Many researchers believe that culture arose primarily under the influence of social demands and needs. First of all, society needed to consolidate and transfer spiritual values, which, outside the social forms of human life, could perish along with the author of these values.

Society, thus, gave a stable and successive character to the process of creating values. In society, the accumulation of values ​​became possible, culture began to acquire a cumulative character of development. In addition, society has created opportunities for the public creation and use of values, which has led to the possibility of their faster understanding and testing by other members of society.

First of all, it is necessary to emphasize the idea that the concept of "culture" is one of those general historical categories that are valid for all eras. Culture arises together with the appearance of mankind on earth, and each step of a person along the path of social progress was at the same time a step forward in the development of culture, each historical epoch, each special form of society had its own, unique culture.

The essence of culture lies in the fact that it constitutes a fundamental, defining dimension of human life, embodies the proper human way of existence.

In the mass consciousness, the idea of ​​culture as a special sphere of society, which is, as it were, separated from everyday life and is actually identical to art and literature, has been established. This view is enshrined in expressions such as "worker of culture", "workers of culture", which means poets and writers, musicians and artists.

In fact, culture is a large-scale phenomenon, irreducible to art alone, a phenomenon commensurate with society and civilization. Therefore, culture is not only closely connected with all aspects of the life of society and man, but also permeates it.

In order to clarify the nature of culture, let us first dwell on its concept. The term "culture" is of Latin origin and originally meant the cultivation of the soil. In the Middle Ages, it denoted progressive methods of cultivating cereals, thus the now well-known term "agriculture" arose.

In the XVIII - XIX centuries, culture is interpreted in an aristocratic spirit. Educated, well-read, "well-bred" people who possessed "good manners" began to be considered cultural. Such an understanding of culture, apparently, has been preserved to some extent to this day: for example, we are talking about cultured and uncultured people, about lack of culture, we associate culture with education, intellectual work, etc. This division thus goes back to the division of society into cultured aristocrats and uncultured common people.

Subsequently, culture began to be understood as everything that was created by man, in contrast to the natural world, nature. From the standpoint of modern philosophy and science, culture is a humanized world transformed by people. This is the second nature, built on by man over the first, “natural”. It therefore includes in fact the same content as the concepts of society and civilization.

Specifically, the image of culture is especially clearly revealed when we compare different peoples, societies, countries. Differences in the way of life, typical and characteristic of these peoples, their customs, their different attitudes, for example, to work or family, raising children or success in life, their habits and traditions, are striking. All these differences are focused in the systems of values ​​and life guidelines inherent in these peoples. Thus, Americans are traditionally oriented towards personal success, within their culture the myth of a shoe shiner who became the president of the country varies in different ways, they value people who have achieved high status and popularity - athletes, artists, singers, etc. A. Morito, one of the founders of the famous Sony company, when reflecting on the Japanese and American systems of labor relations, singled out such differences. The Japanese system is characterized by corporate patriotism, the system of "family ties", democracy in relations between managers and employees, "collective management" (very reminiscent of the domestic system of constant linkages and coordination of decisions), the equalizing principle of remuneration, according to which it increases every year by as the worker gets older and more experienced. The American system of labor relations, according to A. Morito, is based on individualism, formal relations between an employee and a firm, a narrow specialization of an employee, it is focused on extracting maximum profit and is devoid of a “human dimension”.

This example shows that the same needs (in this case, economic) can be satisfied, the same goals can be achieved on the basis of different systems of values, traditions, ways, rules and behaviors, i.e. everything that forms a special culture.

Culture, therefore, attaches a certain meaning to human activity and life (for example, work is considered and evaluated as a duty, or as an obligation, or as a duty, or as a way to achieve other goals), introduces meaning into them. Therefore, culture can also be thought of as the set of meanings by which people make sense of themselves and the world around them.

Culture embodies the originality, uniqueness and uniqueness of society, people, social group, in short - the subject to which it belongs. Culture from this point of view can be represented as a portrait of a social community. This is due to the fact that it develops over a long period of time and represents the accumulation of a kind of historical experience that people have acquired. In other words, every culture certainly has a “historical dimension”, which may not be noticeable at first glance, but, nevertheless, without it, no culture, even if we are talking about the culture of a small social group, exists.

Culture therefore contains the most typical, repetitive, widespread, regularly reproduced features and properties of the social community. The common denominator of all the diverse content of culture, therefore, can be considered tradition. It reveals itself in all elements of culture, forming its originality, and on the surface of social life it manifests itself in the form of a habit.

We can say that every culture has a mechanism of selection, selection, thanks to which it sort of filters out social life, practice, leaving only some elements as cultural samples, standards, canons. They become general and, to a certain extent, obligatory for all members of the social community.

These elements (patterns, standards, canons) must, on the one hand, be effective and expedient, helping the social community to maintain its existence as a whole under changing circumstances. This is especially clearly seen in the example of professional culture, in which there are numerous means of developing, transferring, replicating samples and models, the canons of professionalism, maintaining it at the “proper level” and monitoring it. If the professional culture is blurred (say, due to the substitution of professional criteria for evaluating the work of a specialist with political demands of loyalty), then the professional community itself is destroyed, the boundary between, for example, a doctor and a healer, a scientist and a charlatan, a writer and a graphomaniac, a policeman and a bandit disappears. The professions themselves are simply degrading.

On the other hand, new elements should fit into the existing culture, correspond to its fundamental values, norms, patterns, traditions, not tear its fabric, but, on the contrary, strengthen it. Take, for example, such an important component of culture as language. Although its existence is associated with the constant emergence of new words and the introduction of foreign borrowings into its vocabulary, in general, the vocabulary remains constant, the rules are even more stable. Thus, the selection mechanism helps to preserve the originality and uniqueness of each culture, whether it is a national, professional, generational or any other culture.

From this point of view, attempts to change culture by force, in addition to the mechanism of selection, without taking into account the originality of culture, to introduce new “progressive” elements into it are indicative. Such a path either destroys the integrity of culture, its internal interconnections, turning the cultural fabric into a collection of “cuts and shreds” (this, however, rarely happens), or ends in nothing.

Here is an unfortunate example. Legal nihilism, disregard for the law and law - our tradition, rooted far in the past and "canonized" in the well-known proverb "the law that draws, where you turn, it went there." In the era of perestroika, the European idea of ​​a rule-of-law state was introduced into the public consciousness, and since then attention to the legal regulation of society has not weakened, even attempts are being made to reform the judicial system. But the practice and deep attitude to the law has not changed, since the law itself, which remained unlawful, has not changed, “by the will of the ruling class”, since the idea of ​​a rule of law state was not “linked” with the fundamental values ​​of national culture, first of all with the idea of ​​justice. Moreover, since it is the legislators and “law enforcers” themselves who demonstrate disregard for the law, legal nihilism only intensifies.

