Types and types of culture

Taking the dominant values ​​as a basis, both material and spiritual culture, in turn, can be divided into the following kinds.

artistic culture, its essence lies in the aesthetic development of the world, the core is art, the dominant value is beauty .

Economic culture, this includes human activity in the economic sector, production culture, management culture, economic law, etc. The main value is work .

Legal culture is manifested in activities aimed at protecting human rights, relations between the individual and society, the state. Dominant value - law .

Political culture is associated with the active position of a person in the organization of government, individual social groups, with the functioning of individual political institutions. Main value - power .

Physical culture, i.e. a sphere of culture aimed at improving the bodily basis of a person. This includes sports, medicine, relevant traditions, norms, actions that form a healthy lifestyle. Main value - human health .

religious culture is associated with directed human activity to create a picture of the world based on irrational dogmas. It is accompanied by the administration of religious services, adherence to the norms set forth in the sacred texts, certain symbols, etc. The dominant value is faith in God and, on this basis, moral perfection .

Ecological culture consists in a reasonable and careful attitude to nature, maintaining harmony between man and the environment. Main value - nature .

moral culture is manifested in the observance of special ethical standards arising from traditions, social attitudes that dominate human society. Main value - morality .

This is not a complete list of types of culture. In general, the complexity and versatility of the definition of the concept of "culture" determines the complexity of its classification. There is an economic approach (agriculture, the culture of livestock breeders, etc.), a social-class approach (proletarian, bourgeois, territorial-ethnic), (the culture of certain nationalities, the culture of Europe), spiritual and religious (Muslim, Christian), technocratic (pre-industrial, industrial) , civilizational (the culture of Roman civilization, the cultures of the East), social (urban, peasant), etc. Nevertheless, based on such numerous characteristics, several important directions, which formed the basis typologies of culture .

This is, first of all, ethnoterritorial typology. The culture of socio-ethnic communities includes ethnic , national, folk, regional culture. Their carriers are peoples, ethnic groups. Currently, there are about 200 states uniting over 4,000 ethnic groups. The development of their ethnic, national cultures is influenced by geographical, climatic, historical, religious and other factors. In other words, the development of cultures depends on the terrain, lifestyle, entry into a particular state, belonging to a particular religion.

Concepts ethnic And folk cultures are similar in content. Their authors, as a rule, are unknown, the subject is the whole people. But these are highly artistic works that remain in the memory of the people for a long time. Myths, legends, epics, fairy tales are among the best works of art. Their most important feature is traditionalism.

Folk culture is of two types - popular And folklore. Popular common among the people, but its object is mainly modernity, life, way of life, customs, folklore same, more turned to the past. Ethnic culture is closer to folklore. But ethnic culture is, first of all, everyday culture. It includes not only art, but also tools, clothes, household items. Folk, ethnic cultures can merge with professional culture, that is, with the culture of specialists, when, for example, a work is created by a professional, but the author is gradually forgotten, and the monument of art becomes essentially a folk one. There may also be a reverse process, when, for example, in the Soviet Union, through cultural and educational institutions, they tried to cultivate ethnic culture by creating ethnographic ensembles and performing folk songs. With a certain convention, folk culture can be considered a link between ethnic and national cultures.

Structure national culture is more difficult. It differs from ethnic in more distinct national features and a wide range. It may include a number of ethnic groups. For example, the American national culture includes English, German, Mexican and many others. National culture arises when representatives of ethnic groups are aware of their belonging to a single nation. It is built on the basis of writing, while ethnic and folk can be unwritten.

Ethnic, national cultures may have their own common, distinct features, expressed in the concept of " mentality "(lat. way of thinking). It is customary, for example, to single out the English, restrained type of mentality, French - playful, Japanese - aesthetic, etc. But the national culture, along with traditional everyday, folklore, also includes specialized areas. A nation is characterized not only by ethnographic, but also by social features: territory, statehood, economic ties, etc. Accordingly, the national culture, in addition to ethnic, includes elements of economic, legal and other types of culture.

Co. second group can be attributed social types. This is, first of all, mass, elite, marginal culture, subculture and counterculture.

Bulk culture is a commercial culture. This is a type of cultural production produced in large volumes, designed for a wide audience of low and medium levels of development. It is intended for the mass, i.e., the undifferentiated set. The mass is inclined towards consumer information.

Mass culture appeared in modern times with the invention of the printing press, the spread of low-grade tabloid literature, and it developed in the 20th century under the conditions of a capitalist society with its focus on a market economy, the creation of a mass general education school and the transition to universal literacy, the development of the media. It acts as a commodity, uses advertising, oversimplified language, is available to everyone. In the field of culture, an industrial and commercial approach was applied, it became one of the forms of business. Mass culture focuses on artificially created images and stereotypes, "simplified versions of life", beautiful illusions.

The philosophical basis of mass culture is Freudianism, which reduces all social phenomena to biological ones, highlights instincts, pragmatism, which puts benefit as the main goal.

The term "popular culture"» first used in 1941 by a German philosopher M. Horkheimer . The Spanish thinker José Ortega y Gasset (1883 - 1955) tried to analyze the phenomenon of mass and elite cultures more broadly. In his work "The Revolt of the Masses", he came to the conclusion that European culture is in a state of crisis and the reason for this is the "revolt of the masses". The mass is the average person. Ortega y Gasset opened background mass culture. This is, firstly, economic: the growth of material well-being and the relative availability of material goods. This changed the vision of the world, it began to be perceived, figuratively speaking, in the service of the masses. Secondly, legal: the division into estates disappeared, liberal legislation appeared, declaring equality before the law. This created certain prospects for the upliftment of the average man. Thirdly, it is observed rapid population growth. As a result, according to Ortega y Gasset, a new human type has matured - mediocrity incarnate. Fourth, cultural background. A person, satisfied with himself, ceased to be critical of himself and reality, to engage in self-improvement, limited himself to craving for pleasure, entertainment.

The American scientist D. MacDonald, following Ortega y Gasset, defined mass culture as created for the market and "not quite a culture."

At the same time, mass culture also has a certain positive value, since it has a compensatory function, helps to adapt, maintain social stability in difficult socio-economic conditions, ensures the general accessibility of spiritual values, achievements of science and technology. Under certain conditions and quality, individual works of mass culture stand the test of time, rise to the level of highly artistic, receive recognition and eventually become, in a certain sense, popular.

As the antipode of the mass, many culturologists consider elite culture (French favorites, the best). This is the culture of a special, privileged stratum of society with its specific spiritual abilities, distinguished by creativity, experimentalism, and closeness. Elite culture is characterized by an intellectual-avant-garde orientation, complexity and originality, which makes it understandable mainly for the elite and inaccessible to the masses.

Elite (high) culture created by a privileged part of society, or by its order by professional creators. It includes fine arts, classical music and literature. High culture (for example, the painting of Picasso or the music of Schoenberg) is difficult for an unprepared person to understand. As a rule, it is decades ahead of the level of perception of an averagely educated person. The circle of its consumers is a highly educated part of society: critics, literary critics, frequenters of museums and exhibitions, theater-goers, artists, writers, musicians. When the level of education of the population grows, the circle of consumers of high culture expands. Its varieties include secular art and salon music. The formula of elite culture is "art for art's sake".

