Doesn't apply to culture. Concept and types of culture. Forms and branches of culture. Culture and philosophy

Culture (from Latin - agriculture, education) is a term that denotes many concepts from various spheres. Most often, culture is understood as an area of ​​human activity that is associated with human self-expression. Culture reveals a person’s subjectivity, his characteristics, character, abilities, knowledge and skills.

Even in Ancient Greece, the term “paideia” was widespread, which denoted internal culture, culture of the soul, upbringing and education. In Ancient Greece, the concept of “culture” was directly related to education, good manners and love of agriculture. But over time, the term “culture” has significantly expanded and changed, acquiring many shades and areas (including legal, corporate, and organizational culture). So what is culture in all the diversity of this word?

What is physical culture

Physical culture is an area of ​​culture aimed at strengthening and maintaining health, developing a person’s abilities and improving his activity. At the same time, physical culture is a set of knowledge, norms and values ​​that have been created by society over many centuries for the comprehensive development and improvement of a person, for his physical training and the formation of his healthy lifestyle.

Physical culture is a part of society, which includes centuries-old experience of physiological, moral, psychological and mental development of a person. In modern society, this area of ​​culture includes concern for:

• the degree of widespread use of physical culture: in everyday life, in the sphere of production, education and upbringing;
• level of human health and development.

What is spiritual culture

Spiritual culture is a system of knowledge and ideas that relates to all of humanity or to any cultural and historical unity: a people (Russian culture), a nation, a religious movement. The origins of spiritual culture lie in man. It arises because a person in life does not limit himself only to what he learns every day, but absorbs spiritual experience from which he evaluates everything around him, from which he loves and believes in something.

Spiritual culture, in contrast to material culture, arose and exists due to the fact that a person is not limited to some everyday needs, but recognizes spiritual experience as the main thing. Because of this experience, he lives, loves, appreciates all the things around him.

Spiritual culture is an area of ​​human activity that covers various spheres of the spiritual life of a person and society. Spiritual culture unites forms of social consciousness (art, science, morality, legal consciousness, religion, ideology) and their embodiment in architectural, literary, and artistic monuments.

What is the culture of society

Culture in terms of social expression usually means the following:

• the totality of human achievements in different spheres of public life (personal culture);
• way and method of organizing social relations using the example of social institutions;
• the degree of development of the individual in society, his involvement in the achievements of art, law, morality and other forms of social consciousness.

Culture and society are very close systems, which, however, do not coincide in meaning; they develop and exist according to their own separate laws.

What is artistic culture

Artistic culture includes all artistic values, as well as the historically established system of their reproduction, creation and functioning in society. The role of artistic culture both for civilization and for the individual is enormous. Art, which represents artistic culture, affects the inner world of a person, his mind, feelings and emotions. Thanks to this, a person recognizes in the images some fragment of reality embedded by the artist in his work. Artistic culture involves both preserving the best elements of the old and creating new ones, enhancing the cultural heritage of mankind.

What is mass culture

Mass culture, also called “pop culture” or majority culture, is a culture that has become widespread among segments of the population in a particular society. Mass culture is subordinate to the life and needs of the majority of the population (or the mainstream); it includes entertainment, music, literature, sports, cinema, fine arts and other manifestations of culture. Mass culture is contrasted with elitist, “high culture”. Also, mass culture is included in the concept of folk culture and is its component.

Lecture:

Concept of culture

You know that man is a biological, social and cultural being. Which people do we call cultured? A polite, tactful person who observes etiquette. People are not born cultured, they become one in society. Having mastered the knowledge, values, norms, beliefs of society, mastered the skills of using surrounding objects, and fulfilled social roles, a person turns from a biological being into a sociocultural one. What is culture? We need to start with the fact that this is one of the main social institutions in the spiritual sphere of society. The very first understanding of the word “culture” was the cultivation of the land, but over time the meaning of this concept changed and many meanings appeared. Let's stop here:

Culture- the results of creative, creative human activity, accumulated over centuries and passed on from generation to generation.

