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Culture - in the broad sense of the word - everything that has been created and is being created by mankind, from tools to household items, from habits, customs, the very way of life of people to science and art, religion and atheism, morality and philosophy. Culture lives, breathes, improves with us and improves us. People, therefore, are the creators of culture and at the same time - its creations. Considering culture as a special phenomenon in the life of society, one should not forget that it is ultimately determined by socio-economic factors. The most important features of culture (primarily the ideological content) are determined by its belonging to one or another socio-economic formation. cultural ethnos social

The question of the functions of culture, the origin and distribution on the planet of everything created by mankind is a truly inexhaustible topic, and its systematic coverage could amount to hundreds, if not thousands, of volumes. Despite all its diversity, the culture of mankind is united and develops according to general laws. The image of a culture that is made up of the actions and knowledge of millions of people - in hundreds of countries and over many thousands of years.

There is a concept in archeology - a cultural layer. So scientists call the layer of the earth containing traces of human activity. In the caves where primitive people lived, at the site of the most ancient human sites, researchers find stone tools, ash, animal bones, shards of dishes, jewelry, etc. These finds allow us to reconstruct the picture of the industrial and spiritual life of human groups in ancient times. Now the cultural layer covers almost the entire planet. But what should be understood by the word "culture"? Scientists have not been able to agree on this to the end and on all points so far. 164 definitions of the concept of "culture" were counted a quarter of a century ago in scientific works by American scientists A. Kroeber and K. Klachon.

Culture is the sum of all activities, customs, beliefs. Culture is the socially inherited complex of practices and beliefs that defines the foundations of our lives. What is not included in the concept of "culture"! Its constituent elements are interconnected. There is, for example, a relationship between the type of economy and the nature of religious beliefs. Certain characteristic features of the upbringing of children are also connected with the type of household. The presence of various internal relationships between the parts and elements of culture allows us to consider it as an integral system. However, it should be borne in mind that such connections are for the most part very flexible and leave considerable freedom to many even the most important features of culture.

With a huge variety of cultures of different peoples on our planet, it is often possible to recreate a fairly complete picture of the culture of a particular people as a whole from individual small details.

The systemic nature of individual peoples, cultures, which together make up the general culture of mankind, is clearly visible not only when comparing societies located at the same stages of social development. It turns out to be extremely interesting and useful to consider within individual cultures those features that are associated with specific natural conditions and are repeated almost everywhere where these conditions are similar.

In general, the common features that exist in the culture of different peoples can be due to a wide variety of factors: the common level of their socio-economic development, the similarity of the natural environment, traditions, etc. At the same time, culture is extremely diverse, distinctive in its own way every people. Sometimes, as the main factor that unites people, they point to the commonality of their culture and way of life. But quite often among completely different peoples there is a similarity in everyday culture and way of life. The fact is that a people, an ethnos, is characterized not by any one of these signs - only by language, only by a common culture, etc., but by their combination.

The culture of individual peoples - to be more precise, ethnic cultures - differ from each other insofar as different peoples often perform actions aimed at satisfying the same needs in different ways. Differences can be counted in great numbers. They are usually called ethnic or ethno-regional if they belong to a group of peoples. Every nation's inherent features of culture are ordinary, natural, often even the only correct ones. But its representatives of the peculiarities of behavior and life, the most common actions of people of another nation can be perceived as strange, moreover, sometimes even incredible.

Culture has a significant and most important task - the transformation of the world. It meets the needs of man, which no other creature has, being embodied, first of all, in the production of material goods, tools and means of production. The phenomena of culture are multifaceted, capable of turning to a person in different directions.

Culture is inextricably linked with nature. But for all the significance of the influence of natural factors on culture, it would be an oversimplification to believe that they completely determine its emergence and development. The level of social development, and, accordingly, of culture depends primarily on the development of productive forces.

Influencing the culture of society, nature itself experiences a considerable impact from the latter. One of the results of this impact is the cultural landscape - the nature transformed by society, the environment of its existence.

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Culture is an object of particular difficulty for any researcher. It is not a natural formation, although it is connected with nature by thousands of threads. Culture entirely depends on the person, has a subjective, that is, coming from the subject, source of origin, filled at the same time with objective content. It appears primarily as a result of human activity, in the form of a set of material objects (tools, industrial and residential buildings, household items), a set of work skills, old technologies preserved by mankind and new technologies being developed, and also in the form various objects of spiritual culture. However, the consideration of culture as a result of human activity, as something static, "standing up" encounters certain difficulties. Any object of culture makes sense only in human activity, acquires its true being in the case when it has meaning and significance for the subject that uses it, consumes it, deobjectifies it in the course of all its life activity.

Man is a being constantly changing, “becoming”, developing. He actively appropriates the world, perceives culture as a living organism, constantly changing with it. Man and culture are objects of co-evolutionary development, mutually influencing, enriching and creating each other. In this sense, one can speak of culture not only as a result of human activity but also as a process, as something that is in constant development. It is the activity of the subject that acts as a connecting link in co-evolution. The contradictory essence of human activity contains the definitions and contradictions of culture, its existence as a special system created by man. To consider culture as system, it is necessary to answer the questions: is the world culture a certain integrity, and, if so, what is its structure?