It has been known since antiquity, when priests, tribal leaders became the owners of special knowledge inaccessible to others. During feudalism similar relationships were reproduced in various denominations, knightly or monastic orders, capitalism- V intellectual circles, scientific communities, aristocratic salons, etc. True, in modern and recent times, elite culture was no longer always associated with rigid caste isolation. There are cases in history when gifted natures, people from the common people, for example J.Zh. Russo, M.V. Lomonosov, went through a difficult path of formation and joined the elite.

Elite culture is based on philosophy A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche who divided humanity into "people of geniuses" and "people of benefit", or into "supermen" and the masses. Later, thoughts about elite culture were developed in the works of Ortega y Gasset. He considered it the art of a gifted minority, a group of initiates capable of reading the symbols embedded in a work of art. The hallmarks of such a culture, according to Ortega y Gasset, are, firstly, the desire for "pure art", that is, the creation of works of art only for the sake of art, and secondly, the understanding of art as a game, and not a documentary reflection of reality.

Subculture(lat. subculture) is the culture of certain social groups that differs or even partially opposes the whole, but in general terms is consistent with the dominant culture. Most often it is a factor of self-expression, but in some cases it is a factor of unconscious protest against the dominant culture. In this regard, it can be divided into positive and negative. Elements of the subculture appeared, for example, in the Middle Ages in the form of urban, knightly cultures. A subculture of the Cossacks and various religious sects has developed in Russia.

Subculture forms different - the culture of professional groups (theatrical, medical culture, etc.), territorial (urban, rural), ethnic (gypsy culture), religious (culture of sects that differ from world religions), criminal (thieves, drug addicts), adolescent youth. The latter most often serves as a means of unconscious protest against the rules established in society. Young people are prone to nihilism, more easily subject to the influence of external effects and paraphernalia. Culturologists as the first youth subcultural groups are called " teddy boy ”, which appeared in the middle of the 50s of the XX century in England.

Almost simultaneously with them, "modernists" or "fashions" arose.

By the end of the 50s, "rockers" began to appear, in which the motorcycle was a symbol of freedom and at the same time a means of intimidation.

By the end of the 1960s, "skinheads" or "skinheads", aggressive football fans, separated from the "mods". At the same time, in the 60s and 70s, the hippie and punk subcultures emerged in England.

All these groups are distinguished by aggressiveness, a negative attitude towards the traditions that dominate in society. They are characterized by their own symbolism, sign system. They create their image, first of all, their appearance: clothes, hairstyles, metal jewelry. They have their own manner of behavior: gait, facial expressions, communication features, their own special slang. There are traditions and folklore. Each generation assimilates the norms of behavior, moral values, folklore forms (sayings, legends) that have taken root in certain subgroups, and after a short time no longer differs from its predecessors.

Under certain circumstances, especially aggressive subgroups, for example, hippies, can become in opposition to society, and their subculture can develop into counterculture. This term was first used in 1968 by the American sociologist T. Rozzak to assess the liberal behavior of the so-called "broken generation".

Counterculture- these are socio-cultural attitudes that oppose the dominant culture. It is characterized by the rejection of established social values, moral norms and ideals, the cult of the unconscious manifestation of natural passions and the mystical ecstasy of the soul. The counterculture aims to overthrow the dominant culture, which appears as organized violence against the individual. This protest takes various forms: from passive to extremist, which manifested itself in anarchism, "leftist" radicalism, religious mysticism, and so on. A number of culturologists identify it with the movements of "hippies", "punks", "beatniks", which arose both as a subculture and as a culture of protest against the technocracy of an industrial society. Youth counterculture of the 70s in the West they called it a culture of protest, because it was during these years that young people especially sharply opposed the value system of the older generation. But it was at this time that the Canadian scientist E. Tiryakan considered in it a powerful catalyst for the cultural-historical process. Any new culture arises as a result of the awareness of the crisis of the previous culture.

To be distinguished from the counterculture marginal culture (lat. region). This is a concept that characterizes the value orientations of individual groups or individuals who, due to circumstances, found themselves on the verge of different cultures, but did not integrate into any of them.

The concept of " marginal personality ” was introduced in the 1920s by R. Park to indicate the cultural status of immigrants. Marginal culture is located on the "outskirts" of the respective cultural systems. An example is, for example, migrants, villagers in the city, forced to adapt to a new urban lifestyle for them. Culture can also acquire a marginal character as a result of conscious attitudes towards the rejection of socially approved goals or ways to achieve them.

3. A special place in the classification of culture is historical typology. There are a number of different approaches to solving this problem.

The most common of them in science are as follows.

This is the Stone, Bronze, Iron Ages, according to archaeological periodization; pagan, Christian periods, according to periodization, tending to the biblical scheme, as, for example, in G. Gezhel or S. Solovyov. Proponents of evolutionary theories of the XIX century distinguished three stages in the development of society: savagery, barbarism, civilization. The formational theory of K. Marx proceeded from the division of the world cultural and historical process into epochs: primitive communal system, slaveholding, feudalism, capitalism. According to "Eurocentric" concepts, the history of human society is divided into the Ancient World, Antiquity, the Middle Ages, Modern Times, Modern Times.

The presence of a variety of approaches to the definition of the historical typology of culture allows us to conclude that there is no universal concept that explains the entire history of mankind and its culture. However, in recent years, the attention of researchers has been especially attracted by the concept of the German philosopher Karl Jaspers(1883 - 1969). In the book "The Origins of History and Its Purpose" in the cultural-historical process, he highlights four main periods . First is the period of archaic culture or the “Promethean era”. The main thing at this time is the emergence of languages, the invention and use of tools and fire, the beginning of the socio-cultural regulation of life. Second the period is characterized as a pre-axial culture of ancient local civilizations. High cultures arise in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, later in China, writing appears. Third stage is, according to Jaspers, a kind of " world time axis' and refers to VIII-II centuries BC. e. It was an era of undoubted success not only in material, but above all, in spiritual culture - in philosophy, literature, science, art, etc., the life and work of such great personalities as Homer, Buddha, Confucius. At this time, the foundations of world religions were laid, a transition was outlined from local civilizations to a single history of mankind. During this period, a modern person is being formed, the main categories by which we think have been developed.

Fourth the stage covers the time from the beginning of our era, when the era of scientific and technological progress began, there is a convergence of nations and cultures, two main directions of cultural development are manifested: the "eastern" with its spirituality, irrationalism and the "western" dynamic, pragmatic. This time is designated as the universal culture of the West and East in the post-Axial period.

