Culturology is its subject and main sections. Cultural studies as a science

The subject of cultural studies

In a broad sense, cultural studies is a complex of individual sciences, as well as theological and philosophical concepts of culture; other elephants, these are all those teachings about culture, its history, essence, patterns of functioning and development that can be found in the works of scientists representing various options understanding the phenomenon of culture. In addition, cultural sciences are engaged in the study of the system cultural institutions, with the help of which the upbringing and education of a person are carried out and which produce, store and transmit cultural information.

From this point of view, the subject of cultural studies forms a set of various disciplines, which include history, sociology of culture and a complex of anthropological knowledge. In addition, the subject field of cultural studies in a broad sense should include: the history of cultural studies, the ecology of culture, the psychology of culture, ethnology (ethnography), theology (theology) of culture. However, with such a broad approach, the subject of cultural studies appears as a set of various disciplines or sciences that study culture, and can be identified with the subject of philosophy of culture, sociology of culture, cultural anthropology and other theories of the middle level. In this case, culturology is deprived of its own subject of study and becomes an integral part of the above disciplines.

A more balanced approach seems to be one that understands the subject of cultural studies in a narrow sense and presents it as a separate independent science, a certain system of knowledge. With this approach, culturology acts as a general theory of culture, based in its generalizations and conclusions on the knowledge of specific sciences, such as the theory of artistic culture, the history of culture and other particular sciences about culture. With this approach, the initial basis is the consideration of culture in its specific forms, in which it manifests itself as an essential characteristic of a person, the form and way of his life.

Thus, subject of cultural studies is a set of questions of the origin, functioning and development of culture as a specifically human way of life, different from the world of wildlife. It is designed to study the most general patterns of development of culture, its manifestations that are present in all famous cultures humanity.

With this understanding of the subject of cultural studies, its main tasks are:

• the most profound, complete and holistic explanation of culture, its
• essence, content, features and functions;
• study of the genesis (origin and development) of culture as a whole, as well as individual phenomena and processes in culture;
• determining the place and role of man in cultural processes;
• development of a categorical apparatus, methods and means of studying culture;
• interaction with other sciences studying culture;
• the study of information about culture that came from art, philosophy, religion and other areas related to non-scientific knowledge of culture;
• study of the development of individual cultures.

The purpose of cultural studies

The goal of cultural studies becomes such a study, on the basis of which its understanding is formed. To do this, it is necessary to identify and analyze: the facts of culture, which together constitute a system of cultural phenomena; connections between elements of culture; the dynamics of cultural systems; methods of production and assimilation of cultural phenomena; types of cultures and their underlying norms, values ​​and symbols ( cultural codes); cultural codes and communications between them.

The goals and objectives of cultural studies determine the functions of this science.

Functions of cultural studies

The functions of cultural studies can be combined into several main groups according to the tasks being implemented:

• cognitive function - the study and understanding of the essence and role of culture in the life of society, its structure and functions, its typology, differentiation into branches, types and forms, the human-creative purpose of culture;
• conceptual and descriptive function - the development of theoretical systems, concepts and categories that make it possible to draw up a complete picture of the formation and development of culture, and the formulation of description rules that reflect the features of the deployment of sociocultural processes;
• estimated function - the implementation of an adequate assessment of the influence of a holistic phenomenon of culture, its various types, branches, types and forms on the formation of social and spiritual qualities of an individual, social community, society as a whole;
• explaining function - scientific explanation of features cultural complexes, phenomena and events, mechanisms of functioning of agents and institutions of culture, their socializing impact on the formation of personality on the basis of scientific understanding of the revealed facts, trends and patterns of development of socio-cultural processes;
• ideological function - the implementation of socio-political ideals in the development of fundamental and applied problems of the development of culture, regulating the influence of its values ​​and norms on the behavior of the individual and social communities;
• educational(teaching) function - the dissemination of cultural knowledge and assessments, which helps students, professionals, as well as those who are interested in cultural issues, to learn the features of this social phenomenon, its role in the development of man and society.

The subject of cultural studies, its tasks, goals and functions determine the general contours of cultural studies as a science. Each of them, in turn, requires in-depth study.

The historical path traversed by mankind from antiquity to the present has been complex and contradictory. On this path, progressive and regressive phenomena, the desire for the new and the commitment to familiar forms of life, the desire for change and the idealization of the past were often combined. At the same time, in all situations, the main role in people's lives has always been played by culture, which helped a person adapt to the constantly changing conditions of life, find its meaning and purpose, and preserve the human in a person. Because of this, a person has always been interested in this sphere of the surrounding world, which resulted in the emergence of a special industry human knowledge– cultural studies and related academic discipline studying culture. Cultural studies is primarily the science of culture.. This specific subject distinguishes it from other social, humanitarian disciplines and explains the necessity of its existence as a special branch of knowledge.

The formation of cultural studies as a science

In modern humanities, the concept of "culture" belongs to the category of fundamental. Among the many scientific categories and terms, there is hardly another concept that would have so many semantic shades and be used in such different contexts. This situation is not accidental, since culture is the subject of study of many scientific disciplines, each of which highlights its own aspects of the study of culture and gives its own understanding and definition of culture. At the same time, culture itself is polyfunctional, therefore, each science singles out one of its aspects or parts as the subject of its study, approaches the study with its own methods and methods, eventually formulating its own understanding and definition of culture.

Attempts to give a scientific explanation of the phenomenon of culture have a short history. The first such attempt was made in

17th century English philosopher T. Hobbes and German jurist S. Puffenlorff, who expressed the idea that a person can be in two states - natural (natural), which is the lowest stage of his development, since he is creatively passive, and cultural, which they considered as a higher stage human development, because it is creatively productive.

The doctrine of culture was developed at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. in the works of the German educator I.G. Herder, who considered culture in a historical aspect. The development of culture, but in her opinion, is the content and meaning of the historical process. Culture is the disclosure of the essential forces of man, which different peoples differ significantly, so real life there are different stages and eras in the development of culture. At the same time, the opinion was established that the core of culture is the spiritual life of a person, his spiritual abilities. This situation persisted for quite a long time.

IN late XIX- the beginning of the 20th century. Works began to appear in which the analysis of cultural problems was the main task, and not a secondary one, as it was until now. In many ways, these works were connected with the awareness of the crisis of European culture, the search for its causes and ways out of it. As a result, philosophers and scientists have realized the need for an integrative science of culture. It was equally important to concentrate and systematize the huge and diverse information about the history of culture of different peoples, the relations of social groups and individuals, styles of behavior, thinking and art.

This was the basis for the emergence of an independent science of culture. Around the same time, the term "culturology" appeared. It was first used by the German scientist W. Ostwald in 1915 in his book "The System of Sciences", but then this term was not widely used. This happened later and is associated with the name of the American cultural anthropologist L.A. White, who in his works "The Science of Culture" (1949), "The Evolution of Culture" (1959), "The Concept of Culture" (1973) substantiated the need to separate all knowledge about culture into a separate science, laid its general theoretical foundations, attempted to isolate it the subject of research, delimiting it from related sciences, to which he attributed psychology and sociology. If psychology, White argued, studies the psychological reaction of the human body to external factors, and sociology studies the patterns of relationships between the individual and society, then the subject of cultural studies should be the understanding of the relationship of such cultural phenomena as custom, tradition, ideology. He predicted a great future for cultural studies, believing that it represents a new, qualitatively higher level in understanding man and the world. That is why the term "culturology" is associated with the name of White.

Despite the fact that culturology gradually occupies an increasingly firm position among other social and human sciences, disputes about its scientific status do not stop. In the West this term was not accepted immediately, and the culture there continued to be studied by such disciplines as social and cultural anthropology, sociology, psychology, linguistics, etc. This situation indicates that the process of self-determination of cultural studies as a scientific and educational discipline has not yet been completed. Today, culturological science is in the process of formation, its content and structure have not yet acquired clear scientific boundaries, research in it is contradictory, there are many methodological approaches to her subject. All this suggests that this direction scientific knowledge is in the process of formation and creative search.

Thus, culturology is a young science that is in its infancy. The biggest obstacle for her further development is the absence of a point of view on the subject of this study, with which most researchers would agree. The identification of the subject of cultural studies takes place before our eyes, in the struggle of different opinions and points of view.

The status of cultural studies and its place among other sciences

One of the main issues of identifying the specifics of culturological knowledge and the subject of its study is to comprehend the relationship of culturology with other related or close areas of scientific knowledge. If we define culture as everything that is created by man and mankind (such a definition is very common), it becomes clear why determining the status of cultural studies is difficult. Then it turns out that in the world in which we live, there is only the world of culture, which exists by the will of man, and the world of nature, which arose without the influence of people. Accordingly, all the sciences that exist today are divided into two groups - the sciences of nature (natural science) and the sciences of the world of culture - the social and human sciences. In other words, all the social and human sciences are ultimately the sciences of culture—knowledge of the types, forms, and results of human activity. At the same time, it is not clear where among these sciences the place of cultural studies and what it should study.

To answer these questions, the social sciences and humanities can be divided into two unequal groups:

1. sciences about specialized types of human activity, distinguished by the subject of this activity, namely:

• sciences about the forms of social organization and regulation - legal, political, military, economic;
• sciences about the forms of social communication and transmission of experience - philological, pedagogical, art sciences and religious studies;
• sciences about the types of materially transforming human activity - technical and agricultural;

2. sciences about the general aspects of human activity, regardless of its subject, namely:

• historical sciences that study the emergence and development of human activity in any area, regardless of its subject matter;
• psychological sciences that study the patterns of mental activity, individual and group behavior;
• sociological sciences, discovering the forms and methods of uniting and interacting people in their joint life;
• cultural sciences that analyze norms, values, signs and symbols as conditions for the formation and functioning of peoples (culture), showing the essence of man.

We can say that the presence of cultural studies in the system of scientific knowledge is found in two aspects.

First, as a specific culturological method and level of generalization of any analyzed material within the framework of any social or humanitarian science, i.e. as an integral part of any science. At this level, model conceptual constructions are created that describe not how this area of ​​life functions in general and what are the boundaries of its existence, but how it adapts to changing conditions, how it reproduces itself, what are the causes and mechanisms of its orderliness. Within the framework of each science, one can single out a field of research that concerns the mechanisms and methods of organization, regulation and communication of people in the relevant areas of their life. This is what is commonly called economic, political, religious, linguistic, etc. culture.

Secondly, as an independent area of ​​social and humanitarian knowledge of society and its culture. In this aspect, cultural studies can be considered as a separate group of sciences, and as a separate, independent science. In other words, culturology can be considered in a narrow sense and a broad one. Depending on this, the subject of cultural studies and its structure, as well as its connection with other sciences, will be distinguished.