The culture of the people is formed and crystallized over the course of entire historical epochs, it is the past, overturned into the present. She is a "memory" of the past, fixed in the stereotypes of consciousness and behavior, symbols, rituals and customs. These are its deepest layers, which are connected by a thousand threads with more dynamic and changing surface layers, reflecting the specifics of a particular historical era and often carrying new content that contradicts traditions.

Culture as an integral phenomenon performs certain functions in relation to society.

Adaptive function- culture ensures the adaptation of man to the environment. The term adaptation means adaptation. Animals and plants develop adaptation mechanisms in the process of biological evolution. The mechanism of human adaptation is fundamentally different; it does not adapt to the environment, but adapts the environment to itself, creating a new artificial environment. Man as a biological species remains the same in a very wide range of conditions, and culture (forms of economy, customs, social institutions) differ depending on what nature requires in each particular region. A significant part of cultural traditions has rational grounds associated with some useful adaptive effect. The other side of the adaptive functions of culture is that its development increasingly provides people with safety and comfort, labor efficiency increases, new opportunities for spiritual self-realization of a person appear, culture allows a person to fully reveal himself.

Communicative function- culture forms the conditions and means of human communication. Culture is created by people together; it is the condition and result of people's communication. The condition is because only through the assimilation of culture between people are established truly human forms of communication, culture gives them the means of communication - sign systems, languages. The result is because only through communication can people create, store and develop culture; in communication, people learn to use sign systems, fix their thoughts in them and assimilate the thoughts of other people fixed in them. Thus, culture connects and unites people.

Integrative function- culture unites the peoples of the social groups of the state. Any social community that develops its own culture is held together by this culture. Because among the members of the community, a single set of views, beliefs, values, ideals characteristic of a given culture is spreading. These phenomena determine the consciousness and behavior of people, they form a sense of belonging to one culture. The preservation of the cultural heritage of national traditions, historical memory creates a link between generations. This is the basis for the historical unity of the nation and the self-consciousness of the people as a community of people that has existed for a long time. A broad framework of cultural community is created by world religions. One faith closely binds representatives of various peoples that make up the world of Islam or the Christian world.

Socialization function- culture is the most important means of including individuals in social life, their assimilation of social experience, knowledge of values, norms of behavior that correspond to a given society, social group and social role. The process of socialization allows the individual to become a full-fledged member of society, take a certain position in it, and live as required by customs and traditions. At the same time, this process ensures the preservation of society, its structure, the forms of life that have developed in it. Culture determines the content of the means and methods of socialization. In the course of socialization, people master the programs of behavior stored in culture, learn to live, think and act in accordance with them.

Information function of culture- with the emergence of culture, people have a special “suprabiological” form of information transmission and storage that differs from animals. In culture, information is encoded by structures external to the person. Information acquires its own life and the ability to develop on its own. Unlike biological information, social information does not disappear with the death of the individual who obtained it. Thanks to this, in society, it is possible that something that will never be possible in the animal world is the historical multiplication and accumulation of information that is at the disposal of man as a generic being.

The cognitive function of culture is determined by a certain criterion of knowledge, mastery of the human forces of nature and society, as well as the degree of development of the "human" in man himself. Encompassing all forms of social consciousness, taken in their unity, culture gives a complete picture of the knowledge and development of the world. Of course, culture is not reduced to the totality of knowledge about the world, but systematized scientific knowledge is one of its most important elements.

However, culture not only characterizes the degree of human knowledge of the surrounding world. At the same time, culture reveals not only the degree of development of forms of social consciousness in their unity, but also the level of skills and abilities of people manifested in their practical activities. Life is extraordinarily complicated and all the time it poses more and more new problems for people. This causes the need for knowledge of the processes taking place in society, their awareness from both scientific and artistic and aesthetic positions.

Culture also contributes to the implementation heuristic the goals of man, his search for the most productive forms of learning new things, the discovery of new ways and methods of social life, the strengthening of man's power over the elemental forces of nature.

As follows from what has been said, the role of culture in this case was reduced to something specific and not much, but important.

In today's ideas about the functions of culture, the most important place, as a rule, is given to the human-creative function.

So the efforts of the great thinkers, who called to see in culture only a condition for the development of human qualities, were not in vain. But the real life of culture is still not limited to the human-creative function. The variety of human needs served as the basis for the emergence of a variety of functions. Culture is a kind of self-knowledge of a person, since it shows him not only the world around him, but also himself. This is a kind of mirror where a person sees himself both as he should become and as he was and is. The results of knowledge and self-knowledge are transmitted in the form of experience, worldly wisdom, through signs, symbols from generation to generation, from one people to another.

Axiological (value) function of culture, it captures the ability of the accumulation of artistic values ​​in the culture and their influence on the way of thinking and human behavior. The whole variety of material and spiritual culture can act as material and spiritual values, which are evaluated in terms of truth or untruth, beautiful or ugly, permissible or forbidden, fair or unfair, etc.

The totality of the established, well-established value orientations of the individual form a kind of axis of his consciousness, providing a certain continuity of culture and motivation for his behavior. Because of this, orientations are the most important factor regulating and determining human actions. Developed value orientations are a sign of a person's maturity, an indicator of the measure of his sociality. This is the prism of perception not only of the external, but also of the inner world of the individual. Thus, the axiological or value function of culture is manifested not only in the assessment of culture, its achievements, but also in the socialization of the individual, in the formation of social relations, and people's behavior.

Aesthetic function of culture, first of all, manifests itself in art, in artistic creativity. As you know, in culture there is a certain sphere of "aesthetic". It is here that the essence of the beautiful and the ugly, the sublime and the base, the tragic and the comic is revealed. This sphere is closely connected with the aesthetic attitude to reality, to nature. V. Solovyov noted that “beauty, spilled in nature in its forms and colors, is concentrated, condensed, emphasized in the picture”, and the aesthetic connection between art and nature “does not consist in repetition, but in the continuation of that artistic work that was started by nature ".

Related to the aesthetic function is the hedonic function. Hedonism in Greek means pleasure. People enjoy reading a book, visiting architectural ensembles, museums, visiting theaters, concert halls, etc. Pleasure contributes to the formation of needs and interests, affects the lifestyle of people.

The main, synthesizing function of culture, reflecting its social meaning, is humanistic function. All the functions mentioned above are somehow connected with the formation of personality, human behavior in society, with the expansion of his cognitive activity, the development of intellectual, professional and other abilities.

The humanistic function is manifested in the unity of opposite, but organically interconnected processes: the socialization and individualization of the individual. In the process of socialization, a person masters social relations, spiritual values, turning them into the inner essence of his personality, into his social qualities. But a person masters these relations, values ​​in his own way, uniquely, in an individual form. Culture is a special social mechanism that implements socialization and ensures the acquisition of individuality.

