us, but all living beings, are often governed by an unaccountable dissatisfaction with what exists, always wanting the best, but not knowing this best for sure and, even more so, not knowing the right ways to achieve this or that good [see, for example, 3], whereas the impact of single personalities or some groups of the population on the course of history is only external in any respect and depends no longer on the merits of the personality the effectiveness of groups, but from the place, time and state of a particular community, which, in turn, are determined by nothing other than the actions of those strata of the population who have the opportunity to manifest themselves in the creation of the historical process, and by themselves the actions of both the personalities and groups have only one original reason – the interaction of the interaction of both forms of the human consciousness - the natural consciousness and self-consciousness. Exactly from the levels of these forms of consciousness everything else depends on, moreover, at this, the basis of the action of these forms of each human consciousness is one or another degree of their dissatisfaction with the existing.
For example, the slave-owning ancient world, represented by its most prominent representatives, managed to develop both the foundations of legislation and a democratic system of government, as well as unsurpassed examples of culture and art, but remained fruitless with regard to the development of technologies that turned out to be unnecessary due to the cheapness of the slave labor.
Accordingly, in this case, the time, place and conditions did not correspond to the manifestation of scientific and engineering thought, and the root cause of this circumstance was the low level of self-consciousness even of the leading and free part of society in its altruistic component, which has not yet reached the position of denial of the slave state.
The essence of any ruling elite in society boils down to the prevalence of its members of the natural form of consciousness, with its egocentricity, as opposed to the altruism of self-consciousness, which is still in its infancy, since it is an obstacle to entry into the elite, much less the retention in it.
Similar egocentrism inevitably provokes the elites' tendency to exaggerate the role of outstanding figures in history, which they naturally consider themselves to be, believing that without them, history would cease to exist.
Therefore, in the current era of crisis, these elites quite reasonably believe that self-preservation is the most important thing, and everything else, in their view, will follow. That is, these elites, considering their personalities the primary driver of history, are more concerned with their own preservation than with the search for a different configuration of the civilization.
The leading element of these world power elites, as is well known, are the elites of the West, including the supranational elite, which, although inclined toward disintegration, is not yet ready to relinquish its authority over the world.
The best way for these elites to preserve themselves and prosper, seeing the collapse of capitalism, but not wanting to lose their political and economic superiority, find it necessary to eliminate the private property relations.
Indeed, the capitalist mode of production, which is automatically tuned to the growth of sales of products, when it reaches the limit of this sale, collapses, because it loses the incentive for development.
The resulting stagnation leads the power elite to the idea of transforming society into a form convenient for maintaining the power of this elite and all the benefits associated with it.
The current, in essence, supranational power elite, imagining itself intellectual, wants to forcibly put the population under its control by digitizing the population, discredit the family, gradually liquidating it, and deprive the population of property. It proposes to give him certain benefits depending on the behavior of specific individuals, which this elite considers correct, up to the selection of this population, the number of which should be reduced to several hundred million.
That is, this "elite" quite naturally for itself intends to reduce the population many times over in order to reduce the consumption of the remaining resources of the planet by the population, and the main way of this reduction can be, for example, the sterilization of the population with the help of medicines under the pretext of saving it from supposedly fatal diseases, and the rest of the population can be digitized with the help of modern computer technologies, putting each person under control to dictate to him the behavior suitable for the control structures, especially since the main work, as expected, will be performed not by the population, but by the artificial intelligence.
And all possible assistance in this project of the actual genocide of the population with the transformation of its remnants into voiceless and thoughtless slaves to satisfy the unworthy needs of ghouls for power, who believe that they will retain their power by introducing such stupidity, reducing all achievements of mankind and its culture to zero, is provided by science providing specialists and equipment to destroy the bulk of the population and bring the rest into obedient blockheads, divided into a kind of caste, depending on the degree of obedience.
In this case, beneficial, as it seems at first glance, for the power elite, people turn into a herd, that this elite grazes for the sake of obtaining certain products from this herd for themselves, without giving it the will to avoid its own destruction.
Naturally, such artificial education will degrade extremely quickly in all its parts, since it loses the ability to receive updates in the form of certain innovations in both technological and cultural spheres, especially since this post-capitalist society assumes to parasitize the artificial intelligence, which, according to supranational elites, will replace human intelligence without suspecting that thereby the creative potential of a person will be eliminated, depriving the society of progress.
It seems that this inadequate approach of Western elites is being countered by the newly emerged communist China, both in name and flag.
Indeed, unlike the individualistic ruling elites of the West, the Chinese ruling elites embrace a collectivist stance, which is natural for them due to the development of the Chinese community under different conditions than Europeans.
Comparing the Chinese and Europeans in their attitudes toward the rest of the world, it should first be noted, paradoxical as it may seem at first glance, that the most advanced states in the world, culturally and technologically—namely, the countries of Europe and the United States—are also the most aggressive, cruel, and boastful of their superiority over others, exploiting them for their own ends and interests through threats, promises, deception, and outright aggressive actions.
Clearly, such aggressiveness in these countries did not originate from outside, but is ingrained in their consciousness, which is oriented toward aggression and deception as the most effective methods of subjugation and exploitation of other peoples for their own ends, as occurs in the wild.