Relationship of cultural studies with other sciences

Culturology arose at the intersection of history, philosophy, sociology, ethnology, anthropology, social psychology, art history, etc., therefore, culturology is a complex socio-humanitarian science. Its interdisciplinary nature corresponds to the general trend of modern science towards integration, mutual influence and interpenetration of various fields of knowledge in the study of a common object of study. With regard to cultural studies, the development of scientific knowledge leads to the synthesis of cultural sciences, the formation of an interconnected set of scientific ideas about culture as an integral system. At the same time, each of the sciences with which cultural studies is in contact deepens the understanding of culture, supplementing it with its own research and knowledge. The most closely related to cultural studies are the philosophy of culture, philosophical, social and cultural anthropology, the history of culture and sociology.

Culturology and Philosophy of Culture

As a branch of knowledge separated from philosophy, culturology has retained its connection with the philosophy of culture, which acts as an organic component of philosophy, as one of the relatively autonomous networks of theories. Philosophies as such, seeks to develop a systematic and holistic view of the world, tries to answer the question of whether the world is cognizable, what are the possibilities and boundaries of cognition, its goals, levels, forms and methods, and philosophy of culture should show what place culture occupies in this general picture of being, seeks to determine the originality and methodology of cognition of cultural phenomena, representing the highest, most abstract level of the study of culture. Acting as the methodological basis of cultural studies, it determines the general cognitive guidelines for cultural studies, explains the essence of culture and poses problems for it that are significant for human life, for example, about the meaning of culture, about the conditions for its existence, about the structure of culture, the reasons for its changes, etc.

The philosophy of culture and cultural studies differ in the attitudes with which they approach the study of culture. Culturology considers culture in its internal relations as an independent system, and the philosophy of culture analyzes culture in accordance with the subject and functions of philosophy in the context of philosophical categories such as being, consciousness, cognition, personality, society. Philosophy considers culture in its specific forms, while in cultural studies the emphasis is on explanation. various forms culture with the help of philosophical theories of the middle level, based on anthropological and historical materials. With this approach, culturology allows you to create a holistic picture human world taking into account the diversity and diversity of the processes taking place in it.

Culturology and cultural history

Story studies human society in its specific forms and conditions of existence.

These forms and conditions do not remain unchanged once and for all; uniform and universal for all mankind. They are constantly changing, and history studies society in terms of these changes. That's why cultural history identifies historical types of cultures, compares them, reveals the general cultural patterns of the historical process, on the basis of which it is possible to describe and explain specific historical features of the development of culture. A generalized view of the history of mankind made it possible to formulate the principle of historicism, according to which culture is seen not as a frozen and unchanging entity, but as a dynamic system of local cultures that are in development and replace each other. It can be said that historical process acts as a set of specific forms of culture. Each of them is determined by ethnic, religious and historical factors and therefore represents a relatively independent whole. Each culture has its own original history, determined by a complex of peculiar conditions of its existence.

Culturology in turn, studies the general laws of culture and reveals its typological features, develops a system of its own categories. In this context, historical data help to construct a theory of the emergence of culture, to reveal the laws of its historical development. To do this, cultural studies studies the historical diversity of the facts of the culture of the past and present, which allows it to understand and explain modern culture. It is in this way that the history of culture is formed, which studies the development of the culture of individual countries, regions, peoples.

Cultural studies and sociology

Culture is a product of human social life and is impossible outside human society. Representing social phenomenon, it develops according to its own laws. In this sense, culture is the subject of study for sociology.

Sociology of culture explores the process of functioning of culture in society; tendencies of cultural development, manifested in the consciousness, behavior and way of life of social groups. In the social structure of society, groups of different levels are distinguished - macrogroups, layers, estates, nations, ethnic groups, each of which is distinguished by its own characteristics. cultural characteristics, value preferences, tastes, style and way of life, and many microgroups that form various subcultures. Such groups are formed on various grounds - gender, age, professional, religious, etc. The multiplicity of group cultures creates a "mosaic" picture of cultural life.

The sociology of culture in its research relies on many special sociological theories that are close in terms of the object of study and significantly complement the ideas about cultural processes, establishing interdisciplinary connections with various branches of sociological knowledge - the sociology of art, the sociology of morality, the sociology of religion, the sociology of science, the sociology of law, ethnosociology, the sociology of age and social groups, the sociology of crime and deviant behavior, the sociology of leisure, the sociology of the city, etc. Each of them is unable to create a holistic view of cultural reality. Thus, the sociology of art will provide rich information about artistic life society, while the sociology of leisure shows how different groups of the population use their free time. This is very important, but partial information. Obviously, a higher level of generalization of cultural knowledge is required, and this task is performed by the sociology of culture.

Cultural Studies and Anthropology

Anthropology - the field of scientific knowledge, within which the fundamental problems of human existence in the natural and artificial environment are studied. Today, several directions stand out in this area: physical anthropology, the main subject of which is man as a biological species, as well as modern and fossil anthropoid primates; social and cultural anthropology, the main subject of which is the comparative study of human societies; philosophical and religious anthropology, which are not empirical sciences, but a combination of philosophical and theological teachings about human nature, respectively.

Cultural anthropology deals with the study of a person as a subject of culture, will give a description of the life of various societies at different stages of development, their way of life, mores, customs, etc., studies specific cultural values, forms of cultural relationships, mechanisms for transmitting cultural skills from person to person. This is important for cultural studies, because it allows us to understand what is behind the facts of culture, what needs are expressed by its specific historical, social or personal forms. We can say that cultural anthropology is engaged in the study of ethnic cultures, describing their cultural phenomena, systematizing and comparing them. In fact, it explores a person in terms of expressing his inner peace in the facts of cultural activity.

Within the framework of cultural anthropology, the historical process of the relationship between man and culture, the adaptation of man to the surrounding cultural environment, the formation of the spiritual world of the individual, the embodiment of creative potentials in activity and its results are studied. Cultural anthropology reveals the "nodal" moments of socialization and inculturation of a person, the specifics of each stage of the life path, studies the influence of the cultural environment, education and upbringing systems and adaptation to them; the role of the family, peers, generation, paying special attention to the psychological substantiation of such universal phenomena as life, soul, death, love, friendship, faith, meaning, the spiritual world of men and women.

culturology¸ science, status culturologists, significance, integrativity

One of the most discussed issues modern education, is the question of the scientific status of cultural studies. Cultural studies is a recognized scientific discipline that has long proved its necessity, viability and effectiveness throughout the world. At the same time, it is a fairly young science that raises a significant number of open questions.

Article text:

Interest in culture accompanies the entire history of mankind. But she's never called like this before. close attention like nowadays. Therefore, it is no coincidence that a special branch of human knowledge that studies culture, and cultural studies, the corresponding academic discipline, appeared.

One of the most discussed issues of modern education is the question of the scientific status of cultural studies. Cultural studies is a recognized scientific discipline. It has long proved its necessity, viability and effectiveness all over the world. In Russia, the situation is somewhat different. Cultural studies is a fairly young science that causes a huge amount of controversy. Russian researchers face a number of numerous questions. Is Russian culturology necessary in the modern world, is culturology not a marginal science, what is a culturological approach.

This sociological study on the topic "Social understanding of cultural studies" was carried out in order to find out the attitude of society towards the culturalization of modern education and cultural studies as a scientific discipline.

Respondents were offered a questionnaire with a number of questions related to this topic. During the study, 50 people aged 18 to 40 were interviewed. This age category of respondents is most suitable for this survey, since people over the age of 18 already have behind them the knowledge that determines their predisposition to certain sciences that will be able to answer the proposed questions. People under 40 who have already received education, work in a particular field, may continue their education, or are in the scientific field.

The data obtained in the course of the study allow us to say that the topic of culturalization of education is relevant for society. 87% of respondents showed enough deep knowledge in the field of this research topic. 2% - low level knowledge in this area, and 11% of respondents showed superficial knowledge.

Respondents who turned out to be more knowledgeable on the proposed topic belong to the age group from 20 to 30 years old, studying at universities. It should be noted that the ongoing humanitarization of education, the introduction of disciplines of the cultural cycle into higher educational institutions, the creation of a humanitarian sphere at the university, contributes to self-realization, self-determination of the student's personality in the space of modern culture. This number of respondents are in the process of mastering professional disciplines, including cultural studies.

Sufficiently superficial knowledge was shown by respondents aged 30 to 40 years. 11% off total number respondents did not study cultural studies at the university, therefore they form their opinion on this topic on the basis of independently acquired knowledge.

It is worth noting that the activities of the respondents and the age category in which they are play an important role in the knowledge that they were guided by when answering the proposed questions.

The question of the status and social understanding of cultural studies, its role in the humanization of education, divided the opinions of respondents in such a way that some believe that cultural studies cannot be an independent science in principle, attributing to it an interdisciplinary character. Others insist that it is a synthesis of other fundamental sciences, giving new knowledge and having its own specific approach, which, in general, gives every reason to define cultural studies as a science. The arguments of both one and the other are not unfounded, and, when trying detailed consideration it turns out that they are so intertwined with each other that in the end they form a single whole. This can be seen in many aspects that can be criticized. In particular, on the example of methodology, the existence of which is often disputed. On the one hand, it is stated that culturology does not have its own research method, but only uses borrowed from other fundamental sciences, primarily history. However, on the other hand, it is quite reasonable to note that such a state of affairs only plays into the hands of cultural studies as a science, since it once again shows all the scientific breadth and depth, which are taken precisely from the use of diverse methods.

Any science uses its own specific methods, techniques for considering certain processes and phenomena that it studies. The methods used in physics are different from those used in sociology or other sciences. But sometimes methods are used that are similar, identical for different sciences. The boundary between methods is movable; techniques developed within the framework of one science begin to be successfully applied in others. Previously, it was believed that just as any science has its own subject of study, it must also have its own specific method. Later it turned out that this is not applicable to all sciences, especially to social and humanitarian ones.

It should be noted that since the social and human sciences have a common object of study, study, all these sciences closely interact with each other in the study of this object (Table No. 1).

Table No. 1. Specificity of social and humanitarian knowledge

Natural-science and socio-humanitarian knowledge also have similarities and interconnections in the area of ​​their specifics (Table No. 2).

Table No. 2. Specificity of natural science and socio-humanitarian knowledge

This predetermines the fact that cultural studies, as a humanitarian science, has close ties with other sciences: philosophy, history, literary criticism, art criticism, etc. All these sciences exchange knowledge, methods with each other, mutually enriching, complementing each other, asserting in human cognition, a picture of the world and society that is most consistent with the real processes that characterize human communities in their functioning and development. Regarding the methodology, we can say: this scientific field is a general humanitarian one, therefore, it can use the methods and methodology of almost all the humanities.

As for the categorical apparatus, here cultural studies are often accused of the absence of its own, specific set of categories, of borrowing from related scientific fields, mainly from philosophy. But there is nothing reprehensible in this borrowing - culturological knowledge has emerged from philosophy. Therefore, the continuity of categories here is natural and justified. But culturology has not only these borrowed categories, researchers also identify a specific categorical apparatus of this knowledge. The subject field of cultural studies is clearly defined - it is culture. This is its specific subject, which distinguishes it from other social, humanitarian disciplines, making it necessary to exist as a special branch of knowledge. The very understanding of culture is quite broad. And although there is no single definition of culture, all scientists agree on the concept of culture as a subject of study.

