Features of the production and consumption of cultural values allowed culturologists to identify two social forms of existence of culture : mass culture and elite culture.
Mass culture is a type of cultural production that is produced daily in large volumes. It is assumed that mass culture is consumed by all people, regardless of place and country of residence. Mass culture - it is the culture of everyday life, presented to the widest possible audience through various channels, including the media and communications.
Mass culture (from lat.massa- lump, piece) - a cultural phenomenon of the 20th century, generated by the scientific and technological revolution, urbanization, the destruction of local communities, the blurring of territorial and social boundaries. The time of its appearance is the middle of the 20th century, when the mass media (radio, print, television, record and tape recorder) penetrated into most countries of the world and became available to representatives of all social strata. In its proper sense, mass culture manifested itself for the first time in the United States at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The well-known American political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski liked to repeat the phrase, which became commonplace over time: “If Rome gave the world the right, England parliamentary activity, France culture and republican nationalism, then the modern USA gave the world the scientific and technological revolution and mass culture.”
The origins of the widespread dissemination of mass culture in the modern world lie in the commercialization of all social relations, while the mass production of culture is understood by analogy with the conveyor industry. Many creative organizations (cinema, design, TV) are closely associated with banking and industrial capital and are focused on the production of commercial, box office, and entertainment works. In turn, the consumption of these products is mass consumption, because the audience that perceives this culture is a mass audience of large halls, stadiums, millions of viewers of television and movie screens.
A striking example of mass culture is pop music, which is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population. It satisfies the momentary needs of people, reacts to any new event and reflects it. Therefore, samples of mass culture, in particular hits, quickly lose their relevance, become obsolete and go out of fashion. As a rule, mass culture has less artistic value than elite culture.
The purpose of mass culture is to stimulate the consumer consciousness of the viewer, listener, reader. Mass culture forms a special type of passive, non-critical perception of this culture in humans. It creates a personality that is quite easy to manipulate.
Consequently, mass culture is designed for mass consumption and for the average person, it is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population, regardless of the level of education. In social terms, it forms a new social stratum, called the "middle class".
Mass culture in artistic creativity performs specific social functions. Among them, the main one is illusory-compensatory: introducing a person to the world of illusory experience and unrealizable dreams. To do this, mass culture uses such entertainment types and genres of art as circus, radio, television; stage, hit, kitsch, slang, science fiction, action movie, detective, comics, thriller, western, melodrama, musical.
It is within the framework of these genres that simplified “versions of life” are created that reduce social evil to psychological and moral factors. And all this is combined with open or covert propaganda of the dominant way of life. Mass culture is more focused not on realistic images, but on artificially created images (image) and stereotypes. Today, the newfangled "stars of the artificial Olympus" have no less fanatical admirers than the old gods and goddesses. Modern mass culture can be international and national.
Peculiaritiesmass culture: general accessibility (comprehensibility to everyone and everyone) of cultural values; ease of perception; stereotypes created by social stereotypes, replicability, entertainment and fun, sentimentality, simplification and primitiveness, propaganda of the cult of success, a strong personality, the cult of the thirst for possession of things, the cult of mediocrity, the conventionality of primitive symbolism.
Mass culture does not express the refined tastes of the aristocracy or the spiritual searches of the people, the mechanism of its distribution is directly related to the market, and it is predominantly a priority of megacity forms of existence. The basis of the success of mass culture is people's unconscious interest in violence and eroticism.
At the same time, if we consider mass culture as a spontaneously developing culture of everyday life, which is created by ordinary people, then its positive aspects are the focus on the average norm, simple pragmatics, appeal to a huge reader, viewer and listener audience.
As the antipode of mass culture, many culturologists consider elite culture.
Elite (high) culture - the culture of the elite, intended for the upper strata of society, possessing the greatest ability for spiritual activity, a special artistic susceptibility and gifted with high moral and aesthetic inclinations.
The producer and consumer of elite culture is the highest privileged stratum of society - the elite (from the French elite - the best, selective, chosen). The elite is not only a tribal aristocracy, but that educated part of society that has a special "organ of perception" - the ability for aesthetic contemplation and artistic and creative activity.
According to various estimates, consumers of elite culture in Europe for several centuries have remained approximately the same proportion of the population - about one percent. Elite culture is, first of all, the culture of the educated and wealthy part of the population. Under the elite culture usually means a special sophistication, complexity and high quality of cultural products.
The main function of elite culture is the production of social order in the form of law, power, structures of the social organization of society, as well as the ideology that justifies this order in the forms of religion, social philosophy and political thought. An elite culture involves a professional approach to creation, and the people who create it receive a special education. The circle of consumers of elite culture is its professional creators: scientists, philosophers, writers, artists, composers, as well as representatives of highly educated strata of society, namely: frequenters of museums and exhibitions, theater-goers, artists, literary critics, writers, musicians and many others.
Elite culture is distinguished by a very high level of specialization and the highest level of social claims of the individual: love for power, wealth, fame is considered the normal psychology of any elite.
In high culture, those artistic techniques are tested that will be perceived and correctly understood by wide layers of non-professionals many years later (up to 50 years, and sometimes more). For a certain period of time, high culture not only cannot, but must remain alien to the people, it must be endured, and the viewer must mature creatively during this time. For example, the painting of Picasso, Dali or the music of Schoenberg is difficult for an unprepared person to understand even today.
