Cultural values, norms and traditions. Culture of medieval Europe

The most important elements of human culture include norms, the totality of which is called the normative system of culture.

Norms - these are the rules governing human behaviorconducting. Cultural norms– regulations, requirements,wishes and expectations of appropriate (socially approved) behavior. With the help of sign systems, they are passed on from generation to generation and turn into “habits” of society, customs, and traditions.

Functions of cultural norms: are obligations and indicate the degree of necessity in human actions; serve as expectations for future action; control deviant behavior; serve as models and standards of behavior.

Norms are classified on different grounds: by scope - in a small or large social group. Accordingly, there are 2 types: 1) group habits- norms that arise and exist only in small groups (youth parties, groups of friends, family, work teams, sports teams); 2) general rules- norms that arise and exist in large groups or in society as a whole. American sociologist William Graham Sumner singled out the following types cultural norms: customs (folkways); morals (mores); laws. Today, the typology of cultural norms takes into account traditions, customs, habits, mores, taboos, laws, fashion, taste and hobbies, beliefs and knowledge, etc.

Habit - the initial cell of the social and cultural life of people at the same time. They distinguish one people from another, one social class from all others. Manners- external forms of human behavior (based on habits) that receive positive or negative assessment from others. Separately, manners are elements or traits of culture, but together they form a special cultural complex - etiquette. Custom is a traditionally established order of behavior. Customs - socially approved mass patterns of actions that are recommended to be performed; they are inherent to the broad masses of people (as opposed to manners and etiquette). Habits and customs passed on from one generation to another - traditions(all that is inherited from predecessors) A type of tradition is rite- a set of actions established by custom or ritual. Ritual characterizes not selective, but mass actions in which certain religious ideas or everyday traditions are expressed; it covers all segments of the population. Ceremony- a sequence of actions that have symbolic meaning and are dedicated to the celebration of any events or dates. Ritual - a stylized and carefully planned set of gestures and words (with symbolic meaning), performed by persons specially selected and trained for this action. Manners- especially protected and highly respected by society mass patterns of action. Morals reflect the moral values ​​of a society; their violation is punished more severely than violation of traditions. Taboo - an absolute prohibition imposed on any action, word, or object.

A variety of morals – laws, i.e. norms, or rules of conduct formalized by parliamentary or government document. backed by the political authority of the state and requiring strict implementation. Right - a system of mandatory rules of behavior, sanctioned by the state and expressed in certain norms. Law, law, custom and values ​​of society are closely interconnected and form the foundation of the normative system of culture. A person learns traditions and customs regardless of his will and desires. There is no freedom of choice here. Elements of culture such as tastes, hobbies and fashion indicate free choice person. Taste- an inclination or passion for something, an understanding of the graceful. Fashion - the quickly passing popularity of something or someone.

Culture rests on a value system. Value is a characteristic of a person fixed in his mind relationship to the object. Values ​​justify norms and give them meaning (human life is a value, and its protection is a norm). But value is not identical to the economic understanding of it as value (monetary expression of value). Values ​​cannot always be expressed in monetary form, just as inspiration, memories, the joy of creativity and other manifestations of the human soul cannot be expressed in commodity-money form. In other words, value is the criterion by which a person evaluates the significance of actions, ideas and opinions.

Value must be distinguished from utility. A valuable thing may be useless, and a useful thing may have no value. The French philosopher I. Gobri identified benefit, beauty, truth and goodness as the main values.

Knowledge- reliable information about something, scientific information, the result of knowledge of specialized activities carried out by trained people. Unlike knowledge, erovanie- conviction, emotional commitment to an idea, real or illusory.

The entire set of considered types of cultural norms constitutes normative system of culture, in which all elements must be consistent. The pattern of building a society: a set of values ​​must correspond to a set of norms. The key link in the normative system of culture is public morality - prescriptions of what is right and wrong behavior in accordance with the proclaimed norms. Cultural differences can take the form of contradiction or clash (cultural or normative conflict). Disequilibrium in the normative system of culture takes different forms. Anomie- a state of society in which a significant part of the population, knowing about the existence of norms that bind them, treats them negatively or indifferently. Anomie is a violation of the cultural unity of society that arose due to the lack of clearly established cultural norms. Moral standards- these are unwritten requirements that function in society in the form of principles, concepts, ideas, assessments. Moral standards are not the product of some specialized institutional activity. Their implementation is ensured not through coercion, but through moral conviction (conscience) or by means of public opinion through approval or condemnation of certain actions.

There are three functions of morality:

Motivational- moral principles act as reasons for behavior motivating to action.

Constructive– morality is the central form of social culture, and its principles are superior to other forms of culture.

Coordination– morality ensures unity and consistency in the interaction of people in various circumstances.

The Golden Rule of Morality is: Treat others the way you want to be treated.

FACULTY OF TAXATION AND MANAGEMENT

Speciality "Organization Management"

Department_______Taxation and management_______ __
Discipline______ Culturology_________________ ____

ABSTRACT
ON THE TOPIC:
« Cultural values ​​and norms"

Completed
student 1 course
group no. 314
Vankova Olga Sergeevna

Checked:
_________________________
_________________________

Rostov-on-Don
2010/2011 academic year

Plan:

The concept of "culture"
Cultural Norms

Introduction

Culture is an integral part of human life.

The concept of "culture"

Concept "culture" is one of the fundamental ones in modern social science. It is difficult to name another word that would have such a variety of semantic shades. For us, such phrases as “culture of mind”, “culture of feelings”, “culture of behavior”, “physical culture” sound quite familiar. According to the calculations of American culturologists Alfred Kroeber And Klige Kluckhohn With 1871 By 1919 only 7 definitions of culture were given, then with 1920 By 1950 they counted 157 definitions of this concept. Later, the number of definitions increased significantly. L.E.Kertman counted more than 400 definitions.
It is believed that the word "culture" comes from Latin word « colere", which means to cultivate, or cultivate the soil. In the Middle Ages, this word came to mean a progressive method of cultivating grains, thus the term " agriculture"- the art of agriculture. But in XVIII and XIX centuries. they began to use it in relation to people - if a person was distinguished by elegance of manners and erudition, he was considered "cultural". At that time, the term was applied mainly to aristocrats in order to separate them from the “uncultured” common people. German word "Kultur" also meant a high level of civilization.
In an extremely broad sense, culture embraces everything created by people - from science and religious beliefs to methods of making stone axes.
Culture - this is, first of all, a set of meanings and meanings that people are guided by in their lives.
Culture – accumulated, acquired experience, passed on from generation to generation, provides a person with the knowledge and patterns of behavior necessary for survival, which are not inherited genetically, but are transmitted through teaching and upbringing.
Culture - is a creative reflection and transformation of nature into
human activity, stage of social consciousness.
Culture - is a set of methods and techniques of human
activities (both material and spiritual), expressed in objects,
on tangible media and passed on to subsequent generations.
Culture is the process of creating material and spiritual benefits.
Today under culture broadly understand all types
transformative human activity, as well as its results.
IN in the narrow sense under culture understand creative activity
related to art.
Culture - this is also a collection values ​​and norms regulating human behavior.

Cultural Norms

Norms – these are the community’s ideas about acceptable behavior, behavioral standards. Norms make people's behavior more or less predictable and regulate social interaction. Like values, norms have significant variability across different cultures Oh.
Norms(rules) define how a person should behave in order to live in accordance with the values ​​of his culture. The assimilation of certain norms is necessary for a person to successfully adapt to society. The normative side of culture includes wide circle requirements. This includes basic neatness, hygiene, and compliance with accepted rules of behavior, moral standards, and legal norms (laws). Compliance with norms is ensured by various forms of coercion, starting with public opinion and ending with state institutions.
The presence of norms does not exclude, and, one might say, even implies, the possibility of deviation from them, designated in sociology and psychology as “deviation.” According to E. Durkheim , deviation from norms and especially the subsequent punishment plays a very important role: strengthening the normative order and social integration. Norms are related to the values ​​that exist in a culture. Legal standards that protect private property “work” in a society where there is, firstly, awareness of the value of law, and secondly, the value of private property. If both aspects are absent in a culture, then laws protecting private property, even if introduced, will not be respected by people.
The reactions of the social environment to compliance or non-compliance with norms are called sanctions. Sanctions may be positive(approval, encouragement) and negative(isolation, punishment). People tend to follow norms, since basic norms, like values, are learned by the individual in childhood and, as a rule, are not questioned. However, if there is heterogeneity and uncertainty of norms in a society, this naturally entails uncertainty of behavior and an increase in deviance.
There are different typologies of norms. Highlight: norms and rules
(the execution of which is mandatory) and norms-expectations(performance
which are desirable, but deviation is also acceptable); proscriptive
(prohibiting one or another type of behavior) and prescriptive
(prescribing a certain type of behavior) norms; norms formal
(clearly formulated and documented) and
informal(having the nature of expectations and existing only in
collective consciousness), etc.

Cultural values

Values - these are ideas inherent in a particular culture about what one should strive for. Success, holiness, wealth, freedom, fame, love are all examples of values. Values – these are spiritual guidelines that set the general strategy of an individual’s behavior in society.
Values have pronounced cultural specificity: what is valuable for one society may not be valuable in another. Thus, the hallmark of Western European cultures is the recognition of the value of individual freedom. But in most non-Western cultures there was no such value, and the idea of ​​the need for individual freedom developed as a result of Western cultural influence.
Cultural specificity can manifest itself in the peculiarities of the hierarchy of values ​​inherent in a particular society. Thus, the value of life is an example of universal value. There is not a single culture that denies life and strives for death. However, not all cultures have the same position in the value hierarchy. For the ancient Greek, gaining good fame meant more than saving his life. For an Indian yogi, life is an illusion, a painful dream from which you need to wake up. For a Christian ascetic, monk or layperson earthly life- only a prologue to eternal life in the Kingdom of God has no independent value.
People often sacrifice their lives (not to mention the lives of others) for the sake of such seemingly abstract concepts as “truth”, “freedom”, “state interests”, “people”, “race”, “party”, etc. d. This may seem strange, but in fact it is impossible to find a culture where the value of human life absolutely dominates other values.
For media certain culture its inherent values ​​are objects of faith. It is impossible to rationally justify the superiority of some values ​​over others, the falsity of some values ​​and the truth of others.
Our values ​​seem obvious and natural to us. To force a person to accept new values, he must not only be “convinced,” he must be “converted,” even if we are not talking about religion itself.
In Russian cultural studies, until recently, values ​​were traditionally divided into material And spiritual. Under material assets refers to the material products of human labor (buildings, clothing, furniture, tools, etc.), spiritual values appear as beliefs shared by society or groups of people regarding the goals to be strived for in life (for example, moral values).
Currently, cultural scientists provide more developed classifications of values. The following types of values ​​are distinguished:

vital(life, health, safety, welfare, etc.);
social (social status, hard work, wealth, work, etc.);
political(freedom of speech, civil liberties, rule of law, order);
moral(goodness, benefit, love, friendship, honor, honesty, fidelity, etc.);
religious(God, divine law, salvation, faith);
aesthetic(beauty, beauty, harmony, etc.);
family-related(family comfort, interconnection and mutual understanding between generations) and some others.

Conclusion

Culturology: lecture notes by Enikeev Dilnara

1. Values. Norms. Cultural traditions

Value is understood as a generally accepted norm formed in a certain culture, which sets patterns and standards of behavior and influences the choice between possible behavioral alternatives.

T. Parsons noted that value- this is an idea of ​​what is desirable, influencing the choice of behavioral alternative. However, it should be noted that culture does not consist only of positive values, it also includes non-normative aspects of folklore, literature, music, as well as technological and other skills; secondly, the value and recognized patterns of behavior may not coincide, for example, prostitution in a number of cultures is a recognized pattern of behavior, but is not a value.

The problem of values ​​has been developed quite deeply in philosophy and sociology, anthropology and psychology. (E. Durkheim, P. A. Sorokin, T. Parsons etc.). There are two polar theories in Western cultural anthropology. One of them is relativistic, denying the possibility of objective analysis of value structures various societies and viewing value systems as relative. Another (opposite) theory is anti-relativistic positivism, asserting the possibility of studying value structures from the position of objective science.

What is the role of the value component in people's lives? Cultural life without values ​​is impossible, since they give society the necessary degree of order and predictability. Through the system of values ​​accumulated in culture, regulation is carried out human activity.

“Deprived of their significant aspects, all phenomena of human interaction become simply biophysical phenomena and, as such, form the subject of biophysical sciences,” notes Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin. And indeed, all these cultural phenomena created by people, all these works, mechanisms and things, devoid of a value component, become simply piles of paper, metal or marble, tons of worn-out paint or pieces of matter. And then they can be the subject of physics, chemistry or biology, which studies their structure, structure or properties, but not the social or human sciences.

According to P. A. Sorokin, it is value that serves as the foundation of any culture. Depending on which value dominates, he divides all cultural supersystems into 3 types:

1) ideational;

2) sensual;

3) idealistic.

If an ideational culture predominates, then God and Faith become the highest values ​​in it, and an indifferent or negative attitude is formed towards the sensory world, its riches, joys and values.

In a sensual culture, the value of feelings prevails. Only what we see, hear, and touch has meaning. Its formation begins in the 16th century. and reaches its apogee by the middle of the 20th century. The values ​​of religion, morality, and other values ​​of ideational culture become relative: they are either denied or completely indifferent to them. In such a culture, cognition becomes the equivalent of empirical knowledge, represented by natural sciences; they are crowding out religion, theology and even philosophy.

The idealistic system of culture, according to P. A. Sorokin, is intermediate between the ideational and sensual. Its values ​​are the values ​​of reason, rationalizing objective reality, which is partly supersensible and partly sensual.

IN ordinary consciousness the concept of “value”, as a rule, is associated with the assessment of objects of human activity and social relations from the point of view of good and evil, truth and lies, beauty or ugliness, permissible or forbidden, fair or unfair, etc. In this case, assessment occurs from the position their own culture, therefore, their own value system is perceived as “authentic”, as a point of reference for good and bad.

Culturology proceeds from the understanding that the entire world of culture is a value, that the value systems of different cultures are equal, that there is no culture of one’s own or someone else’s, but one’s own and another, and that the more diverse the world is, the more stable it is.

What underlies the universal and specific in the nature of values? There is a huge difference between how values ​​are perceived different people different cultures. This perception also depends on their idea of ​​individual or group attitudes.

There is no culture where murder, lying or theft is not negatively assessed, although there are differences in ideas about the limits of tolerance for lying and theft (in some cultures, a hand is cut off as a punishment, in others, a person is deprived of freedom).

Values ​​that are widespread and identical or very similar in content are adopted by all cultures as a necessary part; they are eternal and binding on all societies and individuals. But these values ​​are “dressed” in specific cultural “clothes”, i.e. the configuration of the value system, the relationship and interaction of elements within it are products of a particular culture.

How do values ​​change? What factors influence this? From time to time, in one culture or another, fears arise that “one’s own” values ​​may be replaced by “strangers.” Thus, today there is great concern about the “Americanization” of Russian culture.

Values, both at the individual level and at the societal level, are revealed in a situation of crisis (individual or group - death, fire, disaster) or conflict (family, military, social, political, etc.). E. Durkheim introduced the concept of “anomie,” which denotes a state of value-normative vacuum, characteristic of transitional and crisis periods and states in the development of society, when old social norms and values ​​cease to operate, and new ones have not yet been established. “The old Gods grow old or die, but new ones are not born” (E. Durkheim, “Sociology”). This is the state that describes Johan Huizinga in “Autumn of the Middle Ages,” presenting a picture of the suffering and confusion of the conflict between the values ​​of the outgoing culture and the emergence as a result of new forms of sociocultural reality.

Japan turned out to be perhaps the only exception in modern world, where the spirit of a holistic worldview, formed in the leisurely Middle Ages and reflected in the traditional artistic creativity, was not forced out scientific and technological revolution and popular culture.

Meanwhile, the values ​​of any culture cannot be changed either by evidence of their inconsistency or by demonstrating more attractive values. The “mutation” of values ​​occurs relatively slowly even with targeted powerful influence, and they disappear only with the disappearance of the culture itself.