Culture of social communities and groups. Fundamentals of cultural studies
1. What values does folk culture?
a) traditional
b) non-traditional
c) archaic
d) ordinary
e) none of the above
2. Which of the following properties contributes to cultural stability?
a) elitism
b) diffusionism
c) closedness
d) tolerance
e) marginality
3. What is the name of the totality of sciences that study the culture of the people, expressed in language and literary creativity?
a) cultural studies
b) literary criticism
c) philology
d) linguistics
e) cultural philosophy
4. The essence of cultural conservatism is the desire to:
a) preserve an obsolete culture
b) preserve the obsolete elements of society
c) improve the revived elements of culture
d) preserve cultural values
e) to revive obsolete elements of culture
5. What is the name of the progressive movement of a socio-cultural system from the simplest to the most complex structure, from a less perfect to a more perfect form?
a) progress
b) development
c) regression
d) revolution
e) evolution
6. What is the name of the totality of political, ideological, moral, ethical, cultural and everyday norms of life and behavior, manifested in direct communication between representatives of different nationalities?
a) culture of interethnic communication
b) the culture of the people
c) the culture of the regions
d) the culture of the nation
e) subculture
7. What is the name of the set of rites and rituals associated with belief in the supernatural?
a) canon
b) actions
c) worship
d) worship
e) cult
8. What is the name of the region of the world, which in the socio-cultural sense develops independently, regardless of the processes taking place in other regions?
a) local civilization
b) cultural-historical type
c) cultural district
d) ecumene
e) range
9. What is the name of the process during which an individual learns the traditional ways of thinking and acting characteristic of the culture to which he belongs?
a) fetishization
b) inculturation
c) mythologization
d) innovation
e) none of the above
10. To which of the directions in fine arts belong following artists: C. Monet, O. Renoir, K. Pissarro, A. Sisley, E. Degas?
a) impressionism
b) modernism
c) expressionism
d) cubism
e) Fauvism
11. What is the name of charity, helping the poor, the needy, the socially unprotected?
a) patronage
b) patronage
c) sponsorship
d) patronage
e) philanthropy
12. Ambivalence as a specific feature of the artistic images of the folk laughter culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was reflected in the works of a domestic culturologist:
a) N. Berdyaeva
b) M. Bakhtin
c) E. Ilyenkova
d) L. Batkina
e) N. Arseniev
13. What is the name of the process of an individual's entry into society, his mastery of the socio-cultural heritage in cultural studies?
a) integration
b) inculturation
c) initiation
d) assimilation
e) identification
14. Who belongs to the anthropological school in cultural studies?
a) E. Tylor
b) I. Kant
c) J. Vico
d) J. Frazier
e) D. Bell
15. Name the direction in Western European art XII-XIV centuries, which was inherently cult, is characterized by the dominance of the line, the vertical construction of the composition, as well as the close connection between sculpture and architecture?
a) Empire
b) romanticism
c) baroque
d) gothic
e) rococo
16. The term "Hellenism" refers to a certain "Greek-Eastern syncretism", which was the result of:
a) the constant wars of the Greeks with their neighbors
b) Greek migrations in the 12th-13th centuries. BC.
c) Peloponnesian Wars 431-404 BC.
d) alliance of Greeks and Romans
e) the conquests of Alexander the Great
17. When did cinema originate in Russia?
a) in 1902
b) in 1905
c) in 1908
d) in 1910
e) in 1912
18. What is the name of the process by which culture is transmitted from previous generations to the next through learning?
a) educational process
b) didactic process
c) cultural transmission
d) cultural continuity
e) cultural assimilation
19. What is the name of the complex of objects, natural phenomena included in the cultural circulation given people, as well as ideas about the norms, goals and spiritual determinants of activity?
a) technology values
b) moral values
c) artistic values
d) scientific values
e) cultural values
20. What is the name of an element of laughter culture, a subtle hidden mockery or allegory, when a word or statement acquires in the context of speech a meaning opposite to the literal meaning, denying it or casting doubt on it?