Therefore, elite culture is experimental or avant-garde in nature and, as a rule, it is ahead of the level of perception of it by an averagely educated person.
With the growth of the level of education of the population, the circle of consumers of elite culture is expanding. It is this part of society that contributes to social progress, therefore “pure” art should be focused on meeting the demands and needs of the elite, and it is to it that artists, poets, and composers should turn their works. Formula of elite culture: "Art for the sake of art".
The same types of art can belong to both high and mass culture: classical music is high, and popular music is mass, Fellini films are high, and action films are mass. The organ mass of S. Bach belongs to high culture, but if it is used as a musical ringtone on a mobile phone, it is automatically included in the category of mass culture, without losing its belonging to high culture. Numerous orchestrations
Bach's performances in the style of light music, jazz or rock do not compromise high culture at all. The same applies to the Mona Lisa on a toilet soap package or a computer reproduction of it.
Features of the elite culture: focuses on "people of a genius" capable of aesthetic contemplation and artistic and creative activity, there are no social stereotypes, a deep philosophical essence and non-standard content, specialization, sophistication, experimentalism, avant-gardism, the complexity of cultural values for understanding an unprepared person, sophistication, high quality, intellectuality .
Conclusion.
1. From the point of view of scientific analysis, there is no more complete or less complete culture; these two varieties of culture are culture in the full sense of the word.
2. Elitism and mass character are only quantitative characteristics related to the number of people who are consumers of artifacts.
3. Mass culture meets the needs of people in general, and therefore reflects the real level of humanity. Representatives of the elite culture, creating something new, thereby maintain a fairly high level of general culture.
Elite culture
Elite or high culture is created by a privileged part of society, or by its order by professional creators. It includes fine arts, classical music and literature. High culture, such as the painting of Picasso or the music of Schnittke, is difficult for an unprepared person to understand. As a rule, it is decades ahead of the level of perception of an averagely educated person. The circle of its consumers is a highly educated part of society: critics, literary critics, frequenters of museums and exhibitions, theater-goers, artists, writers, musicians. When the level of education of the population grows, the circle of consumers of high culture expands. Its varieties include secular art and salon music. The formula of elite culture is “art for art's sake”.
Elite culture is intended for a narrow circle of highly educated public and opposes both folk and mass culture. It is usually incomprehensible to the general public and requires good preparation for correct perception.
The avant-garde trends in music, painting, cinema, complex literature of a philosophical nature can be attributed to the elite culture. Often the creators of such a culture are perceived as inhabitants of the "ivory tower", fenced off by their art from real everyday life. As a rule, elite culture is non-commercial, although sometimes it can be financially successful and move into the category of mass culture.
Modern trends are such that mass culture penetrates into all areas of "high culture", mixing with it. At the same time, mass culture reduces the general cultural level of its consumers, but at the same time, it itself gradually rises to a higher cultural level. Unfortunately, the first process is still much more intense than the second.
Today, more and more important place in the system of intercultural communication is occupied by the mechanisms of dissemination of cultural products. Modern society lives in a technical civilization, which is fundamentally distinguished by methods, means, technologies and channels for the transmission of cultural information. Therefore, in the new information and cultural space, only that which is massively in demand survives, and only standardized products of mass culture in general and elite culture in particular have such a property.
Elite culture is a set of creative achievements of human society, the creation and adequate perception of which requires special training. The essence of this culture is associated with the concept of the elite as a producer and consumer of elite culture. In relation to society, this type of culture is the highest, privileged to special layers, groups, classes of the population that carry out the functions of production, management and development of culture. So, there is a division of the structure of culture into public and elite.
The elite culture was created to preserve pathos and creativity in the culture. The concept of elite culture is most consistently and holistically reflected in the works of H. Ortega y Gasset, according to whom the elite is a part of society endowed with aesthetic and moral inclinations and most capable of producing spiritual activity. Thus, very talented and skillful scientists, artists, writers, philosophers are considered the elite. Elite groups can be relatively autonomous from economic and political strata, or they can interpenetrate each other in certain situations.
Elite culture is quite diverse in terms of manifestation and content. The essence and features of the elite culture can be considered on the example of elite art, which develops mainly in two forms: pan-aestheticism and aesthetic isolationism.
The form of pan-aestheticism elevates art above science, morality, politics. Such artistic and intuitive forms of cognition carry the messianic goal of "saving the world." The concepts of the ideas of panaestheticism are expressed in the studies of A. Bergson, F. Nietzsche, F. Schlegel.
A form of aesthetic isolationism tends to express "art for art's sake" or "pure art". The concept of this idea is based on upholding the freedom of individual self-manifestation and self-expression in art. According to the founders of aesthetic isolationism, in the modern world there is no beauty, which is the only pure source of artistic creativity. This concept was realized in the activities of the artists S. Diaghilev, A. Benois, M. Vrubel, V. Serov, K. Korovin. A. Pavlova, F. Chaliapin, M. Fokin achieved a high calling in the musical and ballet arts.
In a narrow sense, elite culture is understood as a subculture that not only differs from the national one, but also opposes it, acquiring closeness, semantic self-sufficiency, and isolation. It is based on the formation of its specific features: norms, ideals, values, systems of signs and symbols. Thus, the subculture is designed to unite certain spiritual values of like-minded people, directed against the dominant culture. The essence of a subculture lies in the formation and development of its sociocultural features, their isolation from another cultural layer.
