What do you understand by the term culture? “.What is culture? Modern interpretations of the concept of "culture"

Origin and meaning of the term "culture"

The concept of "culture" (derived from the Latin culture - to cultivate, cultivate the soil, engage in farming) was born in Ancient Rome as the opposite meaning of the concept of "nature" - nature. Consequently, initially the term "culture" was used in relation to human activity aimed at transforming the "natural", "natural", namely the cultivation and cultivation of the land, caring for animals, and farming.

Over time, the word "culture" began to absorb an ever wider range of objects, phenomena, actions, the common property of which was their human-made origin. Accordingly, the person himself, to the extent that he was considered as the creator of himself, fell into the sphere of culture, and it acquired the meaning of “education”, “upbringing”, i.e. cultivation, cultivation, caring for a person, during which something is supplemented and corrects in human nature.

Linguists note that until the 17th century the term "culture" had no independent use. It was used only in phrases, meaning improvement, improvement of what it was combined with: "culture juries" - - development of rules of conduct, "culture lingual" - improvement of the language, etc.

A clearer content of the term "culture" was first given by the German thinker S. Pufendorf. He used this term in relation to the "artificial man", brought up in society, as opposed to the "natural" man, uneducated.

In the 18th century, continuing the ancient tradition, the ideologists of education, using the term "culture", expressed the idea of ​​culture as a sphere of development of "humanity", "human nature", "the human principle in man" as opposed to the natural, elemental, animal. Thus, in the era of enlightenment, culture was interpreted as a means of elevating a person, improving the spiritual life and morality of people, and correcting the vices of society. Here culture acquires the meaning of "true humanity", "truly human being". Only that which expresses the dignity of man and contributes to his development belongs to it. Consequently, not every result of the activity of the human race deserves to be called a heritage of culture. But, on the other hand, culture was also considered as a really existing and historically changing way of life of people, the specificity of which is due to the achieved level of human reason, science, art, upbringing, education. From this point of view, not only the positive achievements of mankind, but also the negative manifestations of human activity (religious strife, wars, crime, etc.) should be recognized as cultural phenomena.

In the future, an expanded interpretation of culture was entrenched: culture embraces everything that distinguishes life human society from the life of nature, all aspects of human existence. It includes not only the result of human spiritual activity, but also a change in the surrounding nature, the creation built environment habitation, technology, forms of social relations, social institutions, etc. In a narrow sense, culture is the level of relations that have developed in a team, those norms of behavior that are sanctified by tradition are obligatory for representatives this ethnic group and various social groups. Culture here acts as a form of transmission of social experience through the development by each generation of not only objective world culture, skills and techniques of technological attitude to nature, but also cultural values, patterns of behavior. Moreover, this role of culture regulating social experience is such that it forms stable artistic and cognitive canons, ideas about the beautiful and the ugly, good and evil, attitudes towards nature and society, what is and what should be, etc.

In yet another sense, the concept of culture reveals the essence of human existence as the realization of creativity and freedom. Of course, here it is necessary to distinguish, firstly, freedom as an integral spiritual potential of a person, and, secondly, awareness and conscious social realization of freedom. Without the first, culture simply cannot appear, but the second is achieved only at relatively late stages of its development. Further, when we talk about culture, we mean not some separate creative act of a person, but creativity as a universal relation of a person to the world. In this understanding, culture means the relationship of a person to the reality around him, through which a person creates the world and himself. Thus, each culture becomes a way of creative self-realization of a person. Therefore, the comprehension of other cultures enriches us not only with new knowledge, but also with new creative experience.

In our time, the word "culture" is one of the most used both in everyday language and in a variety of scientific definitions, which speaks both of the ambiguity of the term and the diversity of the very phenomenon of culture. In the 60s of our century, there were 237 interpretations of "culture", today there are about 400 different scientific definitions of this phenomenon.

From a substantive point of view, culture is understood as a set of biologically non-inherited, artificially created by people material objects, ideas of images, technologies for their manufacture and operation, stable ties between people and ways to regulate them based on the evaluation criteria available in society . For each society, all these components in their specific historical form form its socio-cultural complex, or the culture of the given society.