a) satire
b) humor
c) joke
d) irony
e) all but a)
21. Choose the correct, in your opinion, judgment about the relationship between cultural studies and philosophy:
a) philosophy is a methodology in relation to cultural studies
b) philosophy and cultural studies are identical concepts
c) culturology is an indispensable and obligatory part of philosophy
d) cultural studies - a special philosophy, namely the philosophy of culture
e) all except d)
22. Name the only female deity in Old Russian pagan pantheon:
a) Yarilo
b) Simagl
c) Mokosh
d) Svarog
e) Stribog
23. How is the category "subculture" understood in cultural studies?
a) one of the varieties of anti-culture
b) autonomous culture certain social group
c) the culture of the elite sections of society
d) the culture of the lower classes of society
e) mass culture
24. Find correct definition concepts of "cultural universals":
a) basic values common to all types of cultures
b) values characteristic of spiritual culture
c) core values inherent in the dominant culture
d) core values inherent in material culture
e) subculture values
25. What are the names of meanings, ideas, knowledge, artistic images, moral and religious motives of activity that acquire a positive and evaluative value in a given culture?
a) spiritual values
b) social values
c) material values
d) cultural values
e) none of the above
26. What is the name of the direction in Western European art XVI century, reflecting the crisis of humanism, which is characterized by the assertion of instability, tragic dissonances, the power of supernatural forces, subjectivism?
a) anti-Sementism
b) mannerism
c) courtesy
d) Fauvism
e) realism
27. What is the humanistic trend in the spiritual culture of the Renaissance?
a) display of dignity common man in the plastic art of the Renaissance
b) appeal to culture contemporary artists societies
c) display of beauty human body
d) addressing a person as higher beginning being, faith in its capabilities, will and mind
e) none of the following
28. What is the chronological framework of the Renaissance for most European countries:
a) XIII-XVII centuries
b) XIV-XVI centuries.
c) XIV-XVII centuries.
d) XV-XVIII centuries.
e) XV-XVII centuries.
29. What is the name of the youth movement that arose in the late 70s, declared itself the guardian of social order and opposes the anarchic, destructive influences of a number of youth subcultures?
a) rockers
b) teda
c) punks
d) hippies
e) beatniks
30. What is the name of a non-professional, anonymous, collective culture, including myths, legends, tales, epics, epics, fairy tales, songs, dances?
a) folk culture
b) amateur performances
c) folk art
d) art crafts
e) popular culture
Culture of social communities and groups
§ 2. Culture of modern social groups
In modern society, it is advisable to distinguish between elite and mass culture. The problem of their existence, interaction and influence on the development of the individual and society is one of the most acute in the last century. Many of the greatest philosophers of the XIX-XX centuries. developed the concept of elite and mass culture s.
The idea of the philosopher - Nietzsche - was that all of humanity consists of two types of people - on the one hand, the elect, those who have the ability to create art and enjoy it, on the other - a multimillion-dollar mass, a crowd whose only task is to provide for the elect. The idea of the existence of an elite culture was supported by Oswald Spengler in his "The Decline of Europe".
In our time, there are two approaches to understanding and defining elite and mass culture. The first of them is based on the principle of class culture, in connection with which elite and mass culture are considered as two sides of a single process. Mass culture acts as a means and result of influencing the masses of the bourgeoisie, seeking to subordinate the people to their interests, i.e. it is a culture created ruling class For populace. Elite culture is the means and result of the influence on the artist, again, of the bourgeoisie, which seeks to tear him away from the broad masses of the people and force him to serve a small part of people belonging to the social elite of society, i.e. ruling class culture.
IN Lately a different approach is becoming more and more widespread, based on the fact that the division into elite and mass culture is not connected with social sign and, above all, spiritual. Already in the works of the Spanish philosopher José Orgega y Gasset (1883-1955), who most deeply developed the concept of elite and mass culture, the elite as the bearer of culture is considered regardless of social status. Dividing society into two unequal groups: the masses and a select minority, Orgega y Gasset emphasizes that this division is not into hierarchical social groups, but into types of people. It follows that in every class, and indeed in every social group, one can find both a select minority and a mass. Thus, the basis of division modern culture not a class distinction is placed on the elite and the mass, but a spiritual and intellectual one.
It should be recognized that there are more opportunities for the ruling class to join the elite culture. But any thinking, intellectually developed person can enter the elite culture. The spiritual elite plays a leading role in the development of culture. Elite culture requires great mental tension and from those who create cultural values and from those who learn them. In the elite environment, people are formed who are able to think broadly and freely, create intellectual values that the economy, science, and spiritual life of society need.
