THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT AND ITS IDEOLOGY: THE BEGINNING OF THE ERA OF SOCIAL MANIPULATION

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of the influence of the era and the ideology of the Enlightenment on the vital activity of the Western European great culture and the modern world. From a conservative position, within the framework of a civilizational approach, the author considers the regularity of their formation in the process of development of the Western European great culture, and also analyzes the consequences that they had, both for Western European culture and for all mankind as a whole, especially for the scientific sphere of life.
The Age of Enlightenment, according to the author, was associated with active penetration into science, into the educational system of the ideology of the Enlight-enment, and, accordingly, the introduction of various manipulative techniques and practices into them. Naturally, this circumstance had the most negative impact on the quality and objectivity of assessments of various kinds of state-legal, socio-political and historical phenomena and processes, naturally plunging these branches of knowledge into a severe crisis state. The excessive ideologization of modern social sciences and the humanities, including the ideologemes of the Enlightenment (as well as the ideologemes of Marxism and neoliberalism growing from them), make this issue an extremely relevant area of modern sociological research, and overcoming these negative consequences of this era and its ideology is a challenge for modern scientific thought, systems of secondary and higher education, as well as the subsequent successful development of modern Russian society and the state.
The author of the article makes a special emphasis on the analysis of the key provisions of the ideology of the Enlightenment, as well as the results of the propaganda of the ideology of the Enlightenment, which marked the beginning of the era of manipulation and the active implementation of large-scale social manipulative projects in relation to significant human communities, entire cultural regions, its special role in the implementation of the Great French Revolution and the formation anti-systemic mindset.