In everyday life, the term culture is used either to denote the optimal functioning social institutions(“culture of life”, “culture of work”, “political culture”, etc.), or is associated with politeness and education (“culture of behavior”, “culture of thinking”, “culture of feelings”, etc.). In journalistic clichés (“science and culture”, “culture and economy”, “news cultural life”), the realm of culture is limited to the realm of art and morality. Thus, by ordinary consciousness, culture is perceived as a sum of values, a certain historically established standard of perfection, to which society should strive.

The problem of correlation between culture and civilization

The concepts of culture and civilization are closely related, often do not differ, are perceived as identical. They do have a lot in common, however, there are differences between them.

In time, the word "civilization" arose much later than the word "culture", only in the 18th century. Initially, it emphasized the superiority of developed European countries over other peoples. In this sense, civilization was opposed to savagery and barbarism, meaning the highest stage in the development of mankind. The most stable use and widespread use of the concept of civilization was in France, where it was used in two senses. The first meant a highly developed society based on the principles of reason, justice and religious tolerance. The second meaning was closely connected with the concept of culture and meant a combination of certain qualities of a person: an outstanding mind, education, sophistication of manners, politeness.

The whole variety of points of view on the relationship between culture and civilization ultimately comes down to three main ones.

1. The concepts of civilization and culture act as synonyms; there are no significant differences between them. As an example, one can point to the concept of the famous English historian A. Toynbee, who considers civilization as a certain stage of culture, emphasizing its spiritual aspect and considering religion the main and defining element.

2. There are both similarities and important differences between culture and civilization. A similar view, in particular, was held by the French historian F. Braudel, a representative of the Annales school, who considered civilization to be the basis of culture. The focus of his attention is civilization, viewed through the prism of spiritual phenomena, the main of which he considers mentality.

3. Culture and civilization are opposed to each other. Most a prime example in this regard, the theory of the German philosopher O. Spengler, presented by him in the book "The Decline of Europe", can serve. According to this theory, civilization is a dying, perishing and decaying culture. Civilization follows culture, writes Spengler, “as what has become after becoming, like death after life, like immobility after development, like mental old age and the petrified city after the village and sincere childhood.” Culture, in his opinion, is a living and growing organism, it gives scope for the development of art and literature, for the creative flourishing of a unique personality and individuality. There is no place for artistic creativity in civilization, it is dominated by technology and soulless intellect, it levels people, turning them into faceless creatures.

Spengler's book was a huge success. However, the concept itself, based on the complete opposite and incompatibility of culture and civilization, caused quite reasonable and convincing objections. The idea of ​​the inevitable and imminent death of the West was subjected to particular criticism.

The first two approaches to understanding the relationship between culture and civilization seem to be more acceptable. Indeed, there is much in common between these phenomena, they are inextricably linked, mutually intertwined and pass into each other. One of the first to notice german romantics who noted that culture "sprouts" civilization, and civilization passes into culture. Therefore, in Everyday life we have good reason not to distinguish too much between them. The same reasons have those scientists who look at civilization through the prism of culture or vice versa. At the same time, some of them, as it were, dissolve culture in civilization, while others do the opposite, giving preference to culture.

However, with more rigorous approach culture and civilization can be considered as relatively independent phenomena, since in each of them it is possible to single out specific elements, traits and features that belong only to it. In particular, language and knowledge are more correctly attributed to culture, and writing and science to civilization. This gives grounds for the existence of two separate scientific disciplines - cultural studies and civilization studies, each of which has its own subject of study. This approach is becoming predominant in modern literature.

Although many elements of culture and civilization arose already at the stage of savagery and barbarism, their formation as special phenomena ended at different times. Culture was formed earlier, it is older than the civilization that replaced the era of barbarism. Civilization arose as a result of the Neolithic revolution, thanks to which profound changes occurred in the evolution of mankind. The main one was the transition from an appropriating economy (gathering and hunting) to a producing technology (agriculture and animal husbandry).

The evolution of civilization allows us to distinguish two main stages in it: 1) agrarian-traditional, characteristic of slave-owning and feudal societies; 2) industrial, associated with capitalism. In modern literature, the third stage of civilization, the post-industrial one, is being actively explored. It originated in the second half of the 20th century. influenced by the scientific and technological revolution and high technology, bringing to life a post-industrial information society.