Consequently, the dissatisfaction of their natural consciousness, inherited from the wild steppe peoples, and aimed at aggressiveness, which has persisted and persists to this day, judging by their cruelty and unwillingness to consider the traditions and opinions of other peoples of the planet, dominates the altruistic self-awareness of Western societies, despite their advancement in education and technology [4].
Therefore, the overwhelming majority of the population of these countries does not protest, but actually approves of the continuous and predatory actions of their elites, who use force and deception, which, by plundering the rest of the world, grants them a higher standard of living in terms of consumption of various goods.
However, the ruling elites of Western countries differ from the predators of the wild not only in their cunning and their tendency to exploit everyone else for their own benefit, but also in their stupidity, believing that they can survive and continue to live happily ever after with the abolition of private property and the use of the artificial intelligence, along with the remaining remnants of the remaining the human population.
The prevalence of the egocentrism of the natural consciousness in the consciousness of the population of Western countries, combined with Protestantism, which appeared in these countries as early as the 15th century, with its recognition of labor not as a duty, but as a blessing, on the one hand, led to a kind of resonance of reformed Christianity and creative minds, containing in potential a technological culture, thereby causing an industrial revolution in Western countries, and their dominance over the rest of the world due to technical, scientific, and partly, cultural superiority [see, for example, 5], and, on the other hand, to a significant extent, the natural prevalence of the harsh and predatory egocentrism of natural consciousness over the altruism of self-consciousness led the Western world to orient its population towards individualism in the form of rational egoism and pragmatism.
The famous English philosopher Hobbes, one of founders of the theory of the public contract still in XVII century has said that "… people by the nature are subject to greed, fear, anger and remaining animal passions, they look for kudos and benefit, they act for the sake of favor and glory, i.e., for the sake of love to themselves, but not to others" [6].
However, Hobbes adds to this thesis that, that the person, as a natural being, is egoistic, striving first and foremost to satisfy his own needs, but he is also reasonable, that is, he is able to understand with his mind, that taking into account the interests of other people often turn out to be beneficial: “"... natural laws (as justice, equality, modesty, mercy and (in General) behavior towards others as we would wish them to behave towards us), by themselves, without the fear of some force, forcing to carry out them, contrary to the natural passions, attracting us to partiality, pride, revenge, etc..." [7].
The idea of Hobbes' the rational egoism, reinforced by Peirce's concept of pragmatism further, is essentially the basis of the ideology of capitalism.
As for pragmatism, it is characterized by its founder - American philosopher Peirce, as follows: “Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings you conceive the object of your conception to have. Then your conception of those effects is the WHOLE of your conception of the object” [8, p. 331-346].
Naturally, Americans, as the heirs of European culture, began to be guided in their activities by the principle of reasonable selfishness, quite reasonably added to it the principle of benefit arising from the concept of pragmatism.
Thanks to it, Americans achieved enormous success in the activity, quickly having created the prospering state and having strengthened it.
But reasonable egoism and pragmatism have the reverse side consisting in hypertrophied desire by all means to save own life and to improve it even to the detriment of all remaining lives as well as - in full "cleaning" of consciousness from morality which hinder the person in similar society to oust by all means the competitors on a "warm" place to become successful.
It's all means fixing of the attention by the similar person only on external beingness in relation to him, that is – the subordination of own liberty of this or that necessity, the action in strict frames of the law, these or those external establishments.
But it leads domination of the state over him.
Really, if the individualist leads for himself war against all, then only the strict frames of the state which he is forced to admit and obey to establishments accepted in the state, can constrain him.
However, the similar regulation of life leads to the loss of the internal liberty, the loss of remorse, sympathy for other people, even to own children. The average American admits that he doesn't make illegal acts only because of fear of punishment, remaining for him doesn't matter.
Therefore, liberty is understood by Americans only as the external, civil liberties within the framework of their interaction with the state, but isn't reflected in internal feelings in any way. And without this there can't be sympathy for all unfortunate, deprived, desire to give help of them. Liberty, which is understood as depth dissatisfaction of consciousness with itself, aspiration to own change, improvement, is alien to Americans who are quite pleased by reached and want to retain only own wellbeing, without sharing with anybody. It means complete abandonment from development of consciousness and, ergo, uselessness, futility of the current western civilization with a line item of development of consciousness, that is - its destruction is inevitable and we won't need to wait for it long.
Thus, individualism within the framework of the consumer ideology, which creates the maximum freedom for the commercial activities and the development of the technologies, is able quickly to provide a comfortable existence for the population of the corresponding country, but at the same time it deprives a person of both internal freedom and freedom as independence from the existing and the incoming. In addition, individualism pushes for the enslavement of the weaker for the sake of preserving what has been achieved, dividing the world into well-fed, who are satisfied with themselves, and hungry, forced to take care of only one daily bread, that thereby prevents to the free development of consciousness of both those and others.
The underlying basis of the actions of the USA together with their allies on saving and consolidation of own system of life is the known statistics according to which the high level of life on Earth during the present period with the available means and resources can be provided only to about one billion from eight billion inhabitants of the planet.  They consider themselves by this billion and aren't going to share with anybody by captured worldly goods. This pragmatic philosophy especially became stronger at them after defeat of the USSR in opposition of two superpowers.
Thus, the predominance of the reasonable selfishness, which appears externally by the dominance of the personality in society, actually turns out to be a substitution of the personality by the individuality with all its selfishness, whereas the personality, in essence, is characterized by a certain level of altruism [9].
