Meanings of culture- this is the content that cannot be expressed directly and unambiguously. Meaning can be understood as that which ensures the universal cohesion of the meanings of signs. given language. Meanings have several levels:
- 1) the most superficial level of meaning is the so-called common sense. This meaning has already manifested itself at the level of consciousness, rationalized and generally accepted. It coincides with the meaning and is expressed in a verbal (verbal) way;
- 2) the deepest level of meaning is the unmanifested content that connects a person with the world of values, laws, patterns of behavior of a given culture. If all cultural phenomena are considered as facts of communication, as messages, then they can be understood only in relation to some mediator, because the connection of sign systems with the reality they reflect is not direct. Therefore, a system of special semantic distinguishable features is needed - culture codes.
The very concept of "code" appeared for the first time in communication technology (telegraph code, Morse code), in computer science, mathematics, cybernetics, genetics ( genetic code). In this case, a code is understood as a set of characters and a system of certain rules with the help of which information can be represented as a set of these characters for transmission, processing and storage.
The code-- model of the rule for generating a number of specific messages. All codes can be compared with each other on the basis of a common code, more simple and comprehensive. Messages, cultural text can be opened to different readings depending on the code used. The code allows you to penetrate the semantic level of culture, without knowing the code, the cultural text will be closed, incomprehensible, unperceived. A person will see a system of signs, and not a system of meanings and meanings.
The main culture code must have the following characteristics:
self-sufficiency for the production, transmission and preservation of human culture;
openness to change;
versatility. In pre-Olympic cultures, the most important cultural code was the system of names. For primitive man actions with objects were equivalent to actions with words, and therefore the name was an essential part of him. In his view, personal names must be preserved and kept secret, since the enemy can magically influence him through the name. It was a very common phenomenon when every man, woman or child of a tribe, in addition to the name that was used in everyday life, also had secret names known to elders and initiates. The same custom continued in later times such as in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians had two names: true (or big) and good (or small). The first was kept in the deepest secret, the second was known to everyone.
This kind of taboo on the name is due to the fact that the name really reflected the socio-cultural significance and position of a person in a given society, since in pre-Olympic cultures the naming system was a mechanism for coding and updating culture, when the name is information itself, not a label; through the name it is possible to carry out real manipulations with the object.
Cultural universals- concepts that express those features cultural phenomena, which are found in all cultures: ancient and new, small and large. They express those characteristics of cultural experience that are significant for any culture (fire, water, laughter, tears, work, male = female, etc.).
The concept of a cultural code.Basic cultural code.
pre-written codes,written and screen culture
One of key concepts cultural studies, revealing the mechanisms of the functioning of culture in the system of social interaction, the way of its self-realization, is the concept of a cultural code. The concept of "code" refers to a system of transformational mechanisms inherent in certain areas of culture or typical situations of social interaction, thanks to which key signs and symbols are distinguished, organized, acquired the proper form, and transmitted in a specific way for them. The code allows you to express significant for people and therefore fixed features of communication with the environment, views on reality. Codes are artificial, conventional formations, based, however, on natural prerequisites inherent in man. The capacity of codes characterizes their expressive potential, that is, the ability to fully, accurately and reliably convey information about certain aspects of reality.
Defending the idea of the structural unity of culture, the structuralists put forward the idea of the existence of a basic cultural code. The main culture code has the following characteristics:
firstly, it is universal, that is, it works in any cultural type and any historical time;
secondly, it is self-sufficient for the formation and preservation of human culture;
thirdly, he is open to change, self-generation of new codes, as well as secondary ones, in terms of their connection with the structures of social codes.
The existence of the main cultural code is determined by three parameters, according to which the self-organization of culture in nature takes place. These are objectivity, symbolism and ideality. All these three parameters are interconnected and interdependent.
Objectivity as a component of the cultural code means the existence in the natural world of a class of non-natural artificial objects - "secondary nature", an artificial environment, in contrast to the natural one. This environment is formed on the basis of expedient human activity, and therefore on a different mechanism of interaction with the environment that is not inherent in nature.
The selection of things useful for people's life from nature was accompanied by the formation of skills for their processing and use. In this regard, the problem of preserving the acquired experience and developing a new non-genetic memory mechanism acquired particular relevance. And this mechanism was formed simultaneously with objectivity. It was contained in the simplest tools, consisting in their very form, suggesting the nature of the application and ease of handling. Thus, the object became a sign of purposeful actions, therefore, in the emerging cultural code, objectivity is identical to symbolism.
