What is the essence of the dialogue of cultures. The concept of "dialogue of cultures" and the educational process

Introduction……………………………………………………………..….... 3

1. The concept of "dialogue of cultures". National and universal in culture. …………………..4-7

2. Problems of the dialogue of cultures…………………………………………….7-9

3. Dialogue of cultures as a way of international relations………9-12

Conclusion……………………………………………………………12-13

List of literature and Internet resources……………………………….13

Introduction.

One of the main features of the modern world is its globalization, and all international events in one way or another are the result of this process. This is especially important to understand when it comes to confrontation and conflicts that can lead to destruction of the world. The modern world frightens with new and new shocks - wars, interethnic conflicts, terrorist acts, economic sanctions and similar phenomena push the world into the abyss of mutual destruction. Can this madness be stopped? And, if possible, how?

Acquaintance with such a social phenomenon as the dialogue of cultures will help answer these and other questions.

Currently, more than five hundred variants of the use of the term "culture" in various branches of science and practice are known. Culture is what unites people in integrity, in society. The modern world is characterized by the openness of cultural systems, the diversity of cultures, their interaction or dialogue.

Goal of the work: Consider some aspects of the dialogue of cultures as the basis of international relations.

Z adachi:

Define the concept of "dialogue of cultures";

Consider dialogue as a natural result of the development and deepening of the relationship between national cultures;

To reveal the problems and prospects for the development of the dialogue of cultures in the modern world.

1. The concept of "dialogue of cultures". National and universal in culture.

The dialogue of cultures is a concept that has gained wide circulation in the philosophical journalism of the 20th century. Most often it is understood as the interaction, influence, penetration or repulsion of different historical or modern cultures, as a form of their confessional or political coexistence. In the philosophical works of V. S. Bibler, the concept of a dialogue of cultures is put forward as a possible foundation of philosophy on the eve of the 21st century. (1)

The dialogue of cultures is a set of direct relations and connections that develop between different cultures, as well as their results, mutual changes that arise in the course of these relations. In the process of the dialogue of cultures, there are changes in cultural partners - forms of social organization and models of social action, value systems and types of worldview, the formation of new forms of cultural creativity and lifestyle. This is the fundamental difference between the dialogue of cultures and simple forms of economic, cultural or political cooperation that do not involve significant transformations of each of the parties.

The sociological dictionary distinguishes the following levels of the dialogue of cultures:

a) personal, associated with the formation or transformation of the human personality under the influence of various "external" cultural traditions in relation to its natural cultural environment;

b) ethnic, characteristic of relations between various local social communities, often within a single society;

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(1). New Philosophical Encyclopedia. http://iph.ras.ru/elib/0958.html).

c) interethnic, associated with the diverse interaction of various state-political formations and their political elites;

d) civilizational, based on the meeting of fundamentally different types of sociality, value systems and forms of cultural creation. (1)

Since ancient times, many people have judged other cultures in terms of the superiority of their own people. This position is called ethnocentrism; it was characteristic of both the West and the East. So, back in the IV century. BC e., ancient Greek public figures divided the world into "Hellenes" and "barbarians". At the same time, the culture of the barbarians was considered as very primitive in comparison with the Greek. This was one of the first manifestations of Eurocentrism - the judgment of Europeans that their society is a model for the rest of the world. Later, Christian missionaries sought to convert "backward pagans" to their faith. In turn, the inhabitants of medieval China openly expressed contempt for the "marginal barbarians" (Europeans, as well as nomadic tribes). Ethnocentrism is usually associated with xenophobia - fear of other people's views and customs, hostility or hatred towards them. However, over time, many came to the understanding that the opposition of the West to the East and, in general, “their own” to “them” will not benefit humanity. The West is not higher than the East, and the East is not higher than the West - they are just different.

Promoting cultural diversity is one of the important goals of the world community. This is recorded in the first article of the Constitution of UNESCO. It states that the purpose of cooperation is to promote “rapprochement and mutual understanding of peoples through the proper use of the apparatus

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(1) Sociological Dictionary. http://vslovare.ru

Cultural diversity needs to be supported, it needs to be developed. The originality of each national culture is relative. Its uniqueness acts as a concrete manifestation of the universal in the development of human society. Different nations have historically developed their own languages. But the need to have a language as a means of communication, the accumulation of experience is common to all people. All cultures share some common norms and values. They are called universal, as they express the foundations of human life. Kindness, work, love, friendship are significant for people in any place of the Earth. The existence of these values ​​contributes to mutual understanding and rapprochement of cultures. Otherwise, it is impossible to explain the fact that each culture, in the process of interaction with others, perceives and uses many of their achievements.

The interaction of cultures leads, on the one hand, to the strengthening of the identity of Eastern and Western, southern and northern cultures, on the other hand, to the formation of a global culture. Dialogue of different cultures is necessary and endless. This is an ongoing process that helps humanity to preserve the diversity of the cultural foundations of life. The dialogue of cultures allows each person to join the spiritual wealth created by different peoples, jointly solve the global problems of mankind, and also helps individuals and communities find the meaning of their existence without losing their originality.

The cultural diversity of the world continues to be preserved in the modern era. The process of interaction of cultures and civilizations has taken place throughout the history of mankind, but in our time there is an increase in the intensity of this process, which in no way contradicts the preservation of religious and ethnic traditions and cultural differences of peoples.

Thanks to new information technologies, a person of a global society got the opportunity to get acquainted with a whole set of artifacts that were inaccessible to people of an industrial and post-industrial society. Due to the fact that a significant part of them do not have the opportunity to make sightseeing trips to various countries, travel around the world, use the services provided by the famous repositories of cultural values, where a significant part of the world's cultural heritage is concentrated. Virtual museums, libraries, art galleries, concert halls that exist in the "world information web" provide an opportunity to get acquainted with everything that was created by the genius of this or that artist, architect, composer, regardless of where these or those masterpieces are located: Petersburg, Brussels or Washington. The repositories of the largest libraries in the world have become available to millions, including the libraries of the US Congress, the British Museum, the Russian State Library and many other libraries, whose funds have been used for centuries by a narrow circle of people involved in lawmaking, teaching and research activities. This is undoubtedly a positive result of the process of globalization of culture for a person.

Problems of the dialogue of cultures.

“Dialogue of cultures” is not so much a strict scientific concept as a metaphor, designed to acquire the status of a political and ideological doctrine, which should be guided by the extremely active interaction of different cultures with each other today at all levels. The panorama of modern world culture is a fusion of many interacting cultural formations. All of them are original and should be in a peaceful, thoughtful dialogue; making contact, be sure to listen to the “interlocutor”, respond to his needs and requests. "Dialogue" as a means of communication of cultures implies such a convergence of interacting subjects of the cultural process, when they do not suppress each other, do not seek to dominate, but "listen", "assist", touching carefully and carefully.

Becoming participants in any kind of intercultural contacts, people interact with representatives of other cultures, often significantly different from each other. Differences in languages, national cuisine, clothing, norms of social behavior, attitude to the work performed often make these contacts difficult and even impossible. But these are only particular problems of intercultural contacts. The underlying reasons for their failures lie beyond the obvious differences. They are in differences in attitude, that is, a different attitude to the world and to other people. The main obstacle to the successful solution of this problem is that we perceive other cultures through the prism of our own culture, so our observations and conclusions are limited to its framework. With great difficulty, we understand the meaning of words, deeds, actions that are not characteristic of ourselves. Our ethnocentrism not only interferes with intercultural communication, but it is also difficult to recognize, as it is an unconscious process. This leads to the conclusion that an effective dialogue of cultures cannot arise on its own, it needs to be purposefully studied.

In the modern information society, a person feverishly strives to keep up with the times, which require him to be aware in various fields of knowledge. In order to be organically woven into the fabric of modernity, it is necessary to have the ability to clearly select the most necessary and really useful in the huge information flow that is now falling on human consciousness. In such a situation, you have to set priorities yourself. Nevertheless, with such an overabundance of knowledge, all the superficiality of the development of the human personality becomes quite obvious. A cultural personality is a well-bred, educated person with a developed sense of morality. However, when a person is overloaded with useless information, when he knows "nothing about everything", it is quite difficult to judge his education or culture.