Of course, the predominance of individuality over personality has put Western countries technologically and scientifically above the rest of the world, but at the same time, as a rule, brought each personality of their population to a low threshold, bringing the individuality to a high level, the basis of which is the component of animal consciousness, under the auspices of the state.
Any individuality, with its egoism, unlike the personality, is focused on consumption for comfort, and if it dominates, it does not hinder the policies of the ruling elites of Western countries, who have been openly plundering the rest of the world for centuries, taking advantage of their technological superiority. Naturally, all this inevitably manifested itself in the gradual decay of the populations of these countries, depriving them of the ability to develop, which has become especially evident today with the end of the era of capitalism.
This disabled West, whose elites think only of themselves and whose population drowns in consumption, is not only incapable of initiating the search for a way out of the civilization from the crisis, but also unwittingly contributes to its rapid disintegration.
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The Chinese, whom the West has always neglected, and therefore, in the person of the United States and a number of European countries, has made a mistake by transferring their main production facilities to China, and thereby making China a "factory of peace," turned out to be by no means a gift for the West.
They quickly adopted almost all the latest technologies from the United States and Europe and took by now the second place in the world in terms of the capacity of their own economy.
In view of the visible decomposition of the once formidable West, the Chinese reasonably expect to assume a leading position in the world, or at least in half of it, initially as a "Middle Empire," surrounded by obedient satellites working for it under the slogan of "a common destiny for humanity," which in reality means a single electronic concentration camp for humanity should the "Middle Empire" establish itself as hegemonic power, which would represent the triumph of the great yellow race over the other barbarians.
All of this is entirely possible, and in terms of social development, it promises nothing promising due to the purely communal nature of the Chinese community, resembling a vast anthill.
Unlike Western countries, the personality is completely subordinated to the community represented by the state, and the hierarchical structure of this community is based not on the individualistic, as in the West, but on a collectivist form of consciousness. This in itself signifies the virtual inability of this community to develop independently: the bureaucratic, stagnant community of Chinese, obedient to officials, essentially reduces the creative potential of any individual—that is, the individual and his or her dignity—to zero, making technological development possible only through external sources. This manifests itself in the wholesale borrowing or even outright theft of virtually all technologies from the West.
This phenomenon is by no means accidental. It stems, if you look into the depth of the problem, from the natural and geographical location of the main population of China on the banks of two rivers - the Yangtze and Huanghe, in a relatively favorable subtropical climate.
These natural factors could not but cause two consequences for the Chinese community.
The first is that favorable living conditions have created a prevailing opinion among the population that the calmness and light labor are more valuable than the intensive labor, which has inclined most of the Chinese population not to the religiosity entrenched in other countries of the world with the recognition of the best - the otherworldly, to the transition to which every person should prepare, and to the desire for a quite tangible pleasant life here instead of some unknown afterlife.
That is, in the minds of the Chinese, the idea of  the initial harmony of the world around them, which was created quite favorably for them, and which should not be "spoiled" by numerous innovations, but should be settled in it with the greatest benefit and pleasantness, adapting in ways appropriate to the circumstances.
The second consequence follows from such an important solution to the food problem for any population. Favorable natural conditions and the presence of two rivers led the Chinese to the natural choice of growing such a tasty and nutritious crop as rice by creating irrigation facilities in significant areas in the basins of both rivers.
However, the uninterrupted functioning of these rather complex facilities required rhythmic and trouble-free collective maintenance of these structures, the slightest failure in which could lead to crop failure and hunger.
Therefore, for centuries, a kind of training of the Chinese took place against this background of maintaining stability, guaranteeing them life and even prosperity. However, the achieved stability in the food issue, which does not require fundamental changes in order to achieve even greater prosperity, gradually spread to the life of the Chinese with the establishment of a strict hierarchy in it, certain rituals and following traditions.
In other words, the Chinese strove, and continue to strove, to create a comfortable life for themselves by establishing a kind of local harmony and maintaining it with traditions, instructions, and rituals, as if repeating everything that contributed to the achieved convenience.
These instructions, initially based on maintaining the rhythmic and reliable functioning of irrigation systems, were recorded in hieroglyphs, representing specific objects, ideas, and their combinations in stylized block-like drawings. In other words, the Chinese began to focus their writing not on letters in a specific combination, but directly on words in the form of stylized images of objects and phenomena.
This type of block-based writing also developed in ancient Egypt from the practice of constructing and maintaining irrigation structures in the Nile region according to instructions, which were ultimately written in an orderly block form.
The persistence of this type of writing to this day reflects the same Chinese desire to live by instructions in order to preserve the comforts they have achieved, rather than overcoming difficulties through the pursuit of innovation, but without which, truth, development is impossible.
If we look at China from the perspective of its information consumption, we can discover a historically established collectivism within the framework of obedience to superiors and a preference for using what has been achieved, which brings with it an acceptable level of well-being, especially since the fruits of scientific and technological research of other peoples can, if necessary, be utilized in one way or another, refining them with the utmost care.
Therefore, it is not surprising that now China, and its clones - Japan, South Korea, are actually copiers of technologies, invented in other countries, and these Asian countries, seemingly developed, in fact, continue to live to this day or within the framework of patriarchal traditions (Japan, South Korea) or, in fact, according to the laws of the anthill (China), where each person is assigned a place in advance for activity and corresponding obedience.