World culture in time and space is variegated, inexhaustible in its individual manifestations, strikingly rich, diverse, has a lot of modifications, is represented by developed, developing, all kinds of transitional forms. Nevertheless, it is characterized by such common features as non-biological nature, which acts as the substantive basis of culture; manufacturability, that is, the presence of mechanisms for the adaptive-transformative attitude of the subject-creator to the environment; productivity - the creative nature of being in the world; stereotype - the ability to reproduce cash.

With this consideration, world culture as a whole is a way of activity, a technology of a generic subject (humanity), generated by society, characterized in its being by the unity of adaptive-transformative and stereotypically productive moments. No matter how diverse the forms of cultures, they clearly show the features of unity, coincidence in cultural objects, ways of people's activities, regardless of chronological and geographical remoteness. The indivisibility of the world, the unity of world culture, the commonality of the cultural wealth of mankind were recognized by all progressive thinkers as a truly humanistic principle for considering culture. This idea can be traced in the remarkable works of E. Tylor "Primitive Culture", J. Fraser "The Golden Bough" and other works that amaze the reader's imagination with a huge ethnographic material, where similar features and principles of their functioning are found behind the exotic manifestations of many cultures. The diverse forms of culture, no matter how strikingly they are not similar to each other, are the offspring of the same root, are identical in their essence, as ways of a single human activity. E. Tylor, approaching the comparative study of cultural forms that differ from each other, emphasized that any ethnological museum clearly shows the features of unity, coincidence in objects of material culture and methods of activity - regardless of temporal and geographical remoteness. Representatives of the so-called "cultural relativism", on the contrary, proceeded from the recognition of incompatibility and the absence of points of convergence of cultures of different countries, peoples, eras. Proponents of the concepts of local civilizations and types of cultures are the world famous researchers N. Danilevsky, A. Toynbee, O. Spengler.

To date, there have been various approaches to the study of the historical path of mankind: cultural-historical, civilizational, formational, each of which seeks to identify some criteria that allow us to speak about a certain integrity of the object under study, about the unity of human history. Among the criteria are economic, technical and technological factors, factors of "spirit", "mentality", worldviews, religiosity, factors of ethnicity, "geographical cultural area", etc. What makes the world historical process, world culture a single whole? On what truly universal grounds is the appearance of that whole which we call world culture looming?

Fundamentally common, essentially connecting the entire human history, making the world culture truly whole genetically, historically (diachronically) and system-structurally (synchronously) is the activity of man, his work, which underlies the co-evolutionary change and development of man himself, and culture, and society. , and nature. The diachronic self-identity of the essential foundations of culture is revealed in the unity of the process of world history.

The tendency to consider world culture as a whole based on the recognition of the unity of history, where the subject creates the world process in the activity of producing material and spiritual values, where there are common mechanisms for the production, preservation, distribution, exchange of cultural wealth created by mankind, is increasingly making its way. The idea of ​​world culture, taken as a whole in its ongoing existence (world history), does not exclude, but presupposes its synchronous unity in each given historical period. Consideration of this issue comes up against the need to determine the specific historical type of connections that form a cultural whole. It is known that connectivity is a defining feature of the whole. The temporal unity of culture becomes truly evident from the historical period of modern times, and the transition to the information society makes this process undeniable. The all-planetary exchange of activity, information allows you to transfer your "essential forces" from one subject to another and is a fundamental connection of the entire socio-cultural continuum.

The sociocultural continuum as a whole is not amorphous. It has a developed internal structure, acts as a complex system.

The principle of consistency is an important aspect of philosophical methodology in the study of such a developing object as culture. A number of regulatory requirements are associated with it, prescribing to conduct research in such a way as to understand the object under study as a system, as a mutual connection of elements, as a structured integrity. Thus, it is important to emphasize, on the one hand, the integrity of the object, its structure, on the other hand, the interaction and dynamics of the transformation of structural elements. The result of such a study is synthetic knowledge, a multidimensional picture of being - culture. However, much depends on the initial methodological guidelines, on what is chosen as the connecting link of the structure. Structuralists (K. Levi-Strauss, M. Foucault), for example, emphasize the basic importance of linguistic-sign structures in culture.

Theorists of structural-functional analysis (T. Parsons, R. Merton) as a defining structure fixed a set of generally accepted norms and values ​​that force a person to fulfill the functional requirements of the social system. |

The Marxist method proceeds from the recognition of the basic significance of the material (economic) structure, which determines the role of material culture in relation to the spiritual life of society. With all the differences in the noted approaches, all of them primarily involve considering an object as a system with its own internal organization, indicate the need to determine the degree of complexity of the system and identify patterns of functioning and interconnections of elements. It should be emphasized that the concept of culture is ambiguous.

