Ethical Extensions of Ideological Bipolarism: the American Way of Life and Homo Sovieticus

During the second part of the 20th century, bipolarism was not reduced to the formal delimitation of two political-military blocks – the protagonists of the Cold War – but it also entailed the progressive construction of two distinct human types, which animated specific existential paradigms: the American Way of Life and Homo Sovieticus. The American way of life (somewhat extended to the entire Western civilization) has been promoting the ethics of freedom and pluralist democracy, its finality being individual prosperity in a competitive society. The Soviet man type has been structured through the promotion of collectivism, of state paternalism and of the lack of private initiatives, assisting in the consolidation of totalitarianism. After the end of the Cold War, the two ethical-anthropological brands of Western capitalism and Eastern communism have preserved their consistency, despite the axiological and behavioral syntheses brought by globalization.