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Urgency of the research. One of the main problem of modern civilization is the lack of understanding between people. Excessive orientation on pragmatic values ​​in modern society has led to the devaluation of the primordial principles of human nature, the forgetting of the eternal principles of humanism and antropocentrism. Therefore, the person was trapped of his own self-esteem, arrogance, inability to take into account the opinion of members of the immediate environment, which led to the emergence of a large number of violent conflicts. The existence of large-scale peace and security organizations in the global world, the signing of international agreements and memoranda are not able to make up for the shortage of human spirituality, solidarity and peace. As a result, more and more scientists are trying to prove that achieving worldwide peace requires a deeper understanding of it - not just as absence of homicide, but also as a set of indicators such as social justice, happiness index, interpersonal trust, and high development of education and health care.

Target setting. The presence of such an ambitious project as a "knowledge society" has significantly added optimism to anyone who believes that the desire for knowledge can displace violence on a local and global scale, ultimately convincing humanity of the expediency of giving up violence, even if a person pursues good intentions. Other part of scientists, skeptics, unanimously, argue that violence cannot be defeated, since it accompanied the development of human civilization on the every period of evolution. In their view, the idea of eternal peace is nothing more than a utopia that cannot be embodied in the harsh reality of everyday life. Accordingly, its usefulness is only that philosophers can dream of it. Therefore, this paper will attempt to answer this question - is it realistic to reach an understanding in the modern world in which conflict is already perceived as a certain norm, and if so what is required?

Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. The problem of the positive impact of education on society in conflict is within the scientific interests of scholars in the field of social philosophy, philosophy of education, the most prominent of which are K. McLean, M. Zembilas and S. Beckerman thanks to their collective monograph "Education for Peace in Conflict and Post-Conflict" Societies: Comparative Perspectives ”(2009). No less thorough in this context is the content of the doctoral thesis IF. Pacheco "Conflict, Post-Conflict, and the Functions of the University: Lessons from Colombia and Other Armed Conflicts" (2014), as well as the content of J. Lederak's scholarly work "Peacebuilding. Sustainable reconciliation in divided societies ”(2019).

The research objective. The key objective of this paper is to formulate the author's vision of the strategy of development of education in conflict, and to prove that the project of a knowledge society, with its advantages and disadvantages, can be implemented not only to the detriment of mankind, but as a first step in building a society of understanding. It is impossible to achieve such kind of society, it can only be built by our own efforts.

The statement of basic material. Peacebuilding in society is impossible without generating and implementing an effective higher education development strategy. Education representing the ideological and value principles of humanism, democracy, tolerance, dialogue is a powerful tool in the consolidation of a conflict society, its gradual transformation into a society of understanding. In this regard, the role of the teacher in peacebuilding cannot be overestimated. Unfortunately, most politicians prefer to finance short-term projects where certain material benefit can be obtained in a minimum period of time. This is probably one of the major strategic mistakes that can cause extremely negative consequences. In general terms, peace can be compared with a kind of humanitarian deposit that is long-term oriented. Its main dividend is the stable development of a society in which the confidence of individual citizens in each other acts as a metaphorical interest rate. That is, the greater the social trust within society, the greater the likelihood that war will not affect the territorial integrity of a particular state. The level of trust implies the support of state institutions of power from the side of ordinary citizens, as well as interpersonal trust in matters of religion, ethnic and value-based differences. Universities should increase the level of trust within society, thus advocating as a means of conflict prevention acording to optimistic scenario or social rehabilitation acording to pesimictic scenario. However, public investment in its development should be steadily increased beside grant financial infusions.

Conclusions. In the framework of this paper, it was proved that higher education is able to reduce the number of conflicts in the global and local dimensions, and in the future – to bring humanity closer to the taboo of violence as well. It is up to teachers to do this because they can clearly demonstrate in the educational process how important respect for each person's rights, views and values, as well as the rejection of bigotry and radicalism is important. Universities should prepare not just social characters who have specific practical skills, but first and foremost, spiritually evolved individuals who will fully realize that human life is the highest value, regardless of human skin color, gender or ideological considerations.

Key words: civilization, conflict, education, knowledge society, peacebuilding, understanding.

 

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