Material culture and its types. The most important elements of material culture

The expression “uncultured person,” which we often encounter in everyday life, is absolutely incorrect from a philosophical point of view. As a rule, when we say this, we mean poor upbringing or lack of education. A person is always cultured, because he is a social being, and any society has its own culture. Another thing is that the degree of its development is not always at a high level, but this already depends on many accompanying factors: a specific historical period, development conditions and opportunities available to society. Culture is an integral part of the life of all humanity and each individual. There cannot be a society without culture, just as there can be no culture - without society, it creates a person, and a person creates it. Any new generation begins its existence in the world of spiritual and material values ​​already established by their ancestors.

Interrelation of cultures

Any human activity and all his achievements are

are part of culture, either material or spiritual. Moreover, it is impossible to draw a clear boundary between them. Material and spiritual culture, one way or another, are inextricably linked with each other. For example, the wardrobe that appeared in our house is a completely physical object, but during its creation the intellectual abilities of people were involved, imagination and logical thinking were demonstrated. At the same time, the greatest works of art, which are of undeniable spiritual value, would hardly have been born if the artist had not had a brush, and the philosopher had not had paper and pen. Even in ancient Rome, the most talented orator Cicero noted that along with cultivation, which in those days meant the cultivation and cultivation of the land, there is another culture - “cultivation of the soul.”

Basic Concepts

Material culture includes all the variety of objects produced by humanity: clothing, housing, mechanisms, weapons, cars, household items, musical instruments, etc. The basis of spiritual culture is the products of human intellectual activity, everything that has been achieved by the power of thought and talent. For example, these are new ideas and discoveries, religion, philosophy, works of art and psychology. If spiritual culture is the totality of the results of human intellectual activity, then material culture is the objective world created by human hands.

Which culture is more important?

Material culture, like spiritual culture, lives according to its own laws; there is no direct connection between the levels of their development. The improvement in people's material well-being was not always accompanied by an increase in their spiritual development, and many of the greatest works of art were created in complete poverty. However, it is also undeniable that a person in need of housing, food and clothing will not think about high matters. Only “well-fed” people who have satisfied their physical needs can be drawn to philosophy and art. Material culture will clearly show how well a person has adapted to life, whether he is in harmony with nature, while spiritual culture sets the basic standards of behavior, forms a sense of the high and beautiful, and creates ideals. Spiritual and material culture include everything that is not given to us by nature, that is created by human labor, that significantly distinguishes us from animals. Only the harmony of these two cultures will help achieve a high level of existence for both one person and an entire state.

There are different ways to analyze the structure of culture. Since culture acts, first of all, as a prerequisite for all types of socially significant activities, the main elements of its structure are forms of recording and transferring social experience. In this context, the main components of culture are: language, customs, traditions, values ​​and norms.

Language is a system of conventional symbols that correspond to certain objects. Language plays a vital role in the process of socialization of an individual. With the help of language, cultural norms are assimilated, social roles are mastered, and behavior patterns are formed. Each person has his own cultural and speech status, which denotes belonging to a specific type of linguistic culture: a high literary language, vernacular, local dialect.

Tradition is a form of sociocultural reproduction associated with the transmission from generation to generation of the basic elements of normative culture: symbols, customs, manners, language. The need to preserve these basic norms is determined by the very fact of their existence in the past.

Social norm- this is a form of sociocultural regulation in a certain social sphere, characterizing the individual’s membership in a given social group. A social norm establishes acceptable boundaries for the activities of representatives of specific social groups, ensures predictability and standardization of people’s behavior in accordance with their social status.

Value is a category indicating the human, social and cultural significance of certain phenomena of reality. Each historical era is characterized by a specific set and a certain hierarchy of values. Such a value system acts as the highest level of social regulation and forms the basis for the formation of personality and the maintenance of normative order in society.

Material and spiritual culture.

Considering culture by its carrier, material and spiritual culture are distinguished.

Material culture includes all spheres of material activity and its results: housing, clothing, objects and means of labor, consumer goods, etc. That is, those elements that serve the natural organic needs of man belong to material culture, which literally satisfies with its content these needs.

