Social Ideal: Formation and Development of Civilizational Strategies of the Russian Empire. social ideal

Socio-historical development - an extremely complex, multilateral process that takes place over a fairly long period of time. historical period and assuming economic, political and legal, spiritual and moral, intellectual and many other components that form a certain integrity.

Usually sociologists focus on the socio-historical development of a particular social subject. Such a social subject can be an individual, a specific society (for example, Russian) or a group of societies (European, Latin American societies), a social group, a nation, social institution(education system, family), social organization or any combination of them ( political parties, national economic enterprises, commercial and industrial companies). Finally, such a subject may be certain tendencies concerning the whole of humanity as a social subject.

0type of society it is a system of certain structural units - social communities, groups, institutions, etc., interconnected and interacting with each other on the basis of some common social ideals, values, norms.

There are different classifications of types of societies. The most elementary classification is the division of societies into simple And complex

Currently in the domestic scientific literature concept of civilization usually used in three meanings:

§ sufficiently high stage sociocultural level of this or that society following barbarism;

§ sociocultural type (Japanese, Chinese, European, Russian and other civilizations);

§ supreme modern level socio-economic, technological, cultural and political development(contradictions of modern civilization).

For better understanding society that surrounds us and in which we live, let us trace the development of societies from the very beginning of their existence.

The simplest societies They are called societies of hunters and gatherers. Here the men hunted animals and the women gathered edible plants. Apart from this, there was only this basic division of the pile by gender. Although male hunters enjoyed authority in these groups, female gatherers brought more food to the group, perhaps 4/5 of all the food they got.

Societies of hunters and gatherers were small and usually consisted of 25-40 people. They led nomadic image life, moving from place to place as food supplies are reduced. These groups were, as a rule, peaceful and divided food among themselves, which was necessary condition survival.

The hunter-gatherer society is the most egalitarian of all societies. Since food obtained by hunting and gathering spoils quickly, people cannot stockpile, so no one can become richer than another. There are no rulers, and many decisions are made jointly.

Second social revolution , much more sudden and significant than the first, occurred about 5-6 millennia ago and was associated with the invention of the plow. This invention led to the emergence of a new type of society. The new society - agrarian - was based on extensive agriculture, in which the soil was cultivated by a horse-drawn plow.

The Industrial Revolution, like the Agrarian Revolution, was also caused by invention. It began in Britain, where the steam engine was first used in 1765.

The new source of energy gave impetus to the emergence of an industrial society, which the sociologist Herbert Bloomer defined as a society in which fuel-powered machines are used instead of human or animal power.

The problem of the ideal in philosophy is built as a problem social ideal. Any other variants of axiology (cognitive ideal, religious), even if they are abstracted from any references to social interactions, derived from this construction. Therefore, for philosophy, it is not a universal ideal that makes sense, but a universal social ideal (a normative reflection of society in general).

IDEAL SOCIAL English. ideal, social; German. Ideal, sociales. Representation of the perfect state of social. objects, reflecting the most significant values ​​of a given culture, which are a criterion for assessing reality and a guideline for the activity of an individual, social. groups, classes, society.

social ideal- an idea of ​​the perfect state of society (desired, due). It can be present both in a group (culture, nation, confession, party, etc.) and in an individual. Born by their most significant values. Serves as an evaluation criterion (See Evaluation in Philosophy) reality and orientation of activity

As the last I.S. should ideally (Ideal Social Ideal) meet the requirements: 1) Universal recognition (both by other groups and by subjects hypothetically able to evaluate being: animal vegetable world, laws of nature, God) 2) Eternity 3) Accessibility (availability of resources and social forces) Describe the ideal S.I. now it is not possible due to both the state of knowledge (1) and the mind in general (2). It is extremely rare to see S.I. postulating the second condition along with the third. However, a person is quite capable of putting forward potentially ideal S.I. and evaluate their height

THEME 4

Culture and social ideal

I would like to remind you that we are developing a philosophical understanding of culture. Any activity that resists the elements is cultural. After all, even culture can be destroyed in a barbaric way, or can it be culturally? planned, organized, prudent. The Nazi Wehrmacht planned to destroy Slavic culture but not culture in general. There was even an expression cultural policy on conquered eastern territories", which was to be carried out by Himmler's department.

Culture is not "good" or "bad". It cultivates some qualities in a person, but culture itself depends on a person: if he is “good”, then culture will be the same. The life of a culture is provided by a hierarchy of values ​​(we talked about them in topic 3). But it depends on us whether we prefer this hierarchy or choose some other one. All this is connected with the ideals that prevail in society, which people share or renounce them. Next, we will consider the nature of the ideal and its role in culture.

Here it is worth highlighting the following questions:

- the concept and structure of the ideal;

- the defining role of the ideal in culture;

- the creative nature of the ideal;

– change of social ideals as a change of cultures.

In our official historical science For a long time, the view of history as a change of formations, classes dominated, in society they saw only a socio-economic structure.