And, finally, about fundamental scientific research. For my a little story culturology already has authors and their writings, which are explored as separate cultural phenomena and theoretical questions of cultural studies. It is worth highlighting the main sections of cultural studies, which have their own field of study (Table No. 3).

Table number 3. Sections of cultural studies

The teaching of cultural studies in non-humanitarian universities is considered necessary by 85% of the respondents. This is explained by the fact that the level of the general culture of students has become so low that it casts doubt on their personal viability, civic qualities, and even their future professional suitability. In other words, it makes no sense to train a specialist from a person who has not yet defined himself as a person. The essence of liberal education lies in the development of those aspects of culture that provide the individual's ability to self-knowledge, understanding other people and their communities. These aspects of culture include: the totality of people's attitudes to nature, to each other, to themselves; system of social norms and institutions, spiritual values; products of spiritual labor in the sphere of language, art, social sciences. The level of education and professionalism is understood as the quality of a person, which is characterized by the ability to solve the problems of cognitive, orientational, communicative and transformative activities, based on the mastered social experience. Ability to apply a cultural approach to a particular professional activity largely affects the features and characteristics of the professional culture of a specialist, the structural element of which is socio-cultural competence (Table No. 4).

Table No. 4. Culturology of professional fields of activity.

In this regard, cultural studies can be considered the basis of any professional knowledge, since it best meets the objectives of the formation creative individuality, reflection of reality in the mind of a person in the form of rational and irrational ideas, concepts, judgments, theories, the acquisition of skills for creating and accumulating knowledge, the development of cognitive qualities of a person.

80% of the respondents are inclined to believe that the subjects of the culturological cycle must be taught in schools. 30% of respondents from this number, who did not study cultural studies in schools, believe that it is difficult for university students to understand the disciplines of the cultural cycle, since the school does not prepare them for this. Education itself as a whole, both secondary and higher, should become humanitarian, any special subject must be taught from a humanitarian standpoint, emphasizing its significance. This can be achieved by creating a unified educational concept for schools and universities. Based on the culture-forming property of culturology, its inherent integrativity and systemic nature, this science should be considered as a basic science that introduces the student to the boundless world. high values. The main cultural category here is the formation of personality. The world of values, presented as a set of multiple artifacts, allows the student to focus on proper quality indicators. The priority importance of the principle of cultural conformity in the modern school opens up the possibility of theoretical substantiation and practical implementation of a new type of education, which is defined as cultural student-oriented. Based on the analysis of innovative processes associated with the humanization and humanitarization of education, the features of the culturological school are determined. In this school, priority is given to the study of culture and man as its subject, the image of culture is formed, the general picture of the world is associated with big picture cultures (Table No. 5).

Table No. 5. A number of desirable cultural disciplines for teaching in schools.

In general, the results of the study allow us to say that cultural studies, as a scientific discipline, has established itself in the scientific community quite firmly. Naturally, the questions proposed in the questionnaire cannot fully reveal the depth of the respondent's knowledge in this area. These questions were compiled taking into account the fact that not every respondent has high knowledge on this topic, when selecting questions, it was also taken into account that the study itself did not require the respondent to be obligated to participate in cultural studies. It was important and necessary to clarify the relationship to this problem.

Based on the results of this sociological study, it can be noted that many of the respondents, even without deep knowledge in the proposed topic, showed interest and desire to participate in this survey.

The results of the study can be called positive, in the end, the goal was achieved. Also, I would like to note that this research topic, as shown by the results of the survey, has a perspective in the further development and conduct of a similar study on the chosen topic.

Fundamental cultural studies

Purpose: theoretical knowledge of the phenomenon of culture, development of a categorical apparatus and research methods

Ontology of culture

Variety of definitions of culture and perspectives of knowledge, social functions and parameters. The ontology of culture is the fundamental principles and concept of the existence of culture

Gnoseology of culture

Foundations of cultural knowledge and its place in the system of sciences, internal structure and methodology

Morphology of culture

The main parameters of the functional structure of culture as a system of forms of social organization, regulation and communication, cognition, accumulation and transmission of social experience

Cultural semantics

Ideas about symbols, signs and images, languages ​​and texts of culture, mechanisms of cultural communication

Anthropology of culture

Ideas about the personal parameters of culture, about a person as a "producer" and "consumer" of culture, about a person as a subject of culture.

Sociology of culture

Ideas about social stratification and spatial and temporal differentiation of culture, about culture as a system of social interaction

Social Dynamics of Culture

Ideas about the main types of socio-cultural processes, the genesis and variability of cultural phenomena and systems

Historical dynamics of culture

Ideas about the evolution of forms of socio-cultural organization

Philosophy of culture - considers culture from a certain unified point of view, reflecting the views of one or another author.

Applied Cultural Studies

Purpose: forecasting, designing and regulation of actual cultural processes taking place in social practice

Applied aspects of cultural studies

Ideas about cultural policy, functions of cultural institutions, goals and methods of activity of the network of cultural institutions, tasks and technologies of socio-cultural interaction, including the protection and use of cultural heritage.

Culturology today includes a fairly wide range of disciplines that study culture in its infinitely diverse aspects using various methods.

The structure of cultural studies constitute three layers of sciences about culture:

anthropological , based primarily on ethnology, i.e., a science that studies the composition, origin and cultural and historical relations between the peoples of the world;

humanistic , including the whole complex of the so-called sciences "about the spirit"(philosophy, philology, pedagogy, psychology, etc.);

sociological , where the determining factor is the study of modern mass culture , ways of its production and functioning and society.

Functions of cultural studies as the sciences are in some sense traditional. epistemological(cognitive) function is common to science as a whole. In relation to cultural studies, it has a specificity due to the need to combine various principles and methods of understanding the world inherent in science, art, religion, and philosophy.

Heuristic the function of cultural studies is set based on the understanding of culture as a dialogue. Culture in its various manifestations (for example, the cultivation of cultivated plants and domestic animals, the manufacture of products, crafts, the creation of monuments of artistic culture, etc.) is created not only by an individual learning and activity subject, but also by entire groups of people. This creation is accompanied by mutual understanding, co-creation, collective learning and the invention of new forms of culture. Closely related to heuristic educational cultural function. In other words, collective learning and solving problems facing a given culture is accompanied by the upbringing of individuals entering the world of culture of the past and present, the world of culture of human relations. In turn, the elements of the educational function are aesthetic, ethical and legal functions oriented towards the formation of a person's political, legal and moral culture, that is, what we call a culture of behavior. And one more function of cultural studies should be highlighted - worldview. In fact, it belongs to the philosophy of culture, which is an integral part of cultural studies. The purpose of the ideological function in this case is to identify, as it were, the spiritual core that determines the cultural aspirations of a particular historical era, as well as the formation of an artistic, religious or scientific picture peace. Let's say for Russian culture XIX V. the pivotal problem was the historical fate of Russia, which found such a diverse solution in the work of A. S. Pushkin, the ideological confrontation between Slavophiles and Westerners, in the book of N. Ya. ideas."

Empirical methods in cultural studies – are used at the initial level of research, are based on the collection and description of factual material within the framework of humanitarian cultural studies.
historical method- is aimed at studying how this culture arose, what stages of development it went through and what it became in its mature form.
Structural-functional method - consists in decomposing the object under study into its constituent parts and revealing the internal connection, conditionality, the relationship between them, as well as determining their functions.
Semiotic method - considers culture as a sign system, i.e. using semiotics.
Biographical method - involves an analysis of the life path of a cultural figure for a better understanding of his inner world, which reflects the system of cultural values ​​of his time.
Modeling model - associated with the creation of a model of a certain period in the development of culture.
Psychologicalmethod - involves the ability to find out through the analysis of memoirs, chronicles, myths, annals, epistolary heritage, treatises, the most typical reactions of people of a particular culture to the most significant phenomena for them: famine, wars, epidemics. Such reactions are manifested both in the form of social feelings and mentality in general. The use of the psychological method makes it possible, through understanding the nature of a particular culture, to perceive the motivation, the logic of cultural actions.
Diachronic method - involves the clarification of the chronological, that is, the temporal sequence of changes, the appearance and course of a particular cultural phenomenon.
The synchronic method consists in the analysis of changes in the same phenomenon at different stages of a single cultural process. In addition to the above, the synchronic method can also be understood as a cumulative analysis of two or more cultures over a certain period of their development, taking into account existing connections and possible contradictions.

History of world and public culture(this is the foundation, the basis of science) - this is knowledge about achievements in science, art, about the development of religious thought, the history of culture explores the real process of continuity of cultures of different eras and peoples.
History of cultural theoriesis a story about the process of formation and development of cultural thought, i.e. history of the study of culture.
The theory of culture is the main set of scientific concepts in the field of culture, the study of the main theoretical problems cultural studies.
Sociology of culture - explores the process of functioning of culture in society, the characteristics and values ​​of various social groups, the specifics of lifestyle and spiritual interests, explores various forms of deviant behavior common in society.
Cultural anthropology- represents a section related to the peculiarities of the interaction of culture and man, culture and personality.
Applied Cultural Studies- cultural studies, focused on practical actions in the field of culture. This is about social work, on activities to preserve cultural values ​​and assist in the transfer of spiritual experience to other generations.

Question 2. The concept of culture, its essence, structure and functions.
culture, understood in a broad sense, embraces the totality of social values ​​that create a collective portrait of the identity of each particular society.
In a broad sense, the concept "culture"(lat. "cultura") is used asopposition to "nature", "nature"(lat. "natura"). “Culture is everything that is not nature”, i.e. the totality of material and ideal objects, social achievements, thanks to which a person stands out from nature.
In a narrow sense, culture – it is synonymous with art, i.e. a special sphere of human activity associated with the artistic and figurative understanding of the world in the form of literature, architecture, sculpture, painting, graphics, music, dance, theater, cinema, etc.
Culture is the link between society and nature. The basis of this connection is a person as a subject of activity, cognition, communication, experience, etc.
Speaking of structure culture, it is necessary to designate two spheres of its existence -material and spiritual. Such manifestations of culture are associated with two spheres of human activity: material and spiritual. In them, on the one hand, there is an expression of human forces, on the other hand, their formation and improvement.
Culturologists distinguish the following functions cultures:

Basic (human)Man lives not in nature, but in culture. In it, he recognizes himself. There are also moments of world understanding, formation, education and sociologization of a person. Otherwise, it is also called a transforming function, since the development and transformation of the surrounding reality is a fundamental need for a person.
informative - provides historical continuity and the transfer of social experience.
Cognitive (epistemological) - aimed at ensuring human knowledge of the world around. It is expressed in science, in scientific research, aimed at systematization of knowledge and disclosure of the laws of development of nature and society, and at the knowledge of man himself.
Communicative- provides the process of information exchange using signs and sign systems.
Regulatory (regulatory or protective function) - is a consequence of the need to maintain a certain balanced relationship between man and the environment, both natural and social.
value (axiological) - culture shows the significance or value of what is valuable in one culture, in another it is not.
Spiritual and moral- the educational role of culture.