Elite culture is a high culture that is opposed to mass culture by the type of influence on the perceiving consciousness, preserving its subjective features and providing a meaning-forming function.
The subject of an elitist, high culture is a person - a free, creative person capable of conscious activity. The creations of this culture are always personally colored and designed for personal perception, regardless of the breadth of their audience, which is why the wide distribution and millions of copies of the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare not only do not reduce their significance, but, on the contrary, contribute to the wide dissemination of spiritual values. In this sense, the subject of an elite culture is a representative of the elite.
Elite culture has a number of important features.
Features of the elite culture:
complexity, specialization, creativity, innovation;
the ability to form consciousness, ready for active transformative activity and creativity in accordance with the objective laws of reality;
the ability to concentrate the spiritual, intellectual and artistic experience of generations;
the presence of a limited range of values recognized as true and "high";
a rigid system of norms accepted by this stratum as obligatory and strict in the community of "initiates";
individualization of norms, values, evaluative criteria of activity, often principles and forms of behavior of members of the elite community, thereby becoming unique;
the creation of a new, deliberately complicated cultural semantics, requiring special training and an immense cultural outlook from the addressee;
using a deliberately subjective, individually creative, “deleting” interpretation of the ordinary and familiar, which brings the subject’s cultural assimilation of reality closer to a mental (sometimes artistic) experiment on it and, to the extreme, replaces the reflection of reality in elite culture with its transformation, imitation with deformation, penetration into meaning - conjecture and rethinking given;
semantic and functional “closedness”, “narrowness”, isolation from the whole national culture, which turns the elite culture into a kind of secret, sacred, esoteric knowledge, and its carriers turn into a kind of “priests” of this knowledge, the chosen ones of the gods, “servants of the muses” , "keepers of secrets and faith", which is often played up and poeticized in elite culture.
Elite culture (from the French elite - selective, chosen, best) is a subculture of privileged groups of society, characterized by fundamental closeness, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. Appealing to a select minority of his subjects, who, as a rule, are both its creators and addressees (in any case, the circle of both almost coincides), E.K. consciously and consistently opposes the culture of the majority, or mass culture in a broad sense (in all its historical and typological varieties - folklore, folk culture, official culture of a particular estate or class, the state as a whole, the cultural industry of technocratic. about -va 20th century, etc.). Moreover, E.k. needs a permanent context of mass culture, since it is based on the mechanism of repulsion from the values and norms accepted in mass culture, on the destruction of the prevailing stereotypes and patterns of mass culture (including their parody, ridicule, irony, grotesque, controversy, criticism, refutation), on demonstrative self-isolation in general, national culture. In this regard, E.k. - a characteristically marginal phenomenon within the framework of any history. or national type of culture and always - secondary, derivative in relation to the culture of the majority. The problem of E.K. is especially acute. in societies where the antinomy of mass culture and e.k. practically exhausts the whole variety of manifestations of nat. culture as a whole and where the medial (“median”) area of the nationwide did not develop. culture, which is its core. corpus and equally opposed to the polarized mass and e. cultures as value-sense extremes. This is typical, in particular, for cultures that have a binary structure and are prone to inversion forms of history. development (Russian and typologically similar cultures).
Political and cultural elites differ; the first, also called "ruling", "powerful", today, thanks to the works of V. Pareto, G. Mosca, R. Michels, C.R. Mills, R. Miliband, J. Scott, J. Perry, D. Bell and other sociologists and political scientists have been studied in sufficient detail and in depth. Cultural elites have been much less explored - strata united not by economic, social, political, and proper power interests and goals, but by ideological principles, spiritual values, socio-cultural norms, etc. Connected in principle by similar (isomorphic) mechanisms of selection, status consumption, prestige, the political and cultural elites, however, do not coincide with each other and only sometimes enter into temporary alliances that turn out to be extremely unstable and fragile. Suffice it to recall the spiritual dramas of Socrates, condemned to death by his fellow citizens, and Plato, who became disillusioned with the Syracusan tyrant Dionysius (the Elder), who undertook to put into practice the Platonic utopia of the "State", Pushkin, who refused to "serve the tsar, serve the people" and thereby who recognized the inevitability of his creativity. loneliness, although regal in its own way (“You are a king: live alone”), and L. Tolstoy, who, contrary to his origin and position, strove to express the “folk idea” by means of his high and unique art of the word, European. education, sophisticated author's philosophy and religion. It is worth mentioning here the short flowering of sciences and arts at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent; the experience of the highest patronage of Louis XIV to the Muses, which gave the world examples of Western European. classicism; a brief period of cooperation between the enlightened nobility and the noble bureaucracy during the reign of Catherine II; short-lived union pre-revolutionary. Russian intelligentsia with Bolshevik power in the 20s. and so on. in order to assert the multidirectional and largely mutually exclusive nature of the interacting political and cultural elites, to-rye close the social-semantic and cultural-semantic structures of the society, respectively, and coexist in time and space. This means that E.k. is not a product and product of polit, elites (as was often stated in Marxist studies) and does not have a class-party character, but in many cases develops in the struggle against polit. elites for their independence and freedom. On the contrary, it is logical to assume that it is the cultural elites that contribute to the formation of polit. elites (structurally isomorphic to cultural elites) in a narrower sphere of socio-polit. , Mrs. and power relations as its own special case, isolated and alienated from the whole E.K.