§eight. The role of culture in society

The concept of culture. The word "culture" is familiar to each of us. It is ambiguous and widely used, finding application not only in the media, but also in everyday life. Many public and state figures now and then point to the decline of culture, call for its revival and rise, and demand the creation of favorable conditions for the development of culture.

Different people put different meanings into the concept of culture. Some identify culture with education, others see culture as a collection of accumulated values ​​of spiritual life, others associate culture, first of all, with a certain level of moral development of people. In everyday speech, this word is associated with ideas about palaces and parks of culture, about the culture of service and the culture of life, about museums, theaters, libraries, and finally, about physical culture. However, the content of the concept of "culture" is much more diverse and rich. In addition, this concept has come as long a way of development as the history of mankind itself.

For the first time, the concept of culture (translated from Latin - care, cultivation, education) appeared in ancient Rome and was used there in several meanings. One of them is the understanding of culture as a way of educating a person-citizen, a worthy member of his society. This understanding also coincided with the ancient Greek "paydeia" (upbringing in accordance with the traditions of the people, its rules of life). The humanistic and democratic orientation of paideia allowed European culture to take a leading place in the world. In the Middle Ages, culture was identified with the ability to interpret and understand the texts of Holy Scripture. At the same time, the main task was to comprehend God and the human destiny that depends on him.

With the accumulation of knowledge about social life and the diversity of the processes occurring in it, new attempts arose to define culture. One of the first such attempts was made during the Enlightenment. In the 18th century, the word "culture" began to be widely used to refer to a specific way of life of a person, different from natural being. At the same time, culture was understood by the enlighteners as a means of elevating a person, improving the spiritual life and morality of people.

In modern cultural studies (the science of culture), there are two main approaches to understanding culture.

Supporters anthropological approach consider culture the totality of the results of human activity, the world of things created by people, opposing nature. This world was created by man for his own purposes and expresses the difference between human life activity and natural, biological forms of life. It is also necessary to take into account the qualitative originality of the historical forms of human activity that creates culture at different stages of social development, within certain eras, ethnic and national communities.

From point of view value approach culture is understood as the totality of the best creations of man. However, their value is often relative. So, for example, for specialists involved in the creation of nuclear weapons, the atomic bomb is of value. But for most sane people, it is a tool created to destroy all living things and really valuable ones. Therefore, it cannot be considered a value of culture. In addition, the value approach narrows the scope of culture, referring to it only the positive results of people's activities. However, such negative phenomena as crime, slavery, drug addiction accompany, alas, human life, and it is impossible to understand the culture of a country if one ignores their existence.

Summarizing and summarizing the different approaches, the following definition can be given: culture - this is a specifically human way of life, including the process and results of human activity, a system of norms and values, symbols and ideals, considered in the context of a historical era.

Culture is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon that permeates all spheres of life and activity of society and man. Thus, culture is both the material and spiritual values ​​of a person; it characterizes the uniqueness of the life of nations and peoples. Culture is the core, foundation, "soul" of society.

Man embodies his goals, desires and aspirations in his creations. Culture expresses the meaning we put into everything we do. Works of art, scientific research, study, rules of etiquette, human behavior, etc. have a certain meaning.

The created objects not only perform their characteristic functions, but also have a certain meaning for a person. Thus, the main function of the car is to serve as a means of transportation. At the same time, for many it is also an object of prestige. In order to understand the meaning of historical monuments, it is necessary to study the culture, the creation of which they are. For example, tourists visiting Egypt can see the appearance of the pyramids, scientists can study their physical and chemical composition, size, etc. It is impossible to understand their purpose without studying the history and culture of Ancient Egypt. That is why it is so important to study world history, as well as the history of your country.

Objects and phenomena of culture store the experience of mankind. The most universal symbolic means of preserving and transmitting experience is the word. Oral and written speech allows you to convey almost any meaning to someone who is familiar with this system of signs.

Among the signs, a special place is occupied by symbols - signs that serve as a symbol of an image or idea. For example, a monument to the heroes who fell in the battles for the Motherland serves as a symbol of the people's patriotism. Without studying the corresponding systems of signs, it is impossible to master the achievements of culture. Joining the culture, we decipher its signs and symbols, thus comprehending the meaning of what is happening.

Culture includes the results of human activity, artificially objects and phenomena created by man, which are usually called artifacts (from the Latin arte - artificial, factus - made). These include not only the things made by man, the means and methods of action discovered and used by him, but also the changes that he makes in his physical and spiritual appearance.

Structure and functions of culture. Culture performs a number of functions in human life and society.

Adaptive(adaptive) function of culture is that it is culture that allows people to adapt to life in various natural conditions. Thanks to the adaptive mechanisms of culture, a person was able to populate almost all corners of the Earth - from the Northern Arctic to Antarctica, adapted to various features of the climate, relief, flora and fauna. So, on the Japanese Islands, in a zone of increased seismic activity, people built houses on a light wooden frame covered with paper, and the Eskimos built their dwellings from snow and perfectly experienced the cold polar winters in them.

Another important function of culture is manifested in the accumulation, storage, systematization and transmission of information. You can call it a function historical continuity. Violation of this function is fraught with serious consequences for society. The break in cultural continuity can doom new generations to the loss of social memory, make them "Ivans who do not remember kinship."

value The function of culture is that it forms in a person certain value needs and orientations. Assimilated cultural values ​​allow a person to distinguish between significant and insignificant in life, to assimilate those elements of culture that harmonize and improve his life and to abandon what leads to the degradation of the individual. For society, the preservation of cultural values ​​is a guarantee of stable development.

Regulatory the function of culture is connected with the regulation of various aspects of social life. The performance of this function is based on morality and law and contributes to the assimilation by people of a set of norms and rules that regulate their behavior and activities.

communicative function. This function of culture ensures interaction between people and communities, leads to the discovery of everything valuable that has been accumulated by mankind, allows the exchange of cultural achievements, and promotes the processes of integration of cultures. It becomes especially evident in the modern world, when a single cultural space of mankind is being created before our eyes.

The main functions listed above, of course, do not exhaust the entire purpose of culture. In real life, they are closely intertwined.

The main purpose of culture is to make a person a Human. The development of culture makes it possible to facilitate work and make it creative, to enrich the mind and feelings. The comprehension of culture is an important condition for self-improvement and self-development of the individual.

Material and spiritual culture.

Culture has a very complex structure, consists of many elements. The unique combination of cultural elements creates the originality of national cultures, as well as small "cultural worlds" - subcultures (youth, professional, etc.).