Question 3. Evolution of the understanding of the term "culture": from antiquity to the present.
Initially, the concept of culture (cultura) comes into use as a word of Latin origin. It was used inThe Roman Empire in the understanding of processing, cultivating the land, cultivating; inhabit, inhabit the earth.
Those. culture meant the arrangement of a person in a certain territory, cultivation, cultivation of the land. This is where the term comes from. agriculture - agriculture, tillage. Thus, the concept of culture is directly associated with such an important concept for the life of society as agriculture (as a purposeful human activity). IN Latin the harbinger of culture is the term culture - “care, care for a deity, cult (veneration)”.
Thus, the most ancient complex of the concept of "Culture" reflects three facets of a single meaning and represents a holistic formula: arrangement of the place where a person lives, cultivation of the land, veneration of the gods.
For the first time in figuratively the concept of culture was used in his work by the outstanding Roman politician, orator and philosopher Mark Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), calling philosophy "the culture of the soul."
The term culture began to be perceived somewhat differently during the heyday of the Christian worldview in Europe. If we talk about the main difference in the worldview and science of that period, then from the cosmocentrism inherent in antiquity, European thought comes to the complete worship of God, worship of God. A person, his desires, his body, his needs become insignificant, only the spirit remains, which is eternal, the salvation of which must be taken care of, and in the Christian world, another meaning of culture comes to the fore -reverence, boundless and undivided reverence for God.It was the veneration of the triune God that became in Christianity the basis of the spiritual development of man. Thus, in the Middle Ages, the religious cult became the main thing in the formation of man.
As for secular culture, some Christian theologians interpret it as a preparation for religious enlightenment, while others interpret it as a path of error leading away from the truth in the person of God.
rebirth became the second stage on the way to the justification and definition of the concept of culture. The very attitude towards a person as a separate entity is changing. creative unit, personality. An anthropocentric picture of the world is being formed. In the Renaissance there is a constant Delight human creativity, new breakthroughs in art, literature, painting, architecture. The study of the culture of ideology continued in the direction of identifying the boundaries between the innate and acquired in a person.
In the Age of Enlightenment, it was believed that culture was not just a striving for freedom or mercy originally inherent in a person, but an activity illuminated by the light of reason. And in this new model of the Enlightenment project, reason, rationalism dominates, and it is on this foundation that the building of European culture is erected. Before this period, the word "culture" was used only in phrases, denoting the function of something, but in contrast to thisGerman enlighteners began to talk about culture in general or about culture as such.
So, in the Age of Enlightenment, the concept of "culture" meansactive transformation of the world by man. Unlike Cicero, the Enlighteners classify as culture not only the spiritual, but also the material occupations of people. This is the improvement of people's lives with the help of agriculture, crafts, and various techniques. But above allculture is the spiritual perfection of the human race and individuals, the instrument of which is the mind.
Over the centuries, the understanding of culture has varied, evolved, and that certain thinkers put their meaning into a given word in a certain era.
At the moment, culture is a special spiritual experience of human communities, accumulated and transmitted from generation to generation, the content of which is the value meanings of things, forms, norms, and ideals, relationships and actions, feelings, intentions, expressed in specific signs and sign systems. - languages ​​of culture.

Question 4. Enlightenment theories of culture of the 18th century (J.-G. Herder, J.-J. Rousseau, J. Vico)
In the Age of Enlightenment there are treatises and essays devoted to the study of culture as an integral world created by man. Among those who laid the foundations for the study of culture as a holistic phenomenon areJ. Vico (1668-1744) and German thinker I. Herder (1744-1803). The fact is that before them the word "culture" was used only in phrases, denoting the function of something. In contrast, the German enlighteners, in particular I. Herder, leadtalk about culture in generalor about culture as such. According to Herder, highthe purpose of man is in the development of two universal principles - Reason and Humanity.For this, enlightenment and education, overcoming ignorance, serve. To investigate the root cause, the spirit of humanity, is the real task of the historian.The highest humanity is manifested in religion. Therefore, reason, humanity and religion are the three most important values ​​of culture.
J. Vico- historian and philosopher, doctor of law and rhetoric of the University of Naples in his main work"Foundations of the New Science of the General Nature of Nations» puts forward ideas about the cultural unity and diversity of the world, the dynamics of the cyclical development of culture and the change of eras.In his statements, he relies on the ancient ideas of the Egyptians, according to which they divided the time that passed before them into three main periods: the age of the gods, the age of heroes and the age of people, and he takes these views as the basis of the universal history that he intends to create. Historical evolution, according to Vico, is formed and replaced by different eras or "ages".Each of the eras differs only in the inherent features of art and morality, law and power, myths and religion, but the cycle of cycles reflects the infinity of human development.. Throughout the work, Vico consistently illustrates the coincidence of phenomena and causes, finds analogies in the development of human history and culture.
Over the course of time, epochs succeed each other, and Vico is talking only about the endless evolution of history. Speaking about the change of cycles in history and culture, Viko draws attention to the emergingat the end of the cycle, barbarism into which all nations fall.Barbarism, from his point of view, is regarded as an integral period in the progressive development of mankind. He divides this phenomenon into two types -natural barbarism, the story begins with him; the second - more refined and aggressive is inherent in historical development in subsequent cycles, people are more high level culture, the cruelty of this barbarism is distinguished by more skillful and secret means. (We can draw parallels with fascism).
Such ideas of Vico formed the basis of the future cultural studies, cultural anthropology.
J.J. Rousseau created his own "anti-culture concept". In his treatise "Reasoning. Did the revival of science and arts contribute to the improvement of morals?" he says that everything beautiful in a person comes out of the bosom of nature and deteriorates in it when he enters society.

Question 5. Formation of cultural studies as a science. Theory of L. White.
Beginning with European enlightenment Gradually, but steadily, an interest in culture as an integral social and anthropological reality is being formed. Subsequently, researchers of history, culturologists, will call this a culture-centric picture of the world.
culture in all its diversity and richness, it is in the center of attention of philosophers, anthropologists, as well as writers, artists, politicians.
If we look at different cultures and traditions, including in the temporal plane, we will see that every nation has an economic way of life, creates tools of labor, all social life is regulated by the rule of law, all cultures develop, are at different stages of development and progress. He begins to move away from the positions of Eurocentrism and realize the significance and uniqueness of each culture, whichall cultures are equal, equal in rights, there are no worthy or contemptible cultures, they are all original, this diversity is the main wealth of the cultural life of the world. Such fields of science as cultural anthropology, ethnography and sociology appear. The term culturology appears in the work of the English anthropologist E. Tylor (1832-1917), "Primitive Culture", he substantiates the concept of culture, defines regular connections between cultural phenomena, develops methods for classifying the stages of cultural development, compiles an ethnographic and anthropological description of the cultures of more than 400 peoples and ethnic groups of different countries.
Anthropologist Leslie White (1900-1975) devoted his works to substantiating cultural studies as a science; in 1949 he published the scientific work "The Science of Culture", in which he proposes to call the branch of the humanities cultural studies. It was he who gave worthy arguments in favor of given science emerged from the complex of humanitarian knowledge about culture into a separate discipline. This allows us to consider him the founder of culturologists. L. White considered culture as a symbolic reality. A person has a unique ability to give objects and phenomena around him a certain meaning, to endow them with meaning, to create symbols. It is this ability to symbolize, according to White, that creates the world of culture.These are values, ideas, faith, customs, works of art, etc., which are created by man and endowed with a certain meaning, outside this circle, objects lose their value, turn into material - matter, clay, wood, nothing more.The symbol is the starting point for understanding human behavior and culture.
White distinguishes 3 kinds of symbols: ideas, relations, external actions, material objects.All these types are related to culture and express a person's ability to symbolize. Culture is not just objects, without a human thought process, without its ability to evaluate and symbolize, it is a void, but endowed with symbols and meanings, this environment turns into a human habitat, and in turn contributes to the value understanding of human existence, helps a person adapt to the world around him . Thus,White considers k-ru as an integral system, divided into three interrelated areas:

technological- equipment, means of protection, transport, materials for building a dwelling, this is the provision of human interaction with nature
social - relations between people in all spheres of society, it determines the development of a person's social environment
spiritual sphere. Knowledge, faith, customs, myths, folklore, religion, mythology, philosophy, art, morality, etc. develop on this basis. This creates the spiritual world of man.

Question 6. Typology of culture: ethnic, national, world, regional culture.
Typology means a certain classification of phenomena according to the generality of any signs. The type of culture can be understood as a commonality of features, characteristics, manifestations that distinguishes these cultures (culture) from others, or the fixation of certain, qualitatively homogeneous stages in the development of culture.Typology of culture is knowledge, understanding, description, classification of manifestations of culture according to some principle..
Any typological scheme is based on the general idea that the history of mankind includes two main periods:archaic (primitive) and civilizational.
It is worth distinguishing between the concepts of typology of cultures - this is a method of cultural and historical analysis, and the typology of cultures is a system of selected typical models of cultures, the result of applying the method.
In the typology, the following types of culture are distinguished:

ethnic culture- the culture of a certain ethnic group (social community of people), the creative form of its life activity for the reproduction and renewal of being. Ethnic culture is based onethnic community: she originally biological., the oldest date back to prehistoric times. They are based ongeneral hereditary psychophysiological characteristics of people,connected by unity of origin, and on early stages and specific area of ​​residence.Ethnic culture - a set traits of culture relating mainly to everyday life, everyday culture.It has a core and a periphery. ethnic cultureincludes tools, customs, customs, values, buildings, clothing, food, means of transportation, housing, knowledge, beliefs, folk arts. Formationethnic culture going on in progress :

synthesis of primary factors: language, development of the territory, location, climatic conditions, features of housekeeping and life;

synthesis of secondary generative factors: the system of interpersonal communication, the evolution of cities, the predominance of a particular religion; the formation of a certain economic and cultural type in the economy; creation of an education system, ideology, propaganda; influence of political factors;
psychological characteristics, stereotypes of behavior, habits, mental attitudes; external interactions with other ethnic groups within the nation-state and beyond.

national culture unites people living in large areas and not necessarily connected by consanguinity. Compulsory condition the emergence of national culture, experts consider a new type of social communication,associated with the invention of writing, with the birth of the literary language and national literature.It is thanks to writing that the ideas necessary for national unification gain popularity among the literate part of the population. The concept of national culture cannot be defined outside the existence of state structures in this culture. So nations can bemonoethnic and polyethnic. It is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of "nation" and "people".Nation - a territorial, economic and linguistic association of people, having a social structure and political organization. National culture includes, along with traditional household, professional and everyday, also specialized areas of culture. Ethnic cultures are part of the national culture.