It was a history of events and names. But in parallel there was a different story, a different idea of ​​it. It was not societies or classes that acted here, but people with their daily concerns, needs, goals and hopes. Many of the goals were not realized, the hopes turned out to be empty fantasies, but they continued to live, reborn in other generations. This was also history, but, as it were, its internal plan, which official science did not want to notice.

Meanwhile, Marx also wrote about the danger and unscientific nature of opposing society, as an abstraction, to the individual.19 A look at history, where kings and leaders, estates and classes, where one type of production is replaced by another, is an incomplete look. It is also necessary, but history is not limited to events and names of heroes. Even the same events and names can be evaluated differently in historical science and in the opinion of ordinary people.

The writer V. Soloukhin drew attention to the different attitudes of the people towards the leaders of the peasant wars - Razin and Pugachev. The difference is that the name of Razin has been preserved to this day in people's memory, you can learn about Pugachev only from books, but they seemed to do one thing. But Razin promised freedom, and although he never brought will to the people, however, the promised will turned out to be more attractive than actual slavery.

Or another example. In any history textbook it is written that there was no slavery as such in Russia. But real life and its awareness by people testify otherwise. Take, for example, the woeful Lermontov lines:

... The country of slaves, the country of masters

And you, blue uniforms,

And you, a loyal people...

If people in Russia lived with the consciousness and feeling of their slavery, then no matter how much slavery was officially denied, it can be argued that it was a fact of life.

Thus, far from everything in history “lies on the surface”, much of it is hidden in the minds, psyches of people, in everyday habits, in judgments that determine people’s behavior and the development of society as a whole. This also follows from our understanding of culture as a kind of human attire: if it can be judged by it, then only, as they say, at the first meeting. And for a real penetration into history, it is necessary to take into account how an ordinary person understands his life, and life - in its real everyday life, you need to know the values ​​and guidelines that guide him.

French philosopher and social psychologist L. LevyBrühl introduced the concept of "mentality" into scientific circulation. It means a spiritual, personal cut of history, the knowledge of which is necessary for a deeper understanding of it. History or society then appears from the side of spiritual culture, the practical role of which we have already spoken about. At the same time, it is considered “first of all, as that intellectual “equipment” that each individual person has at one time or another, and also as a structure of knowledge that he possesses as a member of a certain social group.20 That is, against the general background of history, culture is a system of assessments and life orientations of people.

Patterns and images in culture

The role of the initial reference point is the sample (we have already talked about it in connection with the norms). It expresses a certain cultural norm, is a standard. In material culture, too, there are standards, or measures, with their help, certain values ​​​​or quantities are preserved or maintained. Let's say a meter rail is used to measure length.

Everyone can have it, and in the process of using it, you need to periodically compare it with an exemplary measure.

The same is true in the sphere of spiritual culture. Perhaps not always consciously, but a custom or rite is used as a model. As an example, you can imagine a sequence of some actions. Let's say a mother shows her daughter, who has also become a mother, or is preparing to become one, the methods of handling a nursing infant. Clear evidence that the mother does everything right is the daughter herself, whom the mother once treated in the same way. The daughter, perceiving the mother's actions as a model, creates her own image, which will determine the sequence of her actions.

The determining function of the image

This means that, acting in some way, a person follows a pattern. But it also means that the image has become cause this kind of activity. This, in fact, is expressed in the concept of “mode of activity”. This role of the image has been noted for a long time. Even Heraclitus said that the way of thinking of a person is his deity, i.e. he has power over a person, directs his actions, determines his behavior. Activity that is not based on an image will be spontaneous, ugly. And, consequently, a person who does not have the proper image in himself will produce the same impression.

37 centuries before our time, a Mesopotamian wrote a letter to his son, in which he suggested that he use the images of other people to correct his behavior: “You, wandering around crowded squares, would you like to succeed? Then look at the generations before you... Go to school, it will benefit you. My son, look at previous generations, ask them for an answer... Others like you work, help their parents. You, you are a man only in your stubbornness, but in comparison with them you are not a man at all ... ”21

More than a hundred generations have already changed on Earth, but even today many parents tell their children the same thing as ancient inhabitant Mesopotamia. This indicates that not only images of general cultural behavior, images of individual actions, but also an understanding of the determining role of these images are transmitted from generation to generation.

Images-ideals and images-idols in culture

The power of the image is manifested in the fact that people often put it "on a pedestal", that is, they worship it, use it as a measure of their feelings, thoughts, their lives. True, man develops because he is guided by ever higher standards. For example, if a person is dominated by the image of freedom or the idea of ​​some kind of discovery, invention, then this contributes to his development, really elevates him. Freedom or discovery in science refers to universal values, and the desire for them attaches a person to them. But when a person is captivated by power, money or fashionable clothes - this is a completely different captivity, he humiliates him, and does not elevate him.