That is, in these countries, the collectivist consciousness, which includes both self-consciousness and natural (animal) consciousness, largely suppresses individual self-consciousness (personality). It is this reason that underlies the absence in these countries of a massive inventive itch, fundamental scientific and technological discoveries, but there is accuracy, accuracy in copying new technologies invented by other peoples and their rapid reproduction on an industrial scale is relatively inexpensive with some refinement.
The observation of such phenomena, perhaps, is not so obvious, but still indicates that the processes of development of human communities are influenced by both the volume and quality of information flows, and the level of awareness of oneself by the community as an integral entity, on the one hand, as well as by the community which gives in sufficient opportunities for the free development and work for individuals.
In other words, if some particular community does not itself create flows of information sufficient for its own development, or it does not fall into them, and also does not have a level of self-consciousness sufficient to provide at least certain categories of individuals with the opportunity to work for itself, then it is doomed to stagnation and subordination to more developed communities, which was demonstrated by the colonial system that existed more recently
Some bursts in the development of technologies were taking place in China over a thousand years ago, but they were quickly fading away, since China suffered from autarchy, which did not provide an opportunity to expand information flows, and the large population of China was actually in the position of slaves, which meant a low level of both collectivist and individual self-consciousness of the population. All this by no means contributed to technical progress.
As a result, individual inventions, for example, pumps, new agricultural technologies, compass, seismograph, gunpowder, paper, silk-making technology, multi-tiered buildings, rockets, complex irrigation structures, mills, etc. have not spread around the world and have not made the weather in China itself, which for several thousand years was being remained a backward feudal state.
To a large extent, the stagnation of China was influenced by Confucianism, which has established strict rules of behavior and hierarchy of social structures for more than 2000 years, with its social ethics, political ideology, scientific traditions, in contrast to the rest of the world, which was recognized by the Chinese, who were proud of their cultural and structural-social achievements, barbaric, which effectively cut China off from the rest of the world and ultimately led it to stagnation.
The Confucian idea of reward or retribution, referring only to descendants, and not affecting the otherworldly, immortality of the soul, being essentially a primitive way of thinking of the archaic type, naturally, could not contain the contradictoriness both Creation and a human consciousness. Therefore, the Chinese community was more inclined to respect the traditions, than to try to produce something new, that is, to create, which, if it manifested itself, did not receive the development. The Chinese community and now practically only copies any innovations, without asking the problems of obtaining fundamentally new knowledge and new technologies on their own.
That is, China, Japan, South Korea, in their depths, are fragments of traditional Asian communities, which are based on collectivist self-consciousness, which completely suppresses the individual self-consciousness.
Therefore, when analyzing the Chinese state, it can be noted that it has both previously and now suppresses the personality, despite its recent, seemingly rapid technological progress.
In fact, the Chinese, having relatively recently entered the information streams emanating from the US and European countries, began stealing and copying Western technological innovations with all the meticulousness of Asia, establishing the production of these copies in significant quantities and with decent quality, but somewhat cheaper.
As for fundamentally new scientific and technological discoveries and inventions, these countries have not yet produced them. Chinese culture and its Japanese counterparts have also not spread throughout the world.
The explanation for this phenomenon lies in the fact that the collectivist consciousness of the populations of these countries, combined with passive forms of religion such as Buddhism and Taoism, as well as the equally retrograde Confucianism, has not undergone significant changes in its dominance over the individual self-awareness (personality). Every Chinese or Japanese person is always obedient to their superiors and, to avoid trouble, tries not to take initiative, but to strive for the prosperity of their clan or community.
In other words, the desire for stability and order, for the observance of traditions, hinders creative activity within such a local civilization, which consists of discovering the new and the unknown, which could disrupt the established and well-debugged order.
Therefore, despite the turbulent information flows that have overwhelmed these countries, the individual self-consciousness of their populations has failed to develop, and China is not destined to steer either technological or cultural progress without external borrowing.
Similar organization of life in general in China has led to the emergence of numerous managers - officials and various kinds of technical controllers - who monitor the preservation of the established favorable order and established traditions in all spheres of life by analogy with rice growing.
Confucius became the ideologist of such an approach to life dreams based on stability and preservation of traditions, who considered it more preferable not to develop, but to maintain favorable conditions in society based on traditions.
All this points to the overwhelming predominance of the natural component of consciousness in the Chinese consciousness. That is, they, like any animal, strive above all to adapt as comfortably as possible to their surroundings.
Therefore, if China gains a preeminent position in the world by taking advantage of the decay of the West, it will mean nothing more than stagnation based on artificial intelligence and, accordingly, the subsequent rapid collapse of civilization.
***
Nevertheless, if there are two extremes, the decisions of which cannot in any way affect at least the suspension of the collapse of the civilization, then it is worth looking for a structure that harmoniously combines the main positive features of the West and China, respectively, namely: the factor of a creative personality whose activity is not completely suppressed by the state, and mainly the collective nature of the activities of such personalities.
And here, before the eyes of any researcher, there is a space between China and Europe from the Arctic Ocean to the southern borders, stretching from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean, not too successful for a comfortable life in it due to the occurrence of winter cold during each year, autumn and spring slush and relatively short summer heat, not too fertile land, unpredictable temperature changes and other adverse natural factors that complicate life in these conditions.