World - it's a synthesis best achievements all national cultures of the peoples inhabiting our planet.
Regional culture - Regional culture is a variant of a national culture and at the same time an independent phenomenon that has its own patterns of development and the logic of historical existence.It is distinguished by the presence of its own set of functions, the production of a specific system of social relations and its own type of personality, the ability to influence the national culture as a whole.Behind the differentiation of concepts lies the understanding that there are forms and mechanisms that turn the culture of the region into a regional culture. On the other hand, this allows us to include the concept of regional culture in the typological range of historical and cultural phenomena.

Question 7. Elite and mass culture. Concepts of mass culture in cultural studies.
Elite (high) culture created and consumed by the privileged part of society - the elite(from fr. Elite- the best choice, favorites),or by her order by professional creators.The elite is the most spiritually capable part of society.High culture includes fine arts, classical music and literature. It is difficult for an unprepared person to understand. The circle of consumers of high culture is a highly educated part of society (critics, literary critics, theatergoers, artists, writers, musicians). This circle widens as the level of education of the population increases.Secular art and salon music are considered varieties of elite culture. The formula of elite culture is"art for art's sake"and the practice of "pure art".The meaning of elite culture is in the search for beauty, truth, the education of the moral qualities of the individual.
Mass culture(from lat massa- lump, piece and cultural- cultivation, education)does not express the refined tastes or spiritual quests of the people. It appeared in the middle of the twentieth century, whenMedia (radio print, television)penetrated into most countries of the world and became available to representatives of all social strata. The term "mass culture" was first introduced by the German philosopher M. Horkheimer in 1941 and by the American scientist D. Macdonald in 1944.
Mass culture May beinternational and national. She possesses less artistic valuethan elite. She has the mostwide audienceand it is copyrighted. Pop music is understandable and accessible to all ages to all segments of the population, regardless of the level of education, because. Mass culturesatisfies the immediate needs of people.
Therefore, its samples (hit songs) quickly lose their relevance, become obsolete and go out of fashion. This does not happen with works of elite and popular culture.
Mass culture is a state, or more precisely, a cultural situation corresponding to a certain form of social arrangement, in other words, culture "in the presence of the masses."In order to be able to talk about the presence of mass culture, it is necessary that its presenter appear on the historical arena - historical community, called the mass, and also so that the corresponding type of consciousness acquires a dominant meaning - mass consciousness.Mass and mass consciousness are connected and do not exist in isolation from each other. They act simultaneously as the "object" and "subject" of mass culture. It is around the masses and mass consciousness that his “intrigue” revolves.
Accordingly, only where we find the beginnings of these social and mental attitudes, we have the right to speak of the presence of mass culture. Therefore, both the history and prehistory of mass culture do not go beyond the framework of the modern European past. The people, the crowd, the peasants, the ethnos, the proletarians, the broad urban "lower classes", any other pre-modern European historical community and, accordingly, speak, think, feel, react in specific cases.She models situations and distributes roles.
The goal of the masses of culture is not so much to fill leisure and relieve tension in an industrial and post-industrial society, butstimulation of consumer consciousness in the recipient(viewer, listener, reader) thatforms a special type - passive, uncritical perception of this culture in humans. This creates a personality that is easy to manipulate.
Formed by mass culture, mass consciousness is diverse in manifestation. It is distinguished by conservatism, inertness, limitation, and has specific means of expression. Mass culture focuses not on realistic images, but on artificially created images (image) and stereotypes, where the main thing is the formula. This situation encourages idolatry.
Mass culture has given rise to the phenomenon of a consumer society in which there are no spiritual values.

Question 8. Mainstream, subculture and counterculture: typology, main features.
Mainstream(mainstream) - the predominant direction in any area (scientific, cultural, etc.) for a certain period of time.Often used to refer to any "official", mass trends in culture, art, in contrast to the alternative, underground, non-mass, elitist direction.I single out meistirim in cinematography and music.
Mainstream cinema , is usually used in relation toNorth Americancinema - blockbusters, and films of eminent European directors. in Russia the term mainstream in relation to cinema began to be used especially activelyafter the reform of the system of state financing of domestic cinema with the priority allocation of budgetary money for "major" film studios, whose high-budget films form the basis of the "mainstream" of Russian cinema.
Musical mainstream is used to refer to the most popular and commercially profitable trend in radio stations popular music, within which elements of the most popular in this moment styles. The concept originated in the United States in the 1940s. The strongest influence on the music mainstream comes from the US (Billboard), the UK, Germany and Scandinavia.
It can also be distinguishedmainstream in literature is, for example, the great popularity of the detective genre among modern readers.
Subculture(lat. sub - under + cultura - culture; = subculture) -part of the culture of a society that differs from the prevailing one, as well as social groups bearers of this culture.The concept was introduced in 1950 by American sociologist David Riseman . A subculture may differ from the dominant culture in its own value system, language, demeanor, clothing, and other aspects. There are subculturesformed on national, demographic, professional, geographical and other bases. In particular, subcultures are formed by ethnic communities that differ in their dialect from the language norm. Another well-known example is youth subcultures. A subculture may arise from fanaticism or hobbies. Most often, subcultures are closed and tend to isolate themselves from mass culture. This is due to both the origin of subcultures (closed communities of interest) and the desire to separate from the main culture.
Subcultures:

Allocate musical a subculture that is associated with certain genres of music (hippies, rastamans, punks, metalheads, goths, emo, hip-hop, etc.). The image of musical subcultures is formed largely in imitation of the stage image of performers popular in this subculture.
Art subculture originated from a passion for a particular art or hobby, an example being anemo.
Interactive subcultures appeared in the mid-90s with the spread of Internet technologies: fido communities, hackers.
Industrial (urban) subcultures appeared in the 20s and are associated with the inability of young people to live outside the city. Part of the industrial subcultures came out of industrial music fans, but computer games had the greatest influence on them.
to sports subcultures include Parkour and football fans.

Question 9. The problem of "East-West", "North-South" in cultural studies.
East-West. When meeting with eastern countries, even an uninitiated person is struck by theiridiosyncrasy and dissimilarityto what we are accustomed to seeing in Europe or America. Everything is different here: architecture, clothing, food, lifestyle, art, language, writing, and folklore, in a word, the most obvious components of any culture. Is it true,for the European eye, the East appears as something uniformly "Eastern", although in reality the differences between the countries of this region are sometimes very large.In the literature of the XX century. The famous English writer Rudyard became the most striking exponent of the idea of ​​​​the incompatibility of Western and Eastern cultures. Kipling (1865-1936), whose work was largely intended to show thatEast is East and West is West and that they will never understand each other. True, this last assertion is now refuted by life itself.
Differences between East and West, although they are smoothed out under the pressure of modern technotronic civilization, but stillremain very significant.
This is not least due to a certain "Eastern" type of thinking, closely associated with Eastern religions, which, with the exception of Islam, seem to be more religiously tolerant, more prone to pantheism, i.e. deification of nature, and more "inscribed" in the very matter of culture.
In the East, in particular in India, religion and culture have practically coincided for thousands of years.For an oriental person, unlike a European, they are characterized by: great introversion, i.e. focus on oneself and one's own inner life; less propensity to perceive opposites, which are often denied; great faith in the perfection and harmony of the surrounding Universe, and hence the orientation not to its transformation, but to adaptation to a certain "cosmic rhythm".
In general, somewhat schematizing,the eastern type of thinking in relation to the outside world is more passive, more balanced, more independent of external environment and focused on unity with nature.
It can be suspected that it is precisely these "compensatory" qualities of the Eastern worldview in our turbulent times that have become the reason for the current observable in Europe, America, and recently in our country, passion for Eastern religions, yoga and other similar beliefs, aimed not at "conquest" nature, but on the development of the secrets of man himself.
North South. Along with the East-West problem, the North-South problem has recently become increasingly important. The "South" refers to the social and cultural world of the peoples of the subtropical zone - the African continent, Oceania, Melanesia. The peoples living to the north form the socio-cultural world of the "North", in which dance plays a leading role. Thus, improvisational jazz has become widespread in our time (starting with L. Armstrong's "hot five", which introduced into the culture of the North those born in black music traditions).
The art of the South left its mark on the work of such prominent European artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as Gauguin, Vlaminck, Matisse, Picasso, Dali, and others. African culture was one of the sources of expressionism and cubism in painting. Many European and American poets and writers (Apollinaire, Cocteau and others) reflected her motives in their works. The echo of African culture is present in philosophy (for example, in the concept of "respect for life" by the European thinker of the 20th century A. Schweitzer, who spent a long time in the wilds of Africa). Thanks to Negro athletes with their passion, perfected technique and rhythm of movements, many sports spectacles have become livelier, sharper and more dynamic: football, basketball, boxing, athletics, etc.
Thus, the culture of the South is already having a noticeable impact on the North. At the same time, there is an intensive assimilation by the southern peoples of the achievements of the culture of the northern countries. Further strengthening of contacts between North and South will undoubtedly contribute to the mutual enrichment of these social and cultural worlds.

Question 10. Religion as a phenomenon of culture, the main features and characteristics.
Religion is a multifaceted, branched, complex social phenomenon, represented by various types and forms, the most common of which are world religions, which include numerous directions, schools and organizations.
In cultural history special meaning There were three world religions:Buddhism in the 6th century BC e., Christianity in the 1st c. AD and Islam in the 7th century. n. e.These religions have made significant changes in culture, entering into a complex interaction with its various elements and aspects. The term "religion" is of Latin origin and means "piety, shrine".Religion is a special attitude, appropriate behavior and specific actions based on belief in the supernatural, something higher and sacred.In interaction with art, religion addresses the spiritual life of a person and interprets the meaning and goals of human existence in its own way. Art and religion reflect the world in the form of artistic images, comprehend the truth intuitively, through insight. They are unthinkable without an emotional attitude to the world, without a developed imagery, fantasy. But art has broader possibilities of figurative reflection of the world, which go beyond the bounds of religious consciousness. The primitive culture is characterized by the indivisibility of social consciousness, thereforein ancient times, religion, which was a complex synthesis of totemism, animism, fetishism and magic, was merged with primitive art and morality.All together they were an artistic reflection of nature, human environment, his labor activity - hunting, farming, gathering. First, obviously, a dance appeared, which was a magical body movement aimed at appeasing or frightening the spirits, then music and mimicry were born. Religion had a huge impact on ancient culture, one of the elements of which was ancient Greek mythology.Ancient Greek mythology had a great influence on the culture of many modern European peoples. Religion has had a great influence on literature. The three major world religions - Buddhism, Christianity and Islam - gave the world three great books - the Vedas, the Bible and the Koran.The role of religion in the history of world culture was not only that it bestowed on humanity these sacred books - sources of wisdom, kindness and creative inspiration. Religion has had a considerable influence on the literature of different countries and peoples.
Thus, Christianity influenced Russian literature.