Mass culture is based on exoteric ideas, i.e. popular, accessible to everyone. The very term "mass culture" came into circulation immediately after the Second World War. Introduced by American sociologists (D. Macdonald and others), it was soon adopted by their European colleagues. Until now, specialists, sociologists and publicists have very different and contradictory ideas about the content of this term. There is no consensus on the time of the emergence of mass culture. But the fact that its heyday is characteristic of the 20th century, and the fact that it can be expressed not only in fiction, but also in such areas as political information, scientific popularization, etc. is obvious to researchers of culture.
Before talking about mass culture, we should consider the concept of "mass" as a designation of a certain part of the population. In his work “The Revolt of the Masses”, Ortega y Gasset writes: “A man of the masses is one who does not feel in himself any special gift or difference from everyone, good or bad, who feels that he is “exactly like everyone else”, and, moreover, is not at all upset by this, on the contrary, he is happy to feel the same as everyone else”8.
Spiritually one belongs to the mass who, in every question, is content with a ready-made thought, a ready-made opinion that does not need to be checked, questioned, etc. Such a person is indulgent towards himself, pleased with himself, lives effortlessly, not striving to change himself. It is possible to single out some specific features that express a person’s belonging to the “mass”: complacency, confidence in his perfection, in the infallibility of the truths he has learned once and for all, inertia, lack of need for spiritual efforts, inability and unwillingness to listen to other opinions, the indisputability of one’s own authority and at the same time the desire to be like everyone else. Consequently, mass culture is the culture of the “mass” or “crowd”, which dissolves a person in itself - an individual, a person, making him a gray facelessness. The basis of mass culture is ignorance, inability and unwillingness to appreciate beauty, lack of respect for both the past and the present, destruction, the cult of violence. Propaganda of cruelty and sadism, sexual revelry, etc. are often singled out as the most painful tendencies in mass culture.
At the origins of mass culture lies the development scientific and technological progress in particular funds mass communication. The possibility of rapid replication and populist presentation of ideas, scientific views, works of art has led to the fact that they become the property of the masses in a truncated and simplified form. It is believed that such “operational” types as literature, graphics, song, various artistic and journalistic forms, television and radio have become sources for the development of modern mass culture, because, due to their specificity, they have a quick and wide impact on the public.
There is no clear boundary between mass and elite culture. Elite culture can turn into a mass one. This happens when the search, once born of talent great artists, creators of directions, in the hands of epigones turn into sets of ready-made techniques. Instead of living creativity, a dead faceless stereotype takes shape and asserts itself.
On the borders of mass and elite cultures, subcultures develop, among which central location are occupied by youth. This is due to the fact that many crisis phenomena in the culture of the XX century. (erosion of values, spiritual apathy, cynicism, consumer sentiment, the decline in the authority of institutional forms of culture) are especially acute among young people. Often this is expressed in indifference to the problems of society, ridicule of certain moral principles. Basically, youth subcultures are exploratory in nature and testify to the desire of their subjects to actively establish themselves in modern life, find new spiritual values.
The formation of various subcultural formations among young people is international in nature. To a much lesser extent, they have national features. The age range of representatives of youth subcultures, according to various studies, is quite wide: from 12-13 years to 34-35. In the world there are many youth groups that are the subjects of one or another subcultural education. The most famous among them are hippies, punks, rockers, metalheads, fans, greens, Nazis, etc. Each of these formations has its own subgroups depending on interests or age.
One of the fairly common bands is punks. Their age ranges from 14 to 23 years old, they are mainly students of vocational schools, evening schools, workers, employees of the service sector. Their musical tastes are limited to punk music. Punks cultivate their morality, their code of conduct, their language. Punks are characterized by the desire to emphasize the “specialness” of their group by any means: a special appearance that causes shock and disgust among outsiders (hairstyles under the “hedgehog” and “cockscomb”, half-shaven heads, deliberately vulgarly painted faces, an abundance of metal rivets, spikes and chains on clothes), provocative manners and behavior.
Poppers are one of the largest groups in all countries. Their interests are focused on various musical styles. Most often, these are young people who consider themselves to be among the elite of society. Their worldly philosophy is emphatically consumerist. First of all, adherents of pop music are attracted by the external side of the “easy” life: “luxury” establishments, expensive cigarettes, drinks, pleasant pastime.
The above examples show that the members of each of the youth formations are subjects and objects of a certain subculture, often sharply different from others. Moreover, in each subculture, one can single out both the elite and the mass sides. The elite side lies in the fact that the style, behavior, declared spiritual and material values are for a certain group of people - the most intellectually and spiritually developed - an expression of philosophical understanding of life, a certain worldview, self-affirmation, the search for a spiritual ideal. In a simplified form, primarily through the outside, a certain subculture becomes the property of a wide range young people who are ready to accept not the idea itself, but only its objective, external expression. This is how mass side youth subcultures. In other words, the process of interaction between elite and mass cultures, which is so characteristic of modern society, is repeated.