To the elements spiritual culture include rules of conduct, standards, rituals, myths, ideas, symbols, language, knowledge, etc. Spiritual culture includes cognitive (intellectual), moral, artistic, legal, pedagogical, religious and other forms of human life.

Temples and residential buildings, tools and household items, clothing and military equipment, vehicles, computers, and much, much more, created by human hands, are elements of material culture. The material culture includes: the culture of labor and material production, the culture of everyday life, the culture of the place of residence (houses, villages, cities), the culture of attitude towards one's own body (hygiene rules, etc.), physical culture.

Material and spiritual cultures are interconnected, and it can be difficult to draw a line between them. For example, a technical idea to improve a refrigerator or TV is embodied in new products. Thus, it is clothed in a material form and becomes the subject of material culture. If the ideas of a writer, sculptor or artist are not embodied in a book, sculpture or painting, then they will remain only a creative idea. Both material and spiritual culture simultaneously belong to certain types of creative activity. For example, architecture is both art and construction. The art of cinema and photography became possible only on the basis of relevant technical discoveries.

The values ​​of material culture, as a rule, have a certain price, as well as time limits for consumption. They can become obsolete, production equipment wears out, buildings deteriorate, and so on. On the contrary, the value of the achievements of spiritual culture may not have a time frame. For example, the value of life, health, love and friendship has been recognized throughout the existence of mankind.

Some conclusions:

1. Culture is the core, foundation, "soul" of society. It permeates all spheres of human life and activity.

2. Proponents of the anthropological approach consider everything created by man, valuable as culture - only the totality of the best creations of man.

3. Objects and phenomena of culture store the experience of mankind, captured in signs and symbols.

4. In culture, material and spiritual aspects are distinguished, which are closely interconnected.

Questions and tasks:

1. Why, in your opinion, the concept of "culture" cannot be defined unambiguously?

2. What is the difference between culture and nature?

3. What type of definitions of culture can be attributed to the following: “Culture is a system of values ​​with the help of which society integrates, supports the functioning and interconnection of its institutions” (P. Sorokin).

4. What role does culture play in society?

5. What kind of person, in your opinion, can be called a person of high culture?

6. What judgment about the relationship between the material and the spiritual in culture is illustrated by the statement: “manuscripts do not burn, but books are frayed”? Do you agree with this judgment?

Introduction

Culture is the totality of the results of people's creative activity. In Russian there is a wonderful word "treasury". It means the concentration of the most valuable. Culture is a treasury of the results of mankind's labor, the most valuable relations of people to nature, to themselves, to other people, tested over the centuries. Even in ancient times, it was noticed that where a person begins to create any objects that do not exist in nature, this does not pass without a trace for the person himself. Transforming natural materials - stone, clay, bone, etc., he simultaneously transformed himself: he improved his skills, developed creative abilities, resourcefulness, imagination, imaginative thinking. And all the properties and qualities acquired by him in this way also became elements of culture. This was already not an external culture, manifested in inanimate things created by human hands, but an internal culture, turning into the property and wealth of a person.

In this work, we will try to understand both independently and with the help of competent authors, documents, encyclopedias, monographs, teaching aids, magazine and newspaper articles, an Internet site with the question: what is the role of labor in the emergence and development of culture? Answering this question, we will reveal the topics related to each other: labor as the basis for the existence and development of culture, the accumulation of material and spiritual wealth (values) as the potential for the cultural growth of society, labor and culture of the individual. In conclusion, we will give general conclusions about the results of work on the issue and outline ways for further analysis of this topic.

The choice of the topic is determined primarily by my personal desire to try to understand the role of labor in the emergence and development of culture. This topic is the most general, which will allow, perhaps schematically but globally, without going into the need to cover the development and emergence of culture as the basis for the study of cultural studies.

Labor as the basis for the existence and development of culture

Culture is the result of the division of labor, and in the course of its history it was opposed to labor. Theoretical interpretations of the meaning of labor and culture are numerous, and the phenomenological one stands out among them - E. Blok, G. Lukacs, K. Kosok. In the course of historical development, from the homogeneous and undifferentiated reality of primitive society, culture emerged as a special social sphere in its first forms, such as: language, mania, religion and mythology. This initial act of creating culture is evidenced by the closeness of the etymology of the words "culture" and "labor". Culture, in its anthropological validity, arises together with the first historical act of the individual, which distinguishes him from animals. According to K. Marx, this "first historical act" did not take place in what individuals thought, but in the fact that they began to "produce the means they needed for life." Culture arose along with the first production of the means necessary for life, but only in human society did it become an existential and historical prerequisite for the survival of man and the development of human society.

K. Marx and F. Engels rightfully believed that the first and most significant stage in the development of culture coincided with the formation of the language in its present form. Developed language and the ability of man to communicate, through symbols, made possible the rapid initial development of social culture. Language allows primitive man to understand the meaning of his relationship with nature. With the advent of language and symbols, man becomes a cultural being. Culture becomes a kind of social manifestation of man and a measure of his development, just as the degree of human independence from nature is a measure of the development of culture. At the moment when man turned the instinctive system of signs into language, the conditions were created for humanity to begin to consciously change the environment. In the primitive forms of the division of labor, in the purposeful change of the environment by man, the alienation of culture from labor began.

Man is a product of nature and his own production activity, which should be understood as the relationship of man to nature. And labor is the relation of purposeful and controlled exchange of matter between man and nature. Primitive man, taking into account the degree of his development, could not exchange matter with nature, could not produce more than he needed. The history of man, according to Karl Marx, begins with a "tribal society", from which the era of "bourgeois society" begins. It arises and disappears with the appearance and disappearance of the division of labor. Throughout the history of mankind, the division of labor has developed in historical epochs that are identical to various forms of ownership. the first basic condition for the creation of history is the satisfaction of the needs for food, drink, clothing, housing - the products of material life itself. The second condition is the satisfaction of new needs that arise from the first, already satisfied needs. The third condition is that people, creating their own life every day, "begin to create other people" - a family. The fourth condition is the material connection between people, which is conditioned by needs and the mode of production, and exists as long as people themselves exist, constantly taking on new forms. Satisfaction of these four conditions of the primitive historical relations of man, satisfied the fifth - acquired consciousness. This human consciousness is a social consciousness that bears “that curse” that from the very beginning is embraced by “matter that appears here in the form of moving layers of sounds, tones - in short, in the form of language. Language is as old as consciousness. Language, like consciousness, arises from needs, from the need to communicate with other people. But this initial consciousness is, first of all, the consciousness of nature, which appears omnipotent, alien and incomprehensible and opposes man. The original consciousness of man "purely animal" is the consciousness of nature, and "natural religion" is magic and mythology.