How can these conditions, on the brink of survival, influence the peoples caught in them—will they harden, develop, create organizations and formations to counter these conditions, or will they resign themselves to them and somehow survive on the brink of hunger and cold, which is essentially what happens in the animal and plant worlds?
Apparently, life in such difficult and unfavorable conditions, which puts people on the brink of survival, must oppress them, depriving the majority of the population of development and independence. But is it just that?
Relatively recently, the renowned philosopher A. A. Zinoviev, comparing Russians and Westerners, draws a conclusion that is not in favor of the Russian person, contrasting the proactive, inventive, business-minded, individualistic Westerner,  who contrasts with the Russian personality with his "weak capacity for self-organization and self-discipline, his tendency toward collectivism, his servile obedience to higher authority, his tendency to view life's blessings as a gift from above, rather than as the result of his own creative efforts, initiative, risk, etc." [10].
However, the characteristics of Russians, noted by A. A. Zinoviev with a negative sign, which are somewhat exaggerated in comparison with the Western type. Nevertheless, for the emergence and structuring of an equilibrium civilization with a focus on collectivist activity, they acquire not just a positive sign, but a decisive significance, moreover, the collectivism of Russian people is also reinforced by their resourcefulness with a creative bias.
Firstly, the rather effective activity of Russians in peasant communities and artels of various types - from fishing to research - in difficult weather and landscape conditions, which allowed them to cover a huge territory from the Urals to Alaska and California, convincingly shows the high self-organization of Russian people, contrary to Zinoviev's opinion.
Secondly, the spread of the Russians to the East was impossible without rationalizing both weapons and special equipment, combined with improved logistics. And this is impossible without a creative approach to this kind of activity.
As for the creativity of Russians in general compared to the Chinese, we can turn to inventions and discoveries made by both, respectively, over the past 200 years.
The achievements of Russians in the field of fundamental scientific discoveries are as follows.
The creation of the theory of the chemical structure of a substance by Alexander Butlerov, who became the founder of organic chemistry.
Nikolai Lunin's discovery of vitamins.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's creation of theoretical astronautics.
Dmitry Ivanovsky's discovery of viruses.
Dmitry Mendeleev's creation of the periodic table of chemical elements.
Ilya Mechnikov's discovery of the cellular immunity.
Evgeny Kunin's discovery of the possibility of genome editing.
Ivan Pavlov's discovery of the physiological basis of the digestion.
Nikolai Zhukovsky's discovery of the fundamentals of aerodynamics.
Vladimir Vernadsky's development of the theory of the biosphere, which became the foundation of the modern ecology.
Pyotr Kapitsa's discovery of the superfluidity of the liquid helium.
N. G. Basov and A. M. Prokhorov's development of a quantum generator (laser).
Discovery of a method for treating glaucoma.
Alena Repkina's creation of methods for recognizing polymorphic viruses.
Zhores Alferov's development of semiconductor heterostructures, revolutionized electronics and optics.
Proof of the previously unsolved Poincar; conjecture that space is not three-dimensional, but contains many more dimensions.
Discovery of a stable two-dimensional carbon crystal (graphene) by A. Geim and K. Novoselov.
Production of ultra-powerful magnetic fields by Alexander Pavlovsky.
The proof that oil and gas can be formed abiogenically (non-biologically). Gubkin University, Moscow.
Development of the most effective Ebola vaccine.
Discovery of a third species of human ancestors – the Denisovans.
Discovery of a new method for detecting gravitational waves.
Launch of the world's first quantum blockchain – a method for storing transaction data as a sequence of information blocks.
The discovery by M. Yemets and A. Drozdov of superconductivity in hydrogen sulfide at high temperatures (-70 degrees Celsius).
Discovery of a ninth planet in the solar system.
Achievements of Russians in the field of fundamental inventions.
Galvanoplasty. Boris Jacobi.
Motor with direct shaft rotation. Boris Jacobi.
Heating radiator. Franz San Galli.
Foam firefighting. Alexandre Laurent.
All-metal submarine. Karl Schilder.
Fixing plaster cast. Carl Giebenthal.
The electric omnibus is a prototype trolleybus. Hippolyte Romanov.
Electric arc welding. N. Benardos and N. Slavyanov.
Oil pipelines. Dmitry Mendeleev.
Gasoline engine with carburetor. Ogneslav Kostovich.
Electric tram. F. Pirotsky.
Caterpillar propulsor. D. Zagryazhsky.
Steam crawler tractors. F. Blinov.
Aerosani. S. Nezhdanovsky.
Anesthesia machine. N. Pirogov.
Centrifuge. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
Monorail. Ivan Elmanov.
Electromagnetic telegraph. Pavel Schilling.
Canning blood. Vasily Sutugin.
Synthetic rubber. S. Lebedev and B. Byzov.
Incandescent lamp with a tungsten filament. Alexander Lodygin.
Reception and transmission of radio signals. Alexander Popov.
A method of electrically transmitting images over a distance. Boris Rozing.
Stereo camera. Ivan Alexandrovsky.
Photocell. Alexander Stoletov.
Universal glue and plastics. Grigory Petrov.
Electromagnetic seismograph. Boris Golitsyn.