Culture is created as a result of human transformative activity. It is defined as second nature - the artificial habitat of human society. The study of culture is the social and humanitarian science of culturology.

Culture is divided into two parts:

• Material, including artifacts - the results of material production: the entire objective world created by human hands.

Spiritual, including the results of the production of human consciousness: knowledge, ideas, values.

In other words, material culture is a product of the economy, and spiritual culture is a product of art, science, religion, and morality. They are closely interconnected. For example, without knowledge and ideas, an architect will not build a building, or vice versa, the ideas of an artist or writer are reflected on matter (canvas or paper).

Forms of culture: mass, elite, folk

Researchers distinguish several forms of culture: mass, elite, folk.

Signs of mass culture:

1. It is becoming increasingly popular in the context of globalization.

2. Products of mass culture are created in large quantities and distributed using modern communication technologies.

3. It has many consumers because it is accessible, easy to perceive and understand for people without education or special training.

4. It is for entertainment purposes and does not promote spiritual growth.

5. Is of a commercial nature.

Examples of popular culture include movies, television series, talk shows, humor, television news, fashion, sports, pop music, popular literature (such as novels), visual arts, etc.

In the modern world, scientists distinguish such a type of mass culture as screen culture. This is the culture created and transmitted using a computer. Its examples are computer games and social networks.

Signs of an elite culture:

1. A narrow circle of connoisseurs and consumers. Available, as a rule, to the intelligentsia - people of intellectual work: scientists, teachers, museum and library workers, artists, composers, writers, critics, etc.

2. Products of elite culture are created by a privileged part of society, or at its request by professional creators.

3. This is a high culture that is difficult for an unprepared person to perceive; for example, Picasso’s painting is not understandable to everyone.

4. It is non-profit in nature, but sometimes turns out to be financially successful.

Examples of elite culture are the classical music of Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, the classical literature of Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, the fine arts of Michelangelo, Rodin, Leonard da Vinci, Van Gogh, etc.

Signs of folk culture:

1. Created by anonymous creators with no professional training.

2. It is local in nature, because each nation has its own special folk culture (folklore), associated with the traditions of a given area.

3. Passed on from generation to generation.

4. Reproduction of folk culture can be individual (story, legend), group (performing a dance or song), mass (carnival, Maslenitsa).

Examples of folk culture are fairy tales, epics, epics, dances, songs, myths, and legends.

Functions culture

As was said in the previous lesson, each social institution performs functions aimed at meeting the needs of people. What functions does culture perform? Let's get to know them:

Cognitive function allows a person to acquire rich knowledge and experience accumulated by many generations of people with the help of scientific and artistic books, musical compositions, paintings, sculptures, etc.

Information function (continuity function) is that culture includes the world of artifacts (objects and phenomena created by people), as well as the world of language (meanings and signs that form texts), which contain information transmitted from generation to generation through traditions. For example, the adoption and further spread of Christianity in Rus' is a striking example of continuity.

Communication function promotes communication between people, through which a person learns cultural norms and values. Communication is also necessary for the creation, preservation, and development of culture. As a result of communication, ideas are exchanged and spiritual enrichment occurs. As Bernard Shaw said: “When apples are exchanged, each side has only an apple; when ideas are exchanged, each side ends up with two ideas.”

Regulatory or normative function ensures order in society with the help of moral and legal norms, traditions and customs, etiquette, etc., which give a person guidelines for behavior and regulate his actions.

Socialization function – As a result of assimilating cultural norms and mastering patterns of behavior, a person is included in a certain cultural context of the society in which he lives. Culture also regulates the gender roles of men and women.

Compensatory function allows a person to escape, take a break from life’s problems, and get emotional release. A person can receive spiritual compensation from performing religious rituals, engaging in artistic culture (for example, reading books, visiting the theater, listening to music), walking in nature, creative hobbies, collecting, and raising children.

Exercise: Give your examples of mass, elite and folk cultures. Write them in the comments 📝

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

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

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

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

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

Physical culture, i.e. the sphere of culture aimed at improving the physical basis of a person. This includes sports, medicine, relevant traditions, norms, and actions that create a healthy lifestyle. The main value is human health .