In principle, the spirituality of each of us is richer surrounding reality to the extent of our self-consciousness. Our spiritual reality is beyond the horizon of the visible, therefore it is richer than any image, which, ultimately, is visible formation of consciousness. If a person submits himself visible image, identifies himself with him, then the image becomes an idol for him, i.e. object of worship, cult. And this worship will be blind even when one looks wide open eyes on the object of his adoration or on someone's image, because behind this object or image he does not see himself.

Idols are man-made, they are the result of purposeful activity, the product of the person himself. If in the early stages of culture he idealized natural forces, then later, as he developed, a person often idealized, that is, he elevated the products of his own creativity to an ideal. The ideal, therefore, as an idea of ​​the highest goals or abilities of a person, was replaced by an idol.

Various objects played the role of idol images in the history of culture. Wooden figurines of gods, icons, jewelry, now the names of movie stars have been added to them, musical ensembles, technique, various styles in dress and behavior. An idol for a person can be own appearance, your habits, whims, addictions ...

The evil of idolatry has been noticed long ago. There was also a fight against him. For example, the famous cultural historian A.Ya. Gurevich wrote that at one time treasures were buried not so that they could be used later, but so that no one could use them.22

But it is human nature to worship. Man is a goal-setting being, he sets himself goals that reflect his ideas about his ideal state. In the ability to set goals, his freedom is manifested. A dependent person is not capable of setting a goal, he fulfills other people's goals or the will of another person imposed on him. Each of us has gone through a stage of struggle for the right to determine our own life, i.e. for the right to choose your goals and your path in life. Our inclinations and passions, which we evaluate and compare, ultimately form in us an idea of ​​the future, an image of our goal.

Of course, we are not the first to choose our goals, they were chosen before us, but the value of our own goals does not decrease because someone has already set them for themselves and strived for them. After all, the value of our life does not decrease only because people lived before us. Imitations and examples are indispensable. Here is what N. Machiavelli wrote about this: “The fact is that people almost always follow the paths already paved by others, and do their actions out of imitation. However, not being able to follow in everything in the footsteps of another, nor equal in valor with his models, a wise person must always choose the paths tested by other people, and imitate the most remarkable ones so that if he does not achieve their greatness, then he will perceive at least some reflection of it. 23

By studying the experience of other people, we create our own image and set it before ourselves as our goal. Striving for it, we fill our perfect image or, to put it another way, we shape ourselves according to our purpose. In essence, this is cultural work, and the whole culture as a whole is a cult of human goals, a cult of education, the formation of a person in accordance with his ideal ideas about himself. Culture is the power over a person not only of idols, but also of ideals that free him from the power of spontaneity and barbarism.

The ideal as a unity of cognitive, ethical and aesthetic (truth, goodness and beauty)

Such liberation is a person's striving for a state in which he would correspond to his concept and destiny, which is expressed in the concept of the ideal. IN ancient Greek philosophy existed special term to denote the ideal harmonious combination physical and spiritual virtues of a person - kalokagatiya. It was an idea of ​​the highest culture and upbringing, an example of the unity of the beautiful and the good in a person. It was assumed that the efforts free man should be aimed at achieving such a state.

However, in the history of culture, not every person could achieve it, or at least set a corresponding goal. For many, it remained an unattainable dream, an illusion. With the development of social sciences, a conviction was formed in the need to know the ways or ways to achieve the ideal. And if the Enlightenment as a whole set itself the task of conveying to everyone the true concept of man and his destiny, then the task of Marxist teaching was to determine the ways of reorganizing society in order to achieve the ideal, one for all. But the practice of implementing this doctrine, and not only in the USSR, has shown that no political or economic restructuring in itself has brought it closer to the ideal. It is often said that the socialist transformations carried out over the course of seven decades were very far from the ideals of Marxist teaching. But it must be remembered that in the implementation ideal is important, first of all, inner work human spirit rather than external transformations in society. This simple truth was clear to many thinkers in ancient times, but even today, even after so many losses and disappointments, people continue to rely on the good intentions of politicians, allow themselves to be blinded by ostentatious beauty and brilliance.

It was Christianity, and this is its great positive significance, that brought a person closer to understanding that both goodness and beauty can be false, that good intentions can only be proclaimed, and beauty can be external, apparent. Therefore, as Christianity spread antique concept kalokagatii as the unity of the beautiful and the good in man was supplemented by the concept truth.

Religious (Christian) ideal

The ideal idea of ​​a person that exists in Christianity differs significantly from a similar idea in other world religions. If Buddhism gravitates toward rationality and, in essence, is a religion of renunciation and deliverance from worldly evil, then Christianity insists on understanding the source of evil and overcoming it in man himself. If Islam gravitates toward the emotional expression of a person's humility and humility before God, then Christianity, without denying the need for this, insists on the elevation of a person through his love for God.

The ideal of Christianity is connected with human love as with the natural state of a liberated soul. loving soul- this is the free will of a person, due not to external coercion, but to internal motivation.

