Binary and ambivalent Russian culture. Binary gender system

For Russian culture characterized by binary and ambivalence. There is a common opinion about the “mysteriousness of the Russian soul,” as a result of which no people are assessed as differently as the Russians. This is explained by the fact that in national character The Russian people sometimes strangely combine completely opposite traits: kindness with cruelty, sincerity with rudeness, altruism with selfishness, self-abasement with pride, love of freedom with despotism, humility with rebellion, statism with anarchism.

Often the combination of opposite traits is passed off as the uniqueness of Russian culture. However, such a connection, as K. Leontyev noted, is a sign of all developing, “blooming” cultures in general. The originality is not in the presence of opposites, but in the absence of a middle ground between them, in the ability of the Russian people to go to extremes in everything, without any mediation, transitions, intermediate links or stages. The binary nature of Russian culture is manifested in the fact that it consists of two parts. Their dominant centers pull together those that are polar in their semantic content cultural traits. Between these centers within unified culture and a constant “drama” of values ​​and ideas unfolds, combining the attraction and repulsion of different semantic poles: Christianity and paganism; Westernism and Slavophilism; communalism and individualism; patriotism and cosmopolitanism. At the same time, this two-centeredness forms the tension that alone makes it possible.

The binary nature of Russian culture, being the source of its instability and dynamism, variability and inversion, gives rise to discreteness and catastrophism of its development, produces steady aspiration to break out of the captivity of dual contradictions due to a sharp, through an “explosion,” decisive transition to a new, often unexpected, new quality.

The binary nature of Russian culture, according to some culturologists, is one of the reasons for its exceptional flexibility and adaptability, adaptability to extremely difficult, even unbearable social conditions, seemingly excluding any cultural development. This explains, in particular, the amazing survival of Russian culture during periods of state-national catastrophes.

Binary is also one of the reasons for the sociocultural split in Russia: not so much in terms of the presence of polar sociocultural types, but in the sense of a permanent conflict between culture and social structure in society. The inversion nature of Russian culture, i.e. its ability to turn into its opposite, to suddenly and instantly move “from love to hate,” usually has a destabilizing and destructive effect on existing social relations.

The binary nature of Russian culture is also revealed in the polarity of the culture of the Russian people and the Russian person, the irreducibility of one culture to another. The nature of the culture of the Russian people cannot be automatically judged on the basis of recurring features of the culture of the Russian people. If the religiosity of the Russian people, noted by many culturologists, is one of the essential features of their culture, then this cannot be said about the culture of the Russian people.

If the culture of the Russian people is introverted in nature, then the culture of the Russian people, on the contrary, is extroverted and largely imitative. Of course, these cultures are in constant interaction, but this is precisely interaction, not identity. Between these cultures there is not only mutual influence, but also mutual compensation: the shortcomings of one culture are, as it were, compensated by the advantages of another. In this regard, it should be noted that the Russian people are better than the Russian people, therefore Russian people, uniting and feeling their ethnicity, compensate, for example, their will and selfishness, which give rise to evil and complicate good, with popular religiosity and tolerance and the associated search for universal grace.

The identification of the culture of the Russian people and the Russian person is one of the reasons for the sustainable existence of such a well-known phenomenon of mass and specialized cultural consciousness as the “mystery” and “unpredictability” of the Russian soul.

The “antinomy of Russia” and the “terrible inconsistency” of Russian culture discovered by N. Berdyaev determine its double-belief, double-mindedness and split. IN modern literature It is noted that the stable inconsistency of Russian culture, which generates, on the one hand, increased dynamism of its self-development, and on the other, periodically aggravated conflict inherent in civilization itself, constitutes its organic originality, typological feature and is called binary.

The binary nature of Russian culture is also manifested in its ambivalence, i.e. in an equally pronounced direction of development in opposite, mutually exclusive directions. This made it possible to talk about the “centaur-likeness” of Russian culture and its “double face.” The cultural image of the “centaur” in relation to Russia was first used by G. Fedotov, characterizing the eternal Russian “schism”, thanks to which the “image of Russia”, “the eclectic image of the “Eurasian” meaning, constantly doubles.”

It has been noticed that at any stage of its formation and historical development Russian culture, as it were, doubles, showing at the same time two faces distinct from each other. Therefore, in relation to Russian culture, one can also use the image of the “two-faced Janus”, who constantly looks in different directions, but has one body.

The ambivalence of Russian culture determined the constant struggle in the history of Russia between centripetal, integrative, and centrifugal, disintegrative forces. In the struggle of these forces, starting with V. Solovyov, they often see the dichotomy of East and West revealed in this culture, on the one hand, and on the other, the “peculiarity” of Russian culture, its “falling out” of the Eastern and Western cultural boundaries. N. Berdyaev also pointed out this, linking the “contradiction and complexity of the Russian soul” with the fact that in Russia two streams of world history collide and come into interaction - East and West. However, at the same time, N. Berdyaev emphasized that “the Russian people are not purely European and not purely asian people“, and therefore “two principles have always fought in the Russian soul, eastern and western.”

The ambivalence of Russian culture is manifested in the permanent search for alternative paths of development, its constant “understatement”: at the very moment when something is affirmed in Russian culture, it is already denied, overthrown by the very course of its further development. Russian culture, wrote M. Bakhtin, constantly avoids the “last”, final judgments about itself; it strives with its entire history to prove that the last word it does not yet say if it is even possible.

A characteristic feature of the Russian type of culture is monumentalism, a penchant for grandiose forms of cultural self-expression and self-affirmation.

Russian culture is also characterized by irrationalism, expressed in the unpredictability and unknowability of the Russian soul. This type is characterized by illusoryness, manifested in the fact that the marginality of the culture itself is presented as “all-humanity.”

An important element of the Russian type of culture is also legal nihilism and state reverence, statism, identifying power and authority, paternalism as self-limitation of the need for political freedom and a sense of political responsibility.

All these distinctive features The Russian type of culture is characteristic of both its divergent and convergent subcultures, but they manifest themselves at this level: in a special form specific to each subculture.

The difference between them goes along a different line. The convergent, Westernizing, subculture is oriented towards the individual, while the divergent, soil-based subculture is oriented towards society. Convergent culture views man as the goal of social existence, divergent culture as a means social development. Therefore, convergent culture is focused on individual freedom, and divergent culture is focused on depersonalization of the individual and patronymic state. In general, the Russian type of culture and its subcultures are poorly prepared for the dialogue of cultures, since they themselves are difficult to understand and display a weak ability to adequate perception other cultures...

Binary

binarity, -and

Russian orthographic dictionary. / Russian Academy Sci. Institute rus. language them. V. V. Vinogradova. - M.: "Azbukovnik". V. V. Lopatin (executive editor), B. Z. Bukchina, N. A. Eskova and others.. 1999 .

See what “binary” is in other dictionaries:

binary- BINARY, oh, oh; ren, rna (special). Double, consisting of two components. Binary alloys. Binary opposition (in linguistics). Dictionary Ozhegova. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

binary- noun, number of synonyms: 1 binary (1) ASIS synonym dictionary. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary

FLOROVSKY- Georgy Vasilievich (1893 1979) religious. activist, philosopher, theologian, cultural historian. In 1911 he graduated from high school with a gold medal and entered the historical philology department. ft Novoross. un ta. In 1916 he graduated from it and was left to prepare for... ... Encyclopedia of Cultural Studies

Churakova, Natalya Alexandrovna- (b. 03/06/1954) special. in religious studies; Dr. Philosopher sciences, prof. Genus. in Tatarsk, Novosibirsk region. Graduated from Philology. ft Samara State un that (1976). From 1977 to 1991 she worked as a scientist. Samar employee. region arts museum and taught philosophy... ... Large biographical encyclopedia

LEVINAS- (Levinas) Emmanuel (01/12/1906 12/25/1995; exact dates lives are indicated in connection with the prevalence of errors in the Russian language reference books Ed.) French philosopher dialogist, postmodernist. Born in Kaunas. In 1916 1920 he lived in Kharkov, in... ... History of Philosophy: Encyclopedia

SEMIOSPHERE- (see SEMIOTICS) a concept developed in the semiotic cultural studies of Yu. M. Lotman. S. is a semiotic space, in its object, essentially equal to culture; C. a necessary prerequisite for linguistic communication. A device consisting of... ... Encyclopedia of Cultural Studies

BINARY- BINARY, oh, oh; ren, rna (special). Double, consisting of two components. Binary alloys. Binary opposition (in linguistics). | noun binary, and, female Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

YIN AND YANG- one of the main whale concepts philosophy. Initial meaning: cloudy and sunny weather or shady and sunny sides (eg mountains, gorges). Dr. whale. thinkers used the binary nature of this opposition for philosophy. plural expressions... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Bunin Ivan Alekseevich- (1870 1953), Russian writer, honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1909). He emigrated in 1920. In lyric poetry he continued the classical traditions (collection “Falling Leaves”, 1901). In stories and stories he showed (sometimes with a nostalgic mood) impoverishment... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

binary- noun, number of synonyms: 1 binary (1) ASIS synonym dictionary. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary

Books

• Dream@. A novel about unreal love, Vidzhani V.. Binary - split personality - symptoms modern life. Our life. Every day, by becoming like the Creator, we create a second ourselves. We see another ourselves in the plane of the monitor. And there we are...

General information

The binary gender system divides male and female people into corresponding (cis-)gender categories, which are assigned specific gender roles, identities, and attributes. Gender role is one aspect of the gender binary. Some believe that BGS exists to maintain order in society, while others, on the contrary, believe that it divides and creates two opposite poles in society. Certain religious sources are also often used as authority for the defense of BGS.

Exceptions in the form of specific trans* (