There are also other classifications. So, depending on the scale of consideration, civilization can be global, that is, world, continental (for example, European), national (French), regional (North African). Some orientalists believe that civilization initially broke up into two "trees" - the West and the East, which have their own unique ways of development. Of these, the eastern path is recognized as natural and normal, while the western one is considered as a mutation and deviation. Other scientists also propose to divide all civilizations into two types, but give them a different interpretation: one civilization - technogenic - is declared characteristic of the West, and the second - psychogenic - inherent in Eastern countries, an example of which can be the Indian civilization of the past. Finally, sometimes material culture is referred to as civilization, and by culture proper, they mean spiritual.

Despite the existing diversity of points of view on civilization, they coincide with respect to many of its essential features. The following are considered the most important signs and features of civilization: the formation of a state; the emergence of writing; separation of agriculture from handicraft; the stratification of society into classes; emergence of cities. At the same time, the presence of the first two signs is usually recognized as mandatory, and the need for the rest is often called into question.

Technology plays a special role in civilization, with the help of which society establishes relationships with nature. Civilization is characterized by a stable organization, inertia, order, discipline, etc. It strives for generality and universality, which is especially evident in the modern period, when a single universal civilization is being created on the basis of the latest information technologies before our eyes.

As for culture, national identity and originality, originality and uniqueness, variability and novelty, dissatisfaction with oneself, critical and creativity, self-worth, striving for a lofty ideal, etc.

The relative independence of culture and civilization and, at the same time, their close interaction can lead to imbalance and contradiction between them. The predominance of civilization and the reduction of culture to it would mean the stagnation of social development, the weakening and extinction of its spiritual and moral principles. It is this situation that is observed in modern society, when civilization is increasingly dominating culture.

The concept of culture originally in ancient Rome meant agriculture. Mark Porcius Cato the Elder back in the 2nd century BC. wrote a treatise on agriculture "De Agri Cultura". As an independent term, culture began to be used in the 17th century and meant “education” and “education”. In everyday life, culture has retained this meaning.

Culture - it is a set of various manifestations of human activity, including self-expression, self-knowledge, accumulation of skills and abilities. Simply put, culture is everything that is created by man, that is, it is not nature. Culture as a kind of activity always has a result. Depending on the nature of this result (applies to material values or spiritual), culture is divided into material and spiritual.

material culture.

material culture is everything that has to do with material world and serves to meet the material needs of a person or society. Essential elements:

• items(or things) is what is primarily meant by material culture(shovels and Cell phones, roads and buildings, food and clothing);
• technologies- methods and means of using objects in order to create something else with their help;
• technical culture - a set of practical skills, abilities and abilities of a person, as well as experience gained over generations (an example is a borscht recipe passed down from generation to generation from mother to daughter).

Spiritual culture.

spiritual culture- this is a type of activity associated with feelings, emotions, as well as with intellect. Essential elements:

• spiritual values(the main element in spiritual culture, as it serves as a standard, ideal, role model);
• spiritual activity(art, science, religion);
• spiritual needs;
• spiritual consumption(consumption of spiritual goods).

Types of culture.

Types of culture numerous and varied. For example, according to the nature of the attitude towards religion, culture is secular or religious, according to its distribution in the world - national or world, according to its geographical nature - Eastern, Western, Russian, British, Mediterranean, American, etc., according to the degree of urbanization - urban, rural , rustic, as well as - traditional, industrial, postmodern, specialized, medieval, antique, primitive, etc.

All these types can be summarized in three main forms of culture.

Forms of culture.

1. High culture (elite). fine art high level creating cultural canons. It is non-commercial in nature and requires intellectual decryption. Example: classical music and literature.
2. Mass culture(pop culture). Culture consumed by the masses, with low level difficulties. It is commercial in nature and aimed at entertaining a wide audience. Some consider it a means to control the masses, while others believe that the masses themselves created it.
3. Folk culture. Culture of a non-commercial nature, the authors of which, as a rule, are not known: folklore, fairy tales, myths, songs, etc.

It should be borne in mind that the components of all these three forms constantly penetrate into each other, interact and complement each other. Ensemble " Golden ring"- an example of both mass and folk culture.