However, the iconic functions of specific objects are limited. In order for culture to survive in its tool-sign form, in opposition to the forces of nature, it was necessary to “invent” “open” a space that would belong to culture, but in which objectivity jj/ and naturalness would have the possibility of cultural interaction. Language has become such a cultural field. Language as a system of signs endowed with a certain meaning acts as a means and material for the objectification of the ideal content (meaning, meaning, information). A sign in a language can be regarded as a kind of “material shell” of human thought, feelings, desires, etc. In the linguistic field of culture, the differences between objectivity and a natural phenomenon are erased: both the “stick”, and the “bow”, and the “axe” were given sign names. In the same way as "tree", "water", "thunder". Moreover, clans, leaders and other members of the clan began to receive names (totems). Significance of the tool, associated with manual human activity, becomes a prerequisite for new forms of sign activity (ritual, cult, magic, witchcraft, myth).
During cultural development three main types of signs were developed: 1) designation signs, 2) model signs; 3) signs-symbols. Symbols are the basis of natural language and provide communication. The unit of the sign system of natural language is the word. Model signs are designations of those objective actions that they model. The sign-symbol not only points to the designated object, but also expresses the meaning, i.e., in a visual-figurative form, conveys ideas or ideas associated with this object. A sign-symbol can designate not only an object, but also replace existing signs, for example, model signs
“Along with the main cultural code underlying human culture, there are secondary codes that express the characteristics of certain types of culture. In accordance with the classification of culture types, codes of preliterate cultures, codes of written cultures, codes of screen cultures are distinguished.
Preliterate culture covers a huge "prehistoric" period, including "savagery" and "barbarism" (in the terminology of L. Morgan and E. Taylor). The most primitive foundations of the cultural code were laid back in the Lower Paleolithic (from 1 million to 40 thousand years ago). In the future, each of its parameters was filled with new content, and most importantly, connections were established between them, “including” the cultural code in the work, which provided every time new level self-organization of culture.
In pre-literate cultures, mythological was the dominant cultural code. AT primitive society myth is not only a way of understanding life (development of ideality as a parameter of the main cultural code), but also a way of experiencing it both in subject and in iconic forms. At the same time, all three types of sign systems actively operated and interacted with each other.
Signs and designations in the mythological consciousness of primitive man, according to J. Fraser, "the connection between a name and a person, or the thing that it denotes, is an involuntary and ideal association, but real, materially tangible bonds." Actions with objects are tantamount to actions with words, and therefore, in order to protect yourself from evil forces and spirits, you must not only protect yourself, your clan, tribe from dangerous actions, but also protect the name, one's own, or the name of relatives, or the name of a deceased person, for which the names are hidden, double names are given, or a taboo (prohibition) is imposed on pronouncing the name).
As in the case of signs and designations, the mythological cultural code does not make any distinction between a model sign and an object. So, for example, the skin of an animal or the drawing of this skin on the wall served as a sign of the model, which made it possible to work out the most important objective action - the practical action - hitting the target while hunting. On the basis of signs-models, magical rituals were formed. The researchers note that in any magical ritual of organic culture, objects of real life and actions with them are not simply modeled, but thereby a sign field of culture is created in which comprehension, an idea of reality in myth is formed into a special symbolic cultural layer. Ideality as a parameter of the main cultural code in pre-literate cultures develops the symbolic meanings of the myth. Mythological Stake; relies on a number of basic characters: . 1) the totem-animal totem symbolizes the kinship of a person with objects of living and inanimate nature. The soul is like a subtle, immaterial human image;
2) symbols of the elements: (water (ocean), fire, earth and sky). They symbolize the beginning of the universe, etc.
The codes of written cultures are formed from the end of the 4th - the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e. ( Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia) and still exist today. These codes in various local cultures have historically specific and diverse forms. There are a huge number of such forms, and a lot of work is required to identify and describe cultural codes. local cultures. Of fundamental importance in characterizing the codes of written cultures is the position that under the influence of social transformations, the mythological cultural code with its identity of objectivity, symbolism and ideality is destroyed, and each of these parameters takes on the form of independent functioning and is carried out by various social groups.
Objectivity associated with the tools of economic activity (tillage, construction, handicraft) becomes the lot of free farmers, slaves, and artisans. The city requires food reserves, which are concentrated in the palaces of the rulers, so special officials - managers and scribes - are busy accounting for crops grown in the fields, they also collect taxes to the treasury. All this unfolds sign activity on a new plane, contributing to the emergence of not only writing, but also numbers, counting, and simple operations with numbers. In addition, on flooded soils, it was required to re-mark plots of land between its owners every year. Managers, together with scribes, developed a way to mark fields of rectangular, trapezoidal and triangular shapes, learned to calculate the area and use drawings to calculate them.
Sacred knowledge in a given cultural code; it was recorded: sacred texts, on which scribes worked in temples, learning to write in temples, and then necessarily passed the rite of passage. They constituted a special caste, taking upon themselves the duties of streamlining (cultivating) social relations through the gods.