1. The subject of cultural studies. Culturology in the system of humanitarian knowledge.
Culturology is the science of the most general patterns of development of culture, of the multiplicity of development of different cultures.
The subject is culture taken as an integral phenomenon (material, spiritual, socio-political) and interpreted (considered) in the course of historical development.
Culturology - studies the patterns of emergence and development of culture, the principles of its functioning, the relationship and interdependence of individual cultures that differ in spatio-temporal, socio-political and other characteristics.
The theory of culture explores culture as a system of social phenomena and as a social process.
Cultural studies is a complex scientific discipline based on:
Anthropology (the science of man),
History (culture is considered from the perspective of historical development),
Philosophy (first section - philosophy of culture)
Social psychology (explores the problem of mentality)
Sociology (the science of society, the processes taking place in society, the interaction of the individual and society)
Aesthetics (science of beauty) and other humanitarian disciplines..
Cultural studies was formed as a separate independent discipline already in the 20th century.
For the first time the term cultural studies was used by the German scientist Ostwaldt (1909), who substantiated the need systems approach to the study of culture.
At present, cultural studies are considered as the methodological basis of the whole complex of sciences about culture.
Tasks of cultural studies:
1. study of culture as a system of cultural phenomena
2. consideration of cultural codes (code - a way of transmitting information) - pre-written, written, screen and communication methods.
3. resolution of the problems of socio-cultural dynamics, i.e. development
4. study of the mental content of culture
5. consideration of the typology of culture and cultural units.
Research methods:
1. historical
2. comparative historical
3. civilizational-typological
4. morphological (morpho-form)
5. semiotic, i.e. sign-linguistic (different groups of languages are distinguished - natural, artificial (computer, Morse code), secondary (language of dance, music),
6. systemic
7. statistical, etc.
2. Culture as a social phenomenon: concept, essence.
The period of antiquity (2 thousand BC - 4th century AD)
The word culture first appears in Ancient Rome and translated from lat. means cultivation, processing, but already the Roman thinker Cicero used this term in figuratively in relation to a person - "cultivation of the human soul" (education, education).
The era of the Middle Ages (late 5th century - 14th century)
In this era, the concept of culture was considered as a derivative of the word "cult" (deification, veneration). The culture was religious in nature.
The creative abilities of man were realized through love for God.
The era of the Renaissance (Renaissance) of the 15th - 1st half of the 17th century secular trends appear in culture (the system of secular education, secular genres in painting, etiquette (1st book on etiquette in Italy in 1557).
The beginning of the era of modern times (mid-17th - early 20th centuries) - the beginning of bourgeois revolutions in Europe)
There are various interpretations of the concept of culture. For the first time as an independent concept, the term culture was used by the German jurist of the 17th century. - Pufendorf (as a synonym for public civil status). The conceptual foundations of culture were developed by German philosophers of the late 18th century. - I third of the 19th century. - Herder, Kant, Hegel.
By culture, they understood, first of all, the spiritual side of human life, that sphere that goes beyond the limits of human nature and the traditions of his social existence. They put the creative act of insight above all else.
Herder considered culture as "the second genesis of man", that is, the second birth of man.
Kant connected culture, first of all, with the moral side. “Only 2 things are worthy of wonder and awe - starry sky above us and the moral law in us. Morality makes a person a person.
In parallel with a positive assessment of culture, a negative view of culture is also being formed, where it is seen as a means of enslaving a person (J.J. Rousseau, F. Nietzsche, Z. Freud). They considered man as a natural being in its essence, man is anti-cultural.
Rousseau saw in man an ideal, beautiful creation from the very beginning. In society, thanks to culture, negative qualities (cruelty, envy) are formed in it.
The basis of the views of Nietzsche and Freud is the contradiction between the natural inclinations in man himself and the existing norms of collective morality. Obeying them, a person comes into conflict with himself and becomes weak, notorious.
Freud went down in history as the author of a theory of personality based on the concept of "libido". Meaning: in the process of life, a person accumulates excessive sexual energy (libido), which he can sublimate (transfer, transform at a higher level) into various areas(politics, science, art…). Freud turned to the life and work of outstanding people, in particular, the titans of the Renaissance (L. Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael).