The prerequisites, on the basis of which the first theoretical ideas about culture appeared, arose as early as early stages the existence of civilization and entrenched in the mythological picture of the world. Already in antiquity, people guessed that they were somehow different from animals, that there was a clear line separating the natural world from human world. Homer and Hesiod - famous historians and systematizers ancient myths- saw this line in morality. It was morality that was originally understood as the main human quality which distinguishes humans from animals. Later this difference will be called "culture".

The very same word "culture" of Latin origin, it appeared in the era of Roman antiquity. This word comes from the verb "colere", which meant "cultivation", "processing", "care". In this sense, it was used by the Roman politician Mark Porcius Cato (234-149 BC), who wrote the treatise De agri cultura. And today we talk about the cultivation of plant varieties, for example, we use the term "potato culture", and among the farmer's assistants there are machines called "cultivators".

However, the starting point in the formation scientific ideas the treatise of the Roman orator and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) “Tusculan Conversations” is considered to be about culture. In this essay, written in 45 BC. e., Cicero used the agronomic term "culture" metaphorically, i.e. in another figuratively. Emphasizing the difference between human life activity and biological forms of life, he proposed to designate with this word everything created by man, in contrast to the world created by nature. Thus, the concept of "culture" began to be opposed to another Latin concept - "nature" (nature). They began to name all the objects of human activity and the qualities of a person capable of creating them. Since then, the world of culture has been perceived not as a consequence of the action of natural forces, but as a result of the activity of the people themselves, aimed at processing and transforming what was created directly by nature.

The concept of "culture" is interpreted in domestic and foreign scientific literature ambiguously. Knowledge options use of this concept in history.

• 1. More than 2 thousand years have passed since latin word"colere" was used to refer to the cultivation of the soil, land. But the memory of this is still preserved in the language in numerous agricultural terms - agriculture, potato culture, cultivated pastures, etc.
• 2. Already in the I century. BC e. Cicero applied this concept to a person, after which culture began to be understood as the upbringing and education of a person, an ideal citizen. It was assumed that the signs cultured person- this is a voluntary restriction of one's desires, spontaneous actions and bad inclinations. Therefore, the term "culture" then denoted the intellectual, spiritual, aesthetic development of man and society, emphasizing its specificity, highlighting the world created by man from the world of nature.
• 3. In everyday life, we usually put approval into the word "culture", understanding this word as a certain ideal or ideal state with which we compare the evaluated facts or phenomena. Therefore, we often talk about professional culture, about the culture of performance of a certain thing. From the same positions we evaluate the behavior of people. Therefore, it has become customary to hear about a cultured or uncultured person, although in fact most often we mean educated or ill-educated, from our point of view, people. Entire societies are sometimes evaluated in the same way, if they are based on law, order, gentleness of morals, as opposed to the state of barbarism.
• 4. Do not forget that in ordinary consciousness the concept of "culture" is mainly associated with works of literature and art. Therefore, this term refers to the forms and products of intellectual and, above all, artistic activity.
• 5. Finally, we use the word "culture" when we talk about different nations in one or another historical eras, we point out the specifics of the mode of existence or lifestyle of a society, group of people or a certain historical period. Therefore, very often you can find phrases - culture ancient egypt, Renaissance culture, Russian culture, etc.

The ambiguity of the concept of "culture", as well as its various interpretations in various cultural theories and concepts, greatly limit the ability to give its single and clear definition. This led to the numerous definitions of culture, the number of which continues to grow steadily. Thus, in 1952, the American culturologists A. Kroeber and K. Klakhohn for the first time systematized the definitions of culture known to them, counting 164 of them. the number of definitions reached 300, in the 1990s - more than 500. At present, the number of definitions of culture has probably exceeded 1000. And this is not surprising, because everything created by man, the entire human world, is called culture.

Of course, it is impossible to list all known definitions of culture, and it is not necessary, but they can be classified, highlighting several important groups.

In modern domestic cultural studies, it is customary to distinguish three approaches to the definition of culture - anthropological, sociological and philosophical.

The essence of the anthropological approach is to recognize the inherent value of the culture of each people, which underlies the way of life as individual person as well as entire societies. This means that culture is a way of existence of mankind in the form of numerous local cultures. This approach puts an equal sign between the culture and history of the whole society.

The sociological approach considers culture as a factor in the formation and organization of society. The organizing principle is the value system of each society. Cultural values are created by society itself, but then they also determine the development of this society. Man begins to dominate what he himself has created.