Religious culture is associated with the directed human activity of creating a picture of the world based on irrational dogmas. It is accompanied by the performance of religious services, adherence to the norms set out in sacred texts, certain symbolism, etc. The dominant value is faith in God and on this basis moral improvement .

Ecological culture consists of a reasonable and careful attitude towards nature, maintaining harmony between man and the environment. The main value is nature .

Moral culture is manifested in the adherence to special ethical standards arising from traditions and social attitudes that dominate in human society. The main value is morality .

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

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

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

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

Structure national cultures are more complex. It differs from ethnicity by clearer national characteristics and a wide range. It may include a number of ethnic groups. For example, the American national culture includes English, German, Mexican and many others. National culture arises when representatives of ethnic groups realize that they belong to a single nation. It is built on the basis of writing, while ethnic and folk may be unwritten.

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

Co. second group can be attributed social types. These are, first of all, mass, elite, marginal cultures, subcultures and countercultures.

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

Mass culture appeared in modern times with the invention of the printing press, the spread of low-quality pulp literature, and developed in the 20th century in a capitalist society with its orientation towards a market economy, the creation of a mass comprehensive school and the transition to universal literacy, and the development of the media. It acts as a commodity, uses advertising, overly simplified language, and is available to everyone. An industrial and commercial approach was applied in the cultural sphere; it became a form of business. Mass culture focuses on artificially created images and stereotypes, “simplified versions of life,” beautiful illusions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forms of subculture different - the culture of professional groups (theatrical, medical culture, etc.), territorial (urban, rural), ethnic (Gypsy culture), religious (culture of sects different from world religions), criminal (thieves, drug addicts), teenage youth The latter most often serves as a means of unconscious protest against the rules established in society. Young people are prone to nihilism and are more easily influenced by external effects and paraphernalia. Culturologists call the first youth subcultural groups “ teddy boys ", which appeared in the mid-50s of the 20th century in England.

Almost simultaneously with them, “modernists” or “fashions” arose.

By the end of the 50s, “rockers” began to appear, for whom the motorcycle was a symbol of freedom and at the same time a means of intimidation.

By the end of the 60s, “skinheads” or “skinheads”, aggressive football fans, separated from the “mods”. At the same time, in the 60-70s, the subcultures of “hippies” and “punks” emerged in England.

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

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

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

It should be distinguished from counterculture marginal culture (lat. region). This is a concept that characterizes the value systems of individual groups or individuals who, due to circumstances, find themselves on the verge of different cultures, but have not integrated into any of them.

The concept " marginal personality "was introduced in the 20s of the 20th century by R. Park to indicate the cultural status of immigrants. Marginal culture is located on the “outskirts” of the corresponding cultural systems. An example would be, for example, migrants, villagers in the city, forced to adapt to a new urban lifestyle for them. A culture can also acquire a marginal character as a result of conscious attitudes towards rejection of socially approved goals or methods of achieving them.

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

The most common ones in science are the following.

These are the Stone, Bronze, Iron Ages, according to archaeological periodization; pagan, Christian periods, according to periodization, gravitating towards the biblical scheme, such as, for example, G. Hezhel or S. Solovyov. Proponents of evolutionary theories of the 19th century distinguished three stages of social development: savagery, barbarism, and civilization. The formation theory of K. Marx proceeded from the division of the world cultural and historical process into eras: primitive communal system, slaveholding, feudalism, capitalism. According to “Eurocentric” concepts, the history of human society is divided into the Ancient World, Antiquity, the Middle Ages, Modern Times, and Contemporary Times.

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

Fourth The stage covers the time from the beginning of our era, when the era of scientific and technological progress began, a rapprochement of nations and cultures is observed, two main directions of cultural development appear: “Eastern” with its spirituality, irrationalism and “Western” dynamic, pragmatic. This time is designated as the universal culture of the West and the East in the post-Axial period.