The typology of civilizations and cultures of the German scientist of the early 20th century is also interesting. Max Weber. He distinguished two types of societies and, accordingly, cultures. These are traditional societies where the principle of rationalization does not work. Those that are based on the basis of rationality, Weber called industrial. Rationalization, according to Weber, manifests itself when a person is driven not by feelings and natural needs, but by profit, the possibility of obtaining material or moral dividends. In contrast to him, the Russian-American philosopher P. Sorokin put spiritual values ​​as the basis for the periodization of culture. He singled out three types of cultures: ideational (religious-mystical), idealistic (philosophical) and sensual (scientific). In addition, Sorokin distinguished cultures according to the principle of organization (heterogeneous clusters, formations with similar sociocultural characteristics, organic systems).

Widely known at the beginning of the 20th century Social History School, which has the oldest, "classical" traditions and goes back to Kant, Hegel and Humboldt, grouping around itself mainly historians and philosophers, including religious ones. Its prominent representatives in Russia were N.Ya. Danilevsky, and in Western Europe - Spengler and Toynbee, who adhered to the concept of local civilizations.

Nikolay Yakovlevich Danilevsky(1822-1885) - publicist, sociologist and naturalist, one of the many Russian minds who anticipated the original ideas that arose later in the West. In particular, his views on culture are surprisingly consonant with the concepts of two of the most prominent thinkers of the twentieth century. - German O. Spengler and Englishman A. Toynbee.

The son of an honored general, Danilevsky, however, from a young age devoted himself to the natural sciences, and was also fond of the ideas of utopian socialism.

After receiving his Ph.D., he was arrested for participating in the revolutionary-democratic circle of Petrashevists (F.M. Dostoevsky also belonged to it), spent three months in the Peter and Paul Fortress, but managed to avoid trial and was expelled from St. Petersburg. Later, as a professional naturalist, botanist and fish conservation specialist, he served in the Department of Agriculture; on scientific business trips and expeditions, he traveled a significant part of Russia, inspired by a great cultural work. Being the ideologist of Pan-Slavism, a trend that proclaimed the unity of the Slavic peoples, Danilevsky, long before O. Spengler, in his main work "Russia and Europe" (1869) substantiated the idea of ​​the existence of so-called cultural-historical types (civilizations), which, like living organisms, are in constant struggle with each other and with the environment. Just like biological individuals, they pass birth, rise and fall. The beginnings of a civilization of one historical type are not transmitted to peoples of another type, although they are subject to certain cultural influences. Each "cultural-historical type" manifests itself in four areas : religious, cultural, political and socio-economic. Their harmony speaks of the perfection of this or that civilization. The course of history is expressed in the change of cultural-historical types displacing each other, passing the way from the "ethnographic" state through statehood to the civilized level. Life cycle cultural-historical type consists of four periods and lasts about 1500 years, of which 1000 years is the preparatory, "ethnographic" period; about 400 years - the formation of statehood, and 50-100 years - the flowering of all the creative possibilities of a particular nation. The cycle ends with a long period of decline and decay.

In our time, Danilevsky's idea that a necessary condition for the flourishing of culture is political independence is especially relevant. Without it, the originality of culture is impossible; culture itself is impossible, "which does not even deserve the name, if it is not original." On the other hand, independence is needed so that kindred cultures, say, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, can freely and fruitfully develop and interact, while at the same time preserving the pan-Slavic cultural wealth. Denying the existence of a single world culture, Danilevsky singled out 10 cultural and historical types that have partially or completely exhausted the possibilities of their development:

1) Egyptian,

2) Chinese,

3) Assyro-Babylonian, Phoenician, Old Semitic

4) Indian,

5) Iranian

6) Jewish

7) Greek

8) Roman

9) Arabian

10) Germano-Romance, European

One of the latest, as we see, was the European Romano-Germanic cultural community.

Danilevsky proclaims the Slavic cultural-historical type to be qualitatively new and having a great historical perspective, designed to unite all the Slavic peoples led by Russia, as opposed to Europe, which allegedly entered a period of decline.

No matter how you treat Danilevsky's views, they still, as in their time, nourish and nourish the imperial ideology and prepared the emergence of such a modern social science as geopolitics, which is closely connected with the civilizational approach to history.

Oswald Spengler(1880-1936) - German philosopher and cultural historian, author of the once sensational work "The Decline of Europe" (1921-1923). The creative biography of the German thinker is unusual. The son of a petty postal clerk, Spengler did not have a university education and could only finish high school, where he studied mathematics and the natural sciences; As for history, philosophy and art history, in the mastery of which he surpassed many of his outstanding contemporaries, Spengler dealt with them independently, becoming an example of a self-taught genius. Yes, and Spengler's service career was limited to the position of a gymnasium teacher, which he voluntarily left in 1911. For several years he imprisoned himself in a small apartment in Munich and set about fulfilling his cherished dream: he wrote a book about the fate of European culture in the context of world history - “The Decline of Europe ”, which withstood only in the 1920s 32 editions in many languages ​​and brought him the sensational fame of “the prophet of the death of Western civilization”.

Spengler repeated N.Ya. Danilevsky and, like him, was one of the most consistent critics of Eurocentrism and the theory of the continuous progress of mankind, considering Europe already a doomed and dying link. Spengler denies the existence of universal human continuity in culture. In the history of mankind, he distinguishes 8 cultures:

1) Egyptian,

2) Indian,

3) Babylonian,

4) Chinese,

5) Greco-Roman,

6) Byzantine-Islamic,

7) Western European

8) Mayan culture in Central America.

As a new culture, according to Spengler, Russian-Siberian culture is coming. Each cultural "organism" is measured for approximately 1000 years of existence. Dying, each culture degenerates into civilization, passes from creative impulse to barrenness, from development to stagnation, from "soul" to "intellect", from heroic "deeds" to utilitarian work. Such a transition for Greco-Roman culture occurred, according to Spengler, in the era of Hellenism (III-I centuries BC), and for Western European culture - in the 19th century. With the advent of civilization, mass culture begins to predominate, artistic and literary creativity loses its significance, giving way to unspiritual technicalism and sports. In the 1920s, the "Decline of Europe", by analogy with the death of the Roman Empire, was perceived as a prediction of the apocalypse, the death of Western European society under the onslaught of new "barbarians" - revolutionary forces advancing from the East. History, as you know, has not confirmed Spengler's prophecies, and the new "Russian-Siberian" culture, which meant the so-called socialist society, has not yet happened. It is significant that some of Spengler's conservative-nationalist ideas were widely used by the ideologists of Nazi Germany.

Arnold Joseph Toynbee(1889-1975) - English historian and sociologist, author of the 12-volume "Study of History" (1934-1961) - a work in which he (at the first stage, not without the influence of O. Spengler) also sought to comprehend the development of mankind in the spirit of the cycle "civilizations", using this term as a synonym for "culture". A.J. Toynbee came from a middle-class English family; Following the example of his mother, a teacher of history, he graduated from the University of Oxford and the British Archaeological School in Athens (Greece). At first, he was fond of antiquity and the works of Spengler, whom he later surpassed as a cultural historian. From 1919 to 1955 Toynbee was professor of Greek, Byzantine and later world history at the University of London. During the years of the First and Second World Wars, he simultaneously collaborated with the Foreign Ministry, was a member of the British government delegations at the Paris Peace Conferences in 1919 and 1946, and also headed the Royal Institute of International Affairs. The scientist devoted a significant part of his life to writing his famous work - an encyclopedic panorama of the development of world culture.

