The crisis lies in the loss of the ability to establish a unified ethics framework, after individualism has overtaken all forms of social solidarity. This dilemma is directly reflected in political, social, and cultural crises, where fixed reference points have disappeared, replaced by relativist notions that reduce ethics to variables susceptible to change based on the market and power dynamics.
Ethics in the West has shifted from being a standard to which one adheres, to a tool employed to justify interests and reproduce dominance. Consequently, 'truth' is now contingent on the strongest, and 'value' reflects shifting moods rather than a universal constant. Zygmunt Bauman encapsulated this condition with the term 'liquid modernity,' where absolutes dissolve, and values turn into flexible entities unable to withstand the pressures of the market and consumption.
The relativism that was promoted under the banner of intellectual freedom and ethics modernity ultimately led to the confinement of the individual within an isolated circle of individualism, rather than achieving true liberation. It resulted in the loss of the unifying meaning that connects one's existence to higher purposes. The collapse of grand references in the West has led to an 'age of subjectivism,' where every individual becomes their own ethics reference in the absence of shared standards. The result is that the West now faces a value vacuum, manifesting in various forms: the decline of family ties, the erosion of social solidarity, the rise of aggressive tendencies, and the transformation of the human being into a commodity within the mechanism of the globalized market.
However, the very void that reveals the pressing need to restore the 'ethics constant' as the foundation of humanity, not as a constraint on individual freedom. The entirety of historical experience has shown that societies do not thrive on absolute relativism, but rather on a system of deep-rooted values that give human existence meaning beyond the fleeting moment. In this context, the responsibility of Islamic thought becomes apparent, offering a universal alternative, an alternative that should not merely imitate the West's relativism, nor close itself off in rigid stagnation, but instead revive the Qur'anic vision that establishes ethics as the stable root of freedom, contrary to the perception held by some that ethics is the opposite of freedom. It is clear that the rebirth of societies begins with a ethics transformation that forms the deep structure of the human being.
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