The new cultural code, in contrast to the mythological code, which was reproduced only in ritual actions, has a clear form of expression, the content of which is contained in the Holy Books: the Book of the Dead - the ancient Egyptians, the Old Testament - the ancient Jews, the Avesta - the ancient Iraqis-Zoroastrians, the Vedahs - the ancient Indian Brahminists, etc. They contain not only laws and rules that prescribe to people how to behave in relation to the world and to their God or Gods, but also communicate and comprehend the events of the past every people. Thus, history is included in the cultural code. Thus, the past, ancient and recent, becomes close, constitutes an event in the life of one people, which are connected as firmly into a single meaningful whole, as this period is connected with its Gods or the One God. In the written text, the place of the magic of action (ritual) is occupied by the magic of words. These words in the mouths of priests and priests are symbols of meanings inaccessible to others, in which the secrets of all things Divine and eternal are stored.
The change and restructuring of this cultural code begins in Christian Europe in the second half of the 15th century. associated with the invention of the printing press. The printed book circulation opened up new opportunities for mastering the ongoing social changes in the code of cultural memory. One of these significant changes was the desacralization of the Holy Text of the Bible, which occurred as a result of its translation from sacred Latin into German and other languages, turning it into a text accessible to all literate people. Science had a significant impact on the formation of a new cultural code. Its result - reliable, experimentally verified, rational knowledge was introduced into the mechanism of cultural memory, rebuilt it.
In the XVII-XIX centuries. signs as a fact, a scientific theory, a method of practical transformation of nature, including human nature, form the basis of the cultural code of Western Europe.
In the XX century. screen culture codes begin to form, organizing the interaction of the main components of the cultural code in a new way. Objectivity, which in past cultural types was aimed at the development of nature, is almost completely closed to "secondary objectivity" - computers, information communication systems, information banks, etc. Significance also significantly expands its scope: a word, a model, a symbol on the screen implemented in a new way, giving space creative activity in search of a sign-image. The ideality shaped by the screen culture is also significantly updated. The new thinking is characterized by the “fusion” of the logical and figurative, the synthesis of the conceptual and visual, the formation of “intellectual imagery” and sensory modeling.
If all cultural phenomena are considered as facts of communication, as messages, then they can be understood only in relation to the code, because the connection of sign systems with the reality they reflect is not direct. The code is discovered when various phenomena are compared with each other and reduced to a single system. Therefore, the code is built as a system of semantic features. Within the framework of structural-semiotic methods of culture analysis, fruitful attempts are being made to interpret culture as a certain structurally ordered, but historically variable a priori, as a kind of unity of fundamental codes. Such an attempt was made by M. Foucault, who, relying on structural methods, sought to discover “the fundamental codes of any culture that govern its language,
1 Spengler O. Sunset of Europe. M., 1993. S. 216.
its schemes of perception, its exchanges, its forms of expression and reproduction, its values, its hierarchy of practices” 1 .
The very concept of "code" appeared for the first time in communication technology (telegraph code, Morse code), in computer technology, mathematics, cybernetics, genetics (genetic code). Without coding, the construction of artificial languages, machine translation, encryption and decryption of texts are impossible. In all these usages, there is no need to refer to the meaning of the encoded messages. In this case, a code is understood as a set of characters and a system of certain rules with the help of which information can be represented as a set of these characters for transmission, processing and storage. Coding theory solves problems not of understanding, but of optimization and noise immunity of codes. In the theory of culture, it is the content and understanding of cultural texts that come to the fore, so the concept of “culture code” becomes so relevant and requires clarification.
The fact of culture, considered as a text, is an expression of the deep semantic field of culture. This field stating the entire socio-cultural integrity. The meaning of the text is always deeper than the meaning that lies on the surface, than what is sensually (visibly-tangibly) indicated in the cultural text. The connection between sign and meaning is mediated by the fact that, understanding, the subject of culture knows what is included in the area of objects denoted by the sign and what determines their meaning. The need for a cultural code arises when there is a transition from the world of signals to the world of meaning. The world of signals is the world of discrete units calculated in bits of information, and the world of meaning is those meaningful forms that organize the connection of a person with the world of ideas, images and values of a given culture. And if, within the framework of formalized languages, a code can be understood as something due to which a certain signifier (meaning, concept, concept) correlates with a certain signified (denotation, referent), then in cultural languages, the code is what allows us to understand the transformation of meaning into meaning. The code can be interpreted
1 Foucault M. Words and things. M., 1977. S. 37.
as a model of the rule for the formation of a number of specific messages. All codes can be compared with each other on the basis of a common code, more simple and comprehensive. A message, a cultural text can open up to different readings depending on the code used. The code allows you to penetrate the semantic level of culture, without
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knowledge of the code cultural text will be closed.
The main cultural code should have the following characteristics: self-sufficiency for the production, transmission and preservation of human culture, openness to change and universality.