As you know, culture is internally heterogeneous - it breaks up into many dissimilar cultures, united mainly by national traditions. Therefore, when speaking about culture, we often specify: Russian, French, American, Georgian, etc. National cultures can interact in different scenarios. One culture may disappear under the pressure of another, stronger culture. The culture can succumb to the growing pressure that imposes an average international culture based on consumer values.

The problem of interaction of cultures

Isolation culture - this is one of the options for confronting the national culture against the pressure of other cultures and international culture. The isolation of culture comes down to the prohibition of any changes in it, the forcible suppression of all alien influences. Such a culture is conserved, ceases to develop and eventually dies, turning into a set of platitudes, common truths, museum exhibits and fakes for folk crafts.

For the existence and development of any culture like any other person, communication, dialogue, interaction. The idea of ​​a dialogue of cultures implies the openness of cultures to each other. But this is possible if a number of conditions are met: the equality of all cultures, the recognition of the right of each culture to differ from others, and respect for a foreign culture.

The Russian philosopher Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895-1975) believed that only in dialogue does culture come close to understanding itself, looking at itself through the eyes of another culture and thereby overcoming its one-sidedness and limitations. There are no isolated cultures - they all live and develop only in dialogue with other cultures:

Alien culture only in the eyes another culture reveals itself more fully and deeper (but not in its entirety, because other cultures will come and see and understand even more). One meaning reveals its depths, having met and touched another, alien meaning: between them begins, as it were, dialogue which overcomes the isolation and one-sidedness of these meanings, these cultures... With such a dialogic meeting of two cultures, they do not merge or mix, each retains its unity and open integrity, but they are mutually enriched.

cultural diversity- an important condition for self-knowledge of a person: the more cultures he learns, the more countries he visits, the more languages ​​he learns, the better he will understand himself and the richer his spiritual world will be. The dialogue of cultures is the basis and an important prerequisite for the formation and strengthening of such values ​​as respect, mutual assistance, mercy.

Levels of interaction of cultures

The interaction of cultures affects the most diverse groups of people - from small ethnic groups, consisting of several dozen people, to billions of peoples (such as the Chinese). Therefore, when analyzing the interaction of cultures, the following levels of interaction are distinguished:

• ethnic;
• National;
• civilizational.

Ethnic level of interaction of cultures

There are dual tendencies in this interaction. Mutual assimilation of elements of culture, on the one hand, contributes to integration processes - strengthening contacts, spreading bilingualism, increasing the number of mixed marriages, and on the other hand, is accompanied by an increase in ethnic self-awareness. At the same time, smaller and more homogeneous ethnic groups more persistently defend their identity.

Therefore, the culture of an ethnos, ensuring its stability, performs not only an ethno-integrating function, but also an ethno-differentiating one, which is expressed in the presence of culture-specific values, norms and stereotypes of behavior and is fixed in the self-consciousness of the ethnos.

Depending on various internal and external factors, the interaction of cultures at the ethnic level can take various forms and lead to four possible variants of ethnocultural contacts:

• addition - a simple quantitative change in the culture of an ethnos, which, when faced with another culture, masters some of its achievements. Such was the influence of Indian America on Europe, which enriched it with new types of cultivated plants;
• complication - a qualitative change in the culture of an ethnic group under the influence of a more mature culture, which initiates the further development of the first culture. An example is the impact of Chinese culture on Japanese and Korean, the latter are considered to be affiliated with respect to Chinese culture;
• diminution - the loss of one's own skills as a result of contact with a more developed culture. This quantitative change is characteristic of many non-literate peoples and often turns out to be the beginning of the degradation of culture;
• impoverishment (erosion) - the destruction of culture under external influence, occurring due to the lack of a sufficiently stable and developed own culture. For example, the culture of the Ainu is almost completely absorbed by Japanese culture, and the culture of the American Indians has survived only on reservations.

In general, the ethnic processes occurring during interaction at the ethnic level can lead to various forms of both the unification of ethnic groups and their cultures (assimilation, integration) and their separation (transculturation, genocide, segregation).

Assimilation processes when members of ethno-cultural education lose their original culture and assimilate a new one, they actively proceed in economically developed countries. Assimilation is carried out through conquest, mixed marriages, a targeted policy of dissolving a small people and culture in the environment of another larger ethnic group. In this case, it is possible:

• unilateral assimilation, when the culture of the minority, under the pressure of external circumstances, is completely replaced by the dominant culture;
• cultural mixing, when elements of the cultures of the majority and the minority are mixed, forming fairly stable combinations;
• complete assimilation is a very rare occurrence.

Usually there is a greater or lesser degree of transformation of the minority culture under the influence of the dominant culture. At the same time, the norms and values ​​of culture, language, behavior are replaced, as a result of which the cultural identity of the representatives of the assimilated group changes. The number of mixed marriages is growing, representatives of the minority are included in all social structures of society.

Integration - interaction within a country or some large region of several ethnic groups that are significantly different in language and culture, in which they have a number of common features, in particular, elements of a common self-consciousness are formed, based on long-term economic, cultural interaction, political ties, but peoples and cultures retain its own identity.

In cultural studies, integration is defined as the process of harmonizing logical, emotional, aesthetic values ​​with cultural norms and the real behavior of people, as the establishment of a functional interdependence between different elements of culture. In this regard, several forms of cultural integration are distinguished:

• configurational, or thematic, integration by similarity, on the basis of a single common “theme” that sets the benchmark for human activity. Thus, the integration of Western European countries took place on the basis of Christianity, and Islam became the basis for the integration of the Arab-Muslim world;
• stylistic - integration based on common styles - era, time, place, etc. Uniform styles (artistic, political, economic, scientific, philosophical, etc.) contribute to the formation of common cultural principles;
• logical - integration of cultures on the basis of logical agreement, bringing scientific and philosophical systems into a consistent state;
• connective - integration at the level of direct interconnection of the constituent parts of culture (culture), carried out with direct contact of people;
• functional, or adaptive, - integration in order to increase the functional efficiency of a person and the entire cultural community; characteristic of modernity: the world market, the world division of labor, etc.;
• regulatory - integration with the aim of resolving or neutralizing cultural and political conflicts.

At the ethnic level of interaction of cultures, it is also possible to separate ethnic groups and cultures.

Transcuitration - a process in which a relatively small part of an ethno-cultural community, due to voluntary migration or forced resettlement, moves to another area of ​​​​habitation, where a foreign cultural environment is either completely absent or is represented insignificantly; over time, the detached part of the ethnos is transformed into an independent ethnos with its own culture. Thus, the English Protestants who moved to North America became the basis for the formation of the North American ethnic group with its specific culture.

The national level of interaction of cultures arises on the basis of already existing ethnic relations. The concept of "nation" should not be confused with the concept of "ethnos", although in Russian these words are often used as synonyms (ethnonation). But in international practice, in UN documents, “nation” is understood as a political, civil and state community.

National unity arises on a mono-ethnic or multi-ethnic basis through a common economic activity, state-political regulation, is supplemented by the creation of a state language, which in multi-ethnic states is also the language of inter-ethnic communication, ideology, norms, customs and traditions, i.e. national culture.

The leading element of national unity is the state. regulating interethnic relations within its borders and interethnic in relations with other states. Ideally, the state should strive for the integration of the peoples and nations that make up the state, and for good neighborly relations with other states. But in real politics, decisions are often made about assimilation, segregation and even genocide, causing reciprocal outbreaks of nationalism and separatism and leading to wars both within the country and abroad.

Difficulties in interstate communication often arise where state borders were drawn without taking into account the natural settlement of people and divided common ethnic groups, which gives rise to the desire of divided peoples to form a single state (this contradicts modern international documents on the inviolability of existing borders), or, conversely, they were united within the framework of a single state of warring peoples, which leads to clashes between representatives of warring peoples; an example is the intermittent feud between the Tute and Bhutto peoples in Central Africa.

National-cultural ties are less stable than ethno-cultural ones, but they are just as necessary as ethno-cultural contacts. Today, communication between cultures is impossible without them.