Harvard University scientists A. Kroeber and K. Klakhohn counted almost one hundred and seventy definitions of culture, extracted from the works of Western European and American researchers. Apparently, in each definition something essential, structurally and functionally important for the phenomenon of culture is expressed in a concentrated way, in addition, the contradictory unity of the developing systemic education, which is culture, is reflected in the definitions. One can state the existence of a rather motley set of structural-systemic models, each of which has its own undoubted findings and noteworthy moments.

Culture is syncretic (undivided), polymodal, multidimensional. Because of this, the selection of structural elements is difficult, their finiteness is to a certain extent conditional. These problems were discussed to some extent in the works of domestic researchers: Ts. Arzakanyan, A. Arnoldov, V. Davidovich, Yu. Zhdanov, V. Kelle, M. Kagan, V. Mezhuev, E. Markaryan, V. Tolstykh and others Deep penetration into the structure of the integral world of culture is yet to come, but we will try to single out the most frequently encountered components of the system in the works of scientists.

When considering the general circulation of culture as a property of an acting subject, one can single out its subjective being, expressed in the dual preserving-generating nature of an actually functioning and developing subject, and object (objectified) being, objectified, carrying in itself the resulting moment of activity. We can talk about two sides of culture: its external objectivity, the technical side and internal objectivity, acting as a human side, its live activity, the integrity of the functioning of the abilities of the subject, the unity of his inner world. From these positions, all human culture, first of all, will appear before us as the development of this internal objectivity, constantly translated by the activity of the subject into objectified objectivity. The forms of objectification of cultural phenomena are very different: from objectification in the neurodynamic systems of the brain of an individual, his consciousness, world views, beliefs, creative intentions, goals of activity to skills and the ability to produce something, from stereotypical forms of behavior to innovative changes in traditions that go beyond the stability , from objectified, included in the fund of culture, a kind of memory of society, moments of spiritual activity to objectification in the form of materialized objects (objects) of culture, preserved in museums and used in everyday life. These considerations deserve attention, since they contain a theoretical premise for the first division of the continuum of world culture into a subjective form that has existence (as a subjective reality inherent in the subject of activity, as internal objectivity, the goal of activity in its unity with means) and external objectivity as the world. realized activity as a resultant form.

The subject, actively appropriating the world around him, the universal culture and "his" society (in all the variety of forms of objectification), perceives culture as something given, existing objectively, regardless of what form of objectification, whether it be material objects, or developed and fixed in the social memory ways of material and spiritual activity, traditions and standards of behavior, stereotypes of thinking prevailing in society, paradigms, myths, types of rationality and mentality. The image of the future is formed by the subject according to his human measure and requires the definition of the world of culture not only as it is, but also as it should be from the point of view of the desired vision of the world by a person (proper), encouraging to achieve it. Acceptance of current culture, awareness and comprehension of one’s interaction and connection with it, understanding of culture as a “human world” (“I am in the world”, “the world is in me”, “the world is for me”, “I am for the world”) forms the vector of the subject’s activity not only in the process of reflecting the world, but also in activities to change, develop the existing culture, to accept or overthrow traditions, authorities, etc. Thus, both the existing being, and its image, and the model of the future, and the subject itself are in constant development, they are not static objects. Culture, accumulating socio-historical experience, programs human activity based on social needs and sets forward movement. Culture acts as a mechanism created by society for the inheritance and transmission of social forces from one generation to another. It is the unity of inherited and generative activity. The existence of culture in this sense acts as a single process unfolding in the sphere of material and spiritual production.

The division into material and spiritual culture captures the fundamental differences between the two types of activity. The division is carried out on the basis not only of the differences in the produced "products", but also according to the internal characteristics of the activity itself, according to the totality of conditions and relationships that form this activity.

Defining culture as a way, technology of activity, one can single out the cultural side of various phenomena of social life: the culture of work, life, thinking, production, political, legal, and the culture of social relations. It is a way of human existence and every manifestation of sociality.

Culture, being realized, embodied in activity by consciousness, includes "cultural objectivity". The concept of "cultural" objectivity covers everything that embodies knowledge, skills, norms, values ​​of society. It includes material culture, covering the means, products and infrastructure of material production, household items and spiritual culture, embodied in language, speech, moral behavior and works of art, legal and political behavior, scientific works and religious rituals. In general, the content of culture is the spiritual world of a person, embodied in labor and other activities.

As a social phenomenon, culture performs numerous functions. It includes cognitive activity person who performs informative function, being a means of transferring social experience and mastering the culture of other peoples. The development of culture is necessarily conditioned by its communication with other cultures. Culture also fulfills normative function, it implements the norms formed in a particular civilization, and also creates its own norms and values, spreading their influence on all spheres of human life and activity.

The most important function of culture is human-creative. An individual becomes a person in the process of mastering culture. Culture serves the system of social relations, mediates and prepares the changes and shifts taking place here, creating specific mechanisms that ensure the regulation of human behavior. This can be direct, direct regulation through law, morality, a system of prohibitions and indirect regulation, carried out by prescribing certain actions that symbolize certain values ​​and requirements of society.