3. Structure and functions of culture.
Structurally divided
According to the subject - the carrier (individual, collective, nation, people, ethnic group, humanity (at different stages).
A subculture is an autonomous culture of a certain social group with its own norms and values (youth subculture).
Acculturation is the process of an individual's entry into society, familiarization with culture (emigration).
By species - based on species human activity: material, spiritual, social.
Material culture is a sphere of materially transforming human activity and its results:
Production culture (equipment, tools, technologies)
culture of life
culture of dwelling
Culture of the human body (physical culture)
Work culture (Economist's pipes)
Spiritual culture is a sphere of spiritual activity and its results:
Culture is legal
Culture moral (ethical)
Scientific
Pedagogical
artistic
aesthetic
Spiritual culture is the correspondence of the level of development of the individual to the level of development of society (Giordano Bruno)
Spiritual culture forms the intellectual qualities of a person
Social culture - reflects the relations that arise between people in society (at the level of the state, dictatorship, democracy).
By levels
1. mass - elite
2. official - underground
3. ordinary - specialized
The nature.
1. professional culture is a set of knowledge, skills and abilities required to perform their job duties.
2. general culture - compliance of the level of development of the individual, society with the needs of the time
1. COGNITIVE - includes the values of culture, both material and objectified spiritual (based on any find, we draw conclusions about the entire era)
2. praxeological - includes social institutions involved in the creation, preservation and dissemination of cultural values
3. regulatory - includes social institutions that regulate people's relationships (relationships between people in the West and East are different)
You can take time parameters - past, present, future.
Culture Functions:
1. adaptive - helps a person adapt to the world around him (parents adapt more to children or vice versa)
2. human-creative - contributes to the formation of a particular type of personality
Eastern type - naturalness, religiosity, humility
antique type - the desire for beauty, harmony
medieval type - chivalry - valor, courage, bravery
clergy - a person tries to be useful
burgher type - industriousness, diligence Renaissance type - modern type - strives for innovation
3. social memory function (informative)
meaning - each generation, entering into life, masters the achievements of previous generations (Euclid, Pythagoras, Geradot, Plato, Aristotle)
4. epistemological (cognitive) - is realized through scientific research.
The 20th century brought 8527 scientific discoveries to the world (spacewalk, information technology, cloning).
5. compensatory (protective) - contributes to the survival of a person, the realization of his creative abilities (religion, science, art).
Diana Gurtskaya - blind singer
6. axiological (value) - helps a person choose for himself certain values in life
7. function of catharsis (purification) -
religion - confession, confessing a person is cleansed
art - music - listening to music relieves stress
painting - a person is cleansed and healed
8. game function - a person in the process of life combines various roles
9. semistic (sign-linguistic)
Language is a means of fixing, storing, processing, broadcasting cultural information.
The language of science, youth, colloquial, slang, the language of painting, art.
10. integrating and disintegrating functions (unifying and separating) - religion, politics.
The term "socio-cultural community" in the context of our subject has a collective meaning. In principle, it applies to the most diverse in terms of quantitative and qualitative composition of group members, acting as objects and subjects of socio-cultural activity.
Under socio-cultural community, involved in the field of culture, art, sports, tourism, recreation, means mainly an informal set of people united by common socio-cultural, leisure interests and hobbies, common goals and objectives of their activities, more or less strong ties and interaction, a common type of behavior, speculation and mindset.
This definition characterizes the socio-cultural activity of people representing not only homogeneous, but also different age, social, professional, ethnic and other groups. The common connecting moment for them is, at a minimum, the conscious setting of goals (both personal and socially significant) and the measure of personal and collective responsibility and interest.
Depending on the number of participants and the conditions of intragroup interaction socio-cultural communities divided into small, medium and large.
TO small Socio-cultural communities include small associations of participants in socio-cultural activities, including from two to several dozen people (optimally 7-9) who are in direct emotional and personal contact with each other, which gives them a special psychological feeling - “we are a group”. In everyday social and cultural life, in the process of mass and circle events, such groups include the family, the collective of the circle, an amateur association, a sports team, a team of KVN participants, a project group and others. Organizationally small group, thus, represents the primary socio-cultural unit.
To groups middle scale, or corporate, are relatively stable industrial, educational, domestic, military and other similar teams, for which the semantic concepts of "corporation" and "corporate culture" are the most defining. Corporate communities unite people working in the same institution or enterprise in the socio-cultural sphere, studying at a higher or secondary specialized educational institution of culture and art, etc.