The philosophical approach seeks to identify patterns in the life of society, to establish the causes of the origin and features of the development of culture. In line with this approach, not just a description or enumeration of cultural phenomena is given, but an attempt is made to penetrate into their essence. As a rule, the essence of culture is seen in the conscious activity of transforming the surrounding world to meet human needs.

However, it is clear that each of these approaches in turn offers the most different variants definitions of the concept of "culture". Therefore, a more detailed classification was developed, which is based on the very first analysis of the definitions of culture, done by A. Kroeber and K. Klakhon. They divided all definitions of culture into six main types, some of which in turn were divided into subgroups.

In the first group, they included descriptive definitions that emphasized the enumeration of everything that encompasses the concept of culture. The founder of this type of definitions, E. Tylor, argues that culture is a collection of knowledge, beliefs, art, morality, laws, customs, and some other abilities and habits acquired by a person as a member of society.

The second group consisted of historical definitions that emphasize the processes of social inheritance and tradition. They emphasize that culture is a product of the history of society and develops through the transfer of acquired experience from generation to generation. These definitions are based on ideas about the stability and immutability of social experience, losing sight of the constant emergence of innovations. An example of such definitions is the definition given by the linguist E. Sapir, for whom culture is a socially inherited complex of modes of activity and beliefs that make up the fabric of our life.

The third group combines normative definitions, stating that the content of culture is the norms and rules governing the life of society. These definitions can be divided into two subgroups. In the first subgroup, the definitions are guided by the idea of ​​a way of life. A similar definition was given by the anthropologist K. Whisler, who considered culture as a way of life followed by a community or a tribe. The definitions of the second subgroup draw attention to the ideals and values ​​of society, these are value definitions. An example is the definition of the sociologist W. Thomas, for whom culture is the material and social values ​​of any group of people (institutions, customs, attitudes, behavioral responses).

The fourth group included psychological definitions, emphasizing the connection of culture with the psychology of human behavior and seeing in it socially determined features of the human psyche. Emphasis is placed on the process of human adaptation to environment to his living conditions. Such a definition was given by sociologists W. Sumner and A. Keller, for whom culture is a set of ways a person adapts to living conditions, which is provided through a combination of techniques such as variation, selection and inheritance.

Attention is drawn to the process of human learning, i.e. receiving by a person necessary knowledge and skills that he acquires in the process of life, and does not inherit genetically. An example is the definition of the anthropologist R. Benedict. For her, culture is a sociological designation for learned behavior, i.e. behavior that is not given to a person from birth, is not predetermined in his germ cells, like wasps or social ants, but must be acquired anew by each new generation through training.

A number of researchers talk about the formation of human habits. So, for the sociologist K. Young, culture is a form of habitual behavior common to a group, community or society and consisting of material and non-material elements.

The fifth group consisted of structural definitions of culture, placing emphasis on the structural organization of culture. This is the definition of the anthropologist R. Linton: culture is the organized repetitive reactions of members of society; a combination of learned behavior and behavioral outcomes, the components of which are shared and inherited by members of a given society.

The last, sixth, group includes genetic definitions that consider culture from the point of view of its origin. These definitions can also be divided into four subgroups.

The first subgroup of definitions proceeds from the fact that culture is the products of human activity, the world of artificial things and phenomena, opposing natural world nature. Such definitions can be called anthropological. An example is the definition of P. Sorokin: culture is the totality of everything that is created or modified by the conscious or unconscious activity of two or more individuals interacting with each other or influencing each other's behavior.

The definitions of the second subgroup reduce culture to the totality and production of ideas, other products of the spiritual life of society, which accumulate in social memory. They can be called ideological definitions. An example is the definition of the sociologist G. Becker, for whom culture is a relatively permanent non-material content transmitted in society through the processes of socialization.

In the third subgroup of genetic definitions, the emphasis is on symbolic human activity. In this case, culture is considered either a system of signs used by society (semiotic definitions), or a set of symbols (symbolic definitions), or a set of texts that are interpreted and comprehended by people (hermeneutical definitions). Thus, the culturologist L. White called culture a name for a special class of phenomena, namely: such things and phenomena that depend on the implementation mental capacity, specific to the human race, which we call symbolization.