The most important functions of culture are also adaptive and non-tropical. Culture as an area of ​​creative search finds new opportunities to respond to the "challenge" of history and nature, to solve urgent problems in society. It ensures the adaptation of society to change and interaction with other civilizations. The non-tropical function consists in the preservation of society as a qualitatively unique phenomenon. Culture resists destructive tendencies, because it contains mechanisms for the selection of values, as a result of which some phenomena of civilization that have limited historical significance are completely eliminated, while others are included in the treasury of the common human heritage.

The functions of culture are also socializing function, function goal-setting, compensatory function, game function.

Axiological foundations of culture

Culture is a system of values ​​and norms that mediate the interaction of people, a method and result of the symbolic and value-normative construction of reality and its cultivation according to the laws of the beautiful and the ugly, the moral and the immoral, the true and the false, the rational and the supernatural.

The German philosopher Heinrich Rickert (1863 - 1936) from the unique significance of culture determines the specifics of its knowledge, which consists in correlating cultural phenomena with a certain kind of values ​​- moral, aesthetic, religious, political. The purpose of cultural activity is the preservation of the main value: a person (capable of creating culture) and the world around him (capable of accepting a person and ensuring his existence).

The systemic nature of culture

The concept of "culture" cannot be considered in isolation from other categories of social philosophy (such as social consciousness, social being, basis and superstructure), - in their system it plays the most important system-forming role. The concept of culture contains not only a progressively evaluative criterion of existence (degree of development) of a person. Culture is an extremely multifaceted phenomenon, covering all spheres of life of the individual and society. It has a complex structure, the elements of which are distinguished for various reasons.

The internal structure of any culture is determined by the peculiarities of its functioning. Its existence is ensured by the specific activity of the subject, which creates a special cultural objectivity, in which the experience of mankind is embodied. Accordingly, the following components can be distinguished as the most important in culture: the subject of culture (personality, social group or society as a whole), cultural, consciously and value-oriented activity, cultural objectivity (everything that embodies knowledge, skills, norms, values ​​of society ), communication between people associated with the implementation of the main function of culture - the storage, transmission and assimilation of the experience of generations.

Since the subject of culture is a separate individual or social group, there are various forms of group and individual culture.

Masses - "mass consciousness" - "man of the masses" - "mass culture" (characterized by the mass production of cultural samples, their mass consumption; it appears in the dialectical unity of belonging and alienation, consumerism and creativity, creative tension and laziness of mass consciousness).

Education refers to the phenomenon of mass culture.

Elite culture acts as a search and affirmation of the personal principle. It is an opportunity for the chosen natures, who have realized the unity with each other, to resist the amorphous crowd, the masses and the "massifying" tendencies in culture. Elite culture is complex, refined, refined, highly specialized, unique, inimitable, individual.

Mass and elite culture do not exclude, but complement each other. Both are counterbalanced by folk culture. Popular culture does not at all mean that it corresponds to the cultural level of the masses: nationality is the expression of the spirit of the people.

Within the boundaries of the systemic approach, one can single out the artificial division of the integral cultural process into material and spiritual levels. The material level of culture is always the embodiment of ideas, knowledge, human goals. The spiritual level of culture exists in a realized objectified form - in an object, a sign, an image, a symbol. Their distinction is functional. The material level of culture is associated with the practical-transformative activity of people (reproductive means, tools, housing, technical structures, habitat, production technologies and specific forms of communication between people in the production process, technical knowledge); with the production and reproduction of social culture: it is dissolved, assimilated by the sacred sphere, crystallized in learning and poetry, in legal consciousness, in the forms of political life. Culture as a "pantry" of knowledge and technologies developed by people to solve common problems.

Semiotic foundations of culture

Significant nature of culture. Culture is a process of successive liberation of a person, organization of people's social behavior. Language, art, religion, science are the various stages and tools of this process, in which the general cultural meaning of the human community is objectified. From this point of view, culture appears as a semiotic (sign) system. Sign systems that mediate the most diverse types of human activity are not only means of organizing the corresponding activity, but often themselves become the object to which this activity is directed.

The dependence of all types of human life on the effectiveness of sign systems that regulate various enzymes of society. The strengthening of the role of symbolic means in the processes of functioning of culture is evidence that at this stage of historical development in public life, the social principle prevails over the individual-personal attitude of a person to the world around him. The semiotic space of culture is a field of intercultural communication, a junction of different cultural traditions, the basis of a dynamic communicative process. The problem of a symbol in culture and the problem of culture as a symbol. The language of symbols as a universal language of culture that allows people to enter into communicative relations with each other, to creatively navigate in the space of culture.

Culture as an ecumene of assimilated and meaningful being.