In contrast to political elites, spiritual and creative elites develop their own, fundamentally new mechanisms of self-regulation and value-semantic criteria for active election, which go beyond the scope of proper social and political requirements, and are often accompanied by a demonstrative departure from politics and social institutions and semantic opposition to this. phenomena as extra-cultural (non-aesthetic, immoral, spiritless, intellectually poor and vulgar). In E.K. the range of values recognized as true and “high” is deliberately limited, and the system of norms accepted by this stratum as mandatory is tightened. and rigorous in the community of "initiates". Quantities, the narrowing of the elite and its spiritual rallying is inevitably accompanied by its qualities, growth (in intellectual, aesthetic, religious, ethical and other respects), and therefore, the individualization of norms, values, evaluative criteria for activities, often the principles and forms of behavior of members of the elite community, thus becoming unique.
Actually, for the sake of this, the circle of norms and values of E.K. becomes emphatically high, innovative, which can be achieved in different ways. means:
1) the development of new social and mental realities as cultural phenomena or, on the contrary, the rejection of any new and the "protection" of a narrow circle of conservative values and norms;
2) the inclusion of one's subject in an unexpected value-semantic context, which gives its interpretation a unique and even excludes meaning;
3) the creation of a new, deliberately complicated cultural semantics (metaphorical, associative, allusive, symbolic and metasymbolic), requiring special preparation and vast cultural horizons;
4) the development of a special cultural language (code), accessible only to a narrow circle of connoisseurs and designed to impede communication, erect insurmountable (or most difficult to overcome) semantic barriers to profane thinking, which turns out to be in principle unable to adequately comprehend the innovations of E.C., “decipher” it meanings; 5) the use of a deliberately subjective, individually creative, "defamiliarizing" interpretation of the ordinary and familiar, which brings the subject's cultural assimilation of reality closer to a mental (sometimes artistic) experiment on it and, to the extreme, replaces the reflection of reality in E.C. its transformation, imitation - deformation, penetration into the meaning - conjecture and rethinking of the given. Due to its semantic and functional "closeness", "narrowness", isolation from the whole nat. culture, E.K. often turns into a variety (or similarity) of the secret, sacred, esoteric. knowledge that is taboo for the rest of the masses, and its bearers turn into a kind of "priests" of this knowledge, the chosen ones of the gods, "servants of the muses", "keepers of secrets and faith", which is often played up and poeticized in E.k.
Historical origin of E.K. it is exactly this: already in primitive society, priests, sorcerers, sorcerers, tribal leaders become privileged holders of special knowledge, which cannot and should not be intended for general, mass use. Subsequently, this kind of relationship between E.k. and mass culture in one form or another, in particular secular, have been repeatedly reproduced (in various religious denominations and especially sects, in monastic and spiritual-knightly orders, Masonic lodges, in craft workshops that cultivated professional skills, in religious and philosophical gatherings, in literary, artistic and intellectual circles that are formed around a charismatic leader, in scientific communities and scientific schools, in polit, associations and parties - including especially those that worked secretly, conspiratorially, in conditions of underground and etc.). Ultimately, the elitism of knowledge, skills, values, norms, principles, and traditions that was formed in this way was the key to refined professionalism and deep substantive specialization, without which history is impossible in culture. progress, postulate, value-semantic growth, contain enrichment and accumulation of formal perfection - any value-semantic hierarchy. e.c. acts as an initiative and productive beginning in any culture, performing mainly creative work. function in it; while mass culture stereotypes, routinizes, profanes the achievements of E.K., adapting them to the perception and consumption of the socio-cultural majority of the society. In turn, E.k. constantly ridicules or denounces mass culture, parodies it or deforms it grotesquely, presenting the world of mass society and its culture as terrible and ugly, aggressive and cruel; in this context, the fate of the representatives of E.k. drawn tragic, hurt, broken (romantic and post-romantic concepts of "genius and the crowd"; "creative madness", or "sacred disease", and ordinary "common sense"; inspired "intoxication", including narcotic , and vulgar "sobriety"; "celebration of life" and boring everyday life).
Theory and practice of E.K. flourishes especially productively and fruitfully at the "breakdown" of cultural epochs, with the change of cultural history. paradigms, expressing in a peculiar way the crisis states of culture, the unstable balance between the “old” and the “new”, the representatives of the E.C. realized their mission in culture as "pioneers of the new", as being ahead of their time, as creators who were not understood by their contemporaries (such, for example, are the majority of romantics and modernists - symbolists, cultural figures of the avant-garde and professional revolutionaries who carried out the cultural revolution) . This also includes the “initiators” of large-scale traditions and the creators of the “grand style” paradigms (Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Gorky, Kafka, etc.). This point of view, though fair in many respects, was not, however, the only possible one. So, on the basis of Russian. cultures (where societies, the attitude towards E.C. was in most cases wary or even hostile, which did not even contribute to the spread of E.C., in comparison with Western Europe), concepts were born that interpret E.C. as a conservative departure from social reality and its topical problems into the world of idealized aesthetics (“pure art”, or “art for art’s sake”), religion. and mythol. fantasies, socio-political. utopia, philosophy. idealism, etc. (late Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, M. Antonovich, N. Mikhailovsky, V. Stasov, P. Tkachev and others, radical democratic thinkers). In the same tradition, Pisarev and Plekhanov, as well as Ap. Grigoriev interpreted E.k. (including "art for art's sake") as a demonstrative form of rejection of social and political reality, as an expression of a hidden, passive protest against it, as a refusal to participate in societies. struggle of his time, seeing in this a characteristic history. a symptom (a deepening crisis), and the expressed inferiority of the E. to. (lack of breadth and historical foresight, societies, weakness and impotence to influence the course of history and the life of the masses).