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

Received quite wide popularity at the beginning of the 20th century Social-historical school, which has the longest, “classical” traditions and goes back to Kant, Hegel and Humboldt, grouping around itself mainly historians and philosophers, including religious ones. Its prominent representatives in Russia were N.Ya. Danilevsky, and in Western Europe - Spengler and Toynbee, who adhered to the concept of local civilizations.

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

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

After receiving his Ph.D. degree, he was arrested for participating in the revolutionary-democratic circle of Petrashevites (F.M. Dostoevsky belonged to it), spent three months in the Peter and Paul Fortress, but managed to avoid trial and was expelled from St. Petersburg. Later, as a professional naturalist, botanist and fish conservation specialist, he served in the Department of Agriculture; On scientific trips and expeditions he traveled throughout a significant part of Russia, being inspired to do a lot of cultural work. Being an ideologist of Pan-Slavism - a movement that proclaimed the unity of the Slavic peoples - Danilevsky, long before O. Spengler, in his main work “Russia and Europe” (1869), substantiated the idea of ​​​​the existence of so-called cultural-historical types (civilizations), which, like living organisms, are in constant struggle with each other and with the environment. Just like biological individuals, they undergo stages of origin, flourishing and death. The beginnings of a civilization of one historical type are not transmitted to peoples of another type, although they are subject to certain cultural influences. Each “cultural-historical type” manifests itself in four spheres : religious, cultural, political and socio-economic. Their harmony speaks of the perfection of a particular civilization. The course of history is expressed in a change of cultural and historical types that displace each other, moving from the “ethnographic” state through statehood to the civilized level. Cycle of life the cultural-historical type consists of four periods and lasts about 1500 years, of which 1000 years is the preparatory, “ethnographic” period; approximately 400 years is the formation of statehood, and 50-100 years is the flowering of all the creative capabilities of a particular people. The cycle ends with a long period of decline and decay.

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

1) Egyptian,

2) Chinese,

3) Assyro-Babylonian, Phoenician, Ancient Semitic

4) Indian,

5) Iranian

6) Jewish

7) Greek

8) Roman

9) Arabian

10) Germano-Roman, European

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

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

No matter how one regards Danilevsky’s views, they still, as in their time, feed and fed the imperial ideology and prepared the emergence of such a modern social science as geopolitics, closely related to the civilizational approach to history.

Oswald Spengler(1880-1936) - German philosopher and cultural historian, author of the sensational work “The Decline of Europe” (1921-1923). The creative biography of the German thinker is unusual. The son of a minor postal worker, Spengler did not have a university education and was able to graduate only from high school, where he studied mathematics and natural sciences; As for history, philosophy and art history, in the mastery of which he surpassed many of his outstanding contemporaries, Spengler studied them independently, becoming an example of a self-taught genius. And Spengler’s career was limited to the position of a gymnasium teacher, which he voluntarily left in 1911. For several years he imprisoned himself in a small apartment in Munich and began to realize his cherished dream: he wrote a book about the fate of European culture in the context of world history - “The Decline of Europe ”, which went through 32 editions in many languages ​​​​only in the 20s and brought him the sensational fame of “the prophet of the death of Western civilization.”

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

1) Egyptian,

2) Indian,

3) Babylonian,

4) Chinese,

5) Greco-Roman,

6) Byzantine-Islamic,

7) Western European

8) Mayan culture in Central America.

According to Spengler, Russian-Siberian culture is coming as a new culture. Each cultural “organism” has a lifespan of approximately 1000 years. Dying, every culture degenerates into civilization, moves from creative impulse to sterility, from development to stagnation, from “soul” to “intellect,” from heroic “deeds” to utilitarian work. Such a transition for Greco-Roman culture occurred, according to Spengler, in the Hellenistic era (III-I centuries BC), and for Western European culture - in the 19th century. With the advent of civilization, mass culture begins to predominate, artistic and literary creativity loses its significance, giving way to unspiritual technicalism and sports. In the 20s, “The Decline of Europe,” by analogy with the death of the Roman Empire, was perceived as a prediction of the apocalypse, the death of Western European society under the onslaught of new “barbarians” - revolutionary forces advancing from the East. History, as we know, has not confirmed Spengler’s prophecies, and the new “Russian-Siberian” culture, which meant the so-called socialist society, has not yet come to fruition. It is significant that some of Spengler’s conservative nationalist ideas were widely used by ideologists of Nazi Germany.

