The concept of culture is quite broad and covers all social norms, personal values ​​and things created by man. Let us briefly consider the concept of the spiritual culture of society.

Culture and spiritual life of society

Now there is already a generally accepted classification of culture into material and spiritual.

Material culture is all things created by man. This includes appliances, cars, clothes, books and other things. Spiritual culture is the norms, the idea of ​​beauty, religious, scientific views.

In general, spiritual culture is expressed in two components:

• the inner world of the individual and his activities to create spiritual values;
• products of such activity, that is, works of art, scientific theories, customs, laws.

It is also embodied in religion, education, language and is made up of rules, laws, values, knowledge, customs, moral standards.

Thus, spiritual culture, like material culture, appears as a result of people's activities, but is created not by hands, but by the mind. The objects of this culture cannot be seen and held in the hands in their pure form, since they exist only in the mind. But they are certainly embodied in material objects: knowledge - in books, scientific theories - in experimental models, and so on.

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Spiritual values

The diversity of spiritual values ​​is easier to imagine if they are divided into groups.

Consider the classification of spiritual values:

• worldview (associated with the concepts of life and death - time, fate, past, the relationship between man and nature). This group reflects a person's understanding of his place in the world;
• Moral (Associated with the categories of good and evil - duty, responsibility, fidelity, honor, love, friendship). In other words, they reflect the ability of a person to correlate his desires and the needs of other people;
• aesthetic (Beauty, high values);
• religious (Love, faith, humility).

Functions of culture

Culture plays a special role in society. Scientists identify the following functions:

• cognitive;
• appraisal;
• regulatory;
• informative;
• communicative;
• function of human socialization.

Culture types:

• folk

Folk culture reflects the characteristics of the life of society, the norms operating in it, and characteristic values.

• elite

Works are created by a separate group of the population, as a rule, the most educated for the privileged strata. These are the kinds of art that only a minority have access to. It can be, for example, classical music and literature.

• mass

Appeared in the 20th century as a reflection of the needs of large groups of the population for leisure. Products of mass culture are characterized by simplicity of forms, understandability for most people, regardless of age, education and profession.

The formation of the spiritual culture of the individual in modern society occurs under the influence of various factors. A special role in this process is played by the mass media, the Internet, television, newspapers, which have a strong influence on people's worldview and impose values.

1. The concept of culture

Culture is a diverse concept. This scientific term appeared in ancient Rome, where the word "cultura" meant the cultivation of the land, upbringing, education. With frequent use, this word has lost its original meaning and began to denote the most diverse aspects of human behavior and activity. The sociological dictionary gives the following definitions of the concept of "culture": "Culture is a specific way of organizing and developing human life, represented in the products of material and spiritual labor, in the system of social norms and institutions, in spiritual values, in the totality of people's relations to nature, among themselves and to ourselves."

Culture is phenomena, properties, elements of human life that qualitatively distinguish a person from nature. This difference is connected with the conscious transforming activity of man.

The concept of "culture" can be used to characterize the behavior of the consciousness and activities of people in certain areas of life (work culture, political culture). The concept of "culture" can fix the way of life of an individual (personal culture), a social group (national culture) and the whole society as a whole.

Culture can be divided according to various criteria into different types:

1) by subject (bearer of culture) into social, national, class, group, personal;

2) by functional role - into general (for example, in the system of general education) and special (professional);

3) by genesis - into folk and elite;

4) by type - into material and spiritual;

5) by nature - into religious and secular.

From all of the above, it becomes obvious that culture plays an important role in the life of society, which consists primarily in the fact that culture acts as a means of accumulation, storage and transmission of human experience.

This role of culture is realized through a number of functions:

Educational and educational function. We can say that it is culture that makes a person a person. An individual becomes a member of society, a person as he socializes, i.e. masters knowledge, language, symbols, values, norms, customs, traditions of his people, his social group and all of humanity. The level of culture of an individual is determined by its socialization - familiarization with the cultural heritage, as well as the degree of development of individual abilities. Personal culture is usually associated with developed creative abilities, erudition, understanding of works of art, fluency in native and foreign languages, accuracy, politeness, self-control, high morality, etc. All this is achieved in the process of upbringing and education.