Theorists of E.C. - Plato and Augustine, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Vl. Solovyov and Leontiev, Berdyaev and A. Bely, Ortega y Gasset and Benjamin, Husserl and Heidegger, Mannheim and Ellul varied the thesis about the hostility of democratization and massification of culture of its qualities in different ways. level, its content and formal perfection, creative. search and intellectual, aesthetic, religious. and other novelty, about stereotyped and triviality inevitably accompanying mass culture (ideas, images, theories, plots), lack of spirituality, about the infringement of creativity. personality and the suppression of her freedom in the conditions of mass about-va and mechanical. replication of spiritual values, expansion of industrial production of culture. This trend is a deepening of the contradictions between E.K. and mass - unprecedentedly intensified in the 20th century. and inspired a lot of sharp and dramatic. collisions (cf., for example, the novels: "Ulysses" by Joyce, "In Search of Lost Time" by Proust, "The Steppenwolf" and "The Glass Bead Game" by Hesse, "Magic Mountain" and "Doctor Faustus" by T. Mann, "We "Zamiatin," The Life of Klim Samgin "by Gorky," The Master and Margarita "by Bulgakov," Pit "and" Chevengur "Platonov," Pyramid "L. Leonov, etc.). At the same time in the history of culture of the 20th century. there are many examples that clearly illustrate the paradoxical dialectics of E.K. and mass: their mutual transition and mutual transformation, mutual influence and self-negation of each of them.
For example, creative searching for various representatives of modern culture (symbolists and impressionists, expressionists and futurists, surrealists and dadaists, etc.) - both artists and theorists of trends, and philosophers, and publicists - were sent to create unique samples and entire systems of e.k. Many of the formal refinements were experimental in nature; theor. manifestos and declarations substantiated the right of the artist and thinker to be creative. incomprehensibility, separation from the masses, their tastes and needs, to the inherently valuable being of “culture for culture”. However, as everyday objects, everyday situations, forms of everyday thinking, structures of generally accepted behavior, current history fell into the expanding field of activity of modernists. events, etc. (albeit with a “minus” sign, as a “minus-reception”), modernism began - involuntarily, and then consciously - to appeal to the masses and mass consciousness. Outrageous and scurrilous, grotesque and denunciation of the layman, buffoonery and farce are the same legitimate genres, stylistic devices and expresses, mass culture means, as well as playing up cliches and stereotypes of mass consciousness, poster and agitation, farce and ditty, recitation and rhetoric. The stylization or parody of banality is almost indistinguishable from the stylized and paraded (with the exception of the ironic author's distance and the general semantic context, which remain almost imperceptible to mass perception); on the other hand, the recognizability and familiarity of vulgarity makes its criticism - highly intellectual, subtle, aestheticized - little understandable and effective for the bulk of the recipients (who are not able to distinguish mockery of base taste from indulgence to it). As a result, the same work of culture acquires a double life with decomp. semantic content and opposite ideological pathos: on one side it turns out to be turned to e.k., on the other - to mass culture. Such are the many works of Chekhov and Gorky, Mahler and Stravinsky, Modigliani and Picasso, L. Andreev and Verharn, Mayakovsky and Eluard, Meyerhold and Shostakovich, Yesenin and Kharms, Brecht and Fellini, Brodsky and Voinovich. Contamination of E. to. is especially inconsistent. and mass culture in postmodern culture; for example, in such an early phenomenon of postmodernism as pop art, there is an elitization of mass culture and, at the same time, a massification of elitism, which gave rise to the classics of modern art. postmodern W. Eco to characterize pop art as “low-browed high-browedness”, or, conversely, as “high-browed low-browedness” (in English. : Lowbrow Highbrow, or Highbrow Lowbrow).
There are no fewer paradoxes when comprehending the genesis of a totalitarian culture, which, by definition, is a mass culture and a culture of the masses. However, in its origin, the totalitarian culture is rooted precisely in E.C.: for example, Nietzsche, Spengler, Weininger, Sombart, Jünger, K. Schmitt and other philosophers and sociopolitists, thinkers who anticipated and brought Germans closer to real power. Nazism, belonged unconditionally to E.K. and were in a number of cases misunderstood and distorted by their practical. interpreters, primitivized, simplified to a rigid scheme and uncomplicated demagoguery. The same is true with the communist totalitarianism: the founders of Marxism - Marx and Engels, and Plekhanov, and Lenin himself, and Trotsky, and Bukharin - all of them were, in their own way, "highbrow" intellectuals and represented a very narrow circle of radical intelligentsia. Moreover, the ideal the atmosphere of social-democratic, socialist, Marxist circles, then strictly secret party cells, was built in full accordance with the principles of E.K. (only common to watered and cognizant culture), and the principle of party membership implied not just selectivity, but also a rather strict selection of values, norms, principles, concepts, types of behavior, etc. Actually, the selection mechanism itself (on a racial and national basis or according to class-polit.), which lies at the basis of totalitarianism as a socio-cultural system, was founded by E.K., in its depths, by its representatives, and later only extrapolated to the mass society, in which everything that is recognized as expedient is reproduced and forced, and dangerous for its self-preservation and development - is prohibited and seized (including by means of violence). Thus, a totalitarian culture initially arises from the atmosphere and style, from the norms and values of an elite circle, universalizes as a kind of panacea, and then is forcibly imposed on society as a whole as an ideal model and is practically introduced into the mass consciousness and societies, activities by any , including non-cultural means.