Dialogical character of culture

The realization of the wealth of culture presupposes their development, i.e. transformation into a spiritual and practical property of the individual and society. Therefore, the most important component of culture is the activity of translation, perception, comprehension of its objectivity. The exchange of knowledge, experience, assessments is a necessary condition for the existence of culture. Therefore, the existence of culture is possible only in the dialogue of those who created and those who perceive the phenomenon of culture. The semantic meaning of an object of culture is dead if it is isolated from society, and the people are alienated from culture. According to Karl Jaspers, culture not only forms and realizes the essential powers of a person, but realizes them in dialogue, in the exchange of information, emotions, and knowledge. Dialogue is the real existence of culture, its immanent essence, a way of realizing its functions.

Dialogue and polylogue as forms of intercultural communication, during which the interpenetration of the national and universal in culture takes place. Culture always exists in specific national forms. Every nationality is the wealth of a single and fraternally united humanity, and not an obstacle in its path. In the culture of each nation, in addition to national and ethnic characteristics, there are also common, international, universal values ​​and features. This confirms the well-known proposition that the history of all peoples is subject to the action of a number of general sociological laws. The process of mutual enrichment of cultures of different peoples is intensified on the basis of their economic and political ties, which contribute to their ever broader communication.

Culture, according to the Soviet philosopher Mikhail Bibler, is a living integrity, not closed, but open, all in unconscious, unrevealed and unrealized meanings, waiting for favorable conditions. Each culture requires communication with a foreign culture in order to better see itself in its eyes. Only during such a meeting, with respect for the alienness of both cultures, can one get to know a "foreign" culture. Meeting with each other and knowing themselves, individual cultures create a chain of an emerging universal human culture. Dialogue, according to the Russian philosopher, is the real being of culture, its immanent essence, a way of realizing its functions. Culture is a form of simultaneous existence and communication of people of different past, present and future - cultures.

Concepts of non-violence

Non-violence is the most important and unmistakable indicator of the level of moral development of man and society. At the same time, it is a pragmatic imperative of our time. Non-violence is the most important condition for the further progress and prosperity of mankind, the humanistic principle of the absolute value of life.

The idea of ​​non-violence was born in ancient Eastern religious cults. It was an integral part of the worldview systems of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. The concept of non-violence was reflected and developed in early Christianity, which develops its own approach to non-violence, which consists in the concept of self-sacrifice and love for one's neighbor. In pre-Christian cults, non-violence was understood mainly as meek submission to divine, natural and social necessity, tolerance for all living things, non-harm to the world around, striving for good.

The transition of Christianity to the rank of the state religion was marked by a departure from the principle of non-violence as absolute pacifism. According to Augustine, out of love for his neighbor, a Christian can break the vow of non-resistance and come to his aid, even using weapons. This interpretation of non-violence essentially justified violence. Purification and revival of the idea of ​​non-violence became one of the goals of the Western Reformation. Protestantism transfers the early Christian commandments to the plane of morality, to the principles of practical behavior.

In modern times, the principles of non-violence have found the most complete expression in the teachings of Leo Tolstoy on non-resistance to evil by violence and in the principles of Mohatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948) of non-violent actions in the political sphere (refusal to cooperate with the colonial administration, civil disobedience - boycott of government agencies and educational institutions , refusal of titles and titles granted by the British authorities, organization of peaceful processions and demonstrations, non-payment of taxes).

The central principle of the socio-political views of Leo Tolstoy was the principle of non-violence. For Tolstoy there was no politics outside of morality. He rejected the ideals of the class struggle: they divided and embittered people, and did not unite them. He opposes to these ideals non-violence, tolerance, humanism. Tolstoy considered non-violence not a kind of humility and humility (quietism), but a means of overcoming and resisting violence.

The modern concept of nonviolence is characterized by two important points. Both of them appear as a reflection of deep processes in human culture, focused on the development of a new matrix of values, replacing the former life orientations characteristic of technogenic civilization. First, non-violence is organically linked with the struggle for justice, it is seen as an effective and adequate means in this struggle. Non-violent struggle brings changes to the world, is the ovary of a new fair type of relations between people. For Gandhi, her ultimate goal is to improve the world, transform it through love and the deepest respect for man.

Secondly, non-violence is capable of transforming not only the individual and interpersonal relationships, but also social institutions (classes, the state). Non-violence heals, unites and brings together the destinies of the oppressed and the oppressor. Non-violence in politics traditionally serves as a specific means of influencing power "from below". The concept of non-violence is designed to act on higher motives for human behavior than fear of physical punishment or economic sanctions. The philosophy of non-violence affirms the supremacy of the individual, his spiritual and moral world in relation to power, builds the prospect of solidarity of human wills, the "horizon of friendly communication."

The philosophy of non-violence differs significantly from pacifism, passive contemplation of evil, non-resistance to violence. Non-violence is the principle of action. A non-violent strategy of behavior assumes that a person takes responsibility for the evil reigning in the world, against which he is fighting, and introduces "enemies" to the good in whose name he is fighting. The ethics of non-violence opens up a perspective, providing a mutually reinforcing combination of ethics and politics, goals and means, based on the rejection of a monopoly on truth, readiness for change, dialogue and compromise, full openness of behavior.