Large Socio-cultural communities that act as subjects of socio-cultural activity, as a rule, represent a large stable group of people with different characteristics and traits, acting together in socio-cultural situations and functioning on the scale of a single region or the whole country. These include social strata, socio-political movements, parties, associations, professional groups, ethnic, demographic or confessional associations, often including tens and hundreds of thousands of people. A large socio-cultural community is made up of residents living in a fairly large but limited area (city, district, region).
A number of small, medium and partially large communities simultaneously act as corporate socio-cultural communities, because they are the subjects of the formation and implementation of their own corporate culture.
The group of corporate social and cultural communities with good reason can include state, joint-stock, joint and private firms, enterprises, institutions and organizations of various types in the field of industry, trade, culture, education, art, sports, etc. This group also includes various formalized and non-formalized associations and associations of representatives of the social strata of society, the business world, the intelligentsia, youth, and any other emerging entrepreneurial structures and initiative forms.
Characterizing a particular socio-cultural environment, we are talking about the presence in it of certain territorial, professional, ethnic, confessional and other socio-cultural communities.
Society is a socially consolidated stable group of people pursuing equally stable goals and interests. Culture is a cumulative way of realizing the goals and interests of people, the main technological and social parameters of which are determined complex system“social conventions” (arrangements) reached by this society over many generations of its integrated existence, which can be called the social experience of this collective. Culture can hardly reproduce itself. This society reproduces itself in the next generations as a specific social entity through the transmission of its culture.
Place and functions of culture in society
Culture unites the human community in time and space. The task destined for culture - to bind people into society and societies - finds expression in a number of its specific functions. Let's consider the main ones.
1. The function of adapting to the environment
It can be considered the most ancient and perhaps the only one common to humans and animals, although unlike them Homo sapiens in the matter of his protection from elemental forces, he went immeasurably further than other creatures and is forced to adapt to two types of circumstances - natural and social. All, what helps a person to survive and thrive in his natural environment, being a product of culture, performs the function of adaptation.
2. Cognitive (or epistemological) function
It finds its expression primarily in science, in scientific research. This is most evident in modern scientific and technological revolution. The cognitive function of culture has a dual focus: on the one hand, on the systematization of knowledge and the disclosure of the laws of development of nature and society, on the other hand, on the knowledge of man himself. At the present stage of the development of civilization, the first direction immeasurably prevails over the second. Man comprehended the world much better than the depths of one's own soul, one's own intellect.
3. Informative function
Provides historical continuity and the transfer of social experience. Humanity has no other way to preserve, increase and spread in time and space the accumulated spiritual wealth, as through culture. Culture is not inherited genetically and biologically. A person comes into this world as, to one degree or another, Blank sheet paper on which the older generations - carriers of the previous culture - write their letters.
4. Communicative function
Inextricably linked with the informative. The carriers of the communicative function are mainly verbal language, specific “languages” of art (music, theater, painting, cinema, and so on), as well as the language of science with its mathematical, physical, chemical and other symbols and formulas. The original sign systems existed for a long time and were transmitted from generation to generation, from person to person only orally and graphically, over relatively short distances in time and space. With the development of technology, the latest Vehicle and mass media (print, radio, television, cinema, audio and video recordings), the communicative possibilities of culture, that is, its ability to preserve, transmit and replicate cultural values, have increased immeasurably.
5. Regulatory and regulatory function
It manifests itself primarily as a system of norms and requirements of society for all its members in all areas of their life and activity - work, life, intergroup, interethnic, interpersonal relations. The main task of this function is to maintain social balance in this or that society, as well as between separate groups of people in the interests of survival human race or any part of it. The normative-regulatory function of culture is carried out by it at a number of levels. The highest of them are the norms of morality, which change in the course of history and from people to people. The next level at which the regulatory function of culture is carried out is the rule of law. Moral norms are contained mainly in religious texts and documents, as well as in secular moralistic literature. Rules of law, invariably based on moral norms and concretizing them (compare murder out of jealousy and murder under aggravated circumstances), are set out in detail in constitutions and laws. At the same time, they acquire not only moral, but already legal force. Differences in the norms of law among different peoples are much more noticeable than in the norms of morality. This is due to the specific history of each nation, its temperament, the level of culture achieved and other factors. In addition to the norms of morality and law, the regulatory function of culture is also manifested in the norms of behavior at work, at home, in communication with other people, in relation to nature. This level includes the rules of education, etiquette, personal hygiene, the culture of communication with people, and so on.