Various forms of division of labor mark the epochs of the emergence of human communities and the emergence of culture, and the actual division of labor, its first historical form, is the moment when the division into material and spiritual labor appears. with the advent of this form of division of labor, there is a separation of forms from direct human activity and labor. This is that historical moment in the development of man, when the consciousness of man emancipates from the world of practice, creating theory, philosophy, morality, science, and the state. Undoubtedly, these historical epochs also marked the beginning of the emergence of social culture and the beginning of its alienation from labor. For K. Marx, it is important not that consciousness arises on its own, but that “production forces; the state of society and consciousness come into conflict with each other", and that the division of labor has as its result that "spiritual and material activity, pleasure and labor, production and consumption begin to belong to different individuals", therefore "the possibility of avoiding contradictions between them" lies only to "abolish again the division of labor".

In his criticism of alienated labor, K. Marx emphasizes that labor is the basis of culture, therefore, with culture in itself, it can lead a person to his final liberation. Labor is also a source of other fundamental genetic essence of man: consciousness, sociality, universality, freedom. From K. Marx's differentiation of the main forms of labor - human labor and animal labor - in "Early Works", "German Ideology" and "Captain", as well as from his entire anthology and anthropology of labor, anthological, heuristic aesthetic defining human labor - the creation of culture . these properties of labor are absent in the labor of the animal, because its labor does not go beyond the limits of life, determined only by instincts. In human labor, objects turn into values ​​that can be used. In the process of the exchange of matter between man and nature, the teleological function of labor appears - the initial knowledge of labor and the goals to be achieved are formed. This is a process in which a person, as a conscious being, has a purposeful will and thought, which are concretized in the process of labor. This act of concretization also contains teleological provisions, the essence of which is the first element of understanding the causes of the connections between man and nature. Between man and nature, in contrast to the relationship between animal and nature, a historical dialectic is established, which mediates what constitutes human consciousness and what is a necessity in given conditions.

In labor as a controlled process of the exchange of matter between man and nature, a commonality is simultaneously manifested, the objectification of teleological provisions - the desire that the goal that a person sets for himself should be a goal for other people. This is the moment at which labor manifests itself in man as thought, and this is the key moment in the definition of both labor and culture. From the general anthological basis of labor follows the social dimension of labor, the opportunity to develop for the social - culture.

The teleological provisions that are expressed in human labor (G. Lukacs) do not necessarily refer only to nature, since in labor the goal arises to establish other connections and relationships between people, which differs from the connection “man - nature”. As with the realization of the community and the teleological nature of labor, social ties and relations develop, so in the historical process a culture with its universal values ​​arises. Therefore, culture has both a production and a spiritual (cult) origin. Therefore, the production and spiritual (cult) roots of culture are known in the etymologists of the word "culture" and the word "labor". The very etymology of these categories is sufficient to show not only their closeness, but also to reveal the completeness of the various forms of their interaction and interpenetration in the history of human society.

Society, culture and man are inextricably, organically linked. Neither society nor a person can exist outside of culture, the role of which has always been and remains fundamental. It is important to note that, however, with all this, the assessment of the ϶ᴛᴏth role has undergone a noticeable evolution.

Until relatively recently, a high assessment of the role and importance of culture was not in doubt. Of course, in the past there were periods of crisis in the history of a particular society, when the existing way of life was questioned. So, in ancient Greece, the philosophical school of the Cynics arose, speaking from the standpoint of a complete denial of generally accepted values, norms and rules of behavior, which was the first form of cynicism. At the same time, such phenomena were still an exception, and in general the culture was perceived positively.

Criticism of culture

The situation began to change significantly in the 18th century, when a steady trend of a critical attitude towards culture arose. At the origins of the ϶ᴛᴏth trend was the French philosopher J.-J. Rousseau, who put forward the idea of ​​the moral superiority of the "natural man", not spoiled by culture and civilization. It is worth noting that he also proclaimed the slogan of "return to nature."

For other reasons, but even more critically assessed Western culture F. Nietzsche. He explained his attitude by the fact that science and technology dominate in contemporary culture, leaving no room for art. It is worth noting that he stated: “If we don’t die from science, we still have art.” At the beginning of the XX century. Austrian psychologist [[Sigmund Freud|3. Freud]] finds new grounds for criticism of culture. It is worth noting that he looks at human life through the prism of two main, in his opinion, instincts - sexual (the instinct of Eros, or the continuation of life) and destructive (the instinct of Thanatos, or death) Culture, according to Freud's concept, by their norms, restrictions and prohibitions suppresses the sexual instinct and therefore deserves critical evaluation.

In the 1960s and 70s. in the West has become widespread counterculture movement, which united in their ranks the radical layers of youth and students, based on the ideas of Rousseau, Nietzsche, Freud and his followers, especially on the ideas of the philosopher G. Marcuse. The movement opposed the spreading values ​​of mass culture and mass society, against the fetishization of science and technology, as well as against the basic ideals and values ​​of traditional bourgeois culture. It is important to note that one of the main goals of the movement was proclaimed a “sexual revolution”, from which a “new sensuality” should arise as the basis of a truly free person and society.

Some totalitarian ideologies demonstrate a sharply negative attitude towards culture. As an example, in ϶ᴛᴏ, one can point to fascism. The phrase of one of the heroes of the Nazi writer Post, who declared: “When I hear the word“ culture ”, I grab hold of the ϲʙᴏth gun” became widely known. Needless to say, to justify such a position, the already familiar reference to the fact that culture supposedly suppresses healthy human instincts is usually used.

Basic functions of culture

Despite the given examples of a critical attitude towards culture, it plays a huge positive role. Culture implements several vital functions, without which the very existence of man and society is impossible. Chief among them will be function of socialization or human creativity, i.e. formation and education of man. As the separation of man from the kingdom of nature went along with the emergence of ever new elements of culture, so the reproduction of man occurs through culture. Outside of culture, without its understanding, a newborn cannot become a person.

This can be confirmed by the cases known in the literature when a child was lost by his parents in the forest and for several years grew up and lived in a pack of animals. Even if he was later found, the data of a few years turned out to be enough for him to be lost to society: the found child could no longer learn either human language or other elements of culture. Only through culture does a person master all the accumulated social experience and become a full member of society. Traditions, customs, skills, rituals, rituals, etc. play a special role here, which form a collective social experience and way of life. Culture with ϶ᴛᴏm really acts as "social heredity”, which is transmitted to a person and the meaning of which is no less than biological heredity.

The second function of culture, closely related to the first, will be educational, informational. Culture is able to accumulate a variety of knowledge, information and information about the world and pass them on from generation to generation. It is worth noting that it acts as a social and intellectual memory of mankind.

No less important will regulatory, or normative, function culture, with the help of which it establishes, organizes and regulates relations between people. By the way, this function is carried out primarily through a system of norms, rules and laws of morality, as well as rules, the observance of which constitutes the necessary conditions for the normal existence of society.