The ideal of Christianity has a figurative expression. This is the person of Jesus Christ. He said of himself: "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." But Christ appeared to people in the form of a man and thereby reminded them that man is the image and likeness of God. Man has lost his prototype, and his calling is to regain it. To do this, it is not enough to know and feel, it is necessary love as the harmony of truth, goodness and beauty in a person. Under the influence of Christianity, the concept of truth became necessary moment ideal.

"Religions in the world are part of the culture", ? said the well-known historian of religion, Archpriest Alexander Men, in a lecture delivered at the Moscow House of Technology on September 8, 1990, on the eve of his death. The simple and obvious truth of this statement has only recently returned to Russian society. But its return does not mean that the Christian ideal of love is being revived. The concepts of love, tolerance, pity were as if struck out of the lexicon of our society along with the separation of church and state.24 Along with them, the corresponding feelings began to disappear. This was one of the reasons for the hatred, intolerance and cruelty that often create an atmosphere of intransigence in society. The lack of love, tolerance in our culture and education is obvious. Of course, it would be wrong to say that their upbringing was automatically provided by the very presence of religion in society. But it can be quite definitely stated that we know little about the methods of non-religious education of love, mercy, tolerance. This is evidenced, for example, by the latest publications of the Soviet period, specially devoted to the education of culture, but in which these concepts are simply absent.25

The concrete-sensual nature of the social ideal

The ideal is the highest achievement of spiritual culture. In other words, it is not just a goal expressed in concepts, but also the needs in response to which the goal itself arose. It should be desirable for a person, and the very possibility of achieving it will then delight and inspire. This means that the ideal also contains the sensual attitude of a person to what he is directed at and to what he is directed against. To want to achieve something means to be dissatisfied with what is.

Scientific ideals also have a sensual and concrete character. For example, in natural science they strive to create a "picture of the world" as the highest goal of knowledge. Even Hegel explained that the power of scientific thinking is not in abstractness, but in concreteness. As for abstractions, they, contrary to the generally accepted opinion, are used by undeveloped ordinary thinking.

L. Feuerbach especially emphasized the need for a sensory basis in scientific knowledge. Marx also believed that scientific knowledge has reality only if it proceeds from sensory consciousness and from sensory need.

Individual and social ideal

This applies even more to the ideal as a product of the culture of society. Its structure predetermines not only the concrete sensual and objective nature of the ideal, but also its universality as an expression of the unity of diverse individual needs and interests.

Therefore, the social ideal should not be the sum of some concepts or theories thrown over society like a net. Like culture itself, the social ideal grows out of the interests of millions of people, and theory formalizes these interests and expresses them in concepts, which ensures that the ideal is understandable to every member of society. Otherwise, i.e. When society is offered yet another idea of ​​social restructuring that does not express the interests of at least the majority of the members of society, either the collapse of the idea or the collapse of society itself is inevitable if, under the guise of an ideal, it is forcibly introduced into the lives and minds of people. "The idea invariably put itself to shame as soon as it was separated from the 'interest'."26

Something similar happened to the communist ideal. Remaining an ideal, he expressed the needs of people and hopes for the triumph of social justice, for the liberation of man from the need to be an appendage of material production. When did this ideal become the goal and principle public policy, it ceased to be an ideal and turned into a set of insignificant ideological clichés about “the leading role of the party”, “public property”, etc. The ideal collapsed, but at the cost of huge deformations in the public consciousness and production, which necessitated restructuring and the revival of the ideal. The only question is whether the revival of the "dishonored" ideal is possible. Of course, after dramatic attempts to realize this ideal in the minds of many, it became an expression of something completely anti-ideal, hostile to culture and human nature itself. But it is necessary to distinguish the ideal from the word by which it is called, since this word can cover up the most inhuman crimes, as was the case in Soviet society. In a culture dominated by words, they can overshadow the ideal, as, for example, clouds cover the sun. When words obscure the ideal, an eclipse sets in in the very minds of people. It can be assumed that this eclipse will pass, that the communist ideal will not completely disappear, but will be transformed and brought closer to the Christian ideal.

Source of ideal

In the history of culture, a lot has been said about ideals: both about their necessity and about what they should be in this or that society. It is more difficult to find an answer to the question about the source of ideals. Anticipating a short essay on mass culture, we note that it is much easier to solve the issue of idols, which are supplied in abundance today by means of mass media used by various levels of government to advertise everything from chewing gum to political leaders. Ideals are not customary to advertise.