Civilization level of interaction. Civilization in this case, it is understood as an association of several neighboring peoples connected by a common history, religion, cultural characteristics and regional economic ties. Cultural ties and contacts within civilizations are stronger than any external contacts. Communication at the civilizational level leads either to the most significant results in the exchange of spiritual, artistic, scientific and technical achievements, or to conflicts that are particularly cruel at this level, sometimes leading up to the complete destruction of the participants. An example is the crusades that Western Europe first directed against the Muslim world, and then against the Orthodox. Examples of positive contacts between civilizations are borrowings by medieval European culture from the Islamic world, from the culture of India and China. Intensive exchange took place between the Islamic, Indian and Buddhist regions. The conflict of these relations was replaced by peaceful coexistence and fruitful interaction.

Back in the 1980s. the famous Russian culturologist Grigory Solomonovich Pomerants (born 1918) identified the following options for intercivilizational cultural contacts:

• European - openness of cultures, rapid assimilation and "digestion" of foreign cultural achievements, enrichment of one's own civilization through innovation;
• Tibetan - a steady synthesis of elements borrowed from different cultures, and then solidification. Such is the Tibetan culture, which arose as a result of the synthesis of Indian and Chinese cultures;
• Javanese - easy perception of foreign cultural influences with a quick oblivion of the past. So, in Java, the Polynesian, Indian, Chinese, Muslim and European traditions historically replaced each other;
• Japanese - the transition from cultural isolation to openness and the assimilation of someone else's experience without abandoning one's own traditions. Japanese culture was once enriched by the assimilation of Chinese and Indian experience, and at the end of the 19th century. she turned to Zapal's experience.

Nowadays, it is relations between civilizations that come to the fore, as state borders become more and more “transparent”, the role of supranational associations increases. An example is the European Union, in which the highest body is the European Parliament, which has the right to make decisions affecting the sovereignty of member states. Although nation-states still remain the main actors on the world stage, their policies are increasingly dictated by civilizational characteristics.

According to S. Huntington, the appearance of the world is increasingly dependent on the relationship between civilizations; he singled out eight civilizations in the modern world, between which various relations develop - Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Orthodox-Slavic, Latin American and African. Especially important are the results of contacts between Western, Orthodox and Islamic civilizations. On the world map, Huntington drew "fault lines" between civilizations, along which two types of civilizational conflicts arise: at the micro level, the struggle of groups for land and power; at the macro level - the rivalry of countries representing different civilizations for influence in the military and economic spheres, for control over markets and international organizations.

Conflicts between civilizations are caused by civilizational differences (in history, language, religion, traditions), more fundamental than differences between states (nations). At the same time, the interaction of civilizations has led to the growth of civilizational self-awareness, the desire to preserve their own values, and this, in turn, increases the conflict in relations between them. Huntington notes that although at a superficial level much of Western civilization is characteristic of the rest of the world, this does not happen at a deep level because of the too great difference in the value orientations of different civilizations. Thus, in Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu and Orthodox cultures, such Western ideas as individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, freedom, the rule of law, democracy, free market almost do not find a response. Attempts to forcefully impose these values ​​cause a sharp negative reaction and lead to the strengthening of the values ​​of their culture.

(Experience definition)

Recently I had to take part in the Soviet-French Encyclopedia for Two Voices (Progress). In parallel, articles by Soviet and French authors were to go (for every word). I got the articles “culture” and “dialogue of cultures”, which I, however, in accordance with my concept, combined together. The attempt was painful. But then I thought that the shortcomings of such an experience (the inevitable rigidity of formulations, the almost complete abandonment of argumentation, the involuntary weakening of moments of doubt and reflection) are to some extent redeemed by some new interesting possibilities (the possibility of a holistic, detached look at one’s own understanding, the need to focus some visible image culture, conscious play between image and concept).

Therefore, now, having somewhat developed the text, having “embroidered” the most rigid articulations of the initial definitions, I present the results of my experience to the attention of readers.

There is a certain circle (integrity) of phenomena, behind which the concept of culture has been fixed in the consciousness - in the consciousness of quite a mass, but also in the scientific consciousness. This is a kind of integrity of works of art, philosophy, theory, moral deeds and, in a sense, the phenomena of religion. But in the 20th century, a strange shift takes place in real being and awareness of this range of phenomena. Even a transformation.

I will name a few signs of such a shift, a shift, that disturb our thinking.

1. In the 20th century, there is a strange splitting off of the concept of culture (as a whole) from those concepts or intuitions that have long coincided with the definitions of culture, or "culture", listed with a comma, understood almost as synonyms. There is some kind of gap between the phenomena of culture and the phenomena of education, enlightenment, civilization.

For some reason, it became necessary for our mind to notice this difference, to insist on it, to comprehend it. "An educated person" or "an enlightened person" - these definitions are more and more sharply understood not only as different from each other, but even more different from the definition of "cultured person". Somehow everything goes and develops differently in the processes of education and in the processes (one cannot say “cultivation”, but - precisely) of culture.

2. Some phenomena of people’s communication “about” the works of culture, some actually intra-cultural forms of activity and thinking begin to expand and deepen surprisingly, to capture other, central, other phenomena allotted “places” and “connections” in spiritual and social life . What we usually understood as “culture” ceases to fit into the sphere of the so-called “superstructure”, loses its marginality, and shifts to the very epicenter of modern human existence. Of course, this shift enters our consciousness in different ways, with lesser or greater force, but if you think about it, this process is universal for all strata of modern society: in Europe, Asia, America, Africa. This irrepressible aspiration of culture to the epicenter of our life and at the same time stubborn, wild or civilized resistance to such strange "claims" of culture disturbs our consciousness - everyday and scientific - perhaps no less than the maturing of an atomic or ecological world explosion.

3. In the 20th century, typologically different "cultures" (holistic crystals of works of art, religion, morality ...) are drawn into a single temporal and spiritual "space", strangely and painfully conjugate with each other, almost like Bohr "complement", then are mutually exclusive and presuppose. The cultures of Europe, Asia and America "crowd" in the same consciousness; they cannot be placed along the “ascending” line (“higher - lower, better - worse”). The simultaneity of different cultures hits the eyes and minds, it turns out to be a real phenomenon of the everyday life of a modern person. At the same time, historical, ethnographic, archaeological, art criticism, semiotic forms of understanding and defining “what is culture” are somehow strangely combined. But this means that in this respect, in one logical “place”, the understanding of culture as the focus of a person’s spiritual activity and as a kind of cut of his integral and, perhaps, primarily material, material activity, are combined.

I will not now continue listing other shifts and shifts in our understanding of the phenomenon of culture, in our real "being in culture". Now it is significantly different: in that sense culture, which will be further developed, it is not a set of certain “signs” that determines, but precisely that shift in the actual being and awareness of culture that reveals the deep magmatic processes swirling in its depths. And this is the very shift and transformation that is extremely significant on the eve of the 21st century and therefore allows one to penetrate most deeply into the real meaning and internal struggle of various “restructurings” and “transformations” of our time (regardless of the direct intentions of their authors).

What follows will be outlined not a formal definition of culture, but its "real definition" (in the understanding of Hegel or Marx). Let me remind you that, according to Hegel, “real definition” is a process in which the phenomenon itself determines, defines, transforms itself. I only assume, in contrast to Hegel, that such a real definition is predominantly a special form of "causa sui" precisely of our human rational life.

So, I think that those phenomena of radical shifts and shifts in the culture of the 20th century, which I outlined above, make it possible today to develop a realistic, historically and logically meaningful, universal definition of culture.

First, about the phenomenological image of culture, which today “hit in the eyes and in the minds”, worries our consciousness.

1. In splitting off from the idea of ​​“education” and from the idea of ​​“civilization” (in various versions, this splitting off suddenly became necessary in the 20th century for Spengler and Toynbee, for Levi-Strauss and Bakhtin ...) the idea of ​​culture is realized today in the following integral opposition .

