Диалог о культуре в миротворческих практиках научной и гражданской дипломатии

Culture, a powerful generator of creativity, continually surprises with its inexhaustible potential to expand the boundaries of the social world, opening up new forms of conversation about the most urgent issues. This becomes especially significant in an era of civilizational upheavals and unpredictable changes. In a rapidly changing social reality, the importance of unshakable values, which allow people to stay on track and maintain fundamental humanistic guidelines, is becoming increasingly important. Meanwhile, modern challenges often also give rise to ideological confusion, an “escape from reality”, and people's distancing f rom painful reflection on what is changing around them and how. Hasty decisions prevail over the search for answers to questions about the meaning and purpose of culture, which in turn further disrupts the cultural order and fuels uncertainty. Turning to n ew practices of cultural dialogue based on the communicative mechanisms of scientific and civil diplomacy could be very helpful in resolving this contradiction. One such practice was the launch of direct conversations with leading contemporary intellectual s about the fateful upheavals of civilization. The article reveals the key themes of these conversations, which shed light on how to understand culture and what the world should be like in the 21st century.