Culture as a condition for survival

Sigmund Freud understands culture as a system of prohibitions, a way of protection from "animal" instincts and sublimation of antisocial drives - Eros and Thanatos (death drive). He considers the trigger mechanisms of culture totem (totemism as a form of primitive religion) and taboo (as the first norms of human community).

Culture is what human life rises above its animal conditions and how it differs from animal life. It covers all the knowledge and skills acquired by people, which gives a person the opportunity to master the forces of nature and receive material benefits from it to satisfy their needs. On the other hand, culture includes all those institutions that are necessary for streamlining relationships between people, for the distribution of achievable material goods.

Culture of physical and mental reproduction, rehabilitation and recreation of a person. Sexual culture (in terms of solving problems of procreation). Culture of physical development. Culture of maintaining and restoring health. The culture of restoring the human energy balance (cooking, nutrition system). Culture of rest, mental recreation and rehabilitation of a person.

Introduction

In everyday use, the term "culture" is understood as a cumulative image that includes art, religion, science, etc.

The study of culture as a system, consideration of its components and functions remains a topical issue of scientific knowledge. There are a number of cultural concepts that consider culture from different points of view: the theory of culture in the philosophy of Hegel, the philosophy of culture of Spengler, the representation of culture as a set of sign systems, and many others. In fact, every outstanding thinker formulated in his writings or speeches ideas about culture, its functions and its role in society. And so far in science there is no single definition of the phenomenon of culture.

Despite the diversity of scientific views on culture as a system, there are also general (traditional) provisions supported by most researchers. Many scientists consider culture as a complex multicomponent phenomenon associated with the diversity of human life and activities. Culture does not exist outside of a person, it is initially associated with a person and exists inseparably from a person’s constant search for the meaning of being and his activity.

Thus, in cultural studies, culture is a fundamental concept that characterizes the essence of human existence as the realization of freedom and creativity, in other words, it is a universal relationship of a person to the world, through which a person creates the world and himself. In addition, culture is what distinguishes a person from other living beings, a special kind of activity, the result of which are values ​​that exist in the form of signs.

Cultural processes are a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, explained by many existing concepts of culture. In order to have an idea of ​​culture and cultural processes, which is necessary for every modern educated person, it is necessary not only to define the concept of culture, but also to understand the structure of this concept, to see the functions of culture. This will determine the role of culture in society and explain the importance of cultural studies as an independent science.

This is what this work is about.

Culture as a system

Material and spiritual culture

Culture includes both material and spiritual means of human life. These material and spiritual realities are called artifacts, that is, artificially created - they are conceived and created by man as a creator.

Man himself is an artifact, since, on the one hand, he has a natural origin, lives and acts as a material being, and on the other hand, he is a spiritual and social being, a bearer and consumer of spiritual values. This means that man is not only a child of nature, but of culture. Therefore, human culture can be divided into material and spiritual.

A person can be considered as the initial system-forming factor in the development of culture. Man creates and uses the world of things and the world of ideas that revolves around him. At the same time, his role is the role of the creator, and the place of man in culture is the place of the center of culture. Man creates culture, reproduces and uses it as a means for his own development.

Material culture includes artifacts of various types and forms - these are equipment, structures, tools and means of labor, production, ways and means of communication, household items - everything that is created by man in the process of evolution and has a material embodiment and, as a rule, practical application.

Material culture, in a different sense, is “this is the human “I”, disguised as a thing; it is the spirituality of man embodied in the form of a thing; it is the human soul realized in things; it is the materialized and objectified spirit of mankind ”Culturology: Textbook / Compiled and responsible. editor A.A. Radugin. -- M.: Center, 2001, p.51.

Material culture primarily includes various means of material production: energy and raw materials, geological, hydrological or atmospheric components of the technology of material production. These are tools of labor - from the simplest tool forms to complex machine complexes; and various means of consumption; and products of material production; and various types of material-objective, practical human activity.

Material production itself in cultural studies is studied, first of all, from the point of view of its humanitarian or humanistic perfection (in contrast, for example, from the economy, where production is of interest to researchers in terms of its efficiency, efficiency, cost, profitability, etc.) .

Spiritual culture includes, on the one hand, the totality of the results of spiritual activity, and on the other hand, spiritual activity itself. Artifacts of spiritual culture exist in various forms. These are customs, norms and patterns of human behavior that have developed in specific historical conditions. It is also moral, aesthetic, religious or political ideals and values, various ideas and scientific knowledge.

Structural integrity of culture

The structural integrity of culture is manifested in the fact that its values ​​are correlated in the form of a hierarchy, that is, there is a subordination and ranking of them: some of them occupy a central and fundamental place, while others are secondary and derivative, some of them have a general and total value, others are local and concrete.

It is important to note that the integrity of culture is based, as a foundation, on the integrity of nature.

The integrity of culture that a person encounters in everyday life is the integrity of the material and spiritual life of a person, the integrity of all those material and spiritual means that he uses in his life every day, that is, it is the integrity of material and spiritual cultures.

Culture acts as a living system of values, as long as the person himself is actively acting - as a creative, creative principle.