In ancient cultures, the most important cultural code was the system of names. For a primitive person, the connection between a name and the thing or person it designates is not an arbitrary and ideal association, but a real, materially tangible one, and actions with objects are equivalent to actions with words, therefore the name is an essential part of him. In his view, personal names must be protected and kept secret, since the enemy can magically influence him through the name. A very common phenomenon was when members of a tribe, in addition to the name that was used in everyday life, also had secret names known only to elders and initiates. A similar custom was in later times, for example, in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians had two names: the true (or big), which was kept in the deepest secret, and the good (or small), known to everyone. The same situation was observed in India, when a child from the Brahmin caste received two names at birth. In ancient Greece, it was forbidden to pronounce the names of priests associated with the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries during their lifetime. The old names of the priests were carved on bronze or lead tablets and thrown into the Gulf of Salome in order to surround these names with an impenetrable mystery 1 .
This kind of “information blockade” of a name, a taboo, is due to the fact that the name really reflected the sociocultural significance and position of a person in a given society, since in ancient times
1 See: Fraser J.J. Golden branch. M., 1980. S. 277-298.
In these cultures, the naming system was a mechanism for encoding and updating the culture. “The name acts as a timeless continuity, a concentrator and container of information about the duties and actions of all previous bearers of the name in a different set of situations, i.e. very close to the modern understanding of the text. At the moment of dedication, this text is alienated in the memory of the elders, and already at this stage inevitably undergoes a series of transformations that provide a more or less opportunistic reassessment of the name, depending on the needs of the moment and on the current circumstances of the life of the tribe. The same type of transforming shift is inevitable at the moment of transferring information to a new carrier that perceives information through a prism. personal experience that arose in the course of his life" 1 . Such a transformative shift is inevitable with any transition from one level of meaning to another and with any transfer of meanings and meanings from one subject of culture to another. For example, the most important outcome of the rite of initiation is the receipt of an adult name. The “text of the name” also includes secret information that is the essence of the beliefs of this tribe. The child is not yet a "perfect" member of the tribal group, he is not yet finally "born", because his personality is not yet complete. At the same time, in primitive societies, each stage of a person's life is marked by a new name: at initiation, marriage, killing the first enemy, catching certain game, joining the society of initiates, etc. 2
In the work of E. Tylor "Primitive Culture" one can find a number of examples of a similar attitude to the name. So, in the family of languages of the North American Alconkin Indians, not only all animals, but also the Sun, Moon, thunder, lightning, stars are spiritual beings, therefore they belong to an animated grammatical gender. Other inanimate objects, devoid of signs of organic life, but possessing, however, magical significance, belong to the same genus: a stone that serves as an altar for sacrifices, a bow, an eagle feather, a cauldron, smoking pipe, drum etc.
1 Petrov M.K. Self-awareness and scientific creativity. Rostov n/D, 1992. S. 19. 2 See: Levy-Bruhl L. Primitive thinking. M., 1930. S. 228-236.
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Tools and weapons carry names (for example, the Zulus call their darts like this: U-silosi-lambile - Hungry leopard, Imbubuzi - The culprit of groans, U-simbela-bantabami - The one who digs for my children, etc.), which also strengthens the magical connection between the word and the object. The name is information itself, not a label, since the pronunciation of the name is the triggering energy mechanism through which real manipulations with the object are possible.
Within the limits of the mythological cultural code, the model of a real object has magical ritual powers and becomes a cultural model - "secondary objectivity". In this model, information about the meaning and methods of action with the subject is hidden.
Thus, modeling the “second birth” of a person or his adoption 1 performs two functions: practical - fixing the “beginning of a new life” and magical - scaring away hostile spirits (the animal’s entrails used in the ritual “represented” a real animal, on which evil spirits were supposed to fall ). Moments of time to which a certain value is assigned (or assigned) can also act as a code. Since the idea of time is the key in the categorical grid of thinking and in the picture of the world built by each culture, the analysis of these ideas reveals the meaning-forming factors of a person's life in a given culture. For the first time, the operation of attributing certain values to moments of time was carried out in a myth that embodies the calendar. Three temporal and semantic structures were laid in the myth: eternity (absolute values), time-duration (hours) and time-activity (fate).
In Mesoamerican religions, time was seen to exist on three different intersecting planes: the time of man, the time of the gods, and the time before the existence of the gods. This made a person's life significant, gave it incredible strength. Man lived in time, or the cycle of times, created by the gods on the surface of the earth. This time is fixed
1 See: Fraser J.J. Folklore in the Old Testament. M., 1991.
was an annual calendar. Time and space were seen as an interweaving of sacred entities. The course of time was carried out by supernatural forces of celestial and underground origin, converging on the earthly level. Thus, human time and space were filled with sacred powers.