In the conditions of post-totalitarian development, as well as in the context of the app. democracy, the phenomena of totalitarian culture (emblems and symbols, ideas and images, concepts and style of socialist. realism), being presented in a culturally pluralistic. context and distanced modern. reflection - purely intellectual or aesthetic - begin to function as an exotic. E.C. components and are perceived by a generation familiar with totalitarianism only from photographs and anecdotes, "strangely", grotesquely, associatively. The components of mass culture, included in the context of E.C., act as elements of E.C.; while the components of e.k., inscribed in the context of mass culture, become components of mass culture. In the cultural paradigm of postmodernity, the components of e.k. and mass culture are used equally as ambivalent game material, and the semantic boundary between mass and e.k. turns out to be fundamentally blurred or removed; in this case, the distinction of E.k. and mass culture practically loses its meaning (retaining for the potential recipient only the allusive meaning of the cultural-genetic context).
The product of an elite culture is created by professionals and is part of the privileged society that shaped it. Mass culture is a part of the general culture, an indicator of the development of the whole society, and not of its separate class.
Elite culture stands apart, mass culture has a huge number of consumers.
Understanding the value of the product of an elite culture requires the presence of certain professional skills and abilities. Mass culture is utilitarian, understandable to a wide layer of consumers in nature.
The creators of products of elite culture do not pursue material gain, they only dream of creative self-realization. Mass culture products bring a lot of profit to their creators.
Mass culture simplifies everything, makes it accessible to the general public. Elite culture is focused on a narrow circle of consumers.
Mass culture depersonalizes society, while elite culture, on the contrary, glorifies a bright creative individuality. More: http://thedb.ru/items/Otlichie_elitarnoj_kultury_ot_massovoj/
classical literature
Instruction
Elite culture includes works of various types of art: literature, theater, cinema, etc. Since its understanding requires a certain level of training, it has a very narrow circle of connoisseurs. Not everyone understands the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Alexander Sokurov. A special type of thinking is needed to understand the works of Franz Kafka or James Joyce's Ulysses. The creators of an elite culture, like, do not try to achieve high fees. Much more valuable for them is creative self-realization.
Consumers of elite culture are people with a high educational level and a developed aesthetic taste. Many of them are themselves creators of works of art or their professional researchers. First of all, we are talking about writers, artists, art historians, literary and art critics. This circle also includes connoisseurs and connoisseurs of art, regular visitors to museums, theaters and concert halls.
At the same time, works of the same types of art can belong to both elite and mass culture. For example, classical music is for elite culture, and popular music is for mass culture, Tarkovsky's films are for elite culture, and Indian melodramas are for mass culture, etc. At the same time, there are literary genres that always belong to mass culture and are unlikely to ever become elite. Among them are detective stories, ladies' novels, humorous stories and feuilletons.
Sometimes there are curious how works belonging to an elite culture can, under certain conditions, go into the category of mass. For example, Bach's music is undoubtedly a phenomenon of elite culture, but if it is used as an accompaniment to a figure skating program, it automatically turns into a product of mass culture. Or quite the opposite: many of Mozart's works for their time were, most likely, "light music" (that is, they could be attributed to popular culture). And now they are perceived, rather, as an elitist.
Most of the works of elite culture are initially avant-garde or experimental. They use tools that will become clear to the mass consciousness after a few decades. Sometimes experts even call the exact period - 50 years. In other words, examples of elite culture are half a century ahead of their time.
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The term "classical music" is sometimes interpreted extremely broadly. It includes not only the works of outstanding composers of past years, but also world-famous hits by popular performers. Nevertheless, there is a strictly authentic meaning of "classical" in music.
In a narrow sense, classical music is called a rather short period in the history of this art, namely, the 18th century. The first half of the eighteenth century was marked by the work of such outstanding composers as Bach and Handel. The principles of classicism as the construction of a work in strict accordance with the canons were developed by Bach in his works. His fugue became a classical - that is, exemplary - form of musical creativity.
And after the death of Bach, a new stage opens in the history of music, connected with Haydn and Mozart. The rather complex and heavy sound was replaced by lightness and harmony of melodies, grace and even some coquetry. And yet, it is still a classic: in his creative search, Mozart sought to find the ideal form.
Beethoven's works are a junction of the classical and romantic traditions. In his music, passions and feelings become much more than rational canons. During this period of the formation of the European musical tradition, the main genres were formed: opera, symphony, sonata.
A broad interpretation of the term "classical music" implies the work of composers of past eras, which has withstood the test of time and has become a standard for other authors. Sometimes classical means music for symphonic instruments. The most clear (although not widely used) can be considered classical music as authorial, clearly defined and implying performance within the given framework. However, some researchers urge not to confuse academic (that is, squeezed into certain limits and rules) and classical music.