Closely intertwined with those already mentioned communicative function, which is carried out primarily with the help of language, which is the main means of communication between people. Along with the natural language, all areas of culture - science, art, technology - have their specific languages, without which it is impossible to master the whole culture as a whole. Knowledge of foreign languages ​​opens access to other national cultures and the whole world culture.

Another function is valuable, or axiological, is also of great importance. It is worth noting that it contributes to the formation of a person's value needs and orientation, allows him to distinguish between good and bad, good and evil, beautiful and ugly. The criterion for such differences and assessments are primarily moral and aesthetic values.

Deserves special mention creative, innovative function culture, which finds expression in the creation of new values ​​and knowledge, norms and rules, customs and traditions, as well as in the critical rethinking, reforming and updating of an existing culture.

Finally, playing, entertaining, or compensatory function culture, which is associated with the restoration of the physical and spiritual strength of a person, leisure activities, psychological relaxation, etc.

All these and other functions of culture can be reduced to two: the function of accumulating and transferring experience, or adaptation (adaptation) and the critically creative function. It is worth noting that they are also closely, inextricably linked, since accumulation contains a critical selection from everything that is most valuable and useful, and the transfer and recognition of experience do not occur passively and mechanically, but again imply a critical, creative attitude. At the same time, the creative function means, first of all, the improvement of all the mechanisms of culture, which inevitably leads to the creation of something new.

It is impossible to recognize as justified the judgments that culture is nothing but traditions, conservatism, conformism, stereotypes, repetition of what is already known, that it hinders creativity, the search for something new, etc. Traditions in culture do not exclude renewal and creativity. A vivid example of this will be Russian icon painting, which rested on a strong tradition and strict canons, and yet all the great icon painters - Andrei Rublev, Theophan the Greek, Daniil Cherny. Dionysius - have a unique creative face.

The thesis that that culture suppresses healthy human instincts. Confirmation of ϶ᴛᴏmu can be the prohibition of incest, or incest. It is believed that it was the first clear watershed between nature and culture in the history of mankind. At the same time, being a purely cultural phenomenon, ϶ᴛᴏт prohibition will be an indispensable condition for the reproduction and survival of people. The most ancient tribes, which did not accept this ban, doomed themselves to degeneration and extinction. The same can be said about the rules of hygiene, which are essentially cultural, but protect human health.

Culture is an inalienable property of a person

At the same time, ideas about who should be considered a cultured person can be different. The ancient Romans called a cultured person who knows how to choose worthy fellow travelers among people, things and thoughts - both in the past and in the present. The German philosopher Hegel believed that a cultured person is able to do everything that others do.

History shows that all outstanding personalities were highly cultured people. Many of them were universal personalities: their knowledge was encyclopedic, and everything they did was distinguished by exceptional skill and perfection. As an example, first of all, Leonardo da Vinci, who was at the same time a great scientist, engineer and brilliant artist of the Renaissance, should be mentioned. Today it is very difficult and, apparently, impossible to become a universal personality, since the amount of knowledge is too immense. With all this, the possibility of being cultured person increased extraordinary.
It is worth noting that the main characteristics of such a person remain the same: knowledge and competence, the volume and depth of which must be significant, and skills marked by high qualification and skill. To ϶ᴛᴏmu we must add moral and aesthetic education, observance of generally accepted norms of behavior and the creation of our own "imaginary museum", in which the best works of all world art would be present. Today, a cultured person must know foreign languages ​​and be able to use a computer.

Culture and society are very close, but not identical systems, which are relatively autonomous and develop according to their laws.

Types of society and culture

Modern Western sociologist Per Monson has identified four main approaches to understanding society.

First approach proceeds from the primacy of society in relation to the individual. Society is understood as a system that rises above individuals and cannot be explained by their thoughts and actions, since the whole does not add up to the sum of its parts: individuals come and go, are born and die, but society continues to exist. By the way, this tradition originates in the concept of E. Durkheim and even earlier in the views of O. Comte. Of the modern trends towards it, first of all, the school of structural-functional analysis (T. Parsons) and the theory of conflict (L. Kose r. R. Dahrendorf) are primarily

Second approach, on the contrary, will confuse the focus of attention towards the individual, arguing that without studying the inner world of a person, his motives and meanings, it is impossible to create an explanatory sociological theory. By the way, this tradition is associated with the name of the German sociologist M. Weber. Among the modern theories that support this approach are: symbolic interactionism (G. Blumer) and ethnomethodology (G. Garfinkel, A. Sikurel)

Third Approach focuses on studying the very mechanism of the process of interaction between society and the individual, taking a middle position between the first two approaches. It is important to note that early P. Sorokin is considered one of the founders of the ϶ᴛᴏ tradition, and among modern sociological concepts, one should name the theory of action, or the theory of exchange (J. Homans)

Fourth Approach- Marxist. In terms of the type of explanation of social phenomena, it is similar to the first approach. At the same time, there is a fundamental difference: in line with the Marxist tradition, sociology is supposed to actively intervene in the transformation and change of the surrounding world, while the first three traditions consider the role of sociology rather as a recommendation.

The dispute between representatives of these approaches is about how to understand society: as a supra-individual objective social structure or as a human world of life filled with culture.

If we proceed from the systematic approach laid down in the works of E. Durkheim, we should consider society not just as a set of people, but also as an objectively existing set of conditions for their joint existence. Social life will be a reality of a special kind, different from natural reality and not attached to it - a social reality, and the most important part of ϶ᴛᴏth reality is collective representations. It is they who are the foundation of culture, which is interpreted as a way of organizing social life, society as a social organism. Like any organisms that are complex systems, society has integrative features. which are inherent in the entire social whole, but are absent from its individual elements. Among the most important properties is the ability to historically long autonomous existence, based on the fact that only society is associated with the change of generations. Thanks to the ϶ᴛᴏm, societies will be self-sustaining systems that provide, maintain and improve the ϲʙᴏ way of life. Culture acts as a way to implement ϶ᴛᴏy self-sufficiency, and its intergenerational transmission allows society to reproduce itself.

Mankind has never been a single social collective. Different groups (populations) of people exist in various local social groups (ethnic groups, classes, social strata, etc.). Cultures serve as the foundation for these local groups, which are the basis for integrating people into such communities. Therefore, on Earth there is neither society in general, nor culture in general - ϶ᴛᴏ abstraction. In reality, local cultures and societies have existed and still exist on our planet. Cultures in relation to these societies (social groups) perform the tasks of integration, consolidation and organization of people; regulation of the practice of their joint life with the help of norms and values; ensuring knowledge of the surrounding world and storage of information significant for the survival of people; communication between people, for which they develop special languages ​​and ways of exchanging information; development of mechanisms for the reproduction of society as a social integrity.