In the history of the human spirit, and in the history of human accomplishments in general, there are two types, two forms of "historical heredity." One form fits into the schematism of climbing the ladder of "progress" or, even milder, development. Yes, in education, in movement along the schematism of science (but science understood Not as one of the phenomena of a holistic culture, but as the only universal, all-encompassing definition of the activity of our mind) each next step higher the previous one, absorbs it into itself, develops everything positive that has been achieved on that step that our mind has already passed (penetrating deeper and deeper into the only truth), our legs and arms (creating more and more perfect tools), our social communication (ascending to more and more “true formation”, leaving below the pre- and pre-historical existence of man). In this ascent, everything that preceded it: knowledge, old tools of labor, "formations" that have outlived themselves ... - of course, do not disappear "to nowhere", they are "compacted", "removed", rebuilt, lose their own being in knowledge and higher skill. , more true, more systematized, etc. An educated person is one who has managed to “rewind” into his mind and into his ability everything that has been achieved at the “passed steps”, moreover, he “rewound” in the only possible (otherwise, one cannot master it!) Form: in the very compactness, removed, simplified, which is best implemented in the "last word" of the Textbook. Indeed, what kind of eccentric would study mechanics from the works of Galileo or Newton, mathematics from Euclid's Elements, even quantum mechanics from the works of Bohr or Heisenberg (and not according to modern intelligent textbooks or - let's make a concession - according to the latest scientific works).

culture is constructed and “developed” in a completely different way, according to the opposite schematism. Here it is possible to start from one particular phenomenon.

There is one sphere of human accomplishments that does not fit into schematism. climbing(Newtonian: "I am a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant" - previous generations...). This area is art. Here - even "by eye" - everything is different. Firstly, it cannot be said here that, say, Sophocles was “removed” by Shakespeare, that the original Picasso made it unnecessary to open the original (necessarily the original) of Rembrandt for the first time.

Even sharper: here, not only is Shakespeare impossible (well, of course) without Sophocles, or Brecht - without Shakespeare, without internal echo, repulsion, rethinking, but also - necessarily - vice versa: Sophocles is impossible without Shakespeare; Sophocles is differently, but more uniquely, understood and shaped differently in conjunction with Shakespeare. In art, "earlier" and "later" are correlative, simultaneous, precede each other, and finally, this is roots each other not only in our understanding, but precisely in all the uniqueness, "densification", universality of their own, special, unique being.

It is not the schematism of the "ascending ladder with the steps overcome" that is clearly at work in art, but the schematism dramatic works.

"The fourth phenomenon ... Sophia is the same." With the advent of a new character (a new work of art, a new author, a new artistic era), the old "characters" - Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Phidias, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Picasso - do not leave the stage, are not "removed" and do not disappear into a new character, a new character. Each new character reveals, actualizes, even for the first time forms new properties and aspirations in characters who have previously appeared on the stage; one character causes love, another - anger, the third - meditation. The number of actors is constantly changing, increasing, growing. Even if some hero leaves the stage forever, say, shoots himself, or - in the history of art - some author falls out of cultural circulation, their active core still continues to thicken, the "lacuna" itself, the gap, acquires ever greater dramatic significance.

Such schematism of artistic heredity always retains its basic features, this schematism is fundamentally different from the schematism of "education", "civilization", formational development, no matter how they are understood.

Let's summarize everything that has been said about art:

a) history preserves and reproduces here the “personality” of the phenomena that are being formed;

b) the increase in the number of "characters" is carried out outside the procedure of removal and ascent, but in the schematism of simultaneity, mutual development, consolidation of each artistic monad;

c) the reversibility of “roots and crown”, “before...” and “after...” means in art a special type of integrity, “systematic” art as a polyphonic dramatic phenomenon.

And one more moment, not directly following from the presented theatrical scheme, but organically connected with it. My original image presupposes one more (?) actor, more precisely, a kind of “multiple set” of actors. This - viewer, art listener. In a theatrical performance, the participation of this "actor" is especially evident, but this active creative being is no less necessary, vital, organic for any work of any form of art.

Fix a word for a moment "work" and let's go further, for now emphasizing only the special "schematism" of "heredity" in the history and real existence of works of art. If the history of art is a drama with an increasing number of acting and interacting persons, if all these persons (authors, styles, artistic epochs) are really and effectively simultaneous, really and intensely conjugate the past time (in all its originality) and the present time in the center this moments, then all this is carried out precisely in the communication of the "stage and the auditorium" or the author of the poem and its distant - through the centuries - silent reader; culture and the one who perceives it (from outside) ...

If you like, call the outlined schematism "progress" or "development" ... Now it is essential to initially distinguish the schematism of "heredity" in art ("The fourth phenomenon ... The same Sophia.") From the schematism of "ascent" ("Dwarf on the shoulders giant..."). It's in art.

But in the 20th century it is revealed with particular force that such a schematization of the history of art is only a special and especially illustrative case of a certain universal phenomenon - being in culture, moreover, as in a holistic Organon. And this Organon does not break up into "subtypes" and impenetrable "compartments".

Our view, sharpened by modern life (by the shifts that I spoke about above, and in conclusion I will say even more definitely), unmistakably notices: the same phenomenon as in art operates in philosophy. Aristotle exists and mutually develops in the same (?) dialogic (?) cultural space with Plato, Proclus, Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas of Cusa, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Berdyaev.

But this one space is clearly "non-Euclidean", it is the space of many spaces. Plato has endless reserves of more and more new arguments, answers, questions in a dispute with Aristotle: Aristotle also discovers the endless possibilities of the "form of forms", answering Plato's objections. Kant is infinitely meaningful and meaningful in his conversations with Plato, Hegel, Husserl, Marx... Philosophy as a cultural phenomenon also thinks in the scheme: "The same and Sophia." This is again a drama with an increasing number of actors, and the infinite uniqueness of each philosopher is revealed and has a philosophical meaning only in the simultaneity and mutual positing of philosophical systems, ideas, revelations. Speaking in larger blocks, philosophy lives in conjugation and simultaneous mutual generation of different forms of infinitely possible being and different forms of its understanding.

I do not deny that sometimes it is possible and even necessary to distribute philosophical systems in an ascending, Hegelian series. But then it will be a phenomenon of civilization or, more precisely, a civilizational "cut" of the culture of modern times. It is precisely and only in the simultaneity and infinite dialogic “complementarity” of each of the philosophers at the “feast” of Plato’s new and philosophical thought in general that philosophy enters into a single polyphony of culture.

In the field morality The 20th century reveals the same phenomenon of the "tragic play" ("The same and Sophia") or "annual rings in the trunk of a tree." Modern morality is conjugation, moral historical memory (and dialogue, conversation) of various moral ups and downs, concentrated in different Images of culture - the Hero of Antiquity, the Passion-Bearer and the Master of the Middle Ages, the Author of his biography in the novel alienation of the New Age. Here, the initial morality is vicissitudes: Fate and Character (antiquity); confessional facet of earthly life and otherworldly eternity (Middle Ages); the openness of my mortal life and otherworldly eternity (Middle Ages); the openness of my mortal life to the infinity of temporal causal chains and, at the same time, full responsibility for Start my life ("To be or not to be..." Hamlet), for her completion, for its isolation "on itself" (New time). But no less vicissitudes - at the point of mutual generation, the beginning - is communication itself, the mutual presupposition of these vicissitudes in the soul of modern man. And this is not "relativism" and not even "variability" of morality, but a complete volume my personal responsibility for the destinies and meanings of life of people of other cultures, other semantic spectrums. This is no longer the morality of "tolerance" (let them live as they can...), but the morality of including in my conscience the ultimate questions of the existence of other people, their response lead in my own destiny.

But let's continue our comparison. Consciousness, awakened by the 20th century, notices that in the same unified key and, I will say more specifically, in the key culture - it is now necessary to understand the development of the Sciences, until recently gave rise to the scheme of "ascending development", "densification" of knowledge, etc. The “correspondence principle”, the idea of ​​a “limiting” transition, the relation of complementarity, the paradoxes of set theory in mathematics, the paradoxes of the foundation of mathematics in general - all this makes one assert: science can and should also be understood and developed as a phenomenon. culture, that is (now let's dare to say: "that is ...") as a mutual transition, simultaneity, ambiguity of various scientific paradigms, as form communication of ancient, medieval, modern forms of answering the question: “What is “elementary”, “number”, “multiple”, etc.?” Again the same cultural paradox: not a generalization, but communication various forms of understanding - this is the formula for moving towards universality in modern positive sciences.