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

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

According to Toynbee's law of the golden mean, the challenge should be neither too weak nor too severe. In the first case, there will be no active response, and in the second, insurmountable difficulties can completely stop the emergence of civilization. Specific examples of “challenges” known from history are associated with drying out or waterlogging of soils, the offensive of hostile tribes, and a forced change of place of residence. The most common answers: the transition to a new type of management, the creation of irrigation systems, the formation of powerful power structures capable of mobilizing the energy of society, the creation of a new religion, science, and technology.

This variety of approaches makes it possible to study this phenomenon more deeply.

Culture (from Latin culture– cultivation, processing) is one of the basic (basic) terms that exist to describe human life and humanity. It covers everything that has to do with human activity, emerging from the bosom of nature, and therefore, in the most general sense, “Culture” is opposed to “nature” (nature). Culture is second nature, that is, everything that is associated with the results of the spiritual and material activities of “homo sapiens”. A person who emerged from nature processed natural materials and created objects (artifacts, that is, artificially created objects) from natural materials and resources. But cultural activities are not limited to this. And man processes himself as a natural being, cultivating himself as a person, working on himself, making himself into something, developing the intellectual, physical and spiritual resources inherent in himself by nature. Therefore, the second meaning of the Latin word “culture” can be considered the term education, ennoblement. Culture of the soul, Cicero (ancient Roman orator of the 1st century BC) first spoke about this, using the phrase “cultura animae” (processing of the soul). Before him, the phrase agriculture, or cultivation of the land, was common.

This term also has a second semiotic (sign-semantic) explanation. The word “cultus” in Ancient Rome also meant veneration. A cult, then, is a kind of value(religious primarily), which unites people into a community, for example, into a people.

From the first approach to the etymology (origin) of the word culture, that culture is processing, the so-called active approach to defining culture. Thus, a prominent American sociologist of the 20th century, P. Sorokin, wrote that culture arises where at least two people interact (from the word activity!). The result of their joint activity can be either a new idea or something material, and this result is culture.

From the perspective activity approach culture is an extra-biologically developed mechanism of human adaptation to nature and society (E. Markaryan).

From the second approach to the etymology of the word culture follows a value-based approach to its definition. You can read something that is valuable to a certain group of people. Culture arises from a cult as a system of certain values ​​around which people unite. This is how phenomena such as Hindu-Buddhist culture, Islamic culture, Christian culture, etc. appear. It is clear that in history the system of values ​​around which people rallied was set by religion. In Marxist humanities in the 20th century in Russia, culture was also defined as a system of spiritual and material values ​​created by a particular society in the course of its historical development.

What is the “classical concept of culture”?

Classicus (lat.) – exemplary

Concept (from the Latin Concepcio - perceive and Conceptus - thought, idea) - a system of fundamental ideas, theoretical positions and methods; way of considering any phenomena.

The classical concept of culture has developed in European science since the 18th century. It is associated with the names of representatives of German classical philosophy and historical science of the 18th and 19th centuries. In their understanding, culture is the process of human development and improvement and those social practices that contribute to this: philosophy, art, science, education. Thus, culture is the totality of the highest achievements in the spiritual sphere of society, namely in science, education and art. (Note the similarity of these ideas with the definitions of culture in most Russian textbooks on cultural studies. It indicates the commitment of Russian post-Soviet humanities to the spiritual traditions of the Enlightenment with its idealization of the spiritual sphere).

British sociologist J. Thompson points out the main drawback of this understanding of culture: classical scholars (of whom there are many in Russia today) consider only certain values ​​as culture and only the highest achievements in the field of art as a measure of the level of culture. In this concept, culture acted as an ideal model”, unrelated to everyday life, which, thus, could be classified as “lack of culture.” According to it, culture is masterpieces of art and the highest ideas of humanist philosophers, and to be cultural means to be educated and well-mannered.