In the evaluative approach to the definition of the classics, as the highest achievements in the history of music, the possible is hidden. Who is considered the best? Can the masters of jazz, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and other recognized authors and performers be considered classics? On the one hand, yes. That's what we do when we call exemplary. But on the other hand, in pop-jazz music there is no strictness of the author's musical text, characteristic of the classics. In it, on the contrary, everything is built on improvisation and original arrangements. There is a fundamental difference between classical (academic) music and the modern post-jazz school.
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- What is culture? Definition of the word culture. The meaning of the word culture and photo
There are several types of literature, each of which has its own characteristics. So, classical literature is understood as works that are considered exemplary for a particular era.
History of the term
Classical is a rather broad concept, since this type includes works of different eras and genres. These are universally recognized works, considered exemplary for the eras in which they were written. Many of them are included in the compulsory program.
The concept of classics has developed in the last three centuries of the era of antiquity. Then it denoted certain writers who, for various reasons, were considered role models. One of the first such classics was the ancient Greek poet Homer, the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
In the 5th-8th centuries AD. formed the authors of the texts, which determined the theories and norms transmitted in the learning process. In different schools, this canon differed minimally. Gradually, this list was replenished with new names, among which were representatives of the pagan and Christian faiths. These authors became the cultural property of the public, who were imitated and quoted.
The modern meaning of the concept
During the Renaissance, European writers turned their attention to the authors of antiquity, as a result of the liberation of secular culture from excessive pressure. The result of this in literature was an era in which it became fashionable to imitate ancient Greek playwrights such as Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, and follow the canons of classical drama. Then the term "" in the narrow sense began to mean all ancient literature.
In a broad sense, any work that created a canon in its genre began to be called a classic. For example, there are eras of modernism, eras, realism, etc. There is the concept of domestic and foreign, as well as world classics. Thus, A.S. Pushkin, F.M. Dostoevsky, etc.
As a rule, in the history of literature of different countries and nations there is a century in which fiction gained its greatest value, and such a century is called classical. There is an opinion that a work gains public recognition when it carries "eternal values", something relevant for all times, encourages the reader to think about any universal problems. The classics remain in history and are opposed to one-day works, which eventually fall into oblivion.
A person's ability to emotionally-sensory perception of reality and to artistic creativity prompted him to express his experiences figuratively, with the help of colors, lines, words, sounds, etc. This contributed to the emergence of artistic culture in a broad sense.
What is included in the concept
Artistic culture is one of the spheres of public culture. Its essence is a creative reflection of being (, society and its life) in artistic images. It has important functions, such as the formation of aesthetic perception and consciousness of people, social values, norms, knowledge and experience, and a recreational function (rest and recovery of people).
As a system it includes:
- art as such (individual and group), works and artistic values;
- organizational infrastructure: institutions that ensure the development, preservation, dissemination of artistic culture, creative organizations, educational institutions, demonstration sites, etc.;
- the spiritual atmosphere in society - perception, public interest in artistic and creative activities, art, state policy in this area.
Artistic culture includes mass, folk, artistic culture; artistic and aesthetic aspects of various activities (political, economic, legal); regional artistic subcultures; artistic subcultures of youth and professional associations, etc.
It manifests itself not only in art, but also in everyday life, and in material production, when a person gives expressiveness to the objects he creates for practical and utilitarian purposes and, realizing his need for aesthetics and beauty, in creativity. In addition to the material realm and physical objects, it also concerns the spiritual realm.
Artistic culture in the narrow sense
The core of artistic culture is professional and everyday art. This includes Tip 6: Who are geisha, one of which is the word "man", the other - "art". Already from the etymology of the word, one can guess that geisha are not Japanese courtesans. For the latter, there are separate words in Japanese - jero, yujo.
Geishas were perfect at being a woman. They raised the spirits of men, creating an atmosphere of joy, ease and emancipation. This was achieved through songs, dances, jokes (often with erotic overtones), teahouses, which were demonstrated by geisha in male companies along with easy conversation.
Geisha entertained men both at social events and on personal dates. At the tete-a-tete meeting there was also no place for intimate relationships. A geisha can have sex with her patron, who deprived her of her virginity. For geishas, this is a ritual called mizu-age that accompanies the transition from apprentice, maiko, to geisha.
If a geisha marries, then she retires from the profession. Before leaving, she sends out to her clients, patron, teachers with a treat - boiled rice, thereby informing her about the break in communication with them.
Outwardly, geisha are distinguished by their characteristic make-up with a thick layer of powder and bright red lips that make the woman's face look like a mask, as well as an old high, lush hairstyle. The traditional geisha is a kimono, the main colors of which are black, red and white.
modern geisha
It is believed that geisha appeared in the city of Kyoto in the 17th century. The quarters of the city where the geisha houses are located are called hanamachi (“flower streets”). There is a school here, where from the age of seven or eight they are taught to sing, dance, conduct a tea ceremony, play the national Japanese instrument shamisen, conduct a conversation with a man, and also learn how to make up and put on a kimono - all that a geisha should know and be able to do. .
When the capital of Japan was moved to Tokyo in the 70s of the 19th century, noble Japanese also moved there, who made up the bulk of geisha clients. Geisha festivals, which are held at regular intervals in Kyoto and have become its calling card, were able to save their craft from the crisis.
After the Second World War, Japan was captured by mass culture, leaving Japanese national traditions in the background. The number of geishas has dwindled significantly, but those who remain true to their profession consider themselves to be the guardians of true Japanese culture. Many continue to follow the old way of life of a geisha completely, some only partially. But being in a geisha society is still the prerogative of the elite segments of the population.