A person organizes the flows of values ​​through the channels of culture, he exchanges and distributes them, he preserves, produces and consumes both material and spiritual products of culture, and by doing this work, he creates himself as a subject of culture, as a social being.

Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation St. PetersburgState University of Culture and Arts.

Novgorod branch.

Abstract on culturology on the topic:

Culture as a system.

Completed by a student II course SKD

Shorina Tatyana Vyacheslavovna

Checked by teacher:

Bolshakov

Velikiy Novgorod

2002

1. Introduction

2. World culture as a whole.

3. Structure of culture

4. material culture

5. Spiritual culture

6. Artistic culture

Introduction.

Culture - (lat) cultivation, upbringing, education, development.

This is a specific way of organizing and developing human life, representations in the products of material and spiritual labor in the system of social norms and institutions, in the system of spiritual values, in the aggregate, the relationship of people to nature among themselves and to themselves.

In wide sense of the word culture - a set of manifestations of life, the achievements of the creativity of the people or groups of peoples.

In the narrow sense of the word culture - the ennoblement of bodily, mental inclinations and abilities of a person.

Culture - processing, design, spiritualization, ennoblement by people of others and themselves. This is a design that has a valuable meaning. Culture begins where content is perfected.

/ Bolshakov. /

Culture is an object of particular complexity. It is not a natural object, although it is connected with nature by thousands of threads. Culture entirely depends on a person and has a subjective, that is, a source of origin emanating from the subject, filled at the same time with objective content. Any object of culture makes sense only in human activity; it acquires its true being in the cases when it has meaning and meaning for the subject who uses it, consumes, deobjectifies in the process of all its life activity.

Man is a constantly changing being “becoming” developing. He actively appropriates the world and perceives culture as a living organism constantly changing with it. Man and culture are an object of co-evolutionary development, mutually influencing enriching and creating each other. In this sense, one can speak of culture not only as a result of human activity, but also as a process, as something that is in constant formation. It is the activity of the subject that acts as the connecting link of co-evolution. The contradictory essence of human activity contains the definitions and contradictions of the culture of its existence as a special system created by man. To consider culture as a system, one should answer the questions whether the world culture is a certain integrity, and, if so, what is its structure?

World culture as a whole.

World culture in time and space is motley inexhaustible in its individual manifestations, strikingly rich, diverse, has a lot of modifications, represented by developed developing all kinds of transitional forms. However, it is characterized by such common features as non-biological acting as the substantive basis of culture; manufacturability, that is, the presence of mechanisms for an adaptive - transformative attitude of the subject - the creator to the environment; productivity, that is, the creative nature of being in the world; stereotypy - the ability to reproduce. With this consideration, world culture as a whole is a way of activity, technologies of a generic subject (humanity), generated by society, characterized in its being by the unity of adaptive-transformative and stereotypically productive moments. No matter how diverse the forms of culture are, they clearly reveal the features of the unity of coincidence in cultural objects in the ways of people's activities, regardless of chronological and geographical remoteness. The indivisibility of the world of the unity of world culture, the commonality of the cultural wealth of mankind, was recognized by all progressive thinkers as a truly humanistic principle for considering culture.

The tendency to consider world culture as a whole based on the recognition of the unity of history, where the subject creates the world process of activity for the production of material and spiritual values, where there are common mechanisms for the production, preservation, distribution, exchange of cultural wealth created by mankind, is increasingly making its way. The idea of ​​world culture taken as a whole in its dividing being (world history) does not exclude but presupposes its synchronous unity in each given historical period. Consideration of this issue accumulates on the need to determine specifically - the historical type of connections that form a cultural whole. It is known that connectivity is a defining feature of the whole. The temporal unity of culture acquires true visibility from the historical period of modern times, and the transition to the information society makes this process undeniable. The planetary exchange of information activity allows you to transfer your “essential forces” from one subject to another and is a fundamental connection of your sociocultural continuum.

The sociocultural continuum as a whole is not amorphous. It has an internal structure and acts as a complex system; the principle of consistency is an important aspect of philosophical methodology in the study of such a developing object as culture. Associated with a number of regulatory requirements prescribing to conduct research in such a way as to understand the object under study as a system, as a mutual connection of elements as a structural integrity.

The structure of culture.

Culture, being a complex object, cannot be one-dimensional. When studying this multidimensional formation, two facets are distinguished - technical and technological and subject-productive. They characterize the features of the deployment of the subject's material activity, which makes it possible to single out, first of all, the layers of material culture. Along with the material, it is customary to single out two more specific layers: spiritual and artistic culture; each layer of culture has its own internal structure.

material culture.

Within the framework of material activity, four areas of material culture should be distinguished:

1. The fruits of material production are intended for human consumption, as well as technical facilities that equip material production. This is the so-called "material culture" - everything from past eras is a tool of labor, a weapon, clothes are the fruits of agricultural handicraft industrial production.

2. The culture of reproduction of the human race of the way of human behavior in the sphere of intimate relationships. The sphere of natural-clan relations of a man and a woman in a sensual measure characterizes the steps of a person's general culture.