Spiritual culture includes all spheres of activity and its products: knowledge, education, enlightenment, law, philosophy, religion, art. Spiritual culture is connected, first of all, not with the satisfaction of needs, but with the development of human abilities that are of universal importance.

The same objects can belong to both material and spiritual culture at the same time, and also change their purpose in the process of existence.

Example. Household items, furniture, clothing in everyday life satisfy natural human needs. But, being exhibited in a museum, these things already serve to satisfy cognitive interest. Using them you can study the life and customs of a certain era..

Culture as a reflection of the spiritual abilities of the individual.

Based on the form of reflection of spiritual abilities, as well as on the origin and nature of culture, the following three forms can be conventionally distinguished: elitist, popular And massive.

Elite, or high culture, includes classical music, highly artistic literature, poetry, fine arts, etc. It is created by talented writers, poets, composers, painters and is aimed at a select circle of art connoisseurs and connoisseurs. This circle may include not only “professionals” (writers, critics, art critics), but also those who highly value art and receive aesthetic pleasure from communicating with it.

Folk culture arises to a certain extent spontaneously and most often does not have specific authors. It includes a variety of elements: myths, legends, epics, songs, dances, proverbs, ditties, crafts and much more - everything that is commonly called folklore. Two component features of folklore can be distinguished: it is localized, i.e. connected with the traditions of a particular area, and democratic, since everyone takes part in its creation.

Mass culture began to develop in the mid-nineteenth century. It is not distinguished by high spirituality; on the contrary, it is mainly of an entertaining nature and currently occupies the main part of the cultural space. This is an area without which it is impossible to imagine the lives of modern young people. Works of mass culture are, for example, modern pop music, cinema, fashion, modern literature, endless television series, horror films and action movies, etc.

Sociological approach to understanding culture.

In the context of the sociological approach, culture is a system of values ​​and norms inherent in a particular social community, group, people or nation. Main categories: dominant culture, subculture, counterculture, ethnic culture, national culture. Considering culture as a characteristic of the life activity of various social groups, the following concepts are distinguished: dominant culture, subculture And counterculture.

Dominant culture- is a set of beliefs, values, norms, and rules of behavior that are accepted and shared by the majority of members of society. This concept reflects a system of norms and values ​​that are vital for society and form its cultural basis.

Subculture is a concept with the help of which sociologists and cultural scientists identify local cultural complexes that arise within the framework of the culture of the entire society.

Any subculture presupposes its own rules and patterns of behavior, its own style of clothing, its own manner of communication, and reflects the peculiarities of the lifestyle of various communities of people. Russian sociologists are currently paying especially great attention to the study of youth subculture.

As the results of specific sociological studies show, the subcultural activity of young people depends on a number of factors:

Level of education (for people with a lower level of education, for example, vocational school students, it is noticeably higher than for university students);

From age (peak activity is 16 - 17 years old, by 21 - 22 years it decreases significantly);

From the place of residence (more typical for the city than for the village).

Counterculture is understood as a subculture that is in a state of open conflict in relation to the dominant culture. Counterculture means rejection of the basic values ​​of society and calls for the search for alternative forms of life.

Specifics of modern mass culture.

Back in the 19th century, philosophers who studied culture turned to analyzing the essence and social role of mass and elite culture. Mass culture in those days was clearly viewed as an expression of spiritual slavery, as a means of spiritual oppression of a person, as a way of forming a manipulated consciousness. It was contrasted with high classical culture, which was perceived as a way of life characteristic of the privileged strata of society, intellectuals, aristocrats of the spirit, i.e. "colors of humanity"

In the 40-50s of the twentieth century, a point of view on mass information as a new stage of culture took shape. It was successfully developed in the works of the Canadian researcher Herbert Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980). He believed that all existing cultures differ from one another in the means of communication, because it is the means of communication that form the consciousness of people and determine the characteristics of their life. As many cultural scientists note, the concept of McLuhan and his followers is a typical optimistic concept of mass culture.