The last, fourth, subgroup consists of a kind of negative definitions, representing culture as something that comes from non-culture. An example is the definition of the philosopher and scientist W. Ostwald, for whom culture is what distinguishes man from animals.

Almost half a century has passed since the work of Kroeber and Kluckhohn. Since then cultural studies have gone far ahead. But the work done by these scientists still has not lost its significance. That's why contemporary authors, classifying definitions of culture, as a rule, only expand the list. Considering modern research, you can add two more definition groups to it.

Sociological definitions understand culture as a factor of organization public life, as a set of ideas, principles and social institutions that ensure the collective activity of people. This type of definition focuses not on the results of culture, but on the process in which a person and society satisfy their needs. Such definitions are very popular in our country. They are given in line with the activity approach. These definitions can be divided into two groups: the first focuses on social activities people, and the second - on the development and self-improvement of man.

An example of the first approach is the definitions of E.S. Markaryan, M.S. Kagan, V.E. Davidovich, Yu.A. Zhdanova: culture is a system of non-biologically developed (that is, not inherited and not incorporated in the genetic mechanism of heredity) means of human activity, thanks to which the functioning and development of people's social life takes place. This definition captures the need for upbringing and education of a person, as well as his life in society, within which he can only exist and satisfy his needs as part of social needs.

The second approach is related to VM names. Mezhuev and N.S. Zlobina. They define culture as historically active creative activity person, the development of the person himself as a subject of activity, the transformation of wealth human history into the inner wealth of man, the production of man himself in all the diversity and versatility of his social relations.

Thus, in all the considered definitions there is a rational kernel, each pointing to some more or less essential features of culture. At the same time, one can also point out the shortcomings of each definition, its fundamental incompleteness. As a rule, these definitions cannot be called mutually exclusive, but a simple summation of them will not give any positive result.

However, there are a number of the most important characteristics cultures with which all authors would obviously agree. Without a doubt,

culture is an essential characteristic of a person, something that distinguishes him from animals that adapt to the environment, and do not purposefully change it, like a person.

There is also no doubt that as a result of this transformation an artificial world is formed, an essential part of which are ideas, values ​​and symbols. He opposes the natural world.

And finally, culture is not inherited biologically, but is acquired only as a result of upbringing and education that takes place in society, among other people.

These are the most general ideas about culture, although any of the above definitions can be used to answer certain questions that arise when studying some aspect or area of ​​culture.

Culture (from Latin culture- cultivation, processing) is one of the basic (basic) terms that exist to describe the life of man and mankind. It covers everything that has to do with human activity, separated from the bosom of nature, and therefore, in the most general sense, "Culture" is opposed to "nature" (nature). Culture is the second nature, that is, everything that is connected with the results of the spiritual and material activities of "homo sapiens". A person who came out of nature was processed natural materials and created objects (artifacts, that is, artificially created objects) from natural materials and resources. But this is not limited to cultural activities. And man, as a natural being, processes himself, cultivating himself as a person, working on himself, making something out of himself, developing the intellectual, physical and spiritual resources inherent in nature. Therefore, the second meaning of the Latin word "culture" can be considered the term education, ennoblement. The culture of the soul, this was first mentioned by Cicero (an ancient Roman orator of the 1st century BC), using the phrase “cultura animae” (treatment of the soul). Before him, the phrase agriculture, or tillage, was common.

This term also has a second semiotic (sign-semantic) explanation. The word "cultus" in ancient Rome also meant reverence. The cult, therefore, is a certain value(primarily religious), which unites people into a community, for example, into a nation.

From the first approach to the etymology (origin) of the word culture that culture is processing, the so-called active approach to the definition of culture. Thus, the prominent American sociologist of the half of the 20th century, P. Sorokin, wrote that culture arises where at least two people interact (from the word activity!). The result of their joint activity can be either a new idea or something material, and this result is culture.

From positions activity approach culture is a non-biologically developed mechanism for adapting a person to nature and society (E. Markaryan).

The value approach to its definition follows from the second approach to the etymology of the word culture. You can read something that is of value to a certain group of people. Culture arises from a cult as a system of certain values ​​around which people unite. This is how such phenomena as Hindu-Buddhist culture, Islamic culture, Christian culture, etc. appear. it is clear that in history the system of values ​​around which people rallied was set by religion. In the Marxist humanities in the 20th century in Russia, culture was also defined as a system of spiritual and material values ​​created by a particular society in the course of its historical development.