The humanistic pathos of the classical concept of culture is undeniable. The integrity of culture is the unity of culture and a person who can and should be a free person, involved in the sphere of values, capable of self-improvement and creativity.

So, humanism, homo-man, rationalism(faith in the Reason of man, ratio (lat.) - reason)), idealism (in the narrow sense, the idea of ​​​​the primacy (primacy) of higher principles in the existence of humanity, their leading role in the development of society) - these are the main ideas of the classical concept of culture. It is dominated by the idea of ​​the highest manifestations of Culture and the lower ones are diminished, they are simply excluded from the concept of culture. This is aristocratic romanticism, which should have been supplanted by the sober and practical 19th century, when the study of culture from the philosophical sphere began to move into empirical 1 sciences about nature and society.

What is the “anthropological concept of culture”?

Anthropology (anthropos, Greek - man) is an empirical science about man, which developed in the 19th century. Physical anthropology is associated with G. Darwin's theory of the origin of species and studies Homo Sapiens using the methods of natural sciences. Social or cultural anthropology in the late 19th century. studies non-European societies. This is the main difference between sociology (the science of industrial and post-industrial societies of the Western type) and social or cultural anthropology (the science of non-European simple, or traditional, societies).

He laid down the tradition of cultural anthropology back in the 60-70s. 19th century English ethnologist E.B. Tylor (1832-1917). By studying the cultures of “primitive peoples”, i.e. ethnic groups that did not go beyond the tribal way of life, he came to an extremely broad understanding of culture. In his book “Primitive Culture” (1871), he concluded about its universal and universal character, namely: all peoples went through certain stages of development common to all, and this is the idea of ​​​​the evolution of culture. E. Taylor entered the history of cultural studies as the first scientist to give a precise scientific definition of culture, although German philosophers and French thinkers, and at the same time Russian publicists and democrats, especially N. Danilevsky, spoke about culture before him.

This first scientific definition is: “culture, or civilization, in a broad ethnographic sense, is that complex whole that includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs and any other abilities and habits acquired by a person as a member of society.”

Tylor emphasizes here the public (social) nature of culture.

At first, anthropology expressed the idea of ​​cultural colonialism - i.e. the idea of ​​the need to civilize wild, primitive and backward representatives of other cultures through the transfer of European values ​​and the European way of life. The main purpose of the research was to describe a foreign culture

Eurocentrism is a scientific and geopolitical attitude towards evaluating European culture as a criterion, reference point and model for the rest of the world.

Etymology of the word "culture", its use and meanings throughout European history. The emergence of the word “culture” in Russia.

Origin of the word "culture"

The word culture (cultura) appeared in Latin. It came from colere, which had many meanings: to inhabit, cultivate, cultivate, care for, honor, patronize.

The word “culture” appears for the first time in a treatise on agriculture Mark Portia Cato the Elder(234-149 BC), which was called "De agri cultura". This treatise is devoted not just to cultivating the land, but to caring for the field, which presupposes not only cultivation, but also a special emotional attitude towards it. For example, Cato gives the following advice on purchasing a plot of land: you should not be lazy and walk around the plot of land you are purchasing several times; If the site is good, the more often you inspect it, the more you will like it. This is the “like” you should definitely have. If it doesn’t exist, then there won’t be good care, that is, there won’t be culture.

The Romans used the word "culture" with some object in the genitive case, i.e. only in phrases meaning improvement, improvement of what was combined with: “culture juries” - development of rules of behavior, “culture lingual” - improvement of language, etc. Roman orator and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero(106-43 BC) in his “Tusculan Conversations” used the word “culture” in a figurative sense, calling philosophy “culture of the soul” (“cultura animae”), otherwise, he believed that a person engaged in philosophy has culture spirit and mind.

In its independent meaning, the concept of “culture” appeared in the works of the German lawyer and historian Samuel Pufendorf(1632-1694). He used this term in relation to “artificial man”, brought up in society, as opposed to “natural” man, uneducated.