Initially, Toynbee considered history as a set of parallel and sequentially developing "civilizations", genetically little connected with one another, each of which goes through the same stages from rise to breakdown, decay and death. Later, he revised these views, coming to the conclusion that all known cultures, fed by world religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc.), are branches of one human "tree of history". They all tend towards unity, and each of them is its particle. World historical development appears as a movement from local cultural communities to a single universal culture. Unlike O. Spengler, who singled out only 8 "civilizations", Toynbee, who relied on broader and more modern studies, numbered them from 14 to 21. Later, he settled on thirteen that have received the most complete development. The driving forces of history, in addition to the divine "providence", Toynbee considered individual outstanding personalities and the "creative minority". It responds to the "challenges" thrown to this culture by the outside world and spiritual needs, as a result of which the progressive development of a particular society is ensured. At the same time, the “creative minority” leads the passive majority, relying on its support and replenishing with its best representatives. When the “creative minority” is unable to realize their mystical “life impulse” and respond to the “challenges” of history, it turns into a “dominant elite” that imposes its power by force of arms, and not by authority; the alienated mass of the population becomes the “internal proletariat”, which, together with external enemies, ultimately destroys the given civilization, if it does not first perish from natural disasters.

According to Toynbee's Law of the Golden Mean, the challenge should be neither too weak nor too harsh. In the first case, no active response will follow, and in the second case, insurmountable difficulties can fundamentally stop the birth of civilization. Specific examples of "challenges" known from history are associated with the drying up or waterlogging of soils, the onset of hostile tribes, and the forced change of residence. The most common answers are: the transition to a new type of management, the creation of irrigation systems, the formation of powerful power structures capable of mobilizing the energy of society, the creation of a new religion, science, and technology.

Such a variety of approaches makes it possible to study this phenomenon in more depth.

In addition to the relationship between statics and dynamics, culture is classified according to the principle of its distribution. It distinguishes the dominant culture, subculture and counterculture.
The set of values, beliefs, traditions and customs that guide the majority of members of society is called the dominant culture. However, since society breaks up into many groups (national, demographic, social, professional, etc.), each of them gradually forms its own culture, i.e., a system of values ​​and rules of behavior. Such small cultural worlds are called subcultures. They talk about the youth subculture, the subculture of the elderly, the subculture of national minorities, the professional subculture, urban, rural, etc. The subculture differs from the dominant subculture in language, outlook on life, and manners of behavior. Such differences can be very pronounced, however, the subculture does not oppose the dominant culture.

Subculture , which is not only different from the dominant culture, but opposes it, is in conflict with the dominant values, is called counterculture.
Depending on who creates culture and what is its level, there are three forms - elite, folk and mass culture.

Elite , or high, culture is created by a privileged part of society or by its order by professional creators. As a rule, elite culture is ahead of the level of its perception by an average educated person. The motto of the elite culture is "Art for Art's sake". A typical manifestation of aesthetic isolationism, the concept of "pure art" is the activity of the artistic association "World of Art".

Unlike the elite folk culture created by anonymous creators with no professional training. Folk culture is also called amateur (but not by level, but by origin), or collective. In terms of their execution, elements of folk culture can be individual (retelling of a legend), group (singing a song, dancing), mass (carnival processions). Another name for folk culture is folklore. It is always localized, as it is connected with the traditions of the given area, and democratic, since everyone who wishes participates in its creation.

By the nature of the creations, one can single out the culture represented in single samples And popular culture. The first form, according to the characteristic features of the creators, is divided into folk and elite culture. folk culture is a single work of most often anonymous authors. This form of culture includes myths, legends, tales, epics, songs, dances, and so on. Elite culture- a set of individual creations that are created by well-known representatives of the privileged part of society or by its order by professional creators. Here we are talking about creators who have a high level of education and are well known to an enlightened public. This culture includes fine arts, literature, classical music, etc.

Mass (public) culture represents products of spiritual production in the field of art, created in large editions, counting on the general public. The main thing for her is the entertainment of the widest masses of the population. It is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population, regardless of the level of education. Its main feature is the simplicity of ideas and images: texts, movements, sounds, etc. Samples of this culture are aimed at the emotional sphere of a person. At the same time, popular culture often uses simplified examples of elite and folk culture (“remixes”). Mass culture averages the spiritual development of people.

Subculture- this is the culture of any social group: confessional, professional, corporate, etc. It, as a rule, does not deny the universal culture, but has specific features. Signs of a subculture are special rules of behavior, language, symbols. Each society has its own set of subcultures: youth, professional, ethnic, religious, dissident, etc.

Dominant culture- values, traditions, views, etc., shared only by a part of society. But this part has the ability to impose them on the whole of society, either because it constitutes the ethnic majority, or because it has a mechanism of coercion. A subculture that opposes the dominant culture is called a counterculture. The social basis of the counterculture is people who are alienated to a certain extent from the rest of society. The study of the counterculture makes it possible to understand the cultural dynamics, the formation and spread of new values.

The tendency to evaluate the culture of one's nation as good and correct, and another culture as strange and even immoral has been called "ethnocentrism". Many societies are ethnocentric. From the point of view of psychology, this phenomenon acts as a factor in the unity and stability of this society. However, ethnocentrism can be a source of intercultural conflicts. The extreme forms of manifestation of ethnocentrism are nationalism. The opposite is cultural relativism.

Elite culture

Elite, or high culture created by a privileged part, or by its order by professional creators. It includes fine arts, classical music and literature. High culture, such as the painting of Picasso or the music of Schnittke, is difficult for an unprepared person to understand. As a rule, it is decades ahead of the level of perception of an averagely educated person. The circle of its consumers is a highly educated part of society: critics, literary critics, frequenters of museums and exhibitions, theater-goers, artists, writers, musicians. When the level of education of the population grows, the circle of consumers of high culture expands. Its varieties include secular art and salon music. The formula of elite culture is “ art for art”.

Elite culture It is intended for a narrow circle of highly educated public and opposes both folk and mass culture. It is usually incomprehensible to the general public and requires good preparation for correct perception.

The avant-garde trends in music, painting, cinema, complex literature of a philosophical nature can be attributed to the elite culture. Often the creators of such a culture are perceived as inhabitants of the "ivory tower", fenced off by their art from real everyday life. As a rule, elite culture is non-commercial, although sometimes it can be financially successful and move into the category of mass culture.

Modern trends are such that mass culture penetrates into all areas of "high culture", mixing with it. At the same time, mass culture reduces the general cultural level of its consumers, but at the same time, it itself gradually rises to a higher cultural level. Unfortunately, the first process is still much more intense than the second.

folk culture

folk culture is recognized as a special form of culture. In contrast to the elite culture of the people, culture is created by anonymous creators who do not have professional training. The authors of folk creations are unknown. Folk culture is called amateur (not by level, but by origin) or collective. It includes myths, legends, tales, epics, fairy tales, songs and dances. In terms of execution, elements of folk culture can be individual (retelling of a legend), group (performing a dance or song), mass (carnival processions). Folklore is another name for folk art, which is created by various segments of the population. Folklore is localized, that is, associated with the traditions of the given area, and democratic, since everyone participates in its creation. Anecdotes and urban legends can be attributed to modern manifestations of folk culture.