There was another time cycle that preceded human time - the time of myths, which was characterized by the struggle of the gods, abductions, loss of honor, death, dismemberment. The time of myths influenced the life of a person, since it continued into the present time, and it was during the time of myths that supernatural beings appeared, intervening in everyday life person on earth. The third time sphere is the transcendent time of the gods. The Supreme God existed up to two initial cycles, having created the primary structure of the Universe and giving it energy. This primal time of the gods, when the world order arose out of chaos, continues on the celestial level.
All three times could come into contact with each other. Therefore, human life (time and space) was loaded every day with a specific force and energy. A. Lopez Austin notes: “When a moment of human time coincides with one of the ubiquitous moments of mythical time, the time of a person captures the“ imprint ”of the world of the gods. The sequence of coincidences of two times leads to cycles of different duration, making each moment of human time a meeting place for a variety of divine forces, the joint action of which gives it its special nature ... ”1 Mesoamerican calendars mark and regulate the penetration of these divine forces into human life. The same great importance was attached to the renewal of cosmic forces in plants, animals, man and dynasties in the religion of the Maya. Among the Maya, one of the members of the ruler's family performed a bloodletting ritual in order to bring the souls of the ancestors,
1 Austin A. Lopez. The Human Body and Ideology. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988. P. 65. Op. on: Religious traditions peace. M., 1996. T. 1. S. 155.
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gods and the time of myths into the human world in order to give life force to plants, power to the ruling leader or prepare the country for war 1 .
The formative function of time in culture is manifested in the fact that each culture defines itself in time, creating its own calendar. Many religious and philosophical doctrines put time at the center of their conceptual constructions, inextricably linked with practice. religious life. In the Orphic sacraments, the deified Chronos was given unlimited power; among the Persians, in late reformed Zoroastrianism, big role was assigned to Zervan - the androgynous principle of "beginningless time", giving birth to two twins from his universal womb: Ormuzd (Good) and Ahriman (Evil), a deadly duel between which lasts until the end of time. In the esoteric Buddhist doctrine, Kalachakra ("Wheel of Time") is a cosmic creative force. The system of the Tibetan Buddhist calendar and chronology is inextricably linked with Kalachakra. AT ancient india there was a special system called Kalavada (“Philosophy of Time”), which later became close to astronomy.
Thus, the calendar is the custodian of the memory of the people, the organizer of its conciliar consciousness. In the memory and rhythms of calendars, the outer cosmos of the universe and the inner cosmos of man are united. It is interesting to see how chronological time is linked to certain meanings of culture. Consider this on the example of the Christian calendar. According to Christian doctrine, the equinox is the beginning of time at creation. Man was created on the sixth day of creation, Friday at noon, 5508 years before the birth of Christ. God chooses this time as a time of renewal. With the Nativity of Christ, which was in the 20th year of the 1977th circle of the Sun, a qualitatively new time began on Earth. From the moment of the fall of the first man, time passed in a sense of eternal expectation of the coming messiah. With the appearance of Christ to the world, the center of time no longer lies in the expected future, but in the accomplished past. 1 See: Carrasco D. Religions of Mesoamerica // Religious Traditions of the World. M., 1996. T. 1. S. 155.
With the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Old Testament world died. And with the Resurrection of Christ that followed it, the New Testament humanity, Christianity, was born. Jesus Christ tried to bring together all those times in which created man fell to correct him and arrange a renewal of nature, for which it was necessary to unite the times. Therefore, the Orthodox Church, through its church calendar, which contains the totality of holidays, fasts and days of commemoration of saints and Paschal, symbolically reproduces the sacred events and meanings of Christianity. The celebration of Easter is a confirmation of faith in the Resurrection of Christ, a confirmation of hope and hope.
Easter for Christians symbolizes the Resurrection of Christ from the dead. The Passover of the Old Testament is celebrated by the Jews in memory of their deliverance from Egyptian slavery and was established 1609 years before the birth of Christ from the 14th to the 21st of Nisan, the month of Aviv - March. This time symbolizes the beginning of time at creation. Jews never define Passover earlier than March 14 (according to julian calendar). The Lord and his disciples made the Old Passover a day earlier - Nisan 13. It was like a forefeast of His Passion, and on Friday He Himself became the Paschal Lamb. Hence the rule not to celebrate the Passover earlier than the Jewish one or together with it 1 .
From the first days of the founding of the church, it was customary to use the most convenient and astronomically accurate Julian calendar, legalized in 46 BC. Julius Caesar on the advice of the astronomer and mathematician Sosigen. The calendar introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII is mathematically inaccurate. According to him it is difficult to restore historical facts, astronomical phenomena.