The main function of mass culture is compensatory and entertaining, which is complemented by a socially adaptive function, implemented in an abstract, superficial form. In this regard, Western researchers have repeatedly emphasized that mass culture turns people into curious observers of life, viewing the illusory world of video images as an objectively existing reality, and the real world as an illusion, an annoying hindrance to existence. Consumption of samples of mass culture, according to the testimony of many psychologists, returns adults to the infantile stage of perception of the world, and turns young consumers of this culture into passive creators, indiscriminately absorbing the ideological “rations” prepared for them.

American researchers of popular culture argue that today it functions as a spiritual drug. Immersing the human mind in the world of illusions, mass culture becomes a school of stereotypes that shape not only mass consciousness, but also the corresponding behavior of people. When defending this position, it was often assumed that human inequality is natural and will exist forever. That there will always be an elite in any society, that it is the elite that constitutes the intellectual ruling minority, highly active and highly intelligent.

Civil liberties;

Spreading literacy among all segments of the population;

National psychology and self-awareness, most clearly expressed in national art.

Scientists distinguish two levels of national culture:

Expressed in national character and national psychology;

Represented by literary language, philosophy, high art.

Ways to master national culture:

Unlike an ethnic group, each nation creates specialized cultural institutions: museums, theaters, concert halls, etc.

The formation of national identity is facilitated by the national education system: schools, higher education institutions.

Today, the main goal of national education is the moral education of the individual, instilling such socially significant qualities as love, humanism, altruism, tolerance as the desire for freedom and justice, equality of rights and opportunities, and a tolerant attitude towards the most diverse manifestations of human essence.

Culture and civilization.

In cultural studies, next to the concept of culture there is the concept of civilization. This term arose later than the concept of “culture” - only in the 18th century. According to one version, its author is considered to be the Scottish philosopher A. Ferrugson, who divided human history into eras:

savagery,

barbarism,

Civilizations,

meaning by the latter, the highest stage of social development.

According to another version, the term “civilization” was coined by French Enlightenment philosophers and was used by them in two senses: broad and narrow. The first meant a highly developed society based on the principles of reason, justice and religious tolerance. The second meaning was closely intertwined with the concept of “culture” and meant a set of certain qualities of a person - an extraordinary mind, education, politeness, refinement of manners, etc., the possession of which opened the way to the elite Parisian salons of the 18th century.

Modern scientists define civilization according to the following criteria:

Historical time (ancient, medieval, etc.);

Geographical space (Asian, European, etc.);

Technology (industrial, post-industrial society);

Political relations (slave, feudal civilizations);

Specifics of spiritual life (Christian, Muslim, etc.).

Civilization means a certain level of development of material and spiritual culture.

In the scientific literature, the definition of civilization types is carried out according to the following criteria:

The commonality and interdependence of historical and political fate and economic development;

Interpenetration of cultures;

The presence of a sphere of common interests and common tasks from the point of view of development prospects.

Based on these characteristics, three types of civilization development have been identified:

Non-progressive forms of existence (Australian aborigines, American Indians, many tribes of Africa, small peoples of Siberia and northern Europe),

Cyclical development (countries of the East) and

Progressive development (Greco-Latin and modern European).

At the same time, in cultural studies there has not been a unified view on understanding the essence of civilization as a scientific category. So, from the position of A. Toynbee, civilization is considered as a certain stage in the development of the culture of individual peoples and regions. From the perspective of Marxism, civilization is interpreted as a specific stage of social development that began in the life of the people after an era of savagery and barbarism, which is characterized by the emergence of cities, writing, and the formation of national-state entities. K. Jaspers understands civilization as “the value of all cultures,” thereby emphasizing their unified universal character.

The concept of civilization occupies a special place in the concept of O. Spengler. Here, civilization is interpreted as the final moment in the development of the culture of a particular people or region, meaning its “decline.” Contrasting the concepts of “culture” and “civilization”, in his work “The Decline of Europe” he writes: “... civilization is the inevitable fate of culture. Here the very peak has been reached, from the height of which it becomes possible to solve the most difficult questions of historical morphology.