Mass culture

Mass or public does not express the refined tastes of the aristocracy or the spiritual quest of the people. The time of its appearance is the middle of the 20th century, when mass media(radio, print, television, records, tape recorders, video) penetrated into most countries of the world and became available to representatives of all social strata. Mass culture can be international and national. Popular and pop music is a vivid example of mass culture. It is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population, regardless of the level of education.

Popular culture is usually less artistic value than elitist or popular culture. But it has the widest audience. It satisfies the momentary needs of people, reacts to any new event and reflects it. Therefore, samples of mass culture, in particular hits, quickly lose their relevance, become obsolete, go out of fashion. This does not happen with works of elite and folk culture. pop culture is a slang term for mass culture, and kitsch is a variation of it.

Subculture

The set of values, beliefs, traditions and customs that guide the majority of members of society is called dominant culture. Since society breaks up into many groups (national, demographic, social, professional), each of them gradually forms its own culture, i.e., a system of values ​​and rules of conduct. Small cultures are called subcultures.

Subculture- part of a common culture, a system of values, traditions, customs inherent in a certain. They talk about the youth subculture, the subculture of the elderly, the subculture of national minorities, the professional subculture, the criminal subculture. The subculture differs from the dominant culture in language, outlook on life, behavior, hair, dress, customs. The differences can be very strong, but the subculture does not oppose the dominant culture. Drug addicts, the deaf and dumb, the homeless, alcoholics, athletes, and the lonely have their own culture. The children of the aristocrats or the middle class are very different in their behavior from the children of the lower class. They read different books, go to different schools, follow different ideals. Each generation and social group has its own cultural world.

Counterculture

Counterculture denotes a subculture that is not only different from the dominant culture, but opposes, is in conflict with the dominant values. The terrorist subculture opposes human culture, and the hippie youth movement in the 1960s. denied the dominant American values: hard work, material success, conformity, sexual restraint, political loyalty, rationalism.

Culture in Russia

The state of the spiritual life of modern Russia can be characterized as a transition from upholding the values ​​associated with attempts to build a communist society, to the search for a new meaning of social development. We have reached the next round of the historical dispute between Westernizers and Slavophiles.

The Russian Federation is a multinational country. Its development is due to the peculiarities of national cultures. The uniqueness of the spiritual life of Russia lies in the diversity of cultural traditions, religious beliefs, moral norms, aesthetic tastes, etc., which is associated with the specifics of the cultural heritage of different peoples.

At present, in the spiritual life of our country, there are conflicting trends. On the one hand, the mutual penetration of different cultures contributes to interethnic understanding and cooperation, on the other hand, the development of national cultures is accompanied by interethnic conflicts. The latter circumstance requires a balanced, tolerant attitude towards the culture of other communities.

1. STRUCTURE OF CULTURE

1.1 Traits of culture

2. AGENTS AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS OF CULTURE

3. TYPOLOGY OF CULTURES

4. TYPES OF CROPS

4.1 Dominant culture

4.2 Subculture and counterculture

4.3 Rural culture

4.4 Urban culture

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. STRUCTURE OF CULTURE

Culture (from Latin culture - cultivation, upbringing, education, development, veneration) - a specific way of organizing and developing human life, presented in projects of material and spiritual labor, in the system of social norms and institutions, in spiritual values, in the totality of people's attitudes towards nature, to each other and to ourselves. Culture is inherent in any form of human existence as its characteristic and obligatory feature, a necessary attribute of any society.

The structure of culture is presented in two main parts: cultural statics and cultural dynamics. The first describes culture at rest, the second - in motion. Cultural statics refers to the internal structure of culture - a set of oasis elements or traits and forms of culture - configurations, characteristic combinations of such elements.

Dynamics includes those means, mechanisms and processes that describe the transformation of culture, its change. Culture is born, spreads, is preserved, many metamorphoses take place with it. The basic units of culture are the elements or features of culture. They are of two types - material And intangible. Material cultural monuments are more durable, they store more information than intangible ones. Modern culture can be judged by the material and non-material elements of culture, but ancient culture can only be judged by the material.

material culture includes physical objects created by human hands. They are called artifacts (a steam engine, a book, a temple, an apartment building, a tie, an ornament, a dam, and much more). Artifacts are distinguished by the fact that they have a certain symbolic meaning, perform an intended function and represent a certain value for a group or society.

Non-material or spiritual culture is formed by norms, rules, samples, standards, models and norms of behavior, laws, values, ceremonies, rituals, symbols, knowledge, ideas, customs, traditions, language. They are also the result of human activity, but they were not created by hands, but rather by the mind. Intangible objects exist in our minds and are supported by human communication.

1.1 Traits of culture

Basic units cultural statics is called elements or cultural traits. The features of culture are divided into universal, general and specific.

Universal traits of culture inherent in the entire human race and distinguish it from other types of living beings. First of all, sociobiological features, in particular, a long period of childhood, the constant (rather than seasonal) nature of the reproductive function and a complex brain, the need for a long and caring upbringing of offspring inherent in all people, and the attachment of children to their parents. Social universals include collective life, food distribution, and family building.

General features of culture inherent in a number of societies and peoples, therefore they are also called regional. There are several reasons for regional similarity. The first is that some peoples communicate and exchange cultural achievements among themselves more actively than with other peoples. The second reason is common ethnic ancestors. The third reason for the similarity is due to the same, but independent of each other, cultural inventions made simultaneously by different peoples.

Specific features of culture often referred to as exotic, unfamiliar or not generally accepted. In some cultures, it is believed that funerals should be magnificent, and not people's name days. Other cultures think differently. The difference in approach to the same event among different peoples can be explained by cultural factors.

Along with these features of culture, there are nine more fundamental, inherent in all cultures, namely: speech (language); material features; art; mythology and scientific knowledge; religious practice; family and social system; own; government; war. They can be called universal patterns (structures, patterns) of culture. Otherwise, the patterns are called cultural themes. For example, some cultures are built around topics such as equality and social justice, others are about individual responsibility and financial success, still others are about military prowess and hunting, and so on.

cultural complex- a set of cultural features or elements that arose on the basis of the original element and are functionally related to it. An example is the sport of hockey.

The stadium, fans, sportswear, puck, tickets and much more are associated with it. A cultural complex can be galleries and museums, exhibition halls, private collections of paintings and antiques, artistic styles and trends, scientific theories and schools, religious teachings, etc.

In cultural statics, elements are delimited in time and space. And since the cultural complex is a functionally interconnected set of elements of culture, then, consequently, it can be spatial And temporary.

In this case, the spatial cultural complex is understood as cultural area, and under temporary cultural heritage.