But the same schematism of communication (not generalization) of various universal and unique forms of being operates at the end of the 20th century in the definition "productive forces"(orientation to free time, on time self-change not only in spiritual, but also in material production, in individual-universal labor); in communication with different formations; in elementary cells of modern sociality(special role of small, dynamic groups and policies); in the strange mutual influence of various forms of the modern, striving for universality, humanitarian thinking. In this universality, the atom, the electron, and the cosmos are understood as If if these were works, the meaning of which is actualized in the shuttle of various forms of understanding.

However, communication and being in culture (according to schematism: "The fourth phenomenon ... The same Sophia") does not take place linearly, not in a professional split - a philosopher with a philosopher, a poet with a poet, etc. - but in the context of integral historical " plays" - Antique, Medieval, Modern, Western, Eastern...

Culture is the tragedy of tragedies, when one into the other (as in a Chinese bone puzzle) are embedded diverse spherical surfaces of dramatic action and catharsis; when real communication and mutual development of individual characters is carried out as communication and dialogue of various tragedies.

Let me draw your attention to two such pairings.

Thus, all the named phenomena of culture - art, philosophy, morality ... - have a truly cultural meaning. Not enumeration, but constructively, in the Organon of a given culture. Within each culture, art, philosophy, morality, theory also acquire their own special "personality", personalize in communication with each other, on the verge of these different forms of being in culture. Here the characters are the Poet, the Philosopher, the Hero, the Theorist, constantly immersing themselves in their external dialogue. Between these characters there is a tragedy of its own, with its own unity of place, time, and action. Plato is contemporary with Kant and can be his Interlocutor (in culture) only when Plato is understood in his inner communion with Sophocles and Euclid; Kant - in communion with Galileo and Dostoevsky.

But if so, then one more, perhaps final or initial, tragic system is guessed.

This culture is able to live and develop (as a culture) only on the verge of cultures 40 , in simultaneity, in dialogue with other integral, closed "on themselves", on the way out behind its limits by cultures. In such a final (or initial) account, the actors are individual cultures, actualized in response to the question of another culture, living only in the questions of this other culture. Only where there is this primordial tragedy of tragedies is there a culture, where all the tragic vicissitudes embedded in each other come to life. But this communication (and mutual generation) of cultures takes place only in the context of present, that is, for us - in the culture of the late XX century.

Moreover, the whole given culture (say, of antiquity) must be understood as a single work, created and re-created by one (imaginary) author, addressed to the essential and impossible "reader", on the eve of the 21st century. So, we fix the word "work" again and move on.

2. The first phenomenological image (I don't want to say - a "sign") of culture implicitly develops into a new integral image, into a new circle of ideas.

culture is my life, my spiritual world, separated from me, translated into a work (!) and able to exist (more than that, focused on to to exist) after my physical death (respectively, after the “physical death” of a given civilization, formation) in another world, in the living life of people of subsequent eras and other aspirations. Answering the question “what is culture?”, we always - fully conscious of it or not - answer another question: “in what form can my spirit, flesh, communication, vital (in my life) exist (and develop itself) life of loved ones after my (my civilization) death, “going to neti”? Answer - in the form of culture. The great Russian thinker M.M. Bakhtin always insisted that the meaning of any of our statements is given by a clear understanding of what which a question addressed to me (explicit or secret), answers this is a statement, this is a statement. So, culture is not only understood, but also arises (as culture) in an attempt to answer (and to oneself, with one’s deeds and creations) the question of man-made forms of “otherworldly being”, being in other worlds, in other, detached, estranged, pre-imagined cultures. And here it is not essential that in my immediate existence in culture I can address my direct Interlocutors and Contemporaries. It is essential that in these, by the way, most tense situations, I turn to my Interlocutor So, so that he can perceive me in my work even when I disappear from his momentary outlook (I leave the room, leave for another “polis”, die). So that he perceives me as if (“as if ...”) from another, infinitely distant world. But this also means a special outward orientation of culture, its end-to-end addressing to a different (and quite earthly) being, means an urgent need to be forever out own being, to be in another world. In this sense, a culture is always a kind of Odyssey's Ship, making an adventurous voyage in another culture, equipped to exist. outside its own territory (from M.M. Bakhtin: “Culture does not have its own territory”).

But if ancient images are already remembered, I will say this: every culture is a kind of “two-faced Janus”. Her face is as intensely turned to a different culture, to her being in other worlds, as she is inward, deep inside yourself in an effort to change and supplement one's being (this is the meaning of the "ambivalence" that, according to Bakhtin, is inherent in every integral culture).

Projecting a vital Interlocutor in another world (each culture is an SOS exclamation addressed to another culture) suggests that this Interlocutor of mine is more urgent to me than my own life. This is the basis on which two additional intuitions of "being in culture" grow.

Firstly. In culture, a decisive, inhibited and closed in the flesh of works, discrepancy between the author (individual) and himself arises. All my consciousness is transformed by this conversion "from outside" - "into me" of my other Self, my vital reader, remote (in any case, by design) into eternity. It is clear that for the reader (spectator, listener...) such an urgent, "other I" (You) turns out to be author works of culture. This discrepancy, this opportunity to see "from the side" my own being, as if already completed and distant from me in the work, this is the original foundation personality ideas. Personality is that hypostasis of the individual, in the horizon of which he is able to re-determine his own, already predetermined by habits, character, psychology, environment, fate. So, an individual in the horizon of culture is an individual in the horizon of personality.

Secondly. In communication “through” the flesh of the work, each person - the author and the reader - is formed, matures "on the horizon", as a potentially special and unique culture, as a special endless world of possible reincarnations of this communication freely assumed by the work. Communication in culture, that is, being in culture - it is always - in potential, in design - communication between different cultures, even if we both (the author and the reader) live in the same culture.

I will now assume that the phenomenological image (not yet a concept) of culture arose in the mind of the reader, more precisely, it was concentrated from those inner intuitions that, as I assume, are always inherent in all contemporaries of the late 20th century.

Then, if this happened, I will try to briefly outline the meaning of the concept, or, better, ideas culture.

The meaning of culture in the life of everyone and - especially fatally - in the life of a modern person can, in my opinion, be understood in three definitions.

First definition of culture(almost tautological, focuses the image of culture that was outlined above): culture is a form of simultaneous being and communication people of different - past, present and future - cultures, a form of dialogue and mutual generation of these cultures (each of which is ... - see the beginning of the definition).

And a few additions: the time of such communication is the present; the specific form of such communication, such co-existence (and mutual generation) of past, present and future cultures is the form (event) of the work; work - a form of communication of individuals in the horizon of communication of individuals 41 , a form of communication between individuals as (potentially) different cultures.

Second definition of culture. Culture - this is the form self-determination of the individual in the horizon of personality, a form of self-determination of our life, consciousness, thinking; that is, culture is a form of free decision and re-decision of one's destiny in the consciousness of its historical and universal responsibility.

I will say a little more about this sense of culture in human life, since it is especially tense and organic at the end of the 20th century.

A variety of forces of determination from the outside and from the inside fall upon the consciousness and thought of a person in powerful streams. These are the forces of economic, social, state bonds and predestinations; forces of influence of the environment, schemes of education; "tons" of habits, prejudices, gun heredity(determining the necessity and even fatality of the most initial muscular and mental movements). These are powerful forces of cosmic influences of the most diverse - material and (everything can be) spiritual - origin. These are secret, coming from within and gradually decisive forces of genetic, biological predisposition and doom (doom to this character, this fate).

By the end of the 20th century, the forces of determination from the outside and from within had reached an annihilating limit. The imminent apocalypse of nuclear war, ecological catastrophe, world totalitarian regimes, industrial megacities, endless bunk beds of concentration camps and gas chambers of the most varied design and form. And yet I will assume that in the same 20th century, and especially towards the end of the century, forces are growing weak interaction strength self-determination, embedded in culture ... And in this weak interaction of culture, gradually entering into all the centers of modern life - into social, industrial, mental, spiritual centers - is the only hope of modern mankind.

