The end of modernity: the dark ages are ahead?

The article presents popular in modern social science conception of the New Middle Ages, coming from the works of Oswald Spengler, Nikolay Berdyaev, Pitirim Sorokin, Karl Jaspers, Roberto Vacca, Ulrich Beck, Jane Jacobs, Umberto Eco. We consider some features and phenomena of our time, which have reason to be partially covered by a «New Middle Ages». These trends are illustrated in the example of cities and urban life, the search for national identity, contemporary art, gender relations and the transformation of childhood. However, the statement of the crisis of modern society is not enough for understanding the nature of social processes. It is necessary to raise the question of their causes and driving forces, not dwelling on the description of the mass of facts. Vulnerability to criticize the concepts of Umberto Eco, Jane Jacobs and other listed authors is seen in the recent refusal by the dialectical materialist conception of history. The article states the systemic nature of the ongoing social transformation, indicated the relationship crisis. The refinement of the «new» should be put on the author's view, fundamentally different, in relation to the obsolete «medieval», the basis of these phenomena in their external similarity. The increasingly frequent phenomenon of modern analogues in the Middle Ages is the result of a fundamental transformation of the capitalist world-system and, perhaps, suggest the emergence of service-rental method of production. In the past, the age of which is now held analogy, replaced the New Time. The optimistic scenario of history today involves the use of the social potential of humanity.