Cultural area - a geographic region that includes a number of societies endowed with the same or similar features or sharing a dominant cultural orientation. (For example, polygamy is a hallmark of the countries of the East that profess Islam.) For example, Slavic culture includes Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Belarusian and some other subcultures or national cultures.

2. AGENTS AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS OF CULTURE

TO agents of culture relate large social groups, small social groups, individuals.

Small social groups subdivided into:

- voluntary professional associations, uniting creators of culture, promoting their professional growth, protecting their rights and promoting the dissemination of cultural values;

- specialized associations and circles;

- a circle of fans of certain types of art, for example a musical group;

- cultural cuts, representing an indefinite set of people belonging to the intelligentsia and providing spiritual support for either culture as a whole or its individual types and directions;

- families, in which the primary socialization of a person takes place.

Large social groups subdivided into:

- ethnic groups(tribe, nationality, nation), which are stable intergenerational communities of people, united by a common historical destiny, common traditions, culture, features of life, unity of territory and language;

- professional groups creators, researchers, custodians and performers of works of art (in particular, ethnographers, philologists, philosophers, critics, restorers, architects, censors, musicologists);

- non-professional groups in one form or another attached to the culture (for example, fans, viewers, readers);

- audience(spectator, reader).

It should be noted that a special category of cultural subjects are contributors- people who contributed to positive changes in culture. This category is divided into several groups:

Creators of works of art: composers, artists, writers, poets;

Patrons, sponsors, that is, investors of culture;

Distributors of cultural values: publishers, lecturer, announcers;

Consumers of cultural values: public, audience;

Censors: literary editors, editors-in-chief, literary censors who enforce the rules;

Organizers: Minister of Culture, Mayor of the city.

TO cultural institutions should include institutions and organizations that create, perform, store, distribute works of art, as well as sponsor and educate the population in cultural values, in particular, schools and puzy, academies of sciences, ministries of culture and education, lyceums, galleries, libraries, theaters, educational educational complexes, stadiums, etc.

3. TYPOLOGY OF CULTURES

Branches of culture called such sets of norms, rules and models of human behavior, which include a relatively closed area as part of the whole.

Types of culture such sets of norms, rules and models of people's behavior are considered, which constitute relatively closed areas, but are not parts of one whole.

Any national or ethnic group is classified as a cultural type. They are not only regional-ethnic formations, but also historical and economic ones.

Forms of culture refer to such sets of rules, norms and models of human behavior that cannot be considered completely autonomous entities; neither are they constituent parts of any whole. High or elite culture, folk culture and mass culture are called forms of culture because they are a special way of expressing artistic content.

Types of culture such collections of rules and behaviors are called, which are varieties of a more general culture. The main types of culture are:

a) the dominant (nationwide) culture, subculture and

counterculture;

b) rural and urban culture;

c) ordinary and specialized culture.

There are the following branches of culture:

Economic culture. It includes in its composition the culture of production, the culture of distribution, the culture of exchange, the culture of consumption, the culture of management, the culture of work. When an enterprise produces defective products, they speak of a low production culture. When the contracting parties do not fulfill their obligations, let each other down when concluding and implementing a deal, they speak of a low culture of exchange. When the interests of the consumer in society are ignored, when the buyer cannot return or exchange low-quality goods in the store, or when the sellers are incorrect, they speak of a low culture of consumption.

Culture is an extremely diverse concept. This scientific term appeared in ancient Rome, where the word "cultura" meant the cultivation of the land, upbringing, education.

In sociology, there are two types of culture: material(products of handicrafts and production; tools, tools; structures, buildings; equipment, etc.) and intangible(representations, values, knowledge, ideology, language, the process of spiritual production, etc.).

1. The main function is human-creative, or humanistic function. Cicero spoke of her - "cultura animi" - cultivation, cultivation of the spirit. Today, this function of "cultivating" the human spirit has acquired not only the most important, but also largely symbolic meaning. All other functions are somehow connected with this one and even follow from it.

2. The function of translation (transfer) of social experience. It is called the function of historical continuity or information. Culture is a complex sign system. It acts as the only mechanism for the transfer of social experience from generation to generation, from era to era, from one country to another. Indeed, besides culture, society does not have any other mechanism for transmitting the entire wealth of experience that people have accumulated. Therefore, it is no coincidence that culture is considered the social memory of mankind.

However, culture is not a kind of "warehouse", "repository" of stocks of social experience, but a means of objective assessment, rigorous selection and active transmission of the best "examples" that have truly enduring significance. Hence, any violation of this function is fraught with serious, sometimes catastrophic consequences for society. The gap in cultural continuity dooms new generations to the loss of social memory (the phenomenon of "mankurtism") with all the ensuing consequences.

3. Regulatory (normative) function is associated primarily with the definition (regulation) of various aspects, types of social and personal activities of people. In the sphere of work, life, interpersonal relations, culture in one way or another influences the behavior of people and regulates their actions, actions, and even the choice of certain material and spiritual values. The regulatory function of culture is supported by such normative systems as morality and law.

4. Semiotic or semiotic (Greek semenion - sign) function is the most important in the system of culture. Representing a certain sign system, culture implies knowledge, possession of it. Without studying the corresponding sign systems, it is not possible to master the achievements of culture. Thus, language (oral or written) is a means of communication between people. The literary language acts as the most important means of mastering the national culture. Specific languages ​​are needed for understanding the special world of music, painting, theater (Schnittke's music, Malevich's Suprematism, Dali's surrealism, Vityk's theater). The natural sciences (physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology) also have their own sign systems.

5. Value, or axiological (Greek axia - value) function reflects the most important qualitative state of culture. Culture as a certain system of values ​​forms a person's well-defined value needs and orientations. By their level and quality, people most often judge the degree of culture of a person. Moral and intellectual content, as a rule, acts as a criterion for appropriate evaluation

Cognitive, epistemological function.

It is closely connected with the first (human-creative) and, in a certain sense, follows from it. Culture concentrates the best social experience of many generations of people. It (immanently) acquires the ability to accumulate the richest knowledge about the world and thereby create favorable opportunities for its knowledge and development. It can be argued that a society is as intellectual as the richest knowledge contained in the cultural gene pool of mankind is used.

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.

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.

activity function

Let's start with the fact that the very term "culture" originally meant the cultivation of the soil, its cultivation, i.e. a change in a natural object under the influence of a person, in contrast to those changes that are caused by natural causes. A stone polished by the surf remains a component of nature, and the same stone, processed by a savage, is an artificial object that performs a certain function accepted in a given community - tool or magic. Thus, in this original content of the term, an important feature of culture is expressed - the human principle inherent in it - and attention is focused on the unity of culture, man and his activity.

According to the most common understanding of this term today, culture is a meaning-bearing and meaning-transmitting aspect of human practice and its results, a symbolic dimension of social events that allows individuals to live in a special life world, which they more or less understand, and to perform actions, the nature of which is understood by everyone else. .