What is the "classical concept of culture"?

Classicus (lat.) - exemplary

Concept (from lat. Concepcio - I perceive and Conceptus - thought, representation) - a system of fundamental ideas, theoretical positions and methods; way of looking at things.

The classical concept of culture has developed in European science since the 18th century. It is associated with the names of representatives of German classical philosophy and historical science in the 18th and 19th centuries. In their understanding, culture is a process of development and improvement of a person and those social practices that contribute to this: philosophy, art, science, education. Thus, culture is a set of the highest achievements in the spiritual sphere of society, namely in science, education and art. (Pay attention to the similarity of these ideas with the definitions of culture in most Russian textbooks on cultural studies. It indicates the commitment of the Russian post-Soviet humanities to the spiritual traditions of the Enlightenment with its idealization of the spiritual sphere).

The British sociologist J. Thompson points out the main drawback of such an understanding of culture: classical scholars (of whom there are many in Russia today) consider only certain values ​​as culture and only the highest achievements in the field of art as a measure of the level of culture. In this concept, culture acted as an ideal model, not related to everyday life, which, therefore, could be attributed to "lack of culture". In accordance with it, culture is the masterpieces of art and the highest ideas of humanist philosophers, and to be cultured means to be educated and educated.

The humanistic pathos of the classical concept of culture is undeniable. The integrity of culture is the unity of culture and a person who can and should be a free person, attached to the sphere of values, capable of self-improvement, creativity.

So, humanism, homo-man, rationalism(belief in the Human Mind, ratio (lat.) - mind)), idealism (in the narrow sense, the idea of ​​the primacy (primacy) of higher principles in the existence of mankind, their leading role in the development of society) are the main ideas of the classical concept of culture. It is dominated by the idea of ​​the highest manifestations of Culture and the low ones are diminished, they are simply excluded from the concept of culture. This is aristocratic romanticism, which had to be supplanted by the sober and practical 19th century, when the study of culture from the sphere of philosophy began to move into empirical 1 sciences about nature and society.

What is the "anthropological concept of culture"?

Anthropology (anthropos, Greek - man) is an empirical science of man, which developed in the 19th century. Physical anthropology is associated with G. Darwin's theory of the origin of species and is engaged in the study of Homo Sapiens using methods natural sciences. Social or cultural anthropology in the late 19th century. studies non-European societies. This is the main difference between sociology, (the science of industrial and post-industrial societies western type) and social or cultural anthropology (the science of non-European simple, or traditional, societies).

The tradition of cultural anthropology was laid back in the 60-70s. 19th century English ethnologist E.B. Tylor (1832-1917). Studying the cultures of "primitive peoples", i.e. ethnic groups that did not go beyond the tribal way of life, he came to an understanding of culture as broad as possible. In his book “Primitive Culture” (1871), he concluded that it was universal and universal in nature, namely: all peoples went through certain stages of development common to all, and this is the idea of ​​the evolution of culture. E.Taylor entered the history of cultural studies as the first scientist who gave an accurate scientific definition culture, although German philosophers, French thinkers, and at the same time Russian publicists and democrats, primarily N. Danilevsky, spoke about culture before him.

This first scientific definition sounds like this: “culture, or civilization, in a broad ethnographic sense, is that complex whole that includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morality, laws, customs, and any other abilities and habits acquired by a person as a member of society.”

Tylor emphasizes here the public (social) character of culture.

At first, anthropology expressed the idea of ​​cultural colonialism—i.e. the idea of ​​the need to civilize the wild, primitive and backward representatives of other cultures through the transfer of European values ​​and the European way of life. The main purpose of the research was to describe a foreign culture

Eurocentrism is a scientific and geopolitical attitude towards the evaluation of European culture as a criterion, reference point and model for the rest of the world.

it is the whole cumulative way of life characteristic of a certain group, in which everything that people, as members of a given society, do, think, and everything that they possess (modes of action, thoughts, material support)

