Transhumanism as a social and cultural project

The article reviews transhumanism as an ideological concept which has the potential for a global social and cultural project. The author describes the history of the term “transhumanism” and the main stages of the formation of the ideological concept representing a human as an intermediate link in evolution and absolutizing the value of scientific, technical and anthropological progress. The study presents the key elements in the development of this direction as well as the public organizations that promote the ideas of transhumanism either in Russia or abroad. It formulates the main positions of the project at the present stage of its development in Russian and Western discourses. Moreover, the author considers the criticism of transhumanism and progressivism as its core element from the standpoint of the most oppositional concept of counter-modernism that is common in religious and conservative groups including the philosophy of Alexander Dugin.