Integrative and disintegrative functions of culture. E. Durkheim paid special attention to these functions in his studies. According to E. Durkheim, the development of culture creates in people - members of a particular community a sense of community, belonging to one nation, people, religion, group, etc. Thus, culture unites people, integrates them, ensures the integrity of the community. But uniting some on the basis of some subculture, it opposes them to others, and separates wider communities and communities. Within these broader communities and communities, cultural conflicts can arise. Thus, culture can and often performs a disintegrating function.

Regulatory function of culture. As noted earlier, in the course of socialization, values, ideals, norms and patterns of behavior become part of the self-consciousness of the individual. They shape and regulate her behavior. We can say that culture as a whole determines the framework within which a person can and should act. Culture regulates human behavior in the family, at school, at work, at home, etc., putting forward a system of prescriptions and prohibitions. Violation of these prescriptions and prohibitions triggers certain sanctions that are established by the community and supported by the power of public opinion and various forms of institutional coercion.

The function of translation (transfer) of social experience is often called the function of historical continuity, or information. Culture, which is a complex sign system, transmits social experience from generation to generation, from era to era. In addition to culture, society has no other mechanisms for concentrating the entire wealth of experience that has been accumulated by people. Therefore, it is no coincidence that culture is considered the social memory of mankind.

The cognitive (epistemological) function is closely connected with the function of transferring social experience and, in a certain sense, follows from it. Culture, concentrating the best social experience of many generations of people, 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 it fully uses the richest knowledge contained in the cultural gene pool of mankind. All types of society that live today on Earth differ significantly primarily on this basis.

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, everyday life, interpersonal relations, culture in one way or another influences the behavior of people and regulates their 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.

The sign function is the most important in the system of culture. Representing a certain sign system, culture implies knowledge, possession of it. It is impossible to master the achievements of culture without studying the corresponding sign systems. 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 world of music, painting, theater. The natural sciences also have their own sign systems.

The value, or axiological, 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 an appropriate assessment.

Social functions of culture

The social functions that culture performs allow people to carry out collective activities, satisfying their needs in the best possible way. The main functions of culture are:

social integration - ensuring the unity of mankind, a common worldview (with the help of myth, religion, philosophy);

organization and regulation of the joint life of people through law, politics, morality, customs, ideology, etc.;

provision of people's livelihoods (such as knowledge, communication, accumulation and transfer of knowledge, upbringing, education, stimulation of innovations, selection of values, etc.);

regulation of individual spheres of human activity (culture of life, culture of recreation, culture of work, culture of food, etc.).

Thus, the system of culture is not only complex and diverse, but also very mobile. Culture is an indispensable component of the life of both society as a whole and its closely interconnected subjects: individuals, social communities, social institutions.

From all of the above, it becomes obvious that culture plays an important role in the life of society, which consists primarily in the fact that culture acts as a means of accumulation, storage and transmission of human experience.

This role of culture is realized through a number of functions:

1. Educational and educational function. We can say that it is culture that makes a person a person. An individual becomes a member of society, a person as he socializes, i.e. masters knowledge, language, symbols, values, norms, customs, traditions of his people, his social group and all of humanity. The level of a person's culture is determined by its socialization - familiarization with the cultural heritage, as well as the degree of development of individual abilities. Personal culture is usually associated with developed creative abilities, erudition, understanding of works of art, fluency in native and foreign languages, accuracy, politeness, self-control, high morality, etc. All this is achieved in the process of upbringing and education.

2. Integrative and disintegrative functions of culture. E. Durkheim paid special attention to these functions in his studies. According to E. Durkheim, the development of culture creates in people - members of a particular community a sense of community, belonging to one nation, people, religion, group, etc. Thus, culture unites people, integrates them, ensures the integrity of the community. But uniting some on the basis of some subculture, it opposes them to others, separates wider communities and communities. Within these broader communities and communities, cultural conflicts can arise. Thus, culture can and often performs a disintegrating function.