Difficult to find in the literature impressive description the birth of an ideal than in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov". In the last, fourth part of the novel, Alyosha addresses the boys after Ilyushechka's funeral:

“... Know that there is nothing higher, and stronger, and healthier, and more useful for life henceforth, like some good memory, and especially taken from childhood, from the parental home. They tell you a lot about your upbringing, but some kind of beautiful, holy memory, preserved from childhood, perhaps the best upbringing is. If you take a lot of such memories with you into life, then a person is saved for life. And even if only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, then even that can someday serve us for salvation. Maybe we will even become evil later, we will not even be able to resist a bad deed, we will laugh at human tears and at those people who say, just now Kolya exclaimed: “I want to suffer for all people,” and we will, perhaps, viciously scoff at these people. And yet, no matter how angry we are, what God forbid, but how we remember how we buried Ilyusha, how we loved him in last days and as they were just now talking so amicably and so together by this stone, then the cruelest of us and the most mocking person, if we become such, still will not dare to laugh inside himself at how kind and good he was at this present moment! Moreover, perhaps it is this memory alone that will keep him from great evil, and he will come to his senses and say: “Yes, I was kind, brave and honest then.” Let him smile to himself, it's nothing, a person often laughs at the kind and good; it is only from frivolity; but I assure you, gentlemen, that as soon as he smiles, he will immediately say in his heart: “No, I did it badly that I laughed, because you can’t laugh at this!”

Two conclusions are important here. First, the ideal is the memory of childhood, of the unexpected, as a rule, sympathy that arises in a child for someone's suffering. Later, as an adult, he can reproduce the states he once experienced as a memory of true goodness and beauty. This will be his ideal, i.e. the consciousness that good and bright was part of his life. He himself experienced these feelings, and did not read about them in a book, so they are a real reality for him. F.M. Dostoevsky, as it were, bequeathed to preserve for life the bright and high feelings experienced once in childhood, as a model that only needs to be followed, since it was born not by someone else, but by our heart.

Secondly, in these words of Alyosha there is an implicit reproach to the established practice of education. After all, we often use examples from books, draw the child's attention to positive traits or actions. book heroes. Thus, we convince him that he himself does not have positive traits while other children have them. We affirm indirectly, and sometimes directly, that other children are better. And the child, after all, will understand that parents love these children more than him if they praise them. Will the child strive to be like these children? The given example from the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky can help us understand that the good, beautiful feelings experienced by the child himself will remain true for him for life. You just need to pay attention to such feelings.

The Creative Nature of the Ideal

But can the ideal be embodied? We can identify the ideal with the goal and say: it is achievable in the same way that the goal is achievable. But is it true?

Suppose someone says of a literary hero, "He is my ideal!" It's clear. But then someone came up with the fantasy to say about the hero: “He is my goal!” The absurdity of such a statement is obvious. What is the difference between a goal and an ideal? The goal is perfect. It is not part of the ideal, it is a product of consciousness, which determines its ideality. The question of purpose is comprehended only against the background or in comparison with the ideal. If the ideal is made the goal, then it will eventually lose its ideality and sublimity.

How high education spirit, the ideal cannot become a goal. Otherwise, the goal will lose the character of spirituality and ideality, the goal will not matter. This does not mean that the ideal is generally unattainable. It is achievable, but, so to speak, ideally. Nothing prevents anyone from making his ideal his own goal, but upon reaching such a goal, he will be doomed to an aimless existence. One can say about the ideal, just as Goethe said about the spirit: “It resembles the sun, which sets only for our earthly gaze, but in fact it never sets, continuing to shine continuously.”27 On the other hand, the ideal cannot but contain a goal. Otherwise, it would have become a fiction, an empty fantasy. The ideal is the final goal, the ideal state corresponding to the highest human needs. This correspondence reveals the creative nature of the ideal, which serves as an exemplary measure or model. human activity. The desire for the ideal as the highest image is the gradual bringing something or the person himself into line with this image.

Intuition, fantasy, imagination as moments of creativity

The emergence of the ideal is associated with a person's dissatisfaction with himself and the world. The existence of an ideal is evidence of a different state and the fundamental possibility of achieving it. In fact, ideal– it is the idea of ​​transformation or creativity, that is, such a state in which a person is constantly improving and thereby eliminates his dissatisfaction.

IN broad sense creativity is the creation of something qualitatively new. But to look at the world or at oneself in a new way is also creativity. Is insight a different vision or a different view? deniya habitual and familiar to us. We were sighted before, but did not see what was suddenly revealed to us, we still, for example, cannot prove the greater truth of the new vision, but we can feel that this is exactly so.

Where does insight come from? This question is related to intuition, as the ability to directly comprehend the truth. Much research has been devoted to intuition in the history of culture and philosophy, and a lot of literature has been written about it. This amazing property of human spirituality can be compared with the state when we suddenly feel the eyes of another person on us. But suppose that this other person is in ourselves. We can look at ourselves, say, with some kind of inner vision and suddenly realize that our usual perception was narrow and limited. At the same time, we go beyond our limitations and, in a sense, beyond the limits of culture. She accustomed us to strictly defined methods and techniques of perception and understanding, but we discarded their certainty and saw everything as if in a pristine light. Intuition– it is an extracultural vision.