3. In the culture of physical development, the bodily side of a person acts as an object of application of his activity, the cultivation of a person’s physical capabilities, the harmonization of his bodily manifestations of the physical qualities of motor skills and abilities - all this is combined into the concept of physical culture.

4. Socio-political culture as an area of ​​material culture should be understood as the whole variety of institutions and practical actions that constitutes the real “body” of social being, what is usually called “social matter”

These are the four subdivisions of the subject-productive layer of material culture, covering the possible and necessary directions for the practical transformation by a person of the material existence of natural and social components. In each of these areas of human activity, peculiar forms of material communication between people grow up, since outside communication no human activity is meaningful. Material collective activity requires not only spiritual but also directly material communication of its participants in the process of production in socio-political practice in family life, etc.

Spiritual culture.

Spiritual culture grows as the ideal side of material activity, its derivative is determined by it. However, under certain conditions, being objectified by the fixed mechanisms of social memory, spiritual culture as a stable matrix of spiritual life, the mentality of society can play a leading role at various stages of society. If we take the point of view that activity has a complex structure and includes such types as transformative, value-oriented and communicative, then spiritual culture can be divided into four sections:

1. The first is generated by the social activity of the human imagination, this is a projective type of activity that has the greatest cultural value. It precedes material practice, offering it ideal models of future constructions. In the history of culture, projective activity, having originated and developed, gradually turned into a specialized branch of spiritual production. The results of this type of activity are ideal models, projects and drawings of technical structures, structures, machines.

2. Close to this internal structure is the second area of ​​spiritual culture covered by human cognitive activity. It acts as a body of knowledge about nature, society, man, his inner world. Knowledge is an element in this area of ​​spiritual culture.

3. The structure of the third section of spiritual culture, associated with value-oriented activity, is even more peculiar. In general, it is determined by the same difference in objects to which this activity is directed. Knowledge assessment acts as a link with the above-named structural element of culture. Knowledge acts as an evaluative filter, they are inseparable from evaluative activity. The dialectical nature of reflection is expressed in the fact that it acts as a knowledge of the world and as a reflection of the significance of the latter for the purposes of social practice. The meaningful nature of knowledge by understanding the world implies not just knowledge about it, but an understanding of the value of the person himself, as a subject of activity, the values ​​of his knowledge, creations, the values ​​of the very world of culture in which a person lives. The human world is always a world of values; it is filled with meaning and meaning for him.

Quarters of spiritual culture is the spiritual communication of people in all specific forms of its manifestation. These forms are determined by the characteristics of the subject of communication. Not a mediocre partner of a person in communication can be another person. The spiritual contact of partners, during which information is exchanged, is a high cultural value. The acceptance of this or that goal, the understanding of any issue of the problem deepens precisely because a person sees in synchronous experiences partners in communication similar to his experiences. Spiritual communication can take place on an interpersonal level. There is another specific form of communication. The most valuable moments of the spiritual life of society, being objectified, are included in the cultural fund, a kind of "memory" of society. Objectified in speech, books, works of art, the results of spiritual activity are constantly "consumed" and deobjectified, becoming the property of people's consciousness. In this case, mediated communication is carried out between people of different generations, eras, cultures through the objectified results of spiritual activity.

Art culture.

Artistic culture is a special area of ​​culture formed due to a number of forms of activity associated with art (artistic perception of thinking, creativity, experience, etc.). artistic culture has special forms of material embodiment, is spiritual in its basis, and as a rule has a pictorial character. This is a special integral structure in which the material and the spiritual are organically combined. This organicity, unknown to other forms of spiritual activity, allows us to single out artistic, cultural as a special independent and central layer of culture, which, on the one hand, comes close to the layer of material culture (proximity of architecture to technology), and on the other hand to the layer of spiritual culture (proximity to literature to science)

The internal structure of artistic culture has not yet been studied enough. Most often, artistic culture is reduced to the communicative scheme artist - art - public. This is no self-governing system where the elements are "artistic production - artistic values ​​- artistic consumption". In artistic culture, human activity is represented by all its types, which not only merge, are identified in art itself, but also specific refracted, enter the artistic culture that surrounds art with its institutions.

Transformative activity is introduced into artistic culture in the form of artistic production. Communicative activity in the form of works of art, since the perception of a work of art is a kind of communication between the public and the author or his work. Value-orientation activity, being part of artistic culture, specializes in evaluating a work of art. Cognitive activity, for its part, manifests itself in the form of a specific interest in art, studied within the framework of art history sciences. The central link of artistic culture is art as a set of activities within the framework of the artistic creativity of the subject and its results. Artistic culture is a relatively autonomous and self-governing system of circulation of specific non-recoded aesthetic information, all links are held together by a network of direct and feedback links.

Thus, summing up what has been said, it is necessary to emphasize that the phenomenon of culture owes its origin, existence and functioning to the activity of the subject (humanity, peoples of social groups, individuals). With all the variety of forms of manifestation, culture acts as a whole, a system.

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