Any great spiritual tradition is a cleverly built machine for fighting against time, but no matter what tricks, time eventually breaks it. Such disturbing considerations must have crossed the minds of teachers of traditional cultures more than once, and they tried to find a way out of the impasse. One of the possible solutions suggested by common sense is to strengthen by all means the reliability of the transmission of culture - to carefully protect it from all conceivable distortions, reinterpretations, and especially innovations. Unfortunately for some and fortunately for others, it actually turns out that “the use of such means, no matter how locally successful it may be, is not able to save culture from internal necrosis.

Information function.

This is the transfer of social experience. In society, there is no other mechanism for the transfer of social experience other than culture. The social qualities of a person are not transmitted by the genetic program. Thanks to culture, the transmission, transmission of social experience is carried out both from one generation to another, and between countries and peoples.

Culture performs this important social function through a complex sign system that preserves the social experience of generations in concepts and words, mathematical symbols and formulas of science, peculiar languages ​​of art, in the products of human labor - tools of production, consumer goods, i.e. contains all those signs that tell about a person, his creative powers and capabilities. In this sense, culture can be called the "memory" of mankind. However, it must be emphasized that culture is not just a "pantry" of social experience accumulated by mankind, but a means of its active processing, selection of exactly the information that society needs, which is of national and universal value.

The informative function of culture is highly appreciated by representatives of the semiotic approach to culture. In this function, culture links generations, enriching each subsequent generation with the experience of the previous ones. But this does not mean that it is enough to live in today's world and read modern books in order to join the experience of world culture. It is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of "cultural" and "modernity". To become cultured, a person needs to go through, as I.V. Goethe, "through all epochs of world culture".

Here, culture is seen not as something external to a person that determines the forms of his life, but as a way to realize his creative potential.

Culture cannot live by tradition alone; it is constantly supported by the pressure of new generations entering society in somewhat changed historical conditions. This feature of the socio-historical process forces the representatives of the new generation to engage in creative processing of the cultural achievements of the past. Continuity and innovation permeate the cultural life of society.

The unique possibility of culture is manifested in its dialogue. Culture is impossible without internal “roll call”. The “characters” of past cultures do not leave the stage, do not disappear and do not dissolve in the new, but carry on a dialogue both with their brothers in the past and with the heroes who have come to replace them. And to this day, people are worried about the tragic images of Aeschylus and Sophocles; Pushkin's and Shakespeare's heroes make us continue to think about good and evil, and Kant's ideas about the universal world are in tune with our era. Appeal to the culture of the past, rethinking its values ​​in the light of modern experience is one of the ways to realize the creative potential of a person. Comprehending and rethinking the past, a thinker and an artist, a scientist and an inventor create new values, enrich the objective world of culture.

Working with this subject field, a person involuntarily objectifies himself, expanding the range of his needs and abilities. This circle includes ends and means. Innovative goals, as a rule, are based on the results obtained, which, in turn, involve the transformation of existing material and spiritual values.

Man himself is a cultural value, and the most important part of this value is his creative potential, the whole mechanism for the implementation of ideas and plans: from the natural inclinations involved in the creative process, the neurodynamic systems of the brain to the most refined and sublime aesthetic ideals and “wild” scientific abstractions, from emotional experiences, rushing to be expressed outside, to the most complex sign systems. And it is natural that an adequate way to realize the creative potential of a person is culture, the meaning-bearing and meaning-transmitting aspect of human practice and its results.

Thus, both the subjective world of a creative personality and the objective world of cultural values ​​are connected in culture. It closes so that a person can break this unity with all the tension of his difficult life and once again, on a new basis, recreate it with his creative efforts. Without such unity, human existence is impossible.

The role of culture as a way of realizing the creative potential of a person is diverse. Culture not only invites the individual to create. She also imposes restrictions on her.

These restrictions apply not only to society, but also to nature. But the absence of cultural restrictions in attempts to control the forces of nature is also dangerous. Culture as a way to realize the creative potential of a person cannot but include an understanding of the value of nature as a habitat for people, as an unshakable foundation for the cultural development of society.

communicative function.

This function is inextricably linked with information. Perceiving the information contained in the monuments of material and spiritual culture, a person thereby enters into the indirect. Indirect communication with the people who created these monuments.

The means of communication between people is, first of all, verbal language. The word accompanies all the processes of people's cultural activity. Language, primarily literary, is the "key" to mastering a particular national culture. In the process of communication, people also use specific languages ​​of art (music, theater, cinema, etc.), as well as the languages ​​of science (mathematical, physical, chemical and other symbols and formulas). Thanks to culture and, above all, art, a person can be transported to other eras and countries, communicate with other generations, people in whose images the artist reflected not only his own ideas, but also contemporary feelings, moods, views.

The cultures of different peoples, as well as people - representatives of different cultures, are mutually enriched due to the informative function. B. Shaw compares the results of the exchange of ideas with the exchange of apples. When apples are exchanged, each side has only an apple; when ideas are exchanged, each side has two ideas. The exchange of ideas, unlike the exchange of objects, cultivates in a person his personal culture. The point is not only in obtaining knowledge, but also in that response, in that reciprocal ideological or emotional movement that they give rise to in a person. If there is no such movement, then there is no cultural growth. A person grows towards humanity, and not towards the number of years lived. Culture is a cult of growth, as they sometimes say. And growth occurs because a person joins, without losing himself, to the wisdom of the human race.

The concept of "mass culture" reflects significant shifts in the mechanism of modern culture: the development of mass media (radio, cinema, television, newspaper, magazine, gramophone record, tape recorder); the formation of an industrial-commercial type of production and the distribution of standardized spiritual goods; relative democratization of culture and an increase in the level of education of the masses; increase in leisure time and spending on leisure in the family budget. All of the above transforms culture into a branch of the economy, turning it into mass culture.

Through the system of mass communication, printed and electronic products reach the majority of members of society. Through a single mechanism of fashion, mass culture orients, subjugates all aspects of human existence: from the style of housing and clothing to the type of hobby, from the choice of ideology to the forms of rituals of intimate relationships. At present, mass culture has swung at the cultural "colonization" of the whole world.

The birth of mass culture can be considered the year 1870, when a law on compulsory universal literacy was passed in the UK. The main type of artistic creativity of the 19th century became available to everyone. - novel. The second milestone is 1895. In this year, cinematography was invented, which does not require even elementary literacy to perceive information in pictures. The third milestone is light music. The tape recorder and television strengthened the position of mass culture.

Despite the seeming democratic nature, mass culture is fraught with a real threat of reducing the human creator to the level of a programmed mannequin, a human cog. The serial nature of its products has a number of specific features:

a) primitivization of relations between people;

b) entertaining, amusing, sentimental;

c) naturalistic savoring of violence and sex;

d) the cult of success, a strong personality and the desire to own things;

e) the cult of mediocrity, conventionality of primitive symbolism.

The catastrophic consequence of mass culture is the reduction of human creative activity to an elementary act of thoughtless consumption. High culture requires high intellectual effort. And meeting the “Monna Lisa” in the showroom is not at all like meeting her on a matchbox label or on a T-shirt.