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- geisha world
a specific area of cultural creativity associated with the professional production of cultural texts, which subsequently acquire the status of cultural canons. The concept of "E.K." arises in Western cultural studies to designate cultural layers that are diametrically opposed in their content to "profane" mass culture. Unlike communities of bearers of sacred or esoteric knowledge inherent in any type of culture, E.K. is a sphere of industrial production of cultural samples, existing in constant interaction with various forms of mass, local and marginal culture. At the same time, for E.K. a high degree of closeness is characteristic, due both to specific technologies of intellectual labor (forming a narrow professional community), and the need to master the techniques of consuming complexly organized elite cultural products, i.e. certain level of education. Samples of E.K. suggest in the process of their assimilation the need for a purposeful intellectual effort to "decipher" the author's message. In fact, E.K. puts the addressee of an elite text in the position of a co-author, recreating in his mind a set of its meanings. Unlike products of mass culture, elite cultural products are designed for repeated consumption and have a fundamental ambiguity of content. E.K. sets the leading guidelines for the actual type of culture, defining both the set of "intellectual games" inherent in "high" culture, and the popular set of "low" genres and their heroes, reproducing the basic archetypes of the collective unconscious. Any cultural innovation becomes a cultural event only as a result of its conceptual design at the level of E.C., including it in the current cultural context and adapting it to the mass consciousness. Thus, the "elitist" status of specific forms of cultural creativity is determined not so much by their closeness (which is also characteristic of a marginal culture) and the complex organization of a cultural product (inherent and high-class mass production), but by the ability to significantly influence the life of society, modeling possible ways of its dynamics and creating scenarios of social action adequate to social needs, worldview guidelines, artistic styles and forms of spiritual experience. Only in this case can one speak of the cultural elite as a privileged minority, expressing the "spirit of the times" in their work.
Contrary to the romantic interpretation of E.K. as a self-sufficient "glass game" (Hesse) away from pragmatism and vulgarity of the "profane" culture of the majority, the real status of E.K. most often associated with various forms of "playing with power", servile and/or non-conformist dialogue with the current political elite, as well as the ability to work with the "grassroots", "garbage" cultural space. Only in this case E.K. retains the ability to influence the real state of affairs in society.
Elite culture- this is "high culture", opposed to mass culture by the type of influence on the perceiving consciousness, preserving its subjective features and providing a meaning-forming function. Its main ideal is the formation of consciousness, ready for active transformative activity and creativity in accordance with the objective laws of reality. Historically, elite culture arose as the antithesis of mass culture and its meaning, the main value shows in comparison with the latter.
The essence of elite culture was first analyzed by X. Ortega y Gasset and K. Manheim. The subject of an elitist, high culture is a person - a free, creative person capable of conscious activity. The creations of this culture are always personally colored and designed for personal perception, regardless of the breadth of their audience, which is why the wide distribution and millions of copies of the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare not only do not reduce their significance, but, on the contrary, contribute to the wide dissemination of spiritual values. In this sense, the subject of an elite culture is a representative of the elite.
Elite culture is a culture of privileged groups of society, characterized by fundamental closeness, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. According to I. V. Kondakov, elite culture appeals to a select minority of its subjects, who, as a rule, are both its creators and addressees (in any case, the circle of both is almost the same).
Elite culture consciously and consistently opposes the culture of the majority in all its historical and typological varieties - folklore, folk culture, the official culture of a particular estate or class, the state as a whole, the cultural industry of the technocratic society of the 20th century. and so on.
Philosophers consider elite culture as the only one capable of preserving and reproducing the basic meanings of culture and having a number of fundamentally important features:
- complexity, specialization, creativity, innovation;
- the ability to form consciousness, ready for active transformative activity and creativity in accordance with the objective laws of reality;
- the ability to concentrate the spiritual, intellectual and artistic experience of generations;
- the presence of a limited range of values recognized as true and "high";
- a rigid system of norms accepted by this stratum as obligatory and strict in the community of "initiates";
- individualization of norms, values, evaluative criteria of activity, often principles and forms of behavior of members of the elite community, thereby becoming unique;
- the creation of a new, deliberately complicated cultural semantics, requiring special training and an immense cultural outlook from the addressee;
- using a deliberately subjective, individually creative, "deleting" interpretation of the ordinary and familiar, which brings the subject's cultural assimilation of reality closer to a mental (sometimes artistic) experiment on it and, to the extreme, replaces the reflection of reality in an elitist culture with its transformation, imitation - with deformation, penetration into the meaning - conjecture and rethinking of the given;
- semantic and functional “closeness”, “narrowness”, isolation from the whole national culture, which turns the elite culture into a kind of secret, sacred, esoteric knowledge, taboo for the rest of the masses, and its carriers turn into a kind of “priests” of this knowledge, the chosen ones of the gods , "servants of the muses", "keepers of secrets and faith", which is often played up and poeticized in elite culture.
The concept of subculture and counterculture
Subculture is a specific way of life, it is the realization of a person's need for self-expression, for personal development, for satisfying the sense of beauty, for understanding one's purpose in the world. Subcultures appear regardless of politics, economics. Material needs, their quantity and quality associated with living conditions, cannot be essential to determine the reasons why a youth subculture appears.