In historical development, several types of society and related cultures are distinguished.

First type- Primitive society and culture. It is worth saying that it is characterized by syncretism - the non-isolation of the individual from the main social structure, which was the consanguinity. All mechanisms of social regulation - traditions and customs, rites and rituals - were justified in myth, which was the form and way of existence of primitive culture. Its rigid structure did not allow deviations. Therefore, even in the absence of special controlling social structures, all rules and norms were observed very precisely. Adjacent to primitive society and culture archaic society and culture- modern peoples living at the level of the Stone Age (about 600 tribes are known today)

Second type society is associated with the processes of social stratification and division of labor, which led to the formation

states where hierarchical relations between people were legalized. The birth of the state took place in the countries of the Ancient East. With all the diversity of its forms - Eastern despotisms, monarchies, tyrannies, etc. they all singled out the supreme ruler, whose subjects were all the other members of society. In such societies, the regulation of relations has traditionally been based on violence. Within the framework of a society of the ϶ᴛᴏ type, it is necessary to distinguish pre-industrial society and culture where class-ideological and political-confessional forms of life prevailed, and the violence used received a religious justification. Another form was industrial society and culture, where the leading role was played by national-state formations and specialized social groups in society, and the violence was economic.

Third type society originated in ancient Greece and Rome, but has become widespread since the New Age, especially in the 20th century. In a democracy that forms a civil society, people are aware of themselves as free citizens, taking certain forms of organizing their lives and activities.
It is a society of this type that is characterized by the highest form of manifestation of economic, political and legal culture, ideologically substantiated by philosophy, science, and art. In such a society, citizens have equal rights based on the principle of cooperation, communication, trade exchange and dialogue. Of course, ϶ᴛᴏ is still an ideal, and in real practice one cannot do without violence, but the goal has already been set. In many ways, ϶ᴛᴏ became possible with the formation of a new post-industrial society with the ongoing processes of globalization and the formation of mass culture.

Social institutions of culture

The real links between society and culture are provided by the social institutions of culture. The concept of "social institution" is borrowed by cultural studies from sociology and jurisprudence and is used in several senses:

• a stable set of formal and informal rules, principles, guidelines that regulate various areas of human activity and organize them into a single system;
• a community of people who play certain social roles and are organized through social norms and goals;
• a system of institutions through which certain aspects of human activity are ordered, conserved and reproduced. Material published on http: // site

In different types of cultures, social institutions are formed in different ways, however, there are several general principles for their emergence. First of all, an awareness of the need for this type of cultural activity is required. Material published on http: // site
Many peoples and cultures did without museums, libraries, archives, concert halls, etc. precisely because there was no ϲᴏᴏᴛʙᴇᴛϲᴛʙ need. The withering away of a need leads to the disappearance of the cultural institution associated with it. Thus, today the number of churches per capita is much less than in the 19th century, when the bulk of the people attended weekly services.

Secondly, socially significant goals must be set that form the motives for visiting ϲᴏᴏᴛʙᴇᴛϲᴛʙ institutions for the majority of people in this culture. Under ϶ᴛᴏm, norms and rules will gradually appear that will regulate this type of cultural activity. Material published on http: // site
The result will be the creation of a system of statuses and roles, the development of performance standards, which will be approved by the majority of the population (or at least the ruling elite of society)

Social institutions of culture carry out a number of features:

• regulation of the activities of members of the society; o creation of conditions for cultural activities;
• inculturation and socialization - introducing people to the norms and values ​​of their culture and society;
• conservation of phenomena and forms of cultural activity, their reproduction.

There are five main human needs and related cultural institutions:

• the need for the reproduction of the genus is the institution of the family and marriage; about the need for security and social order - political institutions, the state;
• the need for means of subsistence - economic institutions, production;
• the need for obtaining knowledge, for the inculturation and socialization of the younger generation, training of personnel - institutions of education and upbringing in a broad sense, including science;
• the need to solve spiritual problems, the meaning of life - the institution of religion.

The main institutions contain non-basic ones, which are also called social practices or customs. Each major institution has ϲʙᴏ and systems of established practices, methods, procedures, mechanisms. For example, economic institutions cannot do without such mechanisms as currency conversion, protection of private property, professional selection, placement and evaluation of workers, marketing, the market, etc. Within the institution of family and marriage there are institutions of motherhood and fatherhood, tribal revenge, twinning, inheritance of the social status of parents, etc. In contrast to the main institution, the non-basic one implements a specialized task, serving a specific custom or satisfying a non-fundamental need of the smallpox.

The development of culture is a determined process of social production, economics, social relations, political life. In turn, it affects all these areas, which is expressed, in particular, in such manifestations as the culture of production, political culture, the culture of interethnic relations, and the like. Actually, all types of social activities are included in the system of culture.

It is clear that the state and level of material culture primarily depends on production and economic factors. As for the influence of the economy on spiritual culture, it has an indirect character and is not unambiguous: the periods of development of spiritual culture did not always coincide with periods of economic growth.

A necessary condition for the beginning of cultural progress was the social division of labor, especially the separation of mental labor from physical labor. A significant influence on the state and dynamics of culture is produced by social class relations, as well as the processes and events of political life. The development of culture was also affected by the interaction between qualitatively different spheres and phenomena of culture itself.

Historically, the understanding of culture and its relationship with nature has changed. This understanding of everything was determined by the cultural-historical factor, conditioned by socio-cultural circumstances and, in turn, influenced them.

For mythological thinking, there was still no division into natural and cultural (although culture was already in its infancy).

In the ancient world outlook (Greco-Roman culture), the natural principle was comprehended as primary in relation to the human; space - as perfection, harmony, with which a person must coordinate his actions and deeds.

The Middle Ages, on the contrary, opposed the spiritual and cultural beginning (in its religious understanding) to the natural-physical, sensual, which was considered the source of sinful desires and temptations. The dominant, official culture of that time had an emphatically spiritualistic character. As a reaction to this, in the popular, so-called "laughing" culture, interest was directed to the "sinful" flesh and even to the human "bottom".

The culture of the Renaissance (XIV - XVI centuries) restores (at a new level) ancient cosmism and elevates a person as a being that combines the spiritual and bodily principles, capable of not only knowing, but also creating beauty - a being that has the right to fullness happiness.