The form-forming function of time is also manifested in the fact that a self-organized and self-conscious culture always indicates the date of its birth, which is preserved by the historical memory of the people. For Christian culture - the date of the Nativity of Christ, for Buddhist culture -
1 See: Zelinsky A.N. Constructive principles of the Old Russian calendar M., 1978.
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the date of Buddha's nirvana (544, 486, 480 BC, depending on which tradition to follow), for Muslim culture - the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, i.e. Hijri date (Arabic - resettlement) (622 AD). It can be other events that are perceived as sacred and significant.
A similar process takes place at the level of each state, which indicates both the date of its birth (for example, the USSR - December 30, 1922), and the main milestones of its development (public holidays); and at the family level (when wedding anniversaries, birthdays, etc. are celebrated).
Further, the direction of development of culture is correlated with milestones-events focused on the sphere of values. Organized human activity is given the highest meaning through the correlation of its rhythm with the rhythms of the most significant events, whether they are mythopoetic or real. This makes time the main organizing principle for the functioning of a self-conscious culture.
The role of time in the life of culture is indirectly evidenced by the fact that any changes in the calendar are associated either with the decline of traditional culture or with the formation of a new one on its ruins. cultural tradition. So, in the middle of the XIV century. BC. The famous reformer pharaoh Akhenaten, forcibly carrying out a monotheistic religious reform, attempted to change the liturgical calendar of Egypt. After the death of this lord, who reigned for 17 years, his name was cursed and erased from almost all the stone sculptures of Egypt. Ptolemy III Euergetes tried to reform the ancient Egyptian calendar for the second time in 238 BC. This reform was supposed to be two centuries ahead of the famous reform of Julius Caesar, however, it was not successful either, since the strength of tradition was still quite large. In 167 BC The ruler of Syria, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, having begun the persecution of the Jews, plundered the Jerusalem temple and banned the traditional Old Testament calendar. These actions caused the well-known Maccabean uprising, which was suppressed with difficulty by the successors of Antiochus IV 1 .
1 See: Zelinsky A.N. Liturgical circle of the Christian calendar // Calendar in the culture of the peoples of the world. M., 1993. S. 257.
When the ancient sacred principles no longer met the new needs of the imperial beginnings of the "eternal city", Julius Caesar carried out a calendar reform, which, according to O. Spengler, was "an act of emancipation from the ancient worldview." As you know, Julius Caesar was killed two years after it was held. It took more than three centuries for the Julian calendar to acquire sacred meaning. United with the Alexandrian Paschalia at the Council of Nicaea in 325, it became the liturgical calendar for the whole of Christendom. In 1582, the Gregorian reform destroyed the last link that still connected Western and Eastern Christianity - a single calendar.
Known calendar reform French Revolution 1789 She abolished the era "from the birth of Christ." It was an attempt at a radical reprogramming of the collective consciousness of an entire nation and a complete break with a thousand-year-old cultural tradition. The Republican calendar lasted only about 14 years (1793-1806) and was abolished by Napoleon. His last relapse was the calendar of the Paris Commune of 1871.
In the 20th century, attempts were also made to change the calendar. So, the former Shahinshah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, in 1976 ordered to change the era and count the years not from the traditional Muslim date of the Hijra (622), but from the era of the founding of the Shahinshah Achaemenid dynasty (550). After two years of popular unrest, the old era was restored.
The list of such examples could be continued. All of them indicate that the calendar does not just measure the time of day, but is the keeper of the collective memory of the people, their culture, the organizer of their consciousness. A change in the calendar is a reorientation of consciousness, a falling out of culture time, a switch of cultural
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code, the introduction of consciousness into a different system of values.
The idea of the center of time also appears in culture. It manifests itself most clearly in the religious consciousness, in the liturgical calendar. The center of time for Judaism lies in the expected future - when the national messiah will come.
The center of time for Christianity is in the accomplished past - the messiah in the person of Jesus Christ has already visited humanity.
The subject experiences and comprehends cultural meanings through existing forms of culture, practical and spiritual activities. The way of experiencing and comprehension of culturally significant information is conditioned culturally and historically. This means that the cultural means of experience are meaningful schemes - Platonic "ideas", "Ideals principales" of Augustine, "categories" of I. Kant, "collective representations" of L. Levy-Bruhl, "archetypes" of K. Jung, "schematism of consciousness" M. Mamardashvili and others developed in the history of philosophy.
The development of sign systems is carried out in the direction of their increasing abstractness and conventionality. This is due to the growing indirect nature of the connection between sign systems and the reality they reflect. It is important that culture does not lose its meanings and values at the same time, that it does not close on itself, breaking away from the "worldly fuss".
Cultural codes are found within all cultural languages. But finding them is not easy: they manifest themselves when moving from one level of meaning to another. Therefore, it is so productive to consider world modeling systems (myths, legends, theological systems) that create a single picture of the world of a particular community and transfer hidden and unmanifested meanings to the verbal level.