Puppet animation. Alexander Shiryaev.
Combine harvester. Andrey Vlasenko.
Airplane. Alexander Mozhaisky.
Movie camera. Iosif Timchenko.
Activated carbon gas mask. Zelinsky and Kummant.
Assault rifle. Vladimir Fedorov.
Cellular communications. Leonid Kupriyanovich.
Organ transplantation. Artificial heart. Vladimir Demikhov.
Heart-lung machine. S. Bryukhonenko and S. Chechulin.
Air ionizer. Alexey Sokolov and Alexander Chizhevsky.
Transosseous compression osteosynthesis. Gavriil Ilizarov.
Automatic digital computer. I. Bruk and B. Rameev.
Radiosonde. Pavel Molchanov.
Hydrogen bomb.
Nuclear power plant. Pyotr Kapitsa.
Nuclear icebreaker.
Thermonuclear reactor. I. Tamm and A. Sakharov.
Internet. 1956. Anatoly Kitov.
Rocket and space technology and practical astronautics. K. Tsiolkovsky and S. Korolev.
Artificial Earth satellite.
Manned spacecraft.
Space food.
Personal computer. 1968.
Artificial Skin. Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics.
High-Power Laser Radiation in Nonlinear Optical Crystals. Institute of Applied Physics.
Sodium-ion batteries.
Trainable quantum neural network.
Chinese achievements in innovation.
Regarding the Chinese achievements in discovering fundamentally new things, the following can be said.
The Chinese have made no fundamental scientific discoveries or great inventions in the last 200 years, and they discovered paper, gunpowder, the compass, and printing, but long before modern times.
True, they have produced some relatively minor innovations in recent times, such as a wind turbine using magnetic levitation and a new rice variety that allows for the cultivation of up to 12 tons of rice per hectare, but no more fundamental inventions have been made in China.
Probably due to a significant lack of creativity, they have focused on improvements, developing existing technologies, namely:
China has begun to independently conduct manned space flights, commercial launches of launch vehicles, and numerous satellites.
China has become a leader in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles.
China has built one of the most extensive high-speed road networks in the world.
Relatively recently, China commissioned FAST, the world's largest radio telescope, used to study galaxies, matter, and other cosmic objects.
China has become one of the world's leading centers for the development and implementation of technologies in e-commerce (online trading), payment systems, artificial intelligence, and mobile technologies (cashless payments through mobile apps).
China is also developing the production of new composite materials.
Chinese researchers are actively pursuing genetic engineering and personalized medicine.
***
The explanation for this factor lies, again, in the depths—in the country's climatic and spatial characteristics.
This comparison of Russia and China in terms of the creativity of the population in recent years quite clearly confirms the views expressed by us above - that the Russian population is more inclined toward creativity, while the Chinese are more inclined toward copying existing technologies and some refinement of them.
But you can ask a tricky question: if Russia has such a high creative potential of the population, then why, with some temporary exceptions, was and is in the role of a secondary power?
The explanation for this factor is laid, again, if you look into the depths - in the climatic-spatial features of the country.
The fact is that Russia's rather underdeveloped and poorly educated ruling elites were only capable of managing such vast territory after its formation largely bureaucratically. They clearly lacked the strength and vision to organize the country's technological and cultural development, but they were perfectly capable of benefiting primarily themselves by selling their existing resources, often depriving others of even their necessities, thereby keeping them in permanent poverty. Initially, these resources included hemp, flax, timber, honey, and fur, but today they have been supplemented by oil, gas, ore, metals, and diamonds.
Naturally, such a narrow-minded, weak, greedy, and selfish elite, at any given time, caring not for the country but only for itself, purely commercially, and for the conquest of ever new territories, effectively ignored the creative potential of the Russian people, stifling it. All new inventions and technologies invented in Russia were typically shelved or ignored. But these epochal inventions were immediately seized upon by savvy Europeans, who implemented them at home and then spread them around the world, often claiming them as their own.
In fact, the only case of Russia's rise to one of the two leading states of the world occurred under I.V. Stalin. And a considerable contribution to this rise of the country was made by his policy towards the governing elite, which he ruthlessly thinned out, putting the negligent in camps and shooting in batches. Fear forced this bureaucracy to work conscientiously without hindering the development of the country. Everyone knows the result. After Stalin's death, everything in Russia gradually returned "to normal," and now it is again only a regional power, trading still mainly resources, and not products of their processing, saturating the same greedy, ungrateful and narrow-minded elite serving the Western, keeping the population still in poverty and not paying enough attention to the development of science, technology and culture.
***
We now note the basic principles of equilibrium ecological civilization.
That is, we briefly denote what is an equilibrium ecological civilization, in which development practically does not occur, but, nevertheless, conscious human activity persists without a complete fall in technology and culture, which is described in more detail in my work "Communes as a result of the collapse of the whole civilization" [11].
Historical practice has clearly shown that all ideas about improving the state and creating a blessed, consistent society in its bosom are absolutely utopian - from the ideal state of Plato to the state with the most representative democracy. In fact, all real and existing states, regardless of form, always parasitize on the body of a people who always dreams of getting rid of them, but is doomed, despite any revolution, to coexist with these parasites. The fact is that without a restraining education in the form of a state, which at the same time ensures the development of society, people, due to the underdevelopment of their consciousness, will simply try to destroy each other for their own benefit, and you can forget about any social development and the development of consciousness when creating such a situation.