Civilization is the most extreme and most artificial state of which the higher type of people is capable. They... completion, they follow becoming as what has become, life as death, development as numbness, like mental old age and the petrified world city behind the village and soulful childhood. They are the end without the right of appeal, due to internal necessity, they always turn out to be a reality” (Spengler O. The Decline of Europe. Essays on the Morphology of World History: in 2 vols. M., 1998. Vol. 1., p. 164.).

With all the diversity of existing points of view, they largely coincide. Most scientists understand civilization as a fairly high level of development of material culture and social relations and consider the most important signs of civilization to be: the emergence of cities, the emergence of writing, the stratification of society into classes and the formation of states.

Each of us has needs that can be divided into spiritual and material. To do this, it is enough to recall the pyramid of the famous psychologist Maslow, in which the lower (need for food, sex, air, etc.) and higher human desires (the desire to be a respected person, the desire for self-affirmation, a sense of security, comfort and etc.). To satisfy all of the above, in the process of historical development of mankind, classifications of a cultural nature were formed, including material culture.

What is material culture?

Let us recall that material culture is the environment surrounding a person. Every day, thanks to the work of everyone, it is updated and improved. This gives rise to a new standard of living, as a result of which the demands of society change.

Types of material culture include:

1. Animals. This category includes not only livestock, but also decorative breeds of cats, birds, dogs, etc. However, cheetahs do not belong to this species because they live in the wild and have not been subjected to the process of deliberate interbreeding with other species of their own kind. And cats and dogs, the development of whose nature has been invaded by man, are representatives of material culture. Also one of these reasons is that their gene pool and appearance have been changed.
2. Plants. The number of new varieties increases every year. Man achieves this through selection.
3. The soil. This is the top layer of the earth, by fertilizing which every farmer strives to get a bountiful harvest. True, in the race for money, environmental indicators are sometimes ignored, and as a result, the earth is filled with harmful bacteria and viruses.
4. Building. An equally important achievement of material culture is considered to be structures and architecture that are created with the help of human labor. The culture of buildings includes real estate, which is constantly being improved, and thereby improving the standard of living of people.
5. Equipment, tools. With their help, a person simplifies his work and spends two or more times less time on achieving something. This, in turn, significantly saves his life time.
6. Transport. This category, like the previous one, is aimed at improving living standards. For example, earlier, when many traders went to China to buy silk, it took at least a year to get from the USA to this country. Nowadays it’s enough just to buy a plane ticket and you don’t have to wait 360 days.
7. Means of communication. The area includes the miracle of technology - mobile phones, the World Wide Web, radio, mail.

Features of material culture

It should be noted that the distinctive quality of this type of culture is the variety of objects created by human labor, which help to adapt to changeable conditions as quickly as possible. environmental and social conditions. In addition, each nation has its own material characteristics, characteristic specifically for a particular ethnic group.

The relationship between material and spiritual culture

One of the main intermediaries between the spiritual and material worlds is money. So, they can be spent on purchasing much-needed food, clothes that help you stay warm in the frosty winter, or simply interior elements. It all depends on the desire of the person and his capabilities. Using this market equivalent, one can purchase a ticket to a seminar at which a person will increase the level of his knowledge, which is already spiritual culture, or he can go to the theater.

Material culture and its types.

Culture is an integral system object with a complex structure. At the same time, the very existence of culture acts as a single process that can be divided into two spheres: material and spiritual. Material culture is divided into: - production and technological culture, which represents the material results of material production and methods of technological activity of a social person; - reproduction of the human race, which includes the entire sphere of intimate relationships between a man and a woman. It should be noted that material culture is usually understood not so much as the creation of the objective world of people, but rather the activity of shaping the “conditions of human existence.” The essence of material culture is the embodiment of various human needs, allowing people to adapt to biological and social conditions of life.

Material culture is the human environment. Material culture is created by all types of human labor. It creates the standard of living of society, the nature of its material needs and the possibility of satisfying them. The material culture of society falls into eight categories:

1) animal breeds;

2) plant varieties;

3) soil culture;

4) buildings and structures;

5) tools and equipment;

6) communication routes and means of transport;

7) communications and means of communication;

8) technology.