The moment of such an epiphany or an extra-cultural view? Denia was well shown by Pushkin. Tatyana, looking at Onegin's things, is trying to understand his essence, his soul. And she quietly says to herself: "Isn't he a parody?" She was fascinated by the culture, education of Onegin, but intuitively felt some kind of falsehood, something feigned. Then she confirmed her guess, but she had to discard the charm, the witchcraft of appearance. There was a reassessment in Tatyana's mind. She began to value appearance less and attach more importance to what is hidden behind it. Related to this is the concept of fantasy. This concept is also used in a negative sense as a synonym for empty and worthless dreams. But the positive meaning of fantasy is that it is imagination, i.e. is a productive spiritual process. To imagine is to create new look reality and how to enter into it. Fantasy as imagination is the devaluation in our eyes of images or knowledge that previously seemed valuable, and endowing this value with a new image or vision received as a result of insight or intuition.28

Imagination plays a huge role in cognition and culture. Einstein, for example, believed that it is more important than knowledge, because knowledge is limited. After all, knowledge can also be a kind of idol of knowledge and culture, blind a person, impede imagination and creativity, which was discussed in connection with tradition in topic 3. They can create the illusion of the purpose and completeness of knowledge and the whole culture. Meanwhile, the ultimate goal of both cognition and culture is such a state of a person in which he understands himself as a person, and is not satisfied with knowledge. Understanding and knowing are, of course, not the same thing.

IN recent decades the overestimation of knowledge when it is presented as the main indicator of culture has become especially noticeable. This is one of the reasons for the decrease in the productivity of thinking and creativity in general.29 Socratic “I know that I know nothing” or N. Kuzansky’s “scientific ignorance”, that is, knowledge of the limitations of existing knowledge, is the highest knowledge. It is with this that insight and imagination are connected, i.e. gaining the ability to see and understand more than to know. In the history of culture, the exaggerated reverence for knowledge has often been the object of ridicule. Court jesters were allowed to remind kings and nobles of the limitations of their knowledge and the danger of conceit. In Rus', the holy fools were tolerated, since it was believed that they were more prone to insights than normal people. This is well expressed in the Ukrainian language, where the holy fools were spoken of as “God forbid”, i.e.

expressing God's will.

Unofficial (carnival) and official culture

The mocking attitude towards the absolutization of knowledge is connected with the ancient tradition of distinguishing between the official, superficial side of life and the unofficial, reverse side. As a rule, the wrong side of life was expressed in the culture of the lower classes, or commoners. For a while, she was invisible and, as it were, hiding under the official culture, but the time came for her triumph - the carnival. Open-air holidays began, street processions with dances, masquerades, theatrical performances, in which official culture and its traditions were ridiculed. Carnivals appeared in Italy in the 13th century.

Carnival culture is the images and feelings of an ordinary person, they are more natural and direct than the official or elite culture, which is largely artificial and conditional. The phenomena of official culture, which its representatives pass off as the highest achievements, turn out to be formal and meaningless precisely in comparison with unofficial culture.

IN domestic literature carnival concept, folk culture associated with the publication of studies by M.M. Bakhtin. For a long time they were unknown in the country, not recognized by official bodies. So, the book by M.M. Bakhtin about F. Rabelais was written in 1940, but was published only a quarter of a century later, in 1965. This non-recognition once again indicates that the gap between official and unofficial culture in Soviet society was significant. But lately, at least in theory, the gap has been overcome, which is associated with the names of A.Ya. Gurevich, P.S. Gurevich, D.S. Likhachev, A.M. Panchenko and other authors.

Popular culture and counterculture

The strength and vitality of the unofficial culture is in its opposition to the official culture. Being officially recognized, it loses its liveliness and spontaneity and turns into mass culture.

The concept of "mass culture" came into scientific use in the middle of the 20th century. It means a special state of culture in society, when it is produced not by the masses, but for the masses. At the same time, a decrease in the level cultural norms and samples that cater to undeveloped tastes and unambiguous (good - bad) ratings. With the help of funds mass communication you can replicate and distribute any information and thereby manage millions of audiences. In popular culture, the focus is shifting on the consumption of culture, not on its production, i.e., to satisfy the instinctive needs of a person for a rigid rhythm, for thrills, for satiety, etc. Here, the state itself acts as a "mass entertainer", encouraging the development of the leisure industry. This leads to a deformation of the value orientation in society, to the depreciation high achievements spirit, to the preference for purely external effects, to the leveling of consciousness and the loss of personal culture. A peculiar culture of idols, cults, i.e. a constant need to worship something or someone, the search for idols and their overthrow to create new idols. There is a growing interest in mysticism, occultism, magic, a growing belief in the existence of "aliens", UFOs, etc.

Above, we said that insight, fantasy, creativity are associated with reassessment and are a person's exit into an extra-cultural, unusual world. In the environment mass culture, where creativity is practically concentrated in the hands of a small group of people, there is also a reassessment, but in the opposite direction: value orientations shifted to more and more primitive achievements of culture.30 “The man of the masses,” wrote Ortega y Gasset, “is one who does not feel in himself any special gift or difference from everyone, good or bad; he feels that he is “exactly like everyone else” and therefore happy.”