Ways of transferring social experience are called cultural codes. A cultural code is a way of transferring knowledge about the world, skills, abilities in a given cultural epoch. The very concept of "code" first appeared in communication technology, computer technology, cybernetics, mathematics, and genetics. Without coding, it is impossible to build artificial languages, machine translation, encryption and decryption of texts. In the theory of culture, the plan of content and understanding of cultural texts is put forward in the first place, therefore the concept of “culture code” becomes so relevant and requires clarification. The need for a cultural code arises when there is a transition from the world of signals to the world of meaning. The world of signals is the world of discrete units that are calculated in bits of information, and the world of meaning is those meaningful forms that connect a person with the world of ideas, images and values of a given culture. In other words, the code is a model, the rules for the formation of a number of specific messages. All codes can be compared with each other on the basis of a common code, simpler, more comprehensive. A message, a cultural text can open up to different readings depending on the code used. The code allows you to penetrate the semantic level of culture, without knowing the code, the cultural text will be closed, incomprehensible, not perceived. A person will see a system of signs, and not a system of meanings and meanings.
The main culture code must have the following characteristics:
- 1) self-sufficiency for the production, transmission and preservation of human culture;
- 2) openness to change;
- 3) versatility.
In accordance with the classification of culture types by M. McLuhan, codes of preliterate cultures, codes of written cultures, codes of screen cultures are distinguished. The pre-literate culture covers a huge "prehistoric" period, including "savagery" and "barbarism" (in the terminology of L. Morgan and E. B. Taylor). In pre-literate cultures, the dominant cultural code was mythological. In primitive society, myth is not only a way of understanding life, but also a way of experiencing it, both in objective and symbolic forms.
The codes of written cultures are formed from the end of the 4th to the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. (Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia) and exist to the present day. These codes in various local cultures have historically specific and diverse forms. There are a huge number of such forms, and a lot of work is required to identify and describe the cultural codes of local cultures. Of fundamental importance in characterizing the codes of written cultures is the position that under the influence of social transformations, the mythological cultural code with its identity of objectivity, symbolism and ideality is destroyed, and each of these parameters takes on the form of independent functioning and is carried out by various social groups. History is included in the cultural code. Thus, the past, ancient and recent, becomes close, constitutes the events of the life of one people, which are connected as firmly into a single meaningful whole, as this period is connected with its Gods or One God. The change and restructuring of this cultural code begins in Christian Europe in the second half of the 15th century and is associated with the invention of printing. The printed book circulation opened up new opportunities for mastering the ongoing social changes in the code of cultural memory. Science had a significant impact on the formation of a new cultural code. Its result - reliable, experimentally verified, rational knowledge was introduced into the mechanism of cultural memory, rebuilt it. In the 17-19 centuries. signs as a fact, a scientific theory, a method of practical transformation of nature, including human nature, form the basis of a cultural code Western Europe. In the 20th century, screen culture codes began to form, organizing the interaction of the main components of the cultural code in a new way.
Objectivity, which in the past cultural types was aimed at the development of nature, almost completely closed on the "secondary objectivity" - computers, Information Systems connections, information banks, etc. Significance also significantly expands the scope of its action: the word, model, symbol on the screen are realized in a new way, giving scope for creative activity in search of a sign-image.
The ideality shaped by the screen culture is also significantly updated. The new thinking is characterized by the "fusion" of logical and figurative, the synthesis of conceptual and visual, the formation of "intellectual figurativeness" and sensory modeling.
Dmitry Pollit
Cultural code is one of the key concepts of semiotics. It is he who defines the picture of the world different peoples planet Earth. Misunderstanding, the impossibility of deciphering the cultural code leads to communicative failures, or, more simply, to misunderstanding between individuals and entire nations. When we talk about the uniqueness of this or that civilization, it is the cultural code, which differs from our own, that is the reason. We do not understand, and sometimes we do not accept "strangers" precisely because of this.
Since semiotics operates with symbols and signs, it is works of art that most often become indicators of culture, or, more simply, "faces", "portraits" of a particular civilization. This is, of course, a simplification, but humanitarian sciences, appealing to such subtle matters as the human mind or soul, devoid of a mathematical apparatus, constantly collide with the cultural code. For example, the term "habitus", which is one of the key concepts in the sociological system of Pierre Bourdieu, is deciphered as follows: "Since habitus is the infinite ability to freely (but under control) generate thoughts, perceptions, expressions of feelings, actions, and habitus products are always limited by historical and social conditions him own formation, then the freedom it gives is conditional and conditional, it does not allow either the creation of something unprecedentedly new, or the simple mechanical reproduction of what was originally given. "In psychology or communication theory, including intercultural communication the term "stereotype" is actively used, which Walter Lippmann designated as accepted in historical community a pattern of perception, filtering, interpretation of information in recognizing and recognizing the world around, based on previous social experience. Carl Gustav Jung coined the term "collective unconscious", explaining that the collective unconscious, in contrast to the individual (personal) form of the unconscious, is based on the experience of not specific person and society as a whole. Another eminent sociologist, Erving Goffman, spoke of the "frame." A frame is an integrity constituted by agents, primarily of practices, but at the same time of meanings that people in typical, repetitive social situations, in a social context, attach to their actions and the actions of others (verbal and non-verbal).
