The Impact of Wars and Armed Conflicts on the World Cultural Heritage through the Lens of P. A. Sorokin’s Integral Macrosociological Theory

Abstract

 Wars and military conflicts in the 21st century, as in the past, impact all aspects of social life. However, the social sciences understudy wars and their consequences, largely due to their axiology. Pitirim Sorokin’s Integral Macrosociological Theory, which encompasses the sociocultural transformations of Western civilization over twenty-five centuries of its history, is uniquely suited for studying the historical dynamics of culture and society during wars and military conflicts. The most devastating wars in human history represent conflicts and transitions from one form of culture to another. On a local scale, wars arise when a rapid and radical transformation of supreme values occurs within one part of society, while another either rejects these changes or moves in the opposite direction. These changes have a strong impact on culture, science and education, law and economics. It was demonstrated that periods of large-scale military conflicts coincide with phases of deep sociocultural transformation, when dominant value systems and cultural forms undergo change. Which in turn carries the risk of loss of humanity’s material and spiritual heritage.