Counterculture in Western countries arose at the same time as mass culture, although the concept of "counterculture" was formed in the 60s and 70s. This term began to be called the movement of "rebellious" social groups and layers of students, hippies, beatniks, "new left". The origins of countercultural movements can be found in ancient times. For example, the traditions of cynicism, which were laid down in antiquity, are known. The entire history of culture was accompanied by its criticism not only in word, but also in deed, i.e. demonstrative disregard for its values, the creation of a way of life without culture, a conscious restriction of needs or a decrease in their level.

Counterculture of the 20th century became a protest not so much against mass culture as against its official recognition and increased penetration into the consciousness of the masses. In its extreme manifestations, counterculture becomes anticulture, i.e. intolerant and vicious criticism of culture in general. But in general, it is a reminder of the lost natural values, natural and human.

While informal, as popular carnival culture once was, the counterculture lacks its vitality and power. Its representatives call for a "new sensuality", for a "religious renewal", for a "different" life, and so on. To achieve such states, alcohol, drugs, psychotechnics of sex, ecstatic rites, and mysteries are used. But all this cannot resist mass culture, since it is quickly absorbed and mastered by it through the means of communication.

Decay of the old social ideal

Mass culture is the active formation of human needs in culture itself, reduced to an objective form. Needs also become relevant. They are mostly of a secondary nature and are limited to the objective type of culture. The counterculture, as has been said, is unable to resist the mass character; alcoholism and drug addiction, a passionate interest in the reserves of the human psyche and the secrets of Eastern teachings, the fashion for UFOs and "aliens" - all this has already become the property of mass culture. Any innovations are mastered and quickly become traditional, lose their novelty. It is as if some kind of new form life: it would quickly be swallowed up by pre-existing forms.

Popular culture and mass society become traditional. The diversity of the objective type of culture, as well as the needs and ways of satisfying them, become monotonous and habitual. Instead of the triumph of the ideal comes the dominance of idols and tradition. The ideal loses its vitality, simply disappears.

As we said, the ideal is the idea of ​​creativity raised to the absolute. It meets a deep human need. Against the background of the ideal, every goal becomes, in the end, a means, a stage on the path to the ideal. If the goal replaces and obscures the ideal, then it turns into the appearance of an ideal, which fades away and loses its attractiveness, its creative nature.

Let's take this as an example of an artist's work. He has an idea, an image. First, he primes the surface of the canvas or wall, so that nothing else interferes with the appearance of the image. A pure field of creativity is created, on which the artist mentally sees only his own image. After that, he sketches the outlines of the work. The hand, perhaps the most sensitive organ of the artist, brings to the pure field of creativity the image that has matured in his thoughts. The artist satisfies the need to make the image visible to others in the process of his work. There is a certain distance between this need and its satisfaction, which he must overcome himself. Overcoming the distance, the path - this is creativity itself. Having created a work, the artist often loses interest in it, he is looking for new images.

Elimination of creativity

Now let's imagine that with a wave of a magic wand, the artist has not only images, but also their image on canvas. There is no longer a distance, everything that the artist was looking for or could find is in front of him. There is no need that is immediately satisfied, but there is no creativity either. It is easy to understand that there will be no artist at the same time.

O. Cromwell owns the words:

“To be a seeker is almost the same as to become a finder: who once began to seek, he will not calm down to the end. Happy are those who find it, but happy are those who seek it.”31

In popular culture, the happiness of seeking is replaced by a passion for consumption and possession. Here, culture is not the education of a person, but the formation of a world of things that are often “more educated” or “smarter” than those who use them.

Mass culture is the transformation of the need for creativity into the desire for novelty and sharpness of sensations, for sensationalism, etc. At the same time, creativity itself is distinguished by apparent novelty, sharpness of sensations, sensationalism, i.e. visibility of creativity. This visibility and corresponding needs are easily created and satisfied by social institutions with the help of mass media.

Thus, in the conditions of mass culture, the distance between a person and an ideal is eliminated, which becomes a goal or aspiration to possess the results of someone's creativity. IN in a certain sense the ideal is transformed into a tradition of acquiring things, knowledge, positions, titles, etc. Ultimately, this manifests itself in the creation of a lifestyle with a standard or trendy set of values. An unconventional society is turning into a traditional one.

An indicator of the decomposition of the ideal is a decrease in the level of requests, claims, needs. What makes people "crazy" is also a characteristic of the level of culture in a society. But today, psychiatrists note a decrease in the level of claims in their patients. Once they fancied themselves Caesars or Napoleons; today's patients cannot part with the images of store managers or school principals.

The newspaper described a case when, in one of the classes, the teacher invited the children to write about their dreams. It turned out that the guys needed little: a beautiful imported pen, a German doll, Finnish chewing gum. Such primitivism of needs characterizes, of course, not only Russian school, which is very difficult to develop creativity in children. In general, such “dreams” of children testify to the decay of the ideal in society. And also that tomorrow they will be the property of adults.