6. Evaluation function
It is expressed in the fact that the people representing it in theory and in practice seek to answer the question posed by Socrates: “What is good?”. Throughout the history of mankind, its brightest minds, as it were, classify all objects and phenomena of the surrounding world in terms of their “usefulness” or “harmfulness” for the survival of future generations. In the course of practical activities, natural selection values produced by the human intellect as the main driving force of culture. As experience is accumulated, many values are revised and “disappear”, new ones appear, enriching the already established tradition. Different peoples at different stages of development have different concepts of “good” and “evil” and developed value systems, but they all have a certain universal “core”, which is gradually expanding.
7. Function of differentiation and integration of human groups
It boils down to the following: just as it is impossible to imagine a language “in general”, because it exists only in the form of a multitude of specific languages, so culture always appears before us in some specific national-historical form. It is in this diversity that the wealth of world civilization lies. In real life, ethnic groups, nations and countries are separated not so much by geography and political borders, which are easily overcome and changeable, but by their cultural and psychological characteristics, which have a long history and great resistance to assimilation and alien influences. The whole course of world history teaches: despite the loss of both economic and political independence, despite attempts to create huge “empires”, small ethnic groups and peoples were preserved and revived as such precisely thanks to loyalty to their culture, psychological make-up, way of life, mores and customs, faith and the like.
8. The function of socialization (or human-creative)
Associated with the implementation of one single and most important task: make a biological individual intelligent public man . In other words, all the functions of culture listed above - from the function of adaptation to the function of differentiation and integration human groups- unite in this one synthetic function and obey it. The process of socialization consists in the assimilation by the human individual of a certain system of knowledge, norms and values that allow him to act as a full member of society. At the same time, we are talking not only about the fact that each of us is shaped and educated by the surrounding social environment, but also about the need for active inner work of the person himself, striving to preserve and improve his uniqueness in any conditions.
Separate consideration of the main functions of culture in society, of course, is very conditional. IN real life it is impossible to separate them. They are closely intertwined, pass one into another and practically represent single process, in general, providing the cultural and historical movement of mankind.
Personality and culture
As a social phenomenon, culture is a specific way of organizing and developing human life, presented in the products of material and spiritual production, in the system of social norms and institutions, in spiritual values. Although culture is a product of the collective life of people, its practical creators and performers are individuals. Traditionally, every individual acts in relation to culture simultaneously in several guises.
- As a "product" of culture, introduced into its norms and values, trained in the technologies of activity and the ethics of interaction with other people in the process of socialization carried out in the course of child education, upon receipt of the total and special education, through contacts with their social environment (family, friends, colleagues). Receiving everyday information of an ordinary and specialized nature, comprehending artistic images and moral conflicts in works of literature and art, a person is directly or indirectly formed as a person, socially and culturally adequate to society. This process does not end with maturity; adjustment of the parameters of this adequacy continues throughout a person's life.
- As a "consumer" of culture, using the norms and rules of the culture he has learned in his social practice and especially in interaction with other people, using languages and symbols of communication, knowledge, evaluative standards, typical ethical forms, tools and methods of personal self-identification and social self-realization given to him in a ready-made form in a given community.
- As a "producer" of culture, or creatively generating new cultural forms, or reproducing or evaluating the existing forms, which, by the very fact of individual interpretation, can be qualified as an act of creativity.
- As a “translator” of culture, because by reproducing any cultural patterns in practical actions and judgments, a person thereby transmits information about them to other people.
Culture as a system
Historically, culture has been a product of the joint life of people, a system of agreed procedures and methods of their collective existence and interaction in order to achieve common goals, satisfy group and individual interests and needs (both material and cognitive, symbolic, evaluative). But it is not a mechanical sum of all acts of human life. Its core is a set of “rules of the game” of collective existence, a system of normative technologies and evaluation criteria developed by people for the implementation of certain socially significant intellectual and practical actions (with varying degrees rigidity of their normative regulation).