Question 11. The theory of cultural-historical types N.Ya. Danilevsky.
Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky (November 28 (December 10), 1822 - November 7 (19), 1885) - Russian sociologist, culturologist, publicist and naturalist; geopolitician,one of the founders of the civilizational approach to history, the ideologist of pan-Slavism.
In my work "Russia and Europe" Danilevsky criticized Eurocentrism, which dominated the historiography of the 19th century, and, in particular, the generally accepted scheme for dividing world history intoAntiquity, Middle Ages and Modern Times. The Russian thinker considered such a division to have only a conditional meaning and completely unjustifiably “tying” phenomena of a completely different kind to the stages of European history.
The concept of "cultural-historical types"- central to the teachings of Danilevsky. By his own definition,an original cultural-historical type is formed by any tribe or family of peoples, characterized by a separate language or a group of languages ​​that are quite close to each other, if at all, according to their spiritual inclinations, they are capable of historical development and already out of infancy.
Danilevsky singled out Egyptian, Chinese, Assyrian-Babylonian-Phoenician, Chaldean or ancient Semitic, Indian, Iranian, Jewish, Greek, Roman, New Semitic or Arabian and Germano-Romance as the main cultural and historical types that have already realized themselves in history. or European, as well as Mexican and Peruvian, which did not have time to complete their development.
main focus Danilevsky gaveGermano-Romance and Slavic types: considering the Slavic type more promising,he predicted that in the future the Russian-led Slavs would take the place of the declining Germano-Romance type on the historical stage. Europe, according to Danilevsky's forecasts, should be replaced by Russia with its mission of uniting all Slavic peoples and high religious potential.The triumph of the Slavs would mean the "decline" of Europe, which is hostile towards its "young" rival - Russia.
Like the Slavophiles, Danilevsky believed that European and Slavic statehood came from different roots. Considering the signs that determine the allocation of types, namely large ethnographic differences,Danilevsky indicates the differences between the Slavic peoples and the German ones in three categories: ethnographic features (mental structure), religiosity, differences in historical education. This analysis is a continuation and extension of the cultural comparative analysis of the early Slavophiles.
Danilevsky's book contains many thoughts, the value of which increased significantly at the end of the 20th century. One of them is a warning from the author of "Russia and Europe" aboutdangers of denationalization of culture.The establishment of the world domination of one cultural-historical type, according to Danilevsky, would be disastrous for mankind, since the domination of one civilization, one culture would deprive the human race of the necessary condition for improvement - the element of diversity. Considering that the biggestevil is the loss of "moral national identity", Danilevsky resolutelycondemned the West for imposing its culture on the rest of the world.Earlier than most of his contemporaries, the Russian thinker understood that in order for the "cultural power" not to dry out in humanity in general, it is necessary to resist the power of one cultural-historical type, it is necessary to "change the direction" of cultural development.
He insisted that“The state and the people are transient phenomena and exist only in time, and therefore, only on the requirement of this temporary existence of theirs can the laws of their activity be based”. Considering the concept of human progress as too abstract, Danilevsky practically ruled out the possibility of direct continuity in cultural and historical development.
"The beginnings of civilization are not transmitted from one cultural-historical type to another."Various forms of influence of one cultural type on another are not only possible, but actually inevitable.
Actually, the key point in Danilevsky's concept, which to this day is included in courses in the history of sociology around the world, iscyclical civilizational process.Unlike Toynbee and Spengler, Danilevsky does not focus his attention on the signs of decline or progress, but collects extensive factual material that makes it possible to see the repetition of social orders behind many historical features.

Question 12. The doctrine of the "ideal types" of culture M. Weber.
Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (April 21, 1864 – June 14, 1920) was a German sociologist, historian and economist.
The most important place in Weber's social philosophy is occupied by the concept of ideal types.Under the ideal type, he meant a certain ideal model of what is most useful to a person, objectively meets his interests at the moment and in general in the modern era.In this regard, moral, political, religious and other values , as well as the installations of behavior and activities of people, rules and norms of behavior, traditions arising from them.
Ideal types of Webercharacterize, as it were, the essence of optimal social states - states of power, interpersonal communication, individual and group consciousness.Because of this, they act as a kind of guidelines and criteria, based on which it is necessary to make changes in the spiritual, political and material life of people. Since the ideal type does not completely coincide with what is in society, and oftencontrary to reality(or the latter contradicts him), he, according to Weber, carries intothe features of utopia.
Nevertheless, ideal types, expressing in their relationship a system of spiritual and other values, act as socially significant phenomena. They contribute to the introduction of expediency in the thinking and behavior of people and organization in public life. Weber's doctrine of ideal types serves for his followers as a kind of methodological setting for understanding social life and solving practical problems related, in particular, to the ordering and organization of the elements of spiritual, material and political life.
Weber identifies twoideally typical organizations of economic behavior: traditional and goal-oriented. The first has existed since antiquity, the second develops in modern times.. The overcoming of traditionalism is connected with the development of a modern rational capitalist economy, which presupposes the existence of certain types of social relations and certain forms of social order. Analyzing these forms, Weber comes to two conclusions: the idealthe type of capitalism is described by him as the triumph of rationality in all spheres of economic life, and such a development cannot be explained solely by economic reasons.

Question 13. Psychoanalytic concepts of culture (3. Freud, K. Jung, E. Fromm).
Of particular interest in the cultural studies of psychoanalysis is psychoanalysis and the concept of culture of the Austrian psychiatrist S. Freud.
Z. Freud replaced the problem of death,essentially identical to it, but not leading to the transcendentbirth problem. The concepts of "death" and "birth" really merge into one, and the task of cultural studies within the framework of classical psychoanalysis can be designated asstudy of the three most important stages, the birth-death of the substantive system "man-culture":
1. The culture of birth together with the first great man as a system of his phobic (phobia-fear) projections,functionally disintegrating into a set of provoking prohibitions and a set of obsessive rituals of their symbolic violation.
2 . Culture turns its productive side, acting as a program of incarnation worked out for centuries, a symbolic series of "ancient temptations", lures of individuations. It awakens ancient, archetypal experiences in the child's memory field with the help of their symbolic real or fantasy repetition in early childhood - in fairy tales, games, dreams.
3. Culture is extremely repressive;its purpose is to protect society from the free individual,who rejected both biological and mass-like regulators, and means - total frustration, the distillation of freedom into guilt and expectation of punishment,pushing the individual either to the impersonality of mass identifications, or to auto-aggressive neuroticism, or to aggression directed outward, which increases cultural pressure and aggravates the situation. Culture is consolidated as an enemy of any manifestations of human individuality.Z. Freud developed a universal methodology for controlling the degree of repressiveness of culture, which he called "metapsychology".
Carl Gustave Jung- Swiss psychologist, philosopher and psychiatrist developed his own version of the doctrine of the unconscious, calling it "analytical psychology" and wanting to emphasize both his dependence and independence in relation to Freud.Jung considered the “psychic” to be the primary substance, and the individual soul appeared to him as a luminous point in the space of the collective unconscious.If Freud saw the essence of the personal and general cultural evolutionary process in rationalization (according to the principle: where there was “it”, there will be “I”), then C. G. Jung connectedthe formation of a personality with a harmonious and equal "cooperation" of consciousness and the unconscious, with interpenetration and balancing in a person of "male" and "female", rational and emotional principles, "Eastern" and "Western" elements of culture, introverted and extraverted orientations, archetypal and phenomenal material of mental life.
The next step towards complicating the model of the structure and behavior of personality in culture was the theory E. Fromm. Erich Frommdevelops an original version of the anthropology of culture, tries to build a new humanistic religion. He focuses not on the revolution and not on medical measures, but on the tasks of cultural policy. Psychoanalysis , according to Fromm, combined with Marx's theory of alienation, class struggleallows you to reveal the true motives of human actions.
From the position of modern existential-personalist ethics, Fromm rebels against all authoritarianism, insisting that inIn each historical and individual situation, a person must make a choice himself, without shifting responsibility to anyone and without boasting about his past achievements.
Fromm sees the meaning of the cultural-historical process in the progressive "individuation", i.e. in the liberation of the individual from the power of the herd, instinct, tradition, but history is not a smoothly ascending, but a reciprocating process in which periods of liberation and enlightenment alternate with periods of enslavement and clouding of the mind, i.e. "Escape from freedom". Fromm derives the specificity of culture not only from the nature of man, given by existential needs, but from the features of the “human situation”.Reason is the pride of man and his curse. The desire for spiritual synthesis is the strong side of E. Fromm's work, but it also turns into eclecticism. But the spirit of optimism, humanism and courage in posing the most painful and intricate questions of civilization, faith in the possibility of their reasonable solution make Fromm's cultural studies fascinating and inspiring.

Question 14. A. Toynbee's concept of local civilizations.
Among the most representative theories of civilizations is primarily the theory of A. Toynbee (1889-1975), who continues the line of N.Ya. Danilevsky and O. Spengler. Histheory can be considered the culminating point in the development of theories of "local civilizations".Monumental study by A. Toynbee"Comprehension of history"many scholars recognize it as a masterpiece of historical and macro-sociological science. The English culturologist begins his research with the statement thattrue area historical analysis there must be societies, both in time and in space, of a greater extent than nation-states. They are called "local civilizations".
Toynbee has more than twenty such developed "local civilizations".These are Western, two Orthodox (Russian and Byzantine), Iranian, Arabic, Indian, two Far Eastern, ancient, Syrian, Indus, Chinese, Minoan, Sumerian, Hittite, Babylonian, Andean, Mexican, Yucatan, Maya, Egyptian and others. He also points tofour civilizations that stopped in their development - the Eskimo, Momadic, Ottoman and Spartan and five "stillborn».
The formation of civilizations cannot be explained either by a racial factor, or by a geographical environment, or by a specific combination of such two conditions as the presence in a given society of a creative minority and an environment that is neither too unfavorable nor too favorable.
Toynbee thinks thatthe growth of civilization consists in a progressive and accumulative internal self-determinationor self-expression of civilization, in the transition from a coarser to a more subtle religion and culture. Growth is a continuous "retreat and return" of the charismatic (God's chosen, destined from above to power) minority of society in the process of always new successful response to the always new challenges of the external environment.
At least 16 out of 26 civilizations are now "dead and buried." Of the ten civilizations left alive, “Polynesian and nomadic ... are now at their last gasp; and seven of the eight others are more or less threatened with destruction or assimilation by our Western civilization.” Moreover, no less than six of these seven civilizations show signs of breaking and decay. What leads to decline is that the creative minority, intoxicated with victory, begins to "rest on its laurels", to worship relative values ​​as absolute. It loses its charismatic appeal and most do not imitate or follow it. Therefore, more and more force has to be used to control the internal and external proletariat. In the course of this process, the minority organizes a "universal (universal) state", similar to the Roman Empire, created by the Hellenistic dominant minority to preserve themselves and their civilization; enters into wars; becomes a slave to inert institutions; and itself leads itself and its civilization to death.
By Tylor civilizations are divided by him into three generations.First generation - primitive, small, non-literate cultures. There are many of them, and their age is small. They differ in one-sided specialization, adapted to life in a specific geographical environment; superstructural elements - statehood, education, the church, and even more so science and art - are absent in them.
In second-generation civilizations, social bonding is directed towards creative individuals who lead the pioneers of a new social order.Civilizations of the second generation are dynamic, they create large cities like Rome and Babylon, they develop the division of labor, commodity exchange, the market. There are layers of artisans, scientists, merchants, people of mental labor. A complex system of ranks and statuses is being approved. Here the attributes of democracy can develop: elected bodies, legal system, self-government, separation of powers.
Civilizations of the third generation are formed on the basis of churches: from the primary Minoan, the secondary Hellenic is born, and from it - on the basis of Christianity that arose in its depths - the tertiary, Western European is formed. In total, according to Toynbee, by the middle of the 20th century. of the three dozen civilizations that existed, seven or eight survived: Christian, Islamic, Hindu, etc.