The focus on man, the affirmation of the inherent value of his being, humanism, which were clearly expressed already in the first period of the Renaissance (XIV - XV centuries), are later supplemented, and partly pushed into the background, by the growing interest in nature, its study and mastery. The man himself is considered primarily as a natural being, which can be investigated by the methods of the natural sciences. Naturalism, to a certain extent, began to oppose Virodzhensky aestheticism, the installation of admiring the beauty of nature and man; a "technical" attitude to nature was born, which was seen as a requirement for the upward development of human civilization. In the XVIII century. there are differences and a certain opposition between the views of the "enlighteners", unconditional supporters of the idea of ​​progress, who, in terms of worldview, stood on the positions of metaphysical materialism, and J. J. Rousseau and his followers, who believed that civilization spoiled man.

In the era of a developed industrial civilization (in its capitalist form, when the contradictions of progress began to appear), the opposition of positions acquired a new character. On the one hand, passion for the achievements of scientific and technical culture, faith in its unlimited possibilities, in the fact that man is able to dominate nature, and on the other hand, disappointment in technological progress, fear of it, nostalgia for the lost closeness to nature, the desire to restore the previous .

In our time, this is expressed as the opposition of technological optimism to the ideas of technocracy and technological pessimism and fears for the fate of human culture. According to some modern philosophers (Heidegger and others), Western civilization has come to the point of losing rational being, to losing a sense of the mystery of being - that mystery that cannot be revealed without destroying it. And this "loss of being" began as soon as "metaphysics" appeared, which tries to comprehend the essence of things by rational methods. These philosophers make an attempt to return to "pre-Socratic thinking", that is, to the image of the worldview that existed at the beginning of cultural history, to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle - the creators of the rational-philosophical way of thinking.

Such searches and turns of philosophical thought are a symptom of the contradiction between unrestrained scientific and technological progress and the state of spiritual culture.

In the development of culture there is always continuity, tradition (lat. - Literally "transmission"), although each generation or social group was selectively related (related) to what was created by its predecessors. However, it is dangerous to neglect traditions, reject, and even more so destroy the cultural values ​​of the past. In history (ancient and recent), examples of such destruction were the consequences of the invasion of "barbarians" into the cultural ancient world (it's not for nothing that the word "vandalism" comes from the name of one of the "barbarian" tribes - vandals), the "proletcult" movement in the first years after the revolution of 1917 . ., the destruction of temples, the burning of icons in the course of anti-religious campaigns, the "great cultural revolution" in China (60s of the XX century), and so on. The "denial" of the past must be dialectical, that is, combined with the preservation and assimilation of all that is valuable. One should not rush to "reassess all values."

The cultural process is certainly also creativity - the creation of a new, departure from the routine. A living culture is contraindicated in marking time, conservatism, and stereotyping. The ratio of traditions and innovation in different societies was not the same: "traditional" - in the ancient world and the Middle Ages, dynamic - in the societies of the New Age and the present. When entering all social transformations, real cultural ones. running around is NOT a transitory value, and in this sense is "eternal" is the test of time and reveals the true value. Each new generation assimilates and comprehends them in its own way, includes them in a "living", functioning culture and at the same time creates new cultural values. This is how a chain of cultural continuity arises, this is how cultural progress occurs.

Culture is a very complex formation: there are various types, levels, various ethnic, national forms, etc. Each nation creates its own, in what way, unique, even unique culture. This is the originality of culture, traditions, features of the language, and even the way of thinking and worldview (what is called "mentality"), a kind of clot of historical experience, an imprint of the fate of the people - at least a less significant sign of an ethnos, a nation than a community of economic life, which it was customary to always put in the foreground.

Since culture expresses, first of all, the generic essence of man, what distinguishes man from nature, raises him above animals, then in it (culture) there has always been and remains a universal human principle and corresponding values. However, each society (people, nation) has its own internal structure, consists of various social groups, classes, layers. It manifests diversity, even divergence and opposition of interests, life positions, forms of life organization. And this cannot but affect the structure of culture. If society is divided into classes, then there is a culture of a "higher" (ruling class) and a culture of a "lower" (subordinate) class.

So, in each national culture there are not two, as it was believed, but more cultures (more precisely, subcultures), because each social group, which is different from the others in its class, professional, religious and other characteristics, creates in what "its own" special culture . Specific features are inherent, in particular, in the youth subculture, since young people differ from other age groups in their socio-demographic and psychological characteristics. With a pronounced "conflict of generations", which, of course, is based on social contradictions, the speed of the flow of historical time, the dynamism of social life, various qualitative changes, this youth subculture can acquire the features of a "counterculture", that is, turn out to be the opposite of official culture, be distinguished by negativism in dominant, and sometimes - in-civilizational values.

Distinguish culture "elite" and mass. This contrast, of course, reflects significant social differences between population groups that differ in lifestyle and level of education. However, the existence of different levels of culture is inherent in any society, and it would be unlawful to understand the relationship between them only as antagonistic. Science, philosophy, high art of varying degrees are available to everyone and everyone. their perception and understanding require special training and their own purposeful efforts. However, ordinary knowledge ("simple" common sense, folk customs and folk art, fairy tales, songs, ditties, "Lubny" painting, etc.) are also needed and constitute a cultural value. The gap between the levels of culture has a negative effect on each of them: the elite culture withdraws into itself, becomes, as it were, a "delicacy" for the initiated, breaks away from folk roots, while mass culture will suffer damage in its quality, focuses on primitive taste, can become simply vulgar.

Cultural education should be directed in such a way that each person has the need and opportunity to join a high culture, but also does not forget the folk origins of all culture, assimilate those universal and national values ​​that form its basis.

Since culture is affected by the inconsistency of social life, it usually manifests both progressive and regressive tendencies. Manifesting them and defining our attitude towards them, we are certainly guided by certain ideological, ideological, moral and political criteria. At the same time, one-sidedness, a narrow-party approach, which breeds intolerance and brings discord, is not needed at all. Meanwhile, the highest, unconditional cultural values ​​are the totality of human dimensions - life, human freedom (freedom of thought, belief, conscience, speech, activity) with the only restriction: the freedom of some should not interfere with the freedom of others, so that free expression and development of each in individual and humanity as a whole.

High culture is expressed in mutual respect and mutual assistance of people, in the ability to be tolerant (tolerant) to treat "foreign" views, positions, opinions. Intolerance should be against anti-cultural phenomena, that is, everything that threatens the life and well-being of people, restricts their freedom, contradicts it. Not everything created by people is a cultural value. Weapons, means of destruction of people, prisons, instruments for torture, etc. - This is also a product of civilization, but if we consider them from the point of view of their functional purpose, then it would be rather difficult to recognize them as the value of culture. Similarly, rude words and expressions are an element of the language, but they do not perform a cultural function. The values ​​of culture are that and only that which, in its essence and purpose, expresses humanity, nebula. The inhumane is not a cultural value. Although there is another point of view, according to which everything that is done by man (even if it does not serve progress), is a manifestation of culture, since it characterizes the level of culture of a certain era, society.