1. Breeds of animals constitute a special category of material culture, because this category does not include the number of animals of a given breed, but precisely the carriers of the breed.

This category of material culture includes not only animals for economic use, but also decorative breeds of dogs, pigeons, etc. The process of transferring wild animals into domestic ones through directed selection and crossing is accompanied by changes in their appearance, gene pool and behavior. But not all tame animals, for example, cheetahs used for hunting, belong to material culture, because did not undergo directed crossing processes.

Wild and domestic animals of the same species can coexist in time (as, for example, pigs and wild boars) or be only domestic.

2. Plant varieties are developed through selection and targeted education. The number of varieties is constantly increasing in each plant species. Unlike animal breeds, plants can be stored in seeds, which contain all the qualities of an adult plant. Seed storage allows you to collect collections of seeds and save them, systematize, classify, etc. conduct all types of activities characteristic of cultural work. Since different plant species have different relationships between seeds and the adult plant, since many plants reproduce by layering and cuttings, crop-forming functions are associated with the distribution of varieties in a given area. This is done by nurseries and seed farms.

3. Soil culture is the most complex and vulnerable component of material culture. Soil is the upper productive layer of the earth, in which saprophytic viruses, bacteria, worms, fungi and other living elements of nature are concentrated between inorganic elements. The productive power of the soil depends on how much and in what combinations these living elements are found with inorganic elements and among themselves. It is important to note that to create a soil culture, it is processed to increase its fertility. Soil treatment includes: mechanical tillage (turning over the top layer, loosening and transferring the soil), fertilizing with humus of organic plant residues and animal waste, chemical fertilizers and microelements, the correct sequence of cultivation of different plants in the same area, water and air regime of the soil (reclamation, irrigation, etc.).

Thanks to cultivation, the soil layer increases in volume, life in it is activated (thanks to the combination of saprophytic living beings), and fertility increases. The soil, being in the same place thanks to human activity, improves. This is the culture of the soil.

Soils are classified according to their quality, location and their productive capacity. Soil maps are being compiled. Soils are rated by their productive power through comparison. A land cadastre is compiled that determines the quality and comparative value of the soil. Inventories have agricultural and economic uses.

4. Buildings and structures are the most visual elements of material culture (the German verb “bauen” means “to build” and “to cultivate the soil”, as well as “to engage in any culture-forming activity”; it well expresses the meaning of the combination of basic forms of material and cultural development of places - ness).

Buildings are the places where people live with all the diversity of their activities and life, and structures are the results of construction that change the conditions of economic activity. Buildings usually include housing, premises for monetary, administrative activities, entertainment, information, educational activities, and structures for land reclamation and water management systems, dams, bridges, and premises for production. The boundary between buildings and structures is mobile. Thus, the theater room is a building, and the stage mechanism is a structure. A warehouse can be called both a building and a structure. What they have in common is that they are the result of construction activities.

The culture of buildings and structures, as well as soils, is real estate that should not be destroyed in its functional qualities. This means that the culture of buildings and structures consists of maintaining and constantly improving their useful functions.

Authorities, especially local ones, monitor the maintenance and development of this culture. The role of chambers of commerce and industry, which, being public organizations, are directly involved in this work (of course, where they exist and where they function correctly) is especially great. Banks can play a significant role in this cultural creative work, which, however, do not always act correctly, forgetting that their future well-being is connected, first of all, with the correct exploitation of real estate.

5. Tools, devices and equipment - a category of material culture that provides all types of physical and mental labor. Οʜᴎ represent movable property and differ based on the type of activity they serve. The most complete list of various tools, devices and equipment is the trade nomenclature.

The peculiarity of correctly compiled trade nomenclatures is that they reflect the entire history of improvement of tools, devices and equipment. The principle of culture formation in the development and differentiation of functions and the preservation of early functional analogues.

The difference between tools, fixtures and equipment is that the tool directly affects the material being processed; fixtures serve as an addition to the tool, allowing them to operate with greater accuracy and productivity. Equipment - complexes of tools and devices located in one place of work and everyday life.

Material culture and its types. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Material culture and its types." 2017, 2018.