Many other examples can be cited, but all of them, one way or another, will come into contact with the understanding of the cultural code, which is the same for all its bearers. Such elementary things as ethics, morality, manners, etc., are tied precisely to the cultural code. So why do we remember him today?
Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman wrote in his work "Semiotics of Cinema": "Cinema, by the nature of its material, knows only the present time, as well as other arts that use pictorial signs." Indeed, if we turn to cinematography not from the point of view of an ordinary viewer who enjoys an evening watching an optional picture, but from the point of view of a "reader", then we will find an infinite number of "signs of the times" when the same events are interpreted over time. directors, and hence their viewers, in completely different ways. Of course, the information "at the output" never corresponds to the information "at the input", but let's not forget the immortal words of Goncharov that it is not so important what the author wanted to say, it is important what he said. If we look at the latest domestic films that claim to be deep, intellectual, then we will come across a very unsightly picture: "Burnt by the Sun 2", "The Geographer Drank His Globe Away", "Major", "Leviathan", "Fool", "Simple Things ", "Island" and others, invariably show us " ordinary life ordinary people". Yes, in each specific case, people are placed in completely impossible conditions - the classic of existentialism - from war to family troubles. And in each specific case, the person who is in the center of events takes an action, and not always the right one, and not always justice triumphs. This is a tradition of our cinema, dating back to Eisenstein and found in Tarkovsky. A Russian person always does an act, and a dramatic act, devoid of excessive heroism, showing only the strength of character or its complete absence, or, as in Lungin's "Island" and " Major "Bykov - evolution, no matter what. Another thing is the background, the landscape on which the character is revealed, and it is precisely, unfortunately, that more and more often causes a feeling of anxiety, despondency and disappointment in life. For the past two decades, domestic directors have shown us all the worst that is in modern Russian life. Drunkenness, arbitrariness of officials and police, violence, low level life, social stratification, existential frustration, that's what the heroes of Russian paintings live against. It is not surprising that the image of the "hero" in this case is far from the Hollywood superman, but so close to the realities of our cultural space. Lermontov in his immortal work a century and a half ago, he formulated the definition of a Hero: "The Hero of Our Time, my gracious sovereigns, is exactly a portrait, but not of one person: it is a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation, in their full development." And now everything is back to square one. Domestic films put forward on world screens show all the basest things that exist in our existence. We have forgotten how to see the good, we have been forgotten. The entire information agenda is subordinated to this: from news releases to rating talk shows. Scandal, war, humiliation of the weak - that's what we see, hear and read every day. Please note that such grandiose events as the Olympics or the World Cup are discussed primarily in terms of how much money was spent, how much and who plundered, how we - Russians - are unable to prepare well for the world's bride. The only topic that artists did not dare to touch until recently was the Great Patriotic War, but the spirit of the times also affected this sacred topic. From artistic attempts to rethink the heroes and participants of those events in "Burnt by the Sun 2" up to disgusting and vile polls on television screens about the possibility or necessity to surrender besieged Leningrad. Anthony Gidens wrote "A world of crumbling traditions breeds fundamentalism." And now in neighboring Ukraine brother is coming on a brother. The cultural code of hundreds of generations is broken and confusion and vacillation begin in the minds, some symbols are replaced by others that are alien in nature cultural space Russian world, and this leads to war, violence and death.
What awaits our country if the last bright "hero of the time" was, and, perhaps, remains the "Brother" of Alexei Balabanov, who upholds such values as justice, true, family, but is, in fact, a cold-blooded killer? And who, besides him? A repentant, half-crazy holy fool from Pavel Lungin's "Island"? Or the drinking, cursing, life-broken "average Russian" from Andrey Zvyagintsev's "Leviathan"? When there is no example to follow, or rather, when this example is what it is today, then it is impossible to educate anything but the basest animals of the beginnings, even to remain highly moral, spiritualized, developed person fail when the system the world, culture, discourse are sharpened exclusively for biological instincts. Here is one of the largest newspapers in the country" TVNZ" ironically publishes the news that Russian Alina Eremenko, "performing" under the pseudonym Henessy, won in the nomination "Best sex scene in a foreign-made film" at the AVN Awards 2015. How can one not recall the words from Nikolai's "Inspector General" Vasilievich Gogol: "What are you laughing at? Laugh at yourself!.. ". Only every day I want to laugh less and less.