Elite culture acts as a cultural opposition to mass culture, the main task of which is to preserve creativity and pathos in culture.

A person cannot communicate. Even when he is alone, he continues to conduct an inaudible dialogue with people close or distant to him, with the heroes of books, with God or with himself, as he sees himself. In such communication, it can be completely different than in live communication. The culture of live communication involves not only politeness and tact. It implies the ability and ability of each of us to bring the communicativeness of culture into the circle of such communication, i.e. our connection to humanity that we felt when we were alone. Being oneself and recognizing the right of another person to do so means recognizing the equality of everyone in relation to humanity and its culture. It is a characteristic feature or norm of humanism. Of course, in culture there are many norms and rules of behavior. All of them serve one common goal: the organization of the common life of people. There are norms of law and morality, norms in art, norms of religious consciousness and behavior. All these norms regulate human behavior, oblige him to adhere to some boundaries that are considered acceptable in a particular culture.

From time immemorial, society has been divided into social groups. Social groups are relatively stable aggregates of people who have common interests, values ​​and norms of behavior that develop within the framework of a historically defined society. Each group embodies some specific relationships of individuals among themselves and with society as a whole.

Group interests can be expressed through caste, estate, class and professional interests.

Caste is most fully revealed in the culture of India. To this day, India has stubbornly held on to this divisive phenomenon. Even modern education cannot defeat in the Hindu his adherence to caste.

Another characteristic example of the manifestation of the group principle in culture is chivalry:

Knights are representatives of the ruling class, but their life was subject to strict regulations. The knight's code of honor prescribed complex procedures and etiquette, a departure from which, even in small things, could lower the knight's dignity in the eyes of other members of the privileged class. Sometimes the regulation of this etiquette looked devoid of common sense. For example, having galloped to the king in the midst of a battle with an important report, the knight could not turn to him first and waited for the sovereign to speak to him. But in these moments the fate of the battle and his comrades in arms could be decided.

The knight was instructed to know and perform a number of court ritual functions: to sing, dance, play chess, fencing, perform feats for the glory of a beautiful lady, etc. The knight had to be himself. example of court etiquette.

A manifestation of the group in culture is also class. Classes are perceived as stable socio-economic groups of society, belonging to which dictates to individuals a certain culture of behavior.

The consistent implementation of the class approach is realized through relations of domination and subordination, where some - knowledgeable, enlightened, advanced and conscious - command others, instructing everyone to follow the same method, to clearly implement the principle: "who is not with us is against us."

Of course, the class approach has the right to exist, and as long as classes exist, it is inevitable. It is pointless to stigmatize it and oppose it to universal human values. It only makes sense to understand that the priority of universal human values ​​does not exclude an objective assessment of class interests, but opposes the attitude that considers class values ​​to be the highest and the only ones. Class values ​​are not abolished, but take their place within universal human values, next to non-class ones.

What is universal?

It is believed that the universal is a pure idealization, something unrealizable and not existing in reality. But people have ideas about them, designate them with different terms and want to join them. These are the ideals that people create so that life has a purpose and makes sense.

Another interpretation is more prosaic: universal - these are the conditions for the life of people and the rules of human coexistence common to all historical epochs. Here, “natural interests” are presented as universal human: hoarding and consumerism, the thirst for life and the desire for personal power, the danger of death and the fear of it. But in each religion these "natural interests" are treated differently.

It is naive to think that universal human values ​​can simply be invented. Neither philosophers, nor politicians, nor church fathers will be able to impose them on society. The universal cannot be outside of time and space. The universal is an ideal form of universality, which has actually been achieved by mankind at a given stage of history and which directly reveals itself in the dialogue of cultures.

aesthetic function culture, first of all, is manifested 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 “consists not in repetition, but in the continuation of that artistic work that was started by nature ".

The aesthetic sense of beauty accompanies a person constantly, lives in his home, is present at all the most important events of his life. Even in severe moments in the history of mankind - moments of death, destruction, feat - a person again turns to the beautiful. At the time of the death of the English steamer Titanic, which collided with an iceberg, the musicians, who did not have enough boats, played Beethoven's Heroic Symphony. And how many times during the Great Patriotic War the sailors of Russia courageously accepted death with a song about the immortal "Varyag".

The World of Art defended the freedom of individual self-manifestation in art. Everything that the artist loves and worships in the past and present has the right to be embodied in art, regardless of the topic of the day. At the same time, beauty was recognized as the only pure source of creative enthusiasm, and the modern world, in their opinion, is devoid of beauty. Life interests representatives of the "World of Arts" only insofar as it has already expressed itself in art. The leading genre in painting is the historical genre. History appears here not in mass movements, but in particular details of the past life, but life is necessarily beautiful, aesthetically designed.

The heyday of the theatrical and decorative activity of the “World of Arts” is associated with the Russian seasons of Diagelev in Paris, where the largest forces of Russian art were attracted: F. Shalyagosh, A-Pavlova, V. Nezhinsky, Fokin, etc.

Turning to Western European culture, it is not difficult to find the first attempts to comprehend elitism in the works of Heraclitus and Plato. Plato divides human knowledge into knowledge and opinion. Knowledge is accessible to the intellect of philosophers, and opinion is accessible to the crowd. Consequently, here for the first time the intellectual elite stands out as a special professional group - the custodian and bearer of higher knowledge.

It is in relation to them that the humanist community puts itself in the position of the chosen society, the intellectual elite. This is how that category of persons appears, which later became known as the “intelligentsia”.

The theory of the elite is the logical conclusion of the processes that took place in the artistic practice of Western European culture in the second half of the 19th - mid-20th centuries: the collapse of realism in the plastic arts, the emergence and victorious march of impressionism to post-impressionism and even cubism, the transformation of the novel narrative into the “stream of life” and the “stream of consciousness” in the work of M. Proust and J. Joyce, an unusually flowery symbolism in poetry, manifested in the work of A. Blok and A. Bely.

The most complete and consistent concept of elite culture is presented in the works of J. Ortega y Gasset. Observing the birth of new forms of art with their countless scandalously loud manifestos, extraordinary artistic techniques, Ortega gave a philosophical assessment of this avant-garde of the 20th century. His assessment boils down to the assertion that the Impressionists, Futurists, Surrealists, Abstractionists split art lovers into two groups: those who understand the new art, and those who are not able to understand it, i.e. to the “artistic elite and the general public”.

According to Ortega, there is an elite in every social class. The elite is the part of society most capable of spiritual activity, endowed with high moral and aesthetic inclinations. It is she who makes progress. Therefore, the artist quite consciously refers to it, and not to the masses. Turning his back on the layman, the artist abstracts from reality and endows the elite with complicated images of reality, in which he combines real and unreal, rational and irrational in a bizarre way.

Associated with aesthetic function hedonistic 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, and influences people's lifestyle.

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 main synthesizing function of culture, reflecting its social meaning, is humanistic function

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 his inner essence. personality, in their social qualities. But these relations, values ​​a person masters in his own way, uniquely, in an individual form. Culture is a special social mechanism that implements socialization and ensures the acquisition of individuality.