In the 18th century, the ideologists of the Enlightenment were faced with the acute problem of explaining the specifics of a person’s way of life, the features of human existence. For this purpose they began to actively use the term culture, contrasting it with the word naturale- nature. Culture was interpreted as a means of elevating man, improving the spiritual life and morality of people, and correcting the vices of society. Those. Only that which concerned the development and self-improvement of man belonged to culture. Thus, not everything that was the result of human activity could be called “culture.”

The word “culture” was first introduced into philosophical, and then scientific and everyday use by the German educator I.K. Adelunga, who published the book “An Experience in the History of Culture of the Human Race” in 1782.

And two years later, the first volume of I.G.’s book was published. Herder (1744-1803) “Ideas for philosophy and the history of mankind”, where the word “Kulture” ceases to serve as a metaphor, but is filled with philosophical content. Herder was the first to propose using the term “culture” in the plural, thereby emphasizing the uniqueness of various national cultures.

The concept of culture entered European scientific circulation very slowly. At the end of the 18th century, it had two shades: the first was domination over nature with the help of knowledge and crafts, the second was the spiritual wealth of the individual. The fact that the new term has not yet had time to take root is evidenced by the fact that two great German philosophers, Kant and Hegel, almost did not use the word “culture.” Hegel replaced it with the term “Buildung” (education), and Kant, although he occasionally used it, reduced culture to the discipline of the mind. According to Kant, the essence of culture lies in the dominance of moral duty over manifestations of feelings.

The appearance of the word "culture" in Russia

The word “culture” entered the Russian language quite late - in the mid-30s of the 19th century. The presence of this word in the Russian lexcon was recorded by I. Renofants, published in 1837, “A Pocket Book for the Lover of Reading Russian Books, Newspapers and Magazines.” This dictionary distinguished two meanings of the word “culture”: agriculture and education. A little later, “culture” appears in N. Kirillov’s “Pocket Dictionary of Foreign Words,” published in 1845. However, a year before the publication of the Renofantz dictionary, a work appeared in Russia, the author of which not only addressed the concept of “culture”, but also gave it a detailed definition and theoretical justification. We are talking about the essay of an academician and emeritus professor of the Imperial St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy Danila Mikhailovich Vellansky (1774-1847) "Basic outlines of general and specific physiology..." It was he who introduced the term "culture" into scientific use, thereby contributing to the formation of cultural and philosophical ideas in Russia.

“Nature,” Vellansky wrote, “cultivated by the human spirit, is Culture, corresponding to Nature in the same way that a concept corresponds to a thing. The subject of Culture consists of ideal things, and the subject of Nature is real concepts. Actions in Culture are carried out with conscience, works in Nature occur without conscience. Therefore, Culture has an ideal quality, Nature has a real quality. - Both, in their content, are parallel; and the three kingdoms of Nature: fossil, vegetable and animal, correspond to the areas of Culture containing the objects of Arts, Sciences and Moral Education. "Final conclusion , to which the philosopher comes, the following: “The material objects of Nature correspond to the ideal concepts of Culture, which, according to the content of their knowledge, are the essence of a bodily quality and a mental property. Objective concepts relate to the study of physical objects, and subjective concepts relate to the occurrences of the human spirit and its aesthetic works.” .

However, the word “culture” was not widely used. Instead, similar in meaning expressions “education”, “enlightenment”, “reason”, “good manners” were used. And in the dictionary of Pushkin’s language we will not find the word “culture”: it is completely replaced by the word “enlightenment”, to which he was very ambivalent. On the one side, Pushkin recognizes the positive influence of the European Enlightenment for Russia:

But that’s enough: the dark time has passed,
And the lamp of enlightenment burns brighter
("Second Epistle to the Censor" 1824)

On the other hand, it was Pushkin who expressed with the highest force the romantic rejection of the “shackles of enlightenment”, the rapprochement between enlightenment and tyranny:

The fate of the earth is the same everywhere:
Where there is a drop of good, there is on guard
Enlightenment or tyrant.
("To the Sea" 1824)