Question 15. The concept of socio-cultural styles P.A. Sorokin.
The Russian scientist Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1968) created an original concept of the sociology of culture, believing that the true cause and condition for the natural development of society or the "world of society" is the existence of a world of values, the meanings of pure cultural systems.A person is the bearer of a system of values, which means that he also represents a certain type of culture.. According to Sorokin, each type of culture is determined by the social system, the cultural systems of society and the person himself, the bearer of cultural values. The type of culture is revealed in people's ideas about the nature of the existing real world, about the nature and essence of their needs, and about possible methods for satisfying them. These representations characterizethree main types of culture - sensual, ideational and idealistic.The first of them, the sensory type of culture, is based on the sensory perception of the world by a person, which is the main determinant of socio-cultural processes. From Sorokin's point of view, modern sensory culture is under the sign of inevitable collapse and crisis. The ideational type of culture, according to the scientist, is the dominance of rational thinking, and it characterizes different peoples in certain periods of their development. This type of culture, Sorokin believes, is especially characteristic of countries Western Europe. And finally, the third type of culture is the idealistic type, which is characterized by the dominance of intuitive forms of cognition of the world.
If the world of modern culture is characterized by a passion for science and the dominance of materialism, then in the future humanity must move away from these values ​​and create a new type of socio-cultural processes based on the values ​​of religion and creative altruism.
Sorokin's work had a significant impact on the work of other culturologists, drawing their special attention to the study of the origins of the ancient cultures of Asia and Africa. Exploring the system of value orientations of a particular society, culturologists obtain data on the impact of values ​​on various aspects of socio-cultural life - law and legislation, science and art, religion and church, social structure subordinated to a certain system of values.
According to P. A. Sorokin, a certain type of culture should have the following features: a) purely spatial or temporal neighborhood; b) indirect causal relationships; c) direct causal relationships; d) semantic unity; e) causal-semantic relationship.
Actually, the typology should have the following features: firstly, the enumeration in this type of relationship usually exhausts itself; secondly, typology always has a single basis, that is, all signs have a single basis. However, the creation of a typology can be hindered, firstly, by the fragility of the cultural characteristics themselves, and secondly, in the course of development, the differences between certain cultures can be erased; thirdly, the ideological and semantic core inherent in any culture can cause unequal social consequences; fourthly, when cultures converge within the dominant culture, some initially imperceptible, opposite to its spirit phenomena arise, which in the future can significantly transform the very appearance of this culture.

Question 16. O. Spengler on the relationship and fate of culture and civilization.
Book by Oswald Spengler (1880-1936)" Sunset of Europe "became one of the most significant and controversial masterpieces in the field of sociology of culture, philosophy of history and philosophy of culture. World history is the alternation and coexistence of different cultures, each of which has a unique soul. The title of Spengler's work "The Decline of Europe" expresses its pathos. He claims , Whatthe heyday of Western European culture ended. It has entered the phase of civilization and cannot give anything original either in the realm of the spirit or in the realm of art.. History breaks up into a number of independent, unique closed cyclic cultures that have a purely individual destiny, are sentenced to survivebirth, formation and decline. Philosophers usually attribute to culture everything that rises above nature. The huge ethnographic material collected by researchers after Spengler testifies:Culture is actually a unique creative impulse.This is indeed a sphere of the spirit, which is far from always inspired by the needs of practical use. Primitive man, if you look at him with modern eyes, did not understand his own benefit. However, following Spengler, we can say that anyculture inevitably passes into civilization. Civilization is destiny, rock culture. The transition from culture to civilization is a throw from creativity to barrenness, from becoming to ossification, from heroic "deeds" to " mechanical work". Civilization, according to Spengler, usually ends in death, because it is the beginning of death, the exhaustion of the creative forces of culture.Culture comes from a cult, it is connected with the cult of ancestors, it is impossible without sacred traditions. Civilization, according to Spengler, is the will to world power.Culture is national, civilization is international.Civilization is a world city. Imperialism and socialism are equally civilization, not culture. Philosophy, art exist only in culture, in civilization they are impossible and not needed.. Culture is organic, civilization is mechanical.Culture is based on inequality, on qualities. Civilization is imbued with a desire for equality, it wants to settle in numbers. Culture is aristocratic, civilization is democratic. Each cultural organism, according to Spengler, is pre-measured for a certain period (about a millennium), which depends on the internal life cycle. Dying, culture is reborn into civilization. The decline of Europe, first of all, the decline of the old European culture, the exhaustion of its creative forces, the end of art, philosophies, religions. European civilization is not over yet. She will celebrate her victories for a long time. But after civilization, death will come for the Western European cultural race. After that, culture can flourish only in other races, in other souls.

Question 17. E. Tylor and D. Fraser about primitive culture.
In 1871 the main work was published Tylor, glorified his name, - "Primitive culture".Culture here is only spiritual culture: knowledge, art, beliefs, legal and moral normsetc. In both earlier and later writings, Tylor treated culture more broadly to include at least technology as well.Tylor understood that the evolution of culture is also the result of historical influences and borrowings.. Although Taylor was aware thatcultural development is not so straightforward.Yet for Tylor as an evolutionist, the most important thing was to show the cultural unity and uniform development of mankind, and in pursuing this main goal, he rarely looked around. Much attention is paid in "Primitive Culture" to the theoretical substantiation of progress in the cultural history of mankind. The question of the relationship between progress and regress in the history of mankind, Tylor decided quite unambiguously."Judging by the data of history, the initial phenomenon is progress, while degeneration can only follow it: after all, it is necessary first to reach some level of culture in order to be able to lose it."
Tylor introduced into ethnography the concept"primitive animism". Tylor illustrated his animistic theory of the origin of religion with impressive comparative ethnographic and historical material, designed to show the spread of animism on the globe and its evolution over time.In our time, the prevailing opinion is that the original layer of religious beliefs was most likely totemism,in which people, in the only form possible for them at that time, realized their inseparable, as it were, family connection with the immediate natural environment.
Frazier was the first to suggest the presenceconnections between myths and rituals. His research was based onthree principles are laid down: evolutionary development, the psychic unity of mankind, and the fundamental opposition of reason to prejudice. First job " totemism published in 1887. Fraser's most famous work, which brought him worldwide fame, is " golden branch "("The Golden Bough") - was first published in 1890. This book collects and systematizes a huge factual material on primitive magic, mythology, totemism, animism, taboo, religious beliefs, folklore and customs of different peoples. This book draws parallels between ancient cults and early Christianity. Labor has been extended to 12 volumes over the next 25 years.
D. D. Fraser deduced three stages of the spiritual development of mankind: magic, religion and science.According to Frazer, magic precedes religion and disappears almost entirely with its advent. At the "magical" stage of development, people believed in their ability to change the world around them in a magical way. Later, people lost faith in this and the idea became dominant that the world obeys the gods and supernatural forces. At the third stage, the person refuses this idea as well. The prevailing belief is that the world is not controlled by God, but by the "laws of nature", knowing which, you can control it.

Question 18. Cultural genesis, the origins of culture and its early forms.
Cultural genesis is the process of the emergence and formation of the culture of any people and nationality in general and the emergence of culture as such in a primitive society.
The culture of primitive society covers the longest and perhaps the least studied period of world culture. primeval, or archaic culture has more than 30 thousand years.Under primitive culture, it is customary to understand an archaic culture that characterizes the beliefs, traditions and art of peoples who lived more than 30 thousand years ago and died long ago or those peoples (for example, tribes lost in the jungle) that exist today, preserving the primitive image intact life. Thus, primitive culture embraces mainly the art of the Stone Age.
The first material evidence of human existence are tools. Thus, the manufacture of tools, the emergence of burials, the emergence of articulate speech, the transition to tribal community, the creation of art objects were the main milestones on the way to the formation of human culture.
Based on the data of archeology, ethnography and linguistics, it is possible to designate main features of primitive culture.
Syncretism primitive culturemeans indivisibility in this era of various spheres and phenomena of culture.The following manifestations of syncretism can be distinguished:
Syncretism of society and nature . The clan, the community were perceived as identical to the cosmos, they repeated the structure of the universe.Primitive man perceived himself as an organic part of nature, feeling his kinship with all living beings.This feature, for example, is manifested in such a form of primitive beliefs as totemism.
Syncretism of the personal and the public. Individual sensation in primitive man existed at the level of instinct, biological feeling. But on a spiritual level, he identified himself not with himself, but with the community to which he belonged; found himself in the feeling of belonging to something extra-individual. A person initially became just a person, displacing his individuality. Actuallyhis human essence was expressed in the collective "we" of the kind. It means that primitive always explained and evaluated himself through the eyes of the community. Fusion with the life of society led to the fact thatthe worst punishment death penalty, was exile.For example, in many archaic tribes, people are convinced that hunting will not be successful if the wife, who remains in the village, cheats on her husband, who has gone hunting.
Syncretism of various spheres of culture . Art, religion, medicine, producing activities, obtaining food were not isolated from each other.Art objects (masks, drawings, figurines, musical instruments, etc.) have long been used mainly as magical means. Treatment was carried out with the help of magical rites. For example, hunting. Modern man needs only objective conditions for the success of hunting. For the ancients, the art of throwing a spear and silently making their way through the forest, the right direction of the wind and other objective conditions were also of great importance. But all this is clearly not enough to achieve success, because the main conditions were magical actions.The hunt began with magical actions on the hunter. At the very moment of the hunt, certain rituals and prohibitions were also observed, which were aimed at establishing a mystical connection between man and animal.
etc.................

Cultural studies has become one of the most significant and rapidly developing humanities, which undoubtedly has its reasons. Let's try to characterize some of them.

1. modern civilization is rapidly transforming the environment, social institutions, and everyday life. In this regard, culture attracts attention as inexhaustible source public innovations. Hence the desire to reveal the potential of culture, its internal reserves. Considering culture as a means of self-realization of a person, one can identify new inexhaustible impulses that can influence the historical process, the person himself.

