MOSCOW, June 17. /TASS/. Neo-liberal values create basis for civilizational conflict in the Western European society, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev opines in his article for Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
"Unfortunately, real life shows that glamorously sounding statements about universal values are in many regards only a declaration these days, because, ever since those values were adopted, the Western World embarked on a rapid process of transition to a neo-liberal model of development," Patrushev wrote.
According to the Secretary, "the West deliberately diluted such basic ideas as family, a mother and a father, a man and a woman."
"Artificially imposed norms such as ‘parent one’ and ‘parent two,’ due to their unnatural character from purely biological standpoint, formed basis for civilizational conflict within the Western European society," the official claimed, underscoring that "these norms contradict the fundamental nature of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and other religions and are simply hostile to them."
He stated that "in, social sphere, neoliberalism imposes individualism, egoism, cult of pleasure, unhinged consumption, absolutizes freedom of any expression."
In the meantime, not everyone supports such trends on the West, he asserted, recapping mass protests over same-sex marriages in France in January 2013.
"Considering the level of polarization of the French society during those days, a question arises, whether these values are actually universal or are being artificially imposed by someone," the Secretary questioned.
Values and labels
According to Patrushev, basic values as ideal goals and qualities are largely the same among the majority of peoples. Meanwhile, values that dominate foreign culture and that are uncharacteristic for the Russian society are usually marked as "Western values." Patrushev also recalled such language as "universal values," widely used during the years of Perestroika and early years of the Russian Federation.
"Without denying the existence of values, common for the humanity, I would underscore that, during that period, implementation of the concept of ‘universal values,’ on the one hand, made the previously closed Western world closer and easier to understand, but, on the other hand, made it possible to propagate social and moral basics, which not always corresponded with domestic traditional values," Patrushev wrote.
According to the Secretary , the "’Western values, which are being ever more often interpreted as universal, due to being cemented in the official documents of the European Union, have become a clich·".
In the meantime, the Secretary reminded that "some European values, such as the 8-hour working day, equality between men and women, and voting rights for women, appeared only thanks to the events of 1917 in Russia.".