Gave a completely different meaning to the word “enlightenment” N.V. Gogol. In 1846, he wrote: “We now repeat the word “enlightenment” even more meaninglessly. We haven’t even thought about where this word came from and what it means. This word is not in any language, it is only ours. To enlighten does not mean to teach, or to instruct, or to educate, or even to illuminate, but to completely illuminate a person in all his powers, and not in his mind alone, to carry his entire nature through some kind of purifying fire. This word is taken from our Church, which has been around for almost a thousand years pronounces, despite all the darkness and ignorant darkness that surrounded her everywhere, and knows why she says it" ("Article from "Correspondence with Friends").

Gogol reveals the deep, primordial meaning of the concept of “Enlightenment” for the Russian heart, seeing in it the priceless heritage of the Christian faith, thus he presented a different view on the term that is well-established in the Russian consciousness.

The phrase “spiritual culture” (“culture of the Spirit”), often used in later times, fully corresponds to Gogol’s understanding and interpretation of enlightenment.

Russian religious philosophers of the 20th century N.A. Berdyaev (1874-1948) and P.A. Florensky (1882-1943) gave their interpretation of the etymology of the word “culture”, considering it to be derived not from “colere-cultura”, indicating the original connection of the concept with agriculture, but from “cult”, that is, correlating the concept of “culture” directly with religion , spiritual sphere.

According to Florensky, “most cultures, according to their etymology (cultura is that which develops from cultus), were precisely the germination of the grain of religion, a mustard tree that grew from the seed of faith.”

Similar ideas were developed by Berdyaev: “Culture is associated with a cult, it develops from a religious cult... The oldest of Cultures - the Culture of Egypt began in the temple, and its first creators were priests. Culture is associated with the cult of ancestors, with legend and tradition. It is full of sacred symbolism, it contains signs and similarities of another, spiritual reality are given. Every Culture (even material Culture) is a Culture of the spirit, every Culture has a spiritual basis - it is a product of the creative work of the spirit on the natural elements."

Also interesting is the interpretation that he later gave to the word “culture” N.K. Roerich(1874-1947). The artist more than once called Culture “the veneration of Light”, and in the article “Synthesis” he even broke down the lexeme into parts: “Cult” and “Ur”. “The cult,” the artist reflected, “will always remain the veneration of the Good Beginning, and the word Ur reminds us of an old eastern root meaning Light, Fire.” The word acquired a double reading: in the context of the European tradition of the “Cult of Light” (enlightenment meaning) and in conjunction with Eastern mysticism.

The word “culture” takes on a different meaning with the publication of a book by a German philosopher and cultural historian Oswald Spengler"The Decline of Europe". In this work, the author contrasts the concepts of “culture” and “civilization”. Civilization, according to Spengler, is the death of the culture of a certain people. This idea about the hostility of these two concepts has long been fermenting in the minds of European and Russian philosophers, and, being formalized by Spengler in a book, it became a real sensation.

The tradition of contrasting culture and civilization in Russia already had its national roots. Thus, this idea was first expressed by A. Blok in the article “The Collapse of Humanism”; it was supported by N. Roerich.

And into the twentieth century the word “culture” passed with the name Andrey Bely, who seriously tried to conceptualize culture as a category. In the report “Ways of Culture” he notes: “The concept of “culture” is characterized by extraordinary complexity; it is easier to define the concepts of “science”, “art”, “life”; culture is integrity, an organic combination of many aspects of human activity; problems of culture in the proper sense arise already when the following are co-organized: everyday life, art, science, personality and society; culture is a style of life, and in this style it is the creativity of life itself, but not unconscious, but conscious; culture is determined by the growth of human self-awareness; it is a story about the growth of our “I”; it is individual and universal at the same time; it presupposes the intersection of the individual and the universe; this intersection is our “I”; the only intuition given to us; culture is always the culture of some “I”.”

Thus, Bely defines “culture” as having its own place in the life of each person and in the life of the nation. This means that “culture” in the twentieth century becomes an object that can be studied, explored and general patterns can be derived.

The material is a compilation from several sources.