What I mean?

At the very dawn of human history, a special “device” was “invented” (for brevity), a kind of “pyramidal lens” of self-determination, capable of reflecting, reflecting, transforming all the most powerful forces of determination “from outside” and “from inside”.

Implanted in our consciousness by its peak, this device allows a person to be fully responsible for his fate and actions. Or, I will say this, with the help of this "lens" a person acquires a real inner freedom of conscience, thought, action. (True, if the person himself decides, which happens very rarely, to the full measure of his freedom and responsibility.)

This strange device is culture.

Terribly squeezing the presentation, I will say that the pyramidal lens of culture is built as follows.

1. Her foundation - self-determination all human activity.

In his early works, Karl Marx outlined precisely this definition of objective instrumental activity and human communication. True, later Marx's attention was mainly directed only to activity turned outward - from man on the subject and those social structures that are formed in the processes of such activity. However, this reorientation was explained by those features of the industrial, machine civilization that became the subject of research in the works of Marx starting from 1848. Unfortunately, our science and our politics have transferred the conclusions of Marx to a post-industrial civilization, emerging, maturing in the 20th century. But that's another question.

Man - unlike animals - always (in principle) acts "on himself", on his own activity, concentrated and removed from him in tools and objects of labor. The final phenomenon and "application point" of human activity is the human self itself, which is not identical to its activity, does not coincide with itself, can change (and is oriented towards to change) own definitions. Of course, separate fragments of this self-directed activity (and communication) can split off from the integral "spiral", and, say, the activity from subject on the subject becomes in separate formations and civilizations self-sufficient and predominant - in any case, prevailing in alienated social structures. But, according to the plan, always, in the end, the ring of self-aspiration is closed, the phenomenon of human self-determination is realized. Thus arises the broad foundation of culture as universal definition of all forms of human labor, communication, consciousness and, finally, thinking (that is, the ability to transform one's communication and consciousness).

In civilizations that preceded our time, this universal basis of culture worked, as it were, on the periphery of social structures;

real sociality and the main, "basic" social structures were built on a narrow basis of one-vector (from me - on subject) activity. Under such conditions, all cultural phenomena acquired a kind of "marginal", "superstructural" character, although, in fact, only in them Always a holistic closure of human activity was carried out, a unique inimitable personality structure of one or another period of culture was formed. Especially sharply and "impudently" civilizationally transformed form of universality ("from me - on subject"...) is realized in the modern, still dominant industrial civilization.

Let's take these considerations into account and move on.

2. Converging facets the main forms of spiritual self-determination of our consciousness, thinking, destiny.

IN art a person doomed to fit into cash, long-standing chains of social ties and relationships, freely re-forms then communication(author - reader; I - another I - You), which breaks through and transforms the powerful forces of determination from the outside and from the inside, closes - through the centuries - "small groups" of individuals living, dying, resurrecting, in the horizon of personality.

IN philosophy our thinking overcomes the inertia of "continuation" and "extension" of logical chains - from generation to generation - and returns to the original beginnings thoughts, those beginnings when being is conceived as possible; thought is assumed in its original self-justification. By the power of philosophy, man each time resolves anew the source and outcome of the integral prehistoric existence of the world and of his own existence. The conjugation of such individual-universal beginnings (and not continuations) of thought and being forms the real initial freedom of communication and dialogues of the meanings of being that are vital to each other - the dialogue of cultures.

In philosophical logic, the original, generative, inexhaustible nuclei of cultures communicate and mutually presuppose each other - the ancient eidetic meaning of being; communion medieval meaning; the essential meaning of being in modern times; the eastern concentration of the universal sense of being in each particular sprout of the World...

IN morality we freely self-determine our absolute responsibility for each of our actions, we self-determine the universal (universally significant) morality as your own choice, decision. So, obedience to fate, personal entry into one's destined destiny and, at the same time, tragic responsibility for the very moment of the fatal plot and outcome - this is what gives the main ups and downs of ancient morality (Prometheus ... Oedipus ... Antigone ...). Thus, free will is the seed in which the foundation of moral freedom and responsibility germinates in the Christian morality of the Middle Ages. Thus, Hamlet's "to be aphids not to be" - the freely decided beginning of one's own, already tied up, life, turns out to be the basis of all the responsibility of a person of the New Age for his - open to infinity - being.

I won't continue. I will not now talk about other facets of the self-determination of human destiny.

I will only repeat: each of these facets of our spiritual self-determination in its own way - universal and unique- forms our consciousness, activity, destiny.

3. All facets of the "pyramidal lens-culture" converge in a single top, at the point (instant) of self-determination of the human I. At this point, already No separate facets, the whole cycle of self-determination is concentrated in the horizon of two regulative ideas converging together: ideas personalities and ideas of my - universal - reason. In the center of these ideas, in the ultimate intensity of the last questions of being, the individual is truly free, uniting in full measure of responsibility in his consciousness and in his mortal life universal human existence, self-determination, consciousness, thinking, destiny.

It is clear that with such an understanding it is absurd to speak of culture as some kind of "purely spiritual" activity. No, culture is the general history and activity of man, concentrated at the pinnacle of self-determination. But the top is the end, it is effective, if only the "pyramid" has a base of playing, if this edge is really and consciously implanted in the painful point of our consciousness.

And finally third definition, third meaning culture. I'll be very brief here. Although I assume that it is this meaning that is the key in the culture of the 20th century, but this should be a separate discussion. This meaning is world for the first time...". Culture in its works allows us, the author and the reader, to regenerate the world, the existence of objects, people, our own existence from the plane of the canvas, the chaos of colors, the rhythms of poetry, philosophical principles, moments of moral catharsis. At the same time, in the works of culture, this world, created for the first time, is perceived with special certainty in its eternal, independent of me, absolute originality, only caught, difficult to guess, stopped on my canvas, in paint, in rhythm, in thought. 42 .

In culture, a person is always like God - in the aphorism of Paul Valery: "God created the world out of nothing, but the material is felt all the time." Without this tragedy and ronia, culture is impossible; every conversation about culture becomes empty and rhetoric.

But both the irony, and the tragedy of culture, and the three definitions of culture, its meaning in human life - all this converges in focus works.

The work is the answer to the question: “What does it mean to be in culture, to communicate in culture, to self-determine one’s destiny in the tensions of culture, to create peace in culture for the first time?”. That is why I so stubbornly, starting from the first page, retarded the reader's attention on this concept. But what is a work? I think that, without resorting to a definition, but revealing the cultural meaning of the life of works, I have already answered this question.

And yet, I will briefly remind you of the context in which the idea of ​​the work was introduced in this article.

(1) A work, in contrast to a product (consumption) destined to disappear, or from a tool (labor) that can work in any skillful hands, is detached from a person and embodied in the flesh of a canvas, sounds, colors, stone - its own human existence, its certainty as this, the one and only individual.

(2) The product is always addressed to, more precisely, in it, in its flesh, my - the author's - being is addressed. The work is carried out - each time anew - in the communication "author - reader" (in the broadest sense of these words). It is communication embodied in "flatness" (flesh ... plane), assuming and assuming - again and again - an imaginary author and an imaginary reader.

(3) In communication "on the basis" of a work (when its participants can and, in fact, must be at an infinite distance from each other in time and space), the world is recreated, first- from the plane, almost non-existence of things, thoughts, feelings, from the plane of the canvas, the chaos of colors, the rhythm of sounds, words imprinted on the pages of a book. The work is a frozen and fraught form start being.

But in key real creation of works, a (decisive for the 20th century) form of understanding of being, space, things arises - as ifthey were a product. This is how ontology and the philosophical logic of culture are formed.

Now we can return to the concept of culture and to those definitions of culture that were understood in the main text of the article. Understanding a work as a phenomenon of culture and understanding culture as a sphere of works: these two understandings "support" and deepen each other.

Being in culture, communication in culture is communication and being based works, in the idea of ​​a work. But this short definition acquires meaning only after absorbing the integral work of culture.

Returning to the very beginning of these reflections, we can formulate the following assumption.