As a social phenomenon culture is a systemic formation and is a set of elements, interconnected and forming subsystems of culture as a whole. In the structure of culture as a system, three of its subsystems can be distinguished, reflecting the main groups of people's needs, namely: material, social and spiritual needs.
material culture
It covers the industrial and household spheres of human activity. It represents the so-called "objective field" of culture: dwellings, equipment, household items, clothing, in a word, everything that forms the forms of satisfying the material needs of a person as a representative of his era. So a refrigerator, a TV set, a computer are objects that were created by man himself as an expression of his growing needs for comfort, efficiency in obtaining information or organizing his activities.
social culture
covers social sphere people's lives and appears in the form of standards, rules and norms of their interaction as carriers of certain social statuses and performers of the respective social roles under various social communities(eg ethnic), social groups (eg professional). These standards and models (a teacher teaches, a doctor treats, parents take care of children), a person learns in the process of socialization. They are fundamentally important, as they reflect our mutual social expectations and make the common life of people (in politics, in family life, in business relations) possible and expedient.
spiritual culture
The sphere of human activity, covering various aspects of the spiritual life of man and society. It represents the spiritual world of each individual person and his activity to create spiritual “products” (creativity of scientists, writers, legislators), the products of spiritual activity themselves in the form of spiritual values (cloths, customs, scientific theories). Spiritual culture includes religion, science, enlightenment, education, art, language, writing, and so on.
Culture and cultures
The concept of "culture" is nothing more than a speculative category that marks a certain class of phenomena in social life people, a certain aspect of their joint existence. Different populations of people live on Earth as autonomous communities in markedly different natural and historical conditions. The need to adapt to these diverse conditions led to the addition of an equally specific ways and forms of implementation of the collective life of people.
Such complexes of specific ways and forms of life activity are called local cultures respective communities (peoples). Some of these cultures are similar to each other due to the genetic relationship of the peoples practicing them or the similarity of the conditions for their emergence and history, others differ as much as the living conditions of the ethnic groups that gave rise to these cultures differ. But "no man's culture" or "culture in general" in principle can not be. In contrast to the biological properties of a person, the norms of culture are not inherited genetically, but are assimilated only by the method of training. Hence, as many communities existed in history, so many relatively self-sufficient cultures are found, which does not exclude a significant resemblance some of them.
Universal and national in culture
Recognition of the plurality of cultures leads to the formation different opinions and conclusions. Some scholars proceed from the idea of the equality of cultures, the impossibility of opposing them as different values. Others, on the contrary, believe that the diversity of cultures does not exclude the principle of hierarchy. In this frame of reference, some cultures are evaluated as significant, developed, value-rich and fruitful. Others, on the contrary, are perceived as less wealthy, patriarchal, emaciated and lost their supremacy.
National and universal are two interrelated aspects of the development of culture as an integrity. However, the experience of the 20th century revealed limitations of the Eurocentric approach to culture when the technogenic European culture was declared dominant, basic in relation to all other regional and national cultures. It became obvious that each culture has its own specific unique value. Various groups countries, nationalities are divided not by regions, but by their cultural, national characteristics, each of which is important in the universal process.
National culture is a plastic whole that changes in an evolutionary way. Therefore, transplantation, the mechanical replacement of some elements with others, cannot give positive results; simply copying the values of other cultures would be the greatest mistake. The full development of world culture, the entry of any country into the civilized community of peoples is possible only on the basis of comprehensive development national culture.
Trends in cultural universalization in the modern world
The modern era is characterized by the formation of a single planetary civilization, the formation of a universal culture based on the idea of the integrity of the world. This process involves the adoption by representatives of different national cultures systems universal values, settings and landmarks. However, cultural universalization does not mean unification, reduction of the entire diversity of national cultures to any single model. It's about, first of all, about the relationship, interaction of national cultures, which is possible subject to the adoption of common cultural background Otherwise, understanding will be difficult.
The formation of a universal culture is facilitated by an increase in the growth and intensity of various connections- political, economic, communication, cultural. Phenomena that arise in one region or sphere of life quickly spread throughout the world and are reflected in the development of various areas. The trend of cultural universalization manifests itself when a nation or a social group is ready to accept the elements of universal culture corresponding to its level of development and capabilities.
Active intercultural interaction, carried out thanks to modern information technology, the development of transport communications, the flourishing of travel and tourism, contribute to the transformation of the entire planet into a "global village". In this regard, there is an idea that national cultures in these conditions are gradually losing their originality and uniqueness. traditional cultures there are fewer and fewer of them, and almost all of them are experiencing the onslaught of modernization. Therefore, at present, there are increasing trends in preserving the characteristics of national cultures, which oppose universalization and globalization.