Therefore, the idea of   destroying the state means moving from some kind of orderliness to chaos.
Nevertheless, as it is paradoxical, it is possible to find nevertheless an outlet, or a temporary lacuna for establishment in certain degree of fair society, but only in the case of particular restriction of freedom of the individual, more precisely, its self-restrictions, in favor of collective, society, or a civilization without the states, despite all internal contradictions which always are rending society.
To achieve this goal is required establishing such society at which the resultant of all contradictory forces becomes almost equal to zero.
So as struggle, contradictions, collisions are always present at the developing society – it wouldn't be developing without them - so far as process of development should be paused or – it should be expressed extremely weakly. In other words, a civilization, society has to lose possibility of development temporarily.
In such state the civilization can be only as the equilibrium.
Its basic signs consist in the following.
First, it has to be in ecological equilibrium with the nature, i.e. it has to return generally to appropriating economy with preservation and addition of some resource-saving technologies.
Secondly, having refused the complex state management system, the civilization has to return to the simplest form of the public relations in the form of local self-coping cells of various orientation on the kinds of activity, connected among themselves not only horizontally, but also vertically, unlike primitive communities.
Thirdly, not development of technologies and the social relations, but self-sufficiency concerning creation for each person of acceptable biotic conditions and maintaining of functioning of self-coping cells without emergence of a heeling towards their withdrawal from self-government has to be tasks of a civilization. The only "medicine" for this purpose is the most frequent rotation of the chosen operating personnel.
In this relation the difference of this structure from primitive communities consists in more high level of consciousness of members of the self-coping cells, saved up for six millennia of previous civilization development, and, in this regard, emergence of possibility of the conscious decision by all members of cells of arising problems of a civilization within the elementary structures.
Fourthly, the free time of each member of community which can be very the considerable, thanks to preservation of many technologies of reproducing of food and household items, has to be devoted to self-development in that sphere to which he has predilections: art, crafts, fight against diseases, learning process, etc.
Thus, the civilization is as though conserved. Certainly, sooner or later it will go wrong, but time of its existence and quite quiet life of people in it can be much more, than life time of a technological civilization known to us.
However, the option of a complete collapse of civilization is certainly more likely due to the fact that the supranational elite, as well as the ruling elite of the United States, are unlikely to want to give up power over the world.
For an equilibrium ecological civilization, individualism loses its significance, since development in it is excluded. Moreover, individualism destroys its collectivist principles.
Therefore, pressure, aggressiveness, competition and, in part, creativity fade into the background, and patience comes to the fore; inclination to collective equal activity, consisting in the performance of compulsory work by all without withdrawal with frequent rotation, but without refusal to use certain abilities of the cell members; in the absence of an excessive requirement, limited to what is available in conditions of renunciation of private property;
in the ability not to retreat before difficulties in direct communication with nature, consuming its benefits, but without trying to transform it fundamentally; in an effort to selflessly benefit neighbors, using their own skills and abilities, which are constantly developing and strengthened.
This kind of behavior of everyone and the whole cell does not cause contradictions, but, as it were, fits the existence of everyone into the general flow of a modest, but comfortable and prosperous life, which, of course, is not nirvana, but allows everyone to feel quite close to it thanks to the unity of everyone in this flow.
***
If we now turn to the characterization of the community of people that has developed historically over a millennium in the space from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean, the backbone and system-forming nationality of which are Russians, then we can note the correspondence of the psychotype of members of the community occupying this space to the psychotype of personalities that make up the cells of an equilibrium ecological civilization.
Indeed, the development of huge spaces by Russians for several hundred years took place, in contrast, for example, from the development of the spaces of North America by immigrants from Europe, who destroyed the natives almost completely by the most barbaric methods, practically bloodless. Moreover, Russians always began to develop the wild or semi-wild peoples of Siberia and Central Asia, opening schools, building roads and houses, introducing the natives to their own culture.
Thereby, they did show vividly not its rejection off the indigenous peoples of these regions, but provided assistance to these peoples, who now turned out to be neighbors, without destroying their traditions and beliefs.
Such kindheartedness of Russians can be explained by the events of the history of Russians, whose ancestors suffered enough from raids and wars, and they, as heirs, acquired eternal sympathy for the sufferers, a concern about the whole "poor" world, and a feeling of disgust for the rich and rapists. But they acquired not only this, defending their homeland for many hundreds of years, not giving it to offend anyone. The Russians have acquired the property of disobedience to anyone and nothing: the Russians are not inferior and do not give up, despite all the obstacles and difficulties in their path.
The challenges of life in a changeable climate, where fertile soil was rare and crops could quickly perish under the onslaught of the elements, developed in the Russians a sense of mutual support, patience, the ability to quickly find a way out of unfavorable natural conditions, the ability to live modestly, without frills, respect nature, which, one way or another, brings gifts and strive to seek these gifts in the surrounding space, which, unlike the countries of Europe, lay before them beyond the Urals, and which they managed to develop without destroying the natural landscape and in harmony with the indigenous peoples.
The Russians, forced to constantly overcome environmental resistance, could not escape suffering, and therefore they view the world not only as a potentially comfortable place to live, but as a platform for combating difficulties in every possible way.