Destruction of the trinity of truth, goodness and beauty

The social ideal is the idea of ​​self-creation. The Russian philosopher V. Solovyov believed that it is natural for a person to strive with his mind - for the truth, with his will - for the good, with his feeling - for the beautiful. Education or the pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty is carried out on the basis of appropriate measures. For the truth, the measure is the man himself, for the good - freedom, for the beautiful - love. The religious ideal, as we have said, presupposes, first of all, man's love for God. Each person should be the embodiment of the trinity of truth, goodness and beauty, or its personification. Only in relation to an individual is a coincidence of goal and ideal allowed.

If such a coincidence occurs in relation to the whole society, when it is the subject and bearer of the trinity of truth, goodness and beauty, then the components of the ideal diverge, as it were, into “different apartments”. Someone gets "truth", someone does "good", someone creates "beauty". An individual person perceives "truth" as a dogma, "good" - as an indication to action, "beauty" - as an object of worship and worship.

At one time, Academician V.A. Legasov, analyzing the causes Chernobyl tragedy, came to this conclusion:

“... The technology that our people are proud of, which finished with the flight of Gagarin, was created by people who stood on the shoulders of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky ... The people who created the technology at that time were brought up on the greatest humanitarian ideas, on excellent literature, on high art, on a wonderful and correct moral sense. And on the bright political idea of ​​building a new society, on the idea that this society is the most advanced. This high moral feeling was embedded in everything: in relations with each other, in relation to people, to technology, to their duties. All this was laid down in the upbringing of those people. And technology was for them only a way of expressing moral qualities embedded in them.

They expressed their morality in technology. They treated the created and operated equipment the way they were taught to treat everything in life by Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov,

But in the next generations that have come to replace, many engineers stand on the shoulders of "techies", they see only the technical side of things. But if someone is brought up only on technical ideas, he can only replicate technology, improve it, but cannot create something qualitatively new, responsible ... The low technical level, low level of responsibility of these people is not a cause, but a consequence. A consequence of their low moral level.”32

Figuratively speaking, the tragedy of Chernobyl is the visible disintegration of the trinity of truth, goodness and beauty, the illusion of which our society has long nourished. Of course, the real trinity was assumed only in the communist ideal, in real life there was a kind of splitting of the ideal. But this has only become apparent to many in recent years.

Change of social ideals as a change of cultures

The trinity of the social ideal can also be represented as the unity of the ideal of truth, the ideal of goodness and the ideal of beauty. But an indispensable condition for the preservation creative nature the ideal remains the distance between him and the individual, society. The disappearance of distance can happen in two ways. A person can embody an ideal, which has not happened very often in the history of culture. But he can also imagine himself as an ideal, idealize himself, which happened more often. The personification of ideals gives rise to social movements, new worldviews, new traditions. The founders of world religions or individual trends in a particular religion, the creators of great teachings or the discoverers of some ideas, were the embodiment of ideals for subsequent generations.

But no matter how bright the light of the ideal, in the end, it becomes a tradition of idealization, worship and cult. The nature of culture depends on which side of the trinity of the social ideal prevails in it. Truth, goodness and beauty are the eternal values ​​of the world culture, but the energy of this or that culture was almost never enough to unite these eternal values. The type of culture is determined by the values ​​that are idealized in society, or by the dominance of certain ideals.

Historical types of social ideals and cultures

There are various principles of typology of cultures, tending either to divide them into Eastern and Western cultures, or into cultures of traditional and non-traditional societies, or into regional or national cultures.

In Marxist teaching, as already noted, each socio-economic formation has its own type of culture. This is a look at culture from the point of view of its dynamics. But here the features of traditional societies are almost not taken into account, although K. Marx singled out the "Asiatic mode of production" as a special type. Traditionalism or even the stagnation of culture in society cannot be regarded as something undeveloped and remaining in the past. It depends on the way and possibility of overcoming the distance between the individual in society and the dominant ideal.

Culture is the more dynamic, the more opportunities the society provides to each of its members to independently overcome this distance. In a traditional society, culture allows an individual to go only part of the distance, strictly defining its measure. For example, in ancient China there was a kind of cult of education and career. Basically, every capable person could get an education and take the appropriate position. But the content of education and social status were strictly regulated.

Finally, one can imagine a society where the individual is not at all given the opportunity to overcome the distance between himself and the ideal. It is either suggested to him that he has already achieved it, or every step on the way to the ideal is prescribed. In such a society, culture is politicized and almost excludes any individual creativity. Obviously, whatever ideals are proclaimed in this type of culture, as a result, it will be dominated by lack of ideas and decay. The situation can only be changed by giving each of its members the opportunity to overcome at least part of the distance and thereby approach the realization of the ideal.

The value of any culture is determined not by its place in the typology, no matter how successful it may be, but by its originality.