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culture

a specific way of organizing and developing human life activity, represented in the products of material and spiritual production, in the system of social norms and institutions, in spiritual values, in the totality of people's relations to nature, to each other and to themselves. In K. is embodied primarily general difference human life activity from biological life forms. Human behavior is determined not so much by nature as by upbringing, K. Man differs from animals in the ability to collectively create and transmit symbolic meanings signs, language. Beyond the symbolic cultural values(notation) no object can be included in the human world, just as no object can be created without a preliminary "project" in the head of a person. The human world is a culturally built world, all boundaries in it have sociocultural character. Outside the system of cultural meanings, there is no difference between king and courtier, saint and sinner, beauty and ugliness. The main function of K. is the introduction and maintenance of a certain social order. There are material and spiritual K. Material K. includes all spheres of material activity and its results. It includes technology, dwellings, clothing, consumer goods, the way of eating and settlements, etc., which together constitute a certain way of life. Spiritual K. includes all spheres of spiritual activity and its products: knowledge, education, enlightenment, law, philosophy, science, art, religion, etc. Spiritual K. is also embodied in material media (books, paintings, diskettes, etc.). .). Therefore, the division of K. into spiritual and material is very conditional. K. reflects the qualitative originality of historically specific forms of human activity at various stages of historical development, within the framework of various eras, socio-economic formations, ethnic, national and other communities. K. characterizes the characteristics of people's activities in specific social spheres (political k., economic k., k. work and life, k. entrepreneurship, etc.), as well as features of the life of social groups (class, youth, etc.). ). At the same time, there are cultural universals - certain things that are common to everything. cultural heritage elements of humanity (age gradation, division of labor, education, family, calendar, decorative arts, interpretation of dreams, etiquette, etc.). Modern sense the term "K." acquired only in the 20th century. Initially (in ancient Rome, where this word came from), this term meant cultivation, “cultivation” of the soil. In the XVIII century. the term acquired an elitist character and meant civility opposed to barbarism. However, in 18th century Germany K. and civilization were opposed to each other: as the focus of spiritual, moral and aesthetic values, the sphere of individual perfection (K.) - and as something utilitarian-external, “technical”, material, standardizing human K. and consciousness, threatening spiritual world human (civilization). This opposition formed the basis of the concept of cultural pessimism, or criticism of culture, in fact, criticism of modernity, allegedly leading to the collapse and death of culture (F. Tennis, F. Nietzsche, O. Spengler, H. Marcuse, and others). In modern science, the term "civilization" remains ambiguous. The term "K." lost its former elitist (and in general any evaluative) connotation. From the point of view of modern sociologists, any society develops a specific culture, because it can exist only as a sociocultural community. That is why historical development of this or that society (country) is a unique sociocultural process, which cannot be understood and described using any general schemes. Therefore, any social change can be carried out only as sociocultural changes, which seriously limits the possibility of direct borrowing of foreign cultural forms - economic, political, educational, etc. In a different socio-cultural environment, they can acquire (and inevitably acquire) a completely different content and meaning. For analysis cultural dynamics two main theoretical models have been developed - evolutionary (linear) and cyclic. Evolutionism, at the origins of which stood G. Spencer, E. Taylor, J. Fraser, L. Morgan, proceeded from the idea of ​​the unity of the human race and the uniformity of the development of K. Process cultural development seemed to be linear, general in content, passing general stages. Therefore, it seemed possible to compare different cultures as more or less developed, and to single out “reference” cultures (Eurocentrism and, later, Americanocentrism). Cyclic theories represent cultural dynamics as a sequence of certain phases (stages) of change and development of culture, which naturally follow one after another (by analogy with human life- birth, childhood, etc.), each K. is considered as unique. Some of them have already completed their cycle, others exist, being at different phases of development. Therefore, one cannot speak of a common, universal history of mankind, one cannot compare and evaluate cultures as primitive or highly developed - they are simply different. In modern science, N. Danilevsky ("Russia and Europe", 1871) became the founder of cyclic theories that arose in antiquity. He was followed by O. Spengler, A. Toynbee, P. Sorokin, L. Gumilyov and others. Both evolutionary and cyclical theories emphasize and absolutize only one of the aspects of the real process of cultural dynamics and cannot give an exhaustive description of it. modern science offers fundamentally new approaches (for example, the wave theory of K., put forward by O. Toffler). Now humanity is experiencing, perhaps, the most profound in content and global in scale technological, social and cultural transformation. And it was K. who was at the center of this process. Is born fundamentally new type K. - K. post-industrial, information society(see Postmodernism).

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