Understanding that everything is finite, Russians could not help but embrace Christianity, which promised them harmony only after death, but only on the condition of honest and just behavior during life.
All this and the possession of the one seventh part of the world land with all its riches gives to the Russians sense of superiority over all remaining world, which feels in the person of its ruling elite the constant envy to Russia and aspiration to destroy it or, at least, to split its territory; but this superiority expresses not in contempt for the remaining people at all, and in aspiration - somehow to help all "humiliated and offended", to share with them, though so far Russians can't help themselves because of treachery of the local compradors which are destroying the country.
Besides, there is absence in consciousness of simple Russian people of purely individualistic aspirations peculiar to people of the West. The Russian people didn't manage to become impregnated by ideology of the West completely yet. Philosopher A. A. Zinoviev wrote about an individualism phenomenon so: "Identity of the person as independent "I" is the invention of the western civilization. The West has destroyed collectivist bases of human beingness and developed on their place of combining of the people possessing by self-consciousness, i.e. the West has invented the expedient and rational organizations. But natural need didn't die absolutely. She somewhere dozes, and from time to time she sparks in spontaneous forms, in particular, - in grass-roots movements. However, this need cannot generate a steady way of life for a large number of people in conditions of the western society " [10].
Over the individualism at Russians, as a rule, prevails the aspiration to the help to the neighbor who got to trouble, inclination to the general equivalent work that exists as heritage still of the recent communal past in severe conditions of northern country where without support of the neighbor it was difficult to survive as well as then that individualism in the USSR wasn't encouraged.
This and absence in consciousness of the Russian people of the feature to adapt to everything. This noble feature to remain under any circumstances oneself has grown for many hundreds of years at the Russian people because they always beat off from aggressors and, whether it is bad, well, but lived in themself and to anybody tried not to envy.
The Russian person, living many centuries in tight contact with other numerous nationalities, got used to be respectful to other customs and beliefs. He has no feeling of racial or religious superiority and never humiliated and didn't transfer to a slave status of more backward culturally the non-russian population. On the contrary, the Russian people in many respects have helped to development of feeble or small nationalities.
The Russian person values conscientiousness over expediency and pragmatism, subconsciously sensing that this will be rewarded in the next life.
What will become of the world without Russia, which can only gaze upon it in amazement? Ordinary Russians have always saved it in difficult times and asked for nothing in return, retreating after yet another victory to live in their miserable huts and eat their stale bread. It's clear that the world without such a people will perish because such selfless peoples no longer exist.
The simple Russian people have loved Christ because he has rejected the temptations of this world, rejected temptations of this world, urged to help all sufferers, to refuse violence, to love and respect each other. The Russian people on the whole sincerely seek, consciously or not, but to follow Christ's precepts, unlike hypocritical people of the West who evade from recognition that their developed and cultural states humiliate and plunder of the rest of the world for the sake of only own full wellbeing, refuting by own disgraceful affairs the prayers and glorifications to Christ.
The response to a question of the Russian idea can be only one: Russia once again should become as the savior of the world. Presumably that Russia doesn't remain lonely in the anti-individualistic aspirations. Such countries as India can join to it so as the bulk of citizens of India has purely patriarchal consciousness.
What will bring to us the singularity point, becoming closer and closer?
It cannot be predicted precisely, but, most likely, the modern civilization of consumption will disappear, and on its place can appear or only wreckages and the people surviving in a cataclysm who fell into wildness or a new civilization on other principles of existence, which are so close to the Russian person.
In the development of civilization, the individualism, expressed in the most concentrated form in the United States, and the collectivism, in China and Russia, showed their negative and positive sides.
However, to date, despite all the achievements of civilization, now the dominant individualism, which have promoted earlier of development of personal and public consciousness, and with it the whole of civilization, now, at the peak of its development has led our civilization up a blind alley.
The individualism turned into giant monopolies which took away everything in the hands and which try to erase in each individual his human dignity, having left only passion to a profit and consuming. This is deadlock which excludes the output out of it because development of each personal consciousness in consumer society stops by the formed civilization system which, in fact, blocks by all available means any personal free aspirations to other values, than consumer values: society is looped as if and it rotates in the same formed circle.
The famous philosopher of the last decades Alexander Zinoviev wrote about this phenomenon, which he called as the Westernism, so: "The meaning of life of westernoids (citizens of the West) was reduced eventually to two points: 1) to achieve the highest standard of life or at least to retain the reached level; 2) to get the maximum personal liberty, independence from people around as well as personal security. The first aspiration does the person as the pragmatic, the second - pushes him on self-isolation … The problem "To be or to have?" the Westernism decided in favor "to Have" … Coldness and restraint, indifference to destiny of the neighbor, a deficit of "warm-heartedness", loneliness, feeling of uselessness …" is a consequence of superhuman relations [10].
In this case, an unstable technological civilization automatically collapses as a complex system, losing control, like a ship in a stormy ocean.
Therefore, an impersonal capitalist civilization, having achieved significant technological heights but permeated the entire society with its ideas unconstructive for the development of consciousness, becomes unnecessary.
Another thing is which society will replace it and when? If it happens as stated above, then the mostly collectivist consciousness of the Russians, which, unlike the adaptive consciousness of the Chinese, has significant creative potential, may not be superfluous.
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