Future through the prism of fear in contemporary culture: origins and basic theories

The article attempts to examine the origins and basic theories of one of the urgent problems of our time - «fear of the future». The aim of the article is to comprehend various philosophical and socio-cultural interpretations and approaches to understanding «fear of the future» as a contemporary cultural phenomenon. Largely as a consequence of the failure of the «Enlightenment Project» (M. Horkheimer, T. Adorno, J. Gray) the present-day vision of the future in the context of fear is seen as a transition between a collapsing worldview and a new cultural paradigm that has not yet been created, accompanied by a feeling of loss of support and pessimism («crisis consciousness», «anomies»); as a foreboding of approaching technogenic or sociocultural and catastrophe («catastrophism»); shock from rapidly accelerating time and inability for a person to catch up with it («futuroshok»)as an awareness of living in a world of increasing dangers and an attempt to calculate all threats («risks»). Despite the emergence of new methods and techniques for predicting the future on a scientific level through the calculation of risks and threats, humanity remains in a state of uncertainty and insecurity in the face of an impending future.