2. The need to study the phenomenon of culture is due in part to the professorial ecological crisis. At the present stage of its development, culture is causing more and more harm to the environment. Involuntarily, questions arise: is culture not hostile to nature? is it possible to harmonize their relationship?

3. The question of the relationship between the concepts of culture and society, culture and history is also relevant. In the past, the social cycle was much shorter than the cultural one. When a person was born, he found a certain structure of cultural values. It has not changed for centuries. In the 20th century, the situation changed dramatically. Now, during one human life, several cultural cycles pass, which puts a person in an extremely difficult position. Everything changes so quickly that a person does not have time to comprehend and appreciate certain innovations and finds himself in a state of loss and uncertainty. In this regard, it is of particular importance to identify the most significant features of the cultural practice of past eras in order to avoid moments of primitivization of modern culture.

Culturology is a complex science that studies all aspects of the functioning of culture, from the causes of its occurrence to various forms of historical self-expression.

The main components of cultural studies are the philosophy of culture and the history of culture, areas of humanitarian knowledge that have existed for a long time. Having merged together, they form the basis of cultural studies as a complex science. Philosophy of culture is a branch of cultural studies that studies the concepts of the origin and functioning of culture. cultural history- section that studies specific features cultures of different historical stages. In cultural studies, historical facts are subjected to philosophical analysis and generalization. Depending on the aspect on which the main attention is focused, various cultural theories and schools are created.

The new sections of cultural studies, the main parameters of which are still being formed, are the morphology of culture and the theory of culture. The morphology of culture is understood as a branch of cultural studies that studies the structure and development of culture. Some aspects of morphology and cultural theory were discussed in chapter 1.

Although culture has become a subject of knowledge since the emergence of philosophy, as an independent phenomenon, it began to be closely studied only in the 18th-19th centuries. Initially, this was carried out within the framework of the philosophy of history and ethics and was associated with the philosophical concepts of J. Vico (1668-1744), J. G. Herder (1744-1803), I. Kant (1724 - 1804). Paying due attention to questions of culture, these thinkers did not yet make it a direct object of study. It acted only as an accompanying link in understanding the existence of history and morality.

The great German poet Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) tried to remove the contradiction between "natural", "sensual", on the one hand, and "moral", on the other, indicated in the works of his predecessors. According to Schiller, culture consists in harmony and reconciliation of the physical and moral nature of man: "Culture must give justice to both - not only to one rational impulse of a person as opposed to the sensual, but also to the latter as opposed to the first." Among Schiller's younger contemporaries - Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, the brothers August and Friedrich Schlegel - the aesthetic principle of culture comes to the fore. Its main content is artistic activity people as a means of overcoming the animal, natural beginning in them. Schelling's aesthetic views are most fully outlined in his book "Philosophy of Art" (1802-1803), where the desire to show the priority of artistic creativity over all other types of human creative activity, to put art both above morality and science is clearly seen. “Art is, as it were, the completion of the world spirit,” he wrote, “because in it, subjective and objective, spirit and nature, internal and external, conscious and unconscious, necessity and freedom are united in the form of the final. As such, art is the self-contemplation of the absolute ". In a somewhat simplified way, culture was reduced by Schelling and other romantics to art, primarily to poetry. To a reasonable and moral person, they to a certain extent opposed the power of a person-artist, a person-creator.

In the works of G. V. F. Hegel, the main types of culture (religion, art, philosophy, law) are represented by stages in the development of the world mind. Hegel creates a universal scheme for the development of the world mind, according to which any culture embodies a certain stage of its self-expression. The world mind is manifested in people as well. Originally in the form of language, speech. The spiritual development of the individual reproduces the stages of self-knowledge of the world mind, starting with "baby talk" and ending with "absolute knowledge", i.e. knowledge of those forms and laws that govern from within the entire process of the spiritual development of mankind. From Hegel's point of view, the development of world culture reveals such integrity and logic that cannot be explained by the sum of the efforts of individual individuals. The essence of culture, according to Hegel, is manifested not in the overcoming of biological principles in man and not in creative imagination outstanding personalities, but in the spiritual familiarization of the individual with the world mind. "The absolute value of culture lies in the development of the universality of thought," wrote Hegel.

In the works "Phenomenology of Spirit", "Philosophy of History", "Aesthetics", "Philosophy of Law" Hegel analyzed the entire path of development of world culture. No other thinker has done this before him. Nevertheless, in the works of Hegel, culture does not yet appear as the main subject of study. Hegel analyzes, first of all, the history of the self-disclosure of the world mind.

Works that are adequate to the modern idea of ​​cultural studies appear only in the 2nd half. XIX century. One of them can rightly be considered the book of an Englishman Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917) "primitive culture"(1871). Claiming that "the science of culture is the science of reform," he considered culture as a process of continuous progressive development. Tylor gives one of the first definitions of culture of a generalizing nature, which is considered to this day canonical: "Culture or civilization in in a broad, ethnographic sense, it is composed in its entirety of knowledge, beliefs, art, morality, laws, customs, and some other abilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

Tylor looked at culture as a continuous chain of transformations of the products of human thought and labor from less perfect to more perfect. With him, all objects and ideas develop "one of the others." This approach is called evolutionary.

In 1869 and 1872 two works appear that are now invariably included among the most significant for the course of cultural studies. These are "Russia and Europe" by the Russian researcher Nikolai Danilevsky and "The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music" by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Here all the signs of a true cultural study are already present: the material on the history of culture is philosophically interpreted and accompanied by calculations of a general theoretical order. And most importantly, culture and its forms are the main object of consideration. The views of Danilevsky and Nietzsche on culture will be discussed in the next chapter. It should only be noted that the fact of the emergence of cultural studies did not yet mean the emergence of science itself. Neither Danilevsky nor Nietzsche called themselves culturologists, and they hardly suspected that they were becoming the forefathers of a new science. Danilevsky perceived himself more as a historian, although he was a biologist by education, and Nietzsche quite naturally acted as a philosopher.

Georg Simmel (1858-1918) pays special attention to the conflict moments in the culture of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, trying to give them a deeply objective explanation. At the beginning of the 20th century, from the point of view of the philosopher, there is a sharp deviation of the line of development of culture from the previous paths. In The Conflict of Modern Culture (1918), Simmel explains the desire to destroy all old forms of culture, characteristic of this historical period, by the fact that in recent decades humanity has lived without any unifying idea, as it did until the middle of the 19th century. Many new ideas arise, but they are so fragmented and incompletely expressed that they cannot meet an adequate response in life itself, they cannot rally society around the idea of ​​culture. "Life in its immediacy seeks to embody itself in concrete forms and phenomena, but due to their imperfection, it reveals a struggle against any form," Simmel writes, substantiating his vision of the cause of crisis phenomena in culture. Perhaps the philosopher managed to discover one of the most significant indicators of the cultural crisis as such, namely the absence of a global socially important idea capable of uniting all cultural processes.

Simmel's point of view is also extremely interesting because it was expressed precisely at the time when culturology was finally turning into an independent science. The feeling of crisis, which is characteristic of the assessment of the state of culture by various thinkers, to a certain extent predetermined the completion of the formation of the science of culture. This happened under the influence of certain events in European culture. They testified to a profound turning point in history, which had not been equaled in previous centuries. The First World War and revolutions in Russia, Germany, Hungary, a new type of organization of people's lives, due to the industrial revolution, the growth of man's power over nature and the disastrous consequences of this growth for nature, the birth of an impersonal "man of the masses" - all this obliged us to take a different look at the character and the role of European culture. Many scientists, like Simmel, considered her situation extremely deplorable and no longer considered European culture as a kind of cultural standard, they talked about the crisis and the collapse of its foundations.

Here is what the Russian philosopher L. M. Lopatin wrote at the end of 1915 about the events of that time: “The modern world is experiencing a huge historical catastrophe - so terrible, so bloody, so fraught with the most unexpected prospects that before it the thought goes numb and dizzy. .. In the unprecedented historical storm that is now raging, not only blood flows like rivers, not only states collapse ... not only peoples perish and rise, something else is happening ... Old ideals are crumbling, former hopes and persistent expectations are fading ... And the main thing is that our very faith in modern culture is irreparably and deeply wavering: because of its foundations, such a terrible bestial face suddenly looked out at us that we involuntarily turned away from it with disgust and bewilderment. really, this culture? What is its moral, even just vital value?"

Subsequent events in Europe and in the world showed that L. M. Lopatin did not in the least exaggerate the significance of crisis phenomena in culture. It became obvious that a person and culture itself can develop in a completely different way than it once seemed to the humanists of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, that the ideal of a self-developing creative personality in the 20th century was another utopia. A paradoxical situation developed: historical and technical development continued, while cultural development slowed down, turned back, as it were, reviving the ancient instincts of destruction and aggression in man. This situation could not be explained on the basis of traditional ideas about culture, according to which it is a process of organizing and ordering history itself.

Consequently, culturology as a worldview science finally strengthened its position as a result of the awareness of the crisis state of culture at the beginning of the 20th century, just as the boom experienced by culturology now is explained by the crisis of the state of culture of its end.

The feeling of discomfort and uncertainty was so strong that the first volume of Oswald Spengler's The Decline of Europe, published in 1918, was greeted with unprecedented interest. The book was read and discussed not only by specialists: philosophers, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, etc., but by everyone educated people. It has become an integral part of many university programs. And this despite significant criticism of many of the provisions expressed by Spengler. The question of the reasons for such interest in this work is legitimate. After all, Spengler literally repeated some moments from N. Danilevsky's work "Russia and Europe" written half a century earlier, which was noticed only by a narrow circle of professionals.

Undoubtedly, it was a cultural and historical situation. The very name "The Decline of Europe" sounded as relevant as possible. Most of Spengler's contemporaries really felt that they were living in a world of the collapse of old habitual cultural norms, and inevitably posed the question whether this meant the end of European civilization in general or was it the beginning of the next round in its development. Reading Spengler, people tried to find an answer to the question of the fate of culture.

Many scientists involved in different aspects humanitarian knowledge, considered it a matter of honor to take part in the creation general theory culture, reflecting the multidimensionality and complexity of this concept. The term "culturology" did not appear immediately. It was introduced around the 40s. at the initiative of the American cultural researcher and anthropologist Leslie Alvin White. In his works "The Science of Culture" (1949), "The Evolution of Culture" (1959), "The Concept of Culture" (1973) and others, White argued that cultural studies represent a qualitatively higher level of human comprehension than other social sciences, and predicted she has a great future. It so happened that by the time White introduced the name, science itself was already actively functioning.

At the same time, one cannot ignore the fact that cultural studies to this day remains the most controversial and paradoxical science. To create a science of culture, equal in logic, internal unity, fundamentality to others humanities, turned out to be an extremely difficult matter: the object of study itself is too multifaceted. This is the reason for the diversity of philosophical approaches to explaining both the essence of culture and the laws of its functioning. This is also the specific attraction of cultural studies.