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Modern in the context of the discourse on secularization

Модерн в контексті дискурсу про секуляризацію

Abstract. The article considers the problem of the ratio between modernity and secularization. It is proved that the discourse on secularization is the most appropriate strategy for modern self-understanding. The discourse itself is not homogeneous and developed from the pole of the classical theory of secularization, which sees the world-historical process in it, through justification in a single model of the modernization-secularization-rationalization scheme, which is universal in nature, to abandon this belief and justify the understanding of modern society as a post-secular, with the need to consider religious ethos. This approach allows us to consider modernity as a unique social reality with a characteristic type of rationality and a set of behavioral strategies, which was formed as a result of the transformation (secularization) of religious social reality, the center of which was a Christian myth. Accordingly, modernization becomes the result of secularization, and not vice versa, as the creators of the single model assumed.

The thematization in the discourse on the secularization of a new type of society, which J. Habermas called post-secular, allows us to talk about a crisis of principles constituting the modernity itself. Belief in building an irreligious society was not destined to be translated into reality, and secular reason is now forced to reckon with other types of rationality and take them into account, including in public space. This situation suggests that we are witnessing the birth of a new form of social reality.

Keywords: modernity, secularization, modernization, social reality, post-secular society.