In the 20th century, culture (in its definitions that were comprehended above) is shifting to the epicenter of human existence. This happens in all areas of our life:

V production(the scientific and technological revolution closes all objective human activity for free time, reveals and makes directly significant the universal “self-directedness” of this activity);

V social phenomena(small dynamic amateur groups are gradually becoming the main cells of human communication);

V communication various cultures(cultures of the West and the East and beyond - antiquity, middle ages, modern times... converge and are generated for the first time at their point of origin);

in the limit moral ups and downs (these knots are tied in the trenches of world wars, on the bunk beds of concentration camps, in the convulsions of the totalitarian regime; everywhere the individual is pushed out of the solid niches of social, historical, caste determination, everywhere he faces the tragedy of the original moral choice and decision).

This is how a new universal society is growing - society of culture - a special, somewhat close to the polis, sociality, more precisely, a form of free communication of people in the force field of culture, a dialogue of cultures.

It is also possible to assume that it is the confrontation between the mega-society of industrial civilization (whatever form it takes) and the small nuclei of the society of culture, it is this confrontation that will be the decisive event at the beginning of the 21st century.

"It is possible to assume ...". Of course, this sounds weak. It remains only to console ourselves with the fact that history in general takes place in the form of assumptions, in the form of a crossroads of historical destinies. However, this is a form of culture.

40 See the main works of M. M. Bakhtin.

41 I think it is already clear from the foregoing that "personality" is for me not some sort of determinant at hand (X - personality, Y - not yet a personality), but a certain regulative idea (horizon) of an individual's existence in culture.

42 This definition of culture is essential in contrasting light aestheticism. Only it preserves that "raw material nature of poetry" and speech culture in general, which O. Mandelstam spoke of as the main antidote against "cheap cultural worship that has swept ... university and school Europe."

The concept of dialogue of cultures has become extremely fashionable in modern reality, and in various fields of knowledge - in cultural studies, in art history, in literary criticism as a border area between art history and philology, in linguistics, more precisely, in those sections of it that are associated with the problem of "language and culture”, as well as in pedagogy related to the education of representatives of ethnic minorities or students who make up multinational teams, and in schools and universities. This concept is laid down in the concept of the development of education, in curricula and programs, and is voiced in lecture courses for students and students of advanced training of teaching staff. We will try to determine how realistic this concept is present in the educational process in some regions of the Russian Federation, what are the conditions for its implementation in the educational process and what really takes place in modern Russian reality in the North and in the regions adjacent to the North, as well as in educational structures, serving the northern regions of Russia.

In order for the "dialogue of cultures" to be a dialogue, it is necessary to have at least two cultures - in the case we are considering, the presence of a certain state, or "Russian-speaking" culture is implied - and the culture of an ethnic minority, that is, some ethnic group from the peoples of the North. Even the definition of the state form of culture here turns out to be far from unambiguous, as for the identification of the second participant in the dialogue, we have even more problems with him. In fact, it is impossible to establish separately the Yakut, Russian-Evenki, Russian-Yukagir, Russian-Chukotka dialogue of cultures in education (although in reality it is precisely this interaction of cultures that is observed in most of the uluses of Yakutia and adjacent territories - Evenkia, Chukotka, etc.). If, however, a dialogue of cultures is understood as a kind of contact between the bearers of the state culture and the indigenous inhabitants of the North of the Russian Federation in general, then in such a “dialogue of cultures” the second participant, that is, the “culture of the peoples of the North”, will act either in the form of a scientific fiction, since the common Khanty-Yukagir or Saami-Eskimo characteristics of culture are absent, or in the form of a mutant monster created from the meager knowledge of teachers about the ethnography of individual ethnic groups, each of which has a rich history and original cultural traditions. With an equal degree of internal wealth and equal adaptation to the conditions of life, a “dialogue” between such cultures in the educational process is not established due to the difference in the amount of knowledge about cultures.

It should also be borne in mind that historically, the dialogue we are talking about involved not some abstract cultures, but real sub-ethnic cultures, and the “Russian” culture was represented not by its state form, but by the regional culture of the old-timer population, but in today - a subculture of the visiting population of the North. Both the one and the other subcultures have not been studied enough, while the regional subculture of the Northern regions of the Russian Federation in our days and throughout the twentieth century, which is carried by the visiting population of the North and the national intelligentsia, was not the subject of any of the scientific disciplines, there was no place for it. neither in ethnography, nor in cultural studies. The territorial subcultures of the small peoples of the North of the Russian Federation are also heterogeneous even among individual ethnic groups (Evenks of Yakutia, Buryatia, Khabarovsk Territory and Sakhalin, Evens of western Yakutia, Evens of the North-East of Yakutia and Evens of Kamchatka, forest and tundra Yukaghirs, etc.) - taking into account all these realities turns the concept of a dialogue of cultures into a virtual entity, and its actual specificity makes the relevant material unsuitable for study.

The next factor that characterizes the "dialogue of cultures" in its pedagogical understanding is the social factor. Who carries out a dialogue with whom - a village engineer with a reindeer breeder, a St. Petersburg teacher with an Evenk craftswoman, a cultural studies professor with a sea St. John's wort, or a State Duma deputy from some autonomous district with students - Petersburgers in the second generation? It is clear that social differences on both sides cannot be ignored both in the scientific study of the problem and in solving practical educational problems. In reality, the "dialogue of cultures" is carried out between the indigenous and visiting population of national villages, equally representing different social groups, and only in this area do we have contacts of cultural bearers who do not have social marking or neutralize social marking. At the same time, representatives of the intelligentsia and creative environment from the peoples of the North are in contact with various social groups of the "Russian-speaking" population in their regions, as well as in the places where they live - in administrative centers. Students and teachers are not only a specific social group, even if they belong to the peoples of the North, but they form the least typical of the groups of ethnic cultures - while the values ​​and life intentions of these groups often aim to distance themselves from their own ethnic culture as much as possible, to obtain an unconventional a profession for an ethnic group, to move to a big city, to find a marriage partner not from among their own people, etc. These social environments consider belonging to an ethnic group primarily as a source of increasing social status, promising some kind of prosperity in the future, while for reindeer herders, sea ​​hunters and other representatives of traditional professions, belonging to small peoples often psychologically lowers their social status.

Finally, no less significant for characterizing the "dialogue of cultures" is an objective assessment of the type of interaction and the degree of interaction of those entities that are called cultures. In fact, in the current state, in each case, we should talk about various territorial subcultures, which, moreover, have special social manifestations. It is impossible to imagine such a “dialogue of cultures”, the participants of which are modern teaching assistant professors and Chukchi students, who are presented with the culture of the Chukchi of the late XIX - early XX century, or who are considered as carriers of a special mentality characteristic of the Chukchi of the late XIX - early XX centuries, - and even worse, when in the educational process or methodological developments, a search is made for a special ethnic mentality (it is clear that in its absence, the concept of a dialogue of cultures loses its meaning). The dialogue of cultures belonging to different time slices is a metaphor that is good for studying modern art that feeds on ethnographic materials, or the same regional modern that grows out of regional subcultures on ethnic foundations. But in the educational process, the participants of which coexist in time, and even more so in the education of the younger generation, which will witness a change in the cultural paradigm, this concept loses its meaning. In national villages, there are usually several different communities - a visiting population and one or more communities of the indigenous population of different ethnic groups, if the indigenous population in a particular village is mixed. Under these conditions, the "dialogue of cultures" is imaginary, since all communities show tendencies towards mutual isolation, and not towards integration. If in this or that region there is an acculturation or assimilation of one ethnic group by another, larger and more “prestigious”, then, of course, it is not necessary to speak of a “dialogue” in such cases: a very authoritarian “monologue” takes place here.

Accordingly, in relation to the contingent of students and especially university students from among the peoples of the North, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that these students are also no longer bearers of their traditional ethnic culture, and in 20-30 years they may lose those signs of ethnic or regional culture, what they currently have. This means that in this case we really have a cultural monologue instead of a dialogue.

The concept of a dialogue of cultures is often used, including in education, with one pragmatic goal - to form tolerance in interethnic relations. The usefulness of solving this problem is beyond doubt and cannot be disputed. However, the very solution of this problem is impossible without knowledge of specific ethnic cultures in all their diversity and history, without knowledge of the territorial and social variants of these cultures, as well as without clear and voluminous ideas about the current state of ethnic cultures. The modern system of education for the peoples of the North of the Russian Federation does not have such information and is unable to introduce all this material into the educational process in a methodically correct form. The concept of a dialogue of cultures in the educational process today looks like nothing more than an attractive signboard, behind which are often such ideas about ethnic culture that are the complete opposite of the humanities, be it cultural studies, ethnography, ethnosociology or ethnodemography.

Any culture is an organic integrity, all elements of which are interconnected, conjugated, coordinated with each other. Culture throughout the life of not one, but even several generations retains its core, remains a stable, sustainable social formation. And this conservatism of culture is justified, it allows culture to identify itself. The flourishing of a culture is an expression of its self-sufficiency, the coherence and proportion of its various elements. The crisis of culture is the disintegration of its permanent core, the mismatch of elements, the loss of its self-identity. The desire of culture for preservation, sustainability, its traditionalism is one trend sociocultural process.

No less important is another trend- the ability of culture to change, modernize.

Cultural change can occur in two ways. Firstly, through the development of culture. It can go both spontaneously and more or less consciously, when, as a result of trial and error, the advantage of the new is realized and it is introduced into the system of culture, fixed in it. Purposeful conscious activity is also possible to change outdated cultural norms, patterns, to introduce and disseminate new ones. Secondly, changes in culture can occur through the borrowing of samples of the culture of one group by another social group.

The second way of modernization of culture is associated with the interaction of cultures, when borrowing occurs through social ties, regular contacts, and the exchange of cultural values ​​between peoples. The system of cultural interaction can be built voluntarily(for example, selective borrowing of Western technologies by Japan), forced for example, as a result of migration processes, or through the forced imposition of samples of one culture on another. Borrowings are especially noticeable and relatively painless on the periphery of cultures. An example of this is fashion for clothes, behavior, vehicles, etc. As for the core of culture, a culture with strong social immunity rejects those innovations that try to destroy it. Social immunity is a protective reaction against the intrusion into the deep layers of culture of a foreign, alien. This is evidence of people's concern for the preservation of their original, unique culture, the loss of which will mean the collapse of this society.

Dialogue of cultures in modern communication space. In the modern world, the interaction of cultures is becoming increasingly important. The problem of the dialogue of cultures becomes topical. As a result of the scientific and technological revolution, there have been cardinal changes in the communication space in which the interaction of cultures takes place. If earlier the communication field was a means of dialogue between traditional, relatively local, stationary cultures, then as a result of the scientific and technological revolution it has become an independent force that strongly influences the nature of intercultural dialogue.

Dialogue makes sense if cultures that are different from each other enter into it. During the dialogue, efforts are made to understand the meanings, values, language of another culture. Such dialogue mutually enriches cultures. If two cultures are absolutely the same, their meanings and meanings coincide (there is a semantic identity), then the dialogue between such cultures is either trivial or even redundant. The difference of cultures provides dialogue.

Now in the communication space, as a result of the introduction of new information and computer technologies, integrative language trends, common stereotypes, and general assessments are beginning to dominate. The consequence of this is the expansion of the sphere of the identical, uniform in culture and the narrowing of the sphere of the diverse, unequal. There is a subordination of national cultures to a certain artificial (computer) culture with a single language, the dissolution of less technically developed cultures into more developed ones. The world begins to speak the language of those countries that dominate it. Dialogue as a result of these processes is carried out according to the principle of knowledge of available semantic structures, at the level of coincidence of meanings. This is communication for the sake of communication, without saturation with meanings, without mutual enrichment. Such a semantic simplification of the dialogue deprives the dialogue of any meaning.

The common communication field, having no borders and language barriers, leads to the erosion of traditional, locally stationary cultures, to the loss of cultural identity, and this gives a number of scientists reason to make a pessimistic forecast about the death of culture in our time. Along with this, other scientists express confidence that this is unlikely to happen. Forms of communication are changing, changes in culture are inevitable, but culture is a rather flexible and self-organizing system. And it always has structural connections and relationships that determine its integrity and indestructibility, provide its fundamental meaning.

Dialogue between West and East. There are many cultures on Earth, and each of them is able to contribute to world history. Some cultures cannot be praised as the most valuable and developed, while others cannot be evaluated as peripheral and historically insignificant. The idea of ​​equality of cultures matured gradually in social thought. First, there was an idea that Europe (the West) is the leader among other cultures. The culture created in the West should be a model for the whole world. In the 60s of the XX century, East-centrism increased its influence - a worldview setting, according to which it is the East, and not the West, that is the center of world culture and civilization. Raising the question of the most significant culture is, in principle, unjustified. We can talk about the typology of cultures, and one of them is based on the separation of Western and Eastern cultures. In literature, the distinction between East and West is far from the only one in identifying types of cultures, but one of the most interesting and fundamental.

Behind the antithesis "West - East" is not geography, but different historical destinies of peoples, different socio-cultural characteristics of each of the social systems.

American scientist D. Fableman in the book “Understanding Eastern Philosophy. Popular Opinion of the Western World" wrote about the following three differences between the "man of the West" and the "man of the East".

1 .In the West, a person professing Judaism or Christianity is afraid that the soul is not immortal, but wants it to be immortal.

The "Hindu Buddhist", on the other hand, fears that the soul is immortal and wants it not to be immortal.

2 .A Western man is constantly striving to assert himself more and more, to increase his knowledge.

The man of the East hopes to lose himself, to forget about his knowledge, to go into oblivion, to dissolve in the Universe.

3 .Western man wants to control his environment, the environment, that is, external to him; its spiritual potentialities have been embodied in science.

The Eastern man prefers to control himself; its spiritual potential is realized in religion.

Some socio-cultural characteristics of the West and the East can be distinguished based on four criteria.

1). The nature of the relationship "man - society".

Anthropocentrism is pronounced in the West. In the foreground - individuality, autonomy of the individual. The state is necessary insofar as it ensures the existence of the “atomized” person. The society is open.

In the East, priority is given to society, the collective. The autonomy of the individual is weakly expressed, the state acts as an all-powerful institution, and society is distinguished by its closeness from the outside world.

2). Socio-psychological attitudes.

In the West, an active attitude to the existing, dissatisfaction with the present, already achieved, a relentless search for the new is cultivated. Confidence is maintained that the new is always better than the old.

A contemplative attitude to the world dominates in the East. The Eastern man prefers to be content with what he has. Most of all, balance and harmony are valued. The prevailing idea is that the new and the old should balance each other.

3). Features of spirituality as the value content of consciousness.

In the West, rationality triumphs, the desire for knowledge of the world. A formula is developed: "I think, therefore I exist." Faith prevails in science, technology, in the possibility and necessity of reorganizing the world. The attitude to nature is built on the basis of utilitarianism.

In the East, faith in spiritual and moral values, the desire for a sensual and emotional experience of the world is preserved. The emphasis is on the humanistic dimension of scientific and technological progress. In the traditions of culture, the principle of internal unity of man with nature dominates.

4). The nature of the development of the socio-cultural system.

In the West, there is a rapid, often spasmodic change in social structures. The new denies the old in the very essence of sociocultural processes. They receive a theoretical substantiation of the idea of ​​the revolutionary nature of social changes, scientific revolutions.

In the East, a gradual, evolutionary type of development prevails. Relative stability, stability of the spiritual foundation of society has been preserved for a long period. The main components of the social system demonstrate the ability to adapt the new without destroying the old structures and connections. Cultural traditions are passed down from generation to generation.

As soon as the socio-cultural difference between the West and the East was realized, the problem of comparing two different types of socio-cultural development of mankind arose: which one is better? As a result of many discussions, conversations between representatives of Western and Eastern cultures, the opinion prevailed that the West is the head, and the East is the heart of human civilization, on the good work of which the well-being of future generations equally depends. The unity of human history is achieved not on the basis of the merging of two types of socio-cultural development, but on the basis of their mutual influence, complementarity, mutual enrichment while maintaining the identity and independence of each.