3. Regulatory function of culture. As noted earlier, in the course of socialization, values, ideals, norms and patterns of behavior become part of the self-consciousness of the individual. They shape and regulate her behavior. We can say that culture as a whole determines the framework within which a person can and should act. Culture regulates human behavior in the family, at school, at work, at home, etc., putting forward a system of prescriptions and prohibitions. Violation of these prescriptions and prohibitions triggers certain sanctions that are established by the community and supported by the power of public opinion and various forms of institutional coercion.

4. The function of translation (transfer) of social experience is often called the function of historical continuity, or information. Culture, which is a complex sign system, transmits social experience from generation to generation, from era to era. In addition to culture, society has no other mechanisms for concentrating the entire wealth of experience that has been accumulated by people. Therefore, it is no coincidence that culture is considered the social memory of mankind.

5. The cognitive (epistemological) function is closely related to the function of transferring social experience and, in a certain sense, follows from it. Culture, concentrating the best social experience of many generations of people, 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 it fully uses the richest knowledge contained in the cultural gene pool of mankind. All types of society that live today on Earth differ significantly primarily on this basis.

6. 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, everyday life, interpersonal relations, culture in one way or another influences the behavior of people and regulates their 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.

7. Sign function is the most important in the system of culture. Representing a certain sign system, culture implies knowledge, possession of it. It is impossible to master the achievements of culture without studying the corresponding sign systems. 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 world of music, painting, theater. The natural sciences also have their own sign systems.

8. Value, or axiological, 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 an appropriate assessment.

The social functions that culture performs allow people to carry out collective activities, satisfying their needs in the best possible way. The main functions of culture are:

* social integration - ensuring the unity of mankind, the commonality of the worldview (with the help of myth, religion, philosophy);

*organization and regulation of the joint life of people through law, politics, morality, customs, ideology, etc.;

*providing people's livelihoods (such as knowledge, communication, accumulation and transfer of knowledge, upbringing, education, stimulation of innovation, selection of values, etc.);

*regulation of individual spheres of human activity (culture of life, culture of recreation, culture of work, culture of food, etc.).

The current state of our society has led to the maturation in the mass public consciousness of an understanding of the vital need for the moral improvement of the social atmosphere. The problem of developing the value orientations of the individual inevitably arises at the turning points of the era, requiring a person to determine the attitude to the goals of life and the means to achieve them. Orientation of the personality to positive moral values ​​is the most important regulator of its social behavior.

Under these conditions, the unshakable cultural values ​​accumulated by the experience of previous generations can play a decisive role in the process of restoring lost moral, ethical, moral values ​​in society. It is very important to create optimal psychological and pedagogical conditions for the formation of students' value orientations, because the successful solution of a wide range of ethical problems that inevitably have to be dealt with in the process of performing professional activities largely depends on the moral maturity of the future professional specialist.

The problem of values ​​inevitably arose in the era of the depreciation of cultural tradition and the discrediting of the ideological foundations of human society at a certain stage of its development. The crisis of Athenian democracy forced Socrates to ask for the first time: "What is good?" Being the main issue of the general theory of values, axiology, it determined the further development of value characteristics in ancient and medieval philosophy. The entire tradition of philosophical teachings from Plato to Hegel is distinguished by the indivisibility of the concepts of being and value. At the same time, it is emphasized that value is the object of various human desires and aspirations. Kant attributed the concept of values ​​to morality, and his followers extended this point of view to cultural phenomena as well. The Kantian tradition thus limited the concept of value to spiritual values.

The intersection of the theoretical views of philosophers and psychologists in the analysis of the category of value first occurs in the works of the German philosopher Max Scheler. The reality of the world of values, according to Scheler, is guaranteed by the "timeless axiological series about God", an imperfect reflection of which is the structure of the human personality. The type of personality is determined by its inherent hierarchy of values, which forms a kind of basis for personality.

The hierarchy of values, of course, changed depending on the level of cultural and socio-political development of society. The classical series of values ​​looked like a kind of triad: truth, goodness, beauty.

The Renaissance makes a person the central point of the value system, its legitimate bearer. The next step in the formation of the hierarchy of values ​​is associated with the socio-political development of human society. The classical series of spiritual values ​​is supplemented during this period by the values ​​of the socio-political order (the ideals of equality, individual freedom, justice as necessary components of a worthy human existence)

The emergence of a certain hierarchy of values ​​at various stages of the development of human society marked the beginning of the allocation of the most important element of the internal structure of the personality - value orientations. Fixed by the life experience of the individual, they delimit the essential and important for a given person from the non-essential. The totality of already established value orientations forms, as it were, an axis of consciousness that ensures the stability of the individual, the continuity of a certain type of behavior and activity, expressed in the direction of needs and interests. Due to this circumstance, value orientations always act as an important factor that determines the motivation of actions and deeds.

The mechanism of action and development of value orientations is associated with the need to resolve contradictions and conflicts in the motivational sphere, the selection of aspirations of the individual. In the most general form, these contradictions can be represented as a struggle between duty and desire, moral and utilitarian motives.

Through special types of social and personal activities, the assimilation of social consciousness by the individual takes place, he is informed of a certain system of norms and rules that must be followed in socially significant behavior. In accordance with this, a person who enters social life, who is included in the labor process, already has a certain life and value orientation, has some conscious attitudes. The formation of socio-psychological attitudes occurs at the level of a person's volitional behavior.

Each person has some orientation - weak or strong, approved or condemned, intense or vague - to universally valid values. But only a developed, mature personality has stable value orientations as dominants of consciousness and behavior. A stable and consistent set of value orientations determines such personality traits as reliability, integrity, loyalty to certain ideals, and an active life position. Value-orientation activity appears as an awareness of the significance of an object in the life of an individual, the establishment of its value. A person cognizes the world, evaluates the usefulness of this entity, its ability to satisfy their needs and interests. At the same time, the need and activity are dialectical in nature. The need stimulates the activity, acting as the root cause and the general basis, but the activity itself becomes, in turn, the object of the need.

Thus, the main content of value orientations are political, moral, worldview convictions.

The world of values ​​is, first of all, the world of culture in the broad sense of the word, it is the sphere of a person's spiritual activity, his moral consciousness, his attachments - those assessments that express the measure of the spiritual wealth of the individual. Human freedom is always liberation from the power of lower values, the choice of higher values ​​and the struggle for their implementation.

Thus, the system of culture is not only complex and diverse, but also very mobile. Culture is an indispensable component of the life of both society as a whole and its closely interrelated subjects: individuals, social communities, social institutions.

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 initial 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 the law on compulsory universal literacy was passed in Great Britain. 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 mindless 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, which manifested itself 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.

Social science. Full course of preparation for the exam Shemakhanova Irina Albertovna

1.10. The concept of culture. Forms and varieties of culture

Approaches to understanding culture

1. Technological: culture is the totality of all achievements in the development of the material and spiritual life of society.

2. activity: culture is a creative activity carried out in the spheres of the material and spiritual life of society.

3. Valuable: culture is the practical implementation of universal human values ​​in the affairs and relationships of people.

4. Historical: culture is a product of history, which is the inheritance of social experience and its transmission from generation to generation.

5. Normative: culture - values ​​and norms of human existence. Types of values: 1) real (pleasant, useful, suitable); 2) logical (true); 3) ethical (good); 4) aesthetic (beauty).

6. Activity (anthropological): culture is all types of transformative activity of a person and society, as well as all its results (second nature). Secondary (second) nature - a set of material conditions created by man in the process of his adaptation to natural conditions. Artifact of culture- an artificially created object that has a sign or symbolic content: 1) objects created by people, things, tools, clothing, household utensils, housing, roads; 2) phenomena of the spiritual life of society: scientific theories, superstitions, works of art and folklore.

7. Semiotic: culture is a system of signs and symbols used in a given society. Semiotics (from the Greek semeion - a sign, sign) is a science that studies the ways of transmitting information, the properties of signs and sign systems in human society (mainly natural and artificial languages, as well as some cultural phenomena - systems of myth, ritual), in nature ( communication in the animal world) or in the person himself (visual and auditory perception, etc.).

8. Sociological: culture is the organizing factor of social life.

culture - 1) in the broad sense of the word - a historically conditioned dynamic complex of forms, principles, methods and results of active creative activity of people that are constantly updated in all spheres of public life; 2) in a narrow sense - the process of active creative activity, during which spiritual values ​​are created, distributed and consumed. Components of human culture: ecological, economic, legal, aesthetic, moral, general education, political, physical culture, culture of life, culture of speech and communication.

The main spheres of existence and development of culture

– material culture- the real environment of a person, consisting of objects that serve to satisfy vital needs, is associated with the production and development of objects and phenomena of the material world, with a change in the physical nature of a person (material and technical means of labor, communication, cultural and community facilities, production experience, skills people, etc.).

– spiritual culture- a set of spiritual values ​​and creative activities for their production, development and application: science, art, religion, morality, politics, law, etc.

– social culture- forms of organization of joint life characteristic of a particular culture.

The division of culture into material and spiritual is very conditional. It is very difficult to draw a line between them, because they simply do not exist in a “pure” form: spiritual culture can also be embodied in material media (books, paintings, tools, etc.).

Basic functions of culture

1) cognitive- this is the formation of a holistic view of the people, country, era;

2) estimated- implementation of differentiation of values, enrichment of traditions;

3) regulatory (normative)- the formation of a system of norms and requirements of society for all individuals in all areas of life and activity (norms of morality, law, behavior);

4) informative– implementation of the transfer and exchange of knowledge, values ​​and experience of previous generations;

5) communicative– preservation, transfer and reproduction of cultural values; development and improvement of personality through communication;

6) socialization- assimilation by an individual of a system of knowledge, norms, values, accustoming to social roles, normative behavior, striving for self-improvement.

The structure of the spiritual life of society

– spiritual needs represent an objective need of people and society as a whole to create and master spiritual values;

– spiritual activity(spiritual production) - the production of consciousness in a special social form, carried out by specialized groups of people professionally engaged in skilled mental labor;

– spiritual blessings(values): ideas, theories, images and spiritual values;

– spiritual public relations individuals.

Forms and varieties of culture

1. in connection with religion: religious and secular;

2. on a regional basis: the culture of the East and the West;

3. by nationality: Russian, French, etc.;

4. by belonging to the historical type of society: the culture of a traditional, industrial, post-industrial society;

5. in connection with the territory: rural and urban culture;

6. by sphere of society or type of activity: industrial culture, political, economic, pedagogical, environmental, artistic, etc.;

7. by skill level and type of audience: elite (high), folk, mass.

1) folk culture- the most stable part of the national culture, a source of development and a repository of traditions. Culture created by the people and existing among the masses. Folk culture is generally anonymous. Folk culture can be divided into popular and folklore. Popular culture describes today's life, customs, songs, dances of the people, and folk culture describes its past.

2) Elite culture created for a narrow circle of consumers, prepared for the perception of complex in form and content of works ( literature: Joyce, Kafka; painting: Chagall, Picasso; cinema: Kurosawa, Tarkovsky; music: Schnittke, Gubaidullina). Signs of an elite culture: a) high level (complexity of content); b) obtaining commercial benefits is not an indispensable goal; c) preparedness of the audience for perception; d) a narrow circle of creators and audience; 5) determines the development of the whole culture.

3) Mass culture(pop culture) has features: a) general availability; b) entertainment (appeal to such aspects of life and emotions that cause constant interest and are understandable to most people); c) serialization, replicability; d) passivity of perception; 5) commercial nature.

4) "Screen culture» is formed on the basis of the synthesis of a computer with video equipment. Personal contacts and reading books fade into the background.

The development of culture is a two-pronged process: a) summation, accumulation of experience and cultural values ​​of previous generations, i.e., the creation of traditions; b) overcoming these same traditions by increasing cultural wealth, i.e. innovation.

Tradition- elements of social and cultural heritage that are transmitted from generation to generation and preserved in certain societies and social groups for a long time. Ways of accumulation of cultural values: a) vertically (continuity, transfer from one generation to another of elements, parts of previous theories); b) horizontally (not individual elements, actual ideas, parts of the theory are inherited, but an integral work of art).

cultural accumulation– accumulation of cultural potential, heritage.

Diversity of cultures

Subculture- part of a common culture, a system of values ​​inherent in a large social group (youth, women, professional, criminal). Components: knowledge, values, style and way of life, social institutions as a system of norms, skills, abilities, methods of implementation, methods; social roles and statuses; needs and inclinations. youth subculture- a culture of conspicuous consumption, developing most often on the basis of styles in clothing and music.

Counterculture- a subculture that not only differs from the dominant culture, but opposes, is in conflict with it (underground), seeks to displace it; the value system of asocial groups ("new left", hippies, beatniks, yuppies, etc.). The elite culture has its own "counterculture" - the avant-garde.

Hierarchy of world culture

* eurocentrism- various concepts trying to present Europe as the spiritual center of the planet and a role model in solving economic, environmental, political, social, national, ethical, creative, religious, demographic and other universal problems.

* americacentrism- the concept that America is the spiritual center of mankind.

* East-centrism (pan-Islamism, pan-Mongolism)- worldview setting (view), according to which the East is the center of world culture and civilization.

* Afrocentrism- the concept that Africa is the spiritual center of mankind.

* negritude- a concept that affirms the idea of ​​​​a special independent spiritual, cultural and political development of the African peoples.

Interaction of cultures

Dialogue of cultures- continuity, interpenetration and interaction of different cultures of all times and all peoples, enrichment and development on this basis of national cultures and universal culture; the same as acculturation.

acculturation- 1) in a narrow sense: the processes of mutual influence of cultures, as a result of which the culture of one people fully or partially perceives the culture of another people, usually more developed; 2) in a broad sense: the process of interaction of cultures, cultural synthesis.

cultural contact- a precondition for intercultural interaction, which implies stable contact in the social space of two or more cultures.

cultural diffusion- mutual penetration (borrowing) of cultural features and complexes from one society to another when they come into contact (cultural contact). Channels of cultural diffusion: migration, tourism, missionary activities, trade, war, scientific conferences, trade shows and fairs, student and specialist exchanges, etc.

Globalization of culture- accelerating the integration of nations into the world system in connection with the development of modern vehicles and economic relations, the formation of transnational corporations and the world market, thanks to the influence of the mass media on people. The globalization of culture has positive (communication, expansion of cultural contacts in the modern world) and negative aspects.

N. Danilevsky about the interaction of cultures: 1) colonization (the Phoenicians transferred their culture to Carthage); 2) "grafting a cutting on someone else's tree" (the Hellenistic culture of Alexandria within the Egyptian culture); 3) mutual equal dialogue (exchange of values).

Culture shock- the initial reaction of an individual, group or mass consciousness to a meeting with a different cultural reality.

Ways to overcome cultural shock: 1) Colonization: aggressive demonstration and propaganda of one's own cultural landmarks and behavior patterns, radical rejection of the traditional values ​​of the "local" culture and their displacement to the periphery of the cultural space. 2) Ghetto(t)ization: the creation of compact places of residence for "strangers" (emigrants, refugees, guest workers) or "local" (US Indians) carriers of a different culture, where they get the opportunity to preserve and maintain their cultural microenvironment within the rigid framework of local enclosed spaces (ghetto). 3) Assimilation: an extreme form of cultural conformism, a conscious rejection of one's own cultural identity in favor of complete adaptation to a "foreign" culture. The last "bastion" in the fight against foreign culture is the language, with the loss of which the assimilated culture also perishes. 4) Diffusion: the combination of elements of "own" and "alien" cultures.

Tolerance- tolerance for other people's opinions, beliefs, behavior. Forms of tolerance: a) personal (social interactions of individual individuals); b) social (social psychology, consciousness, moral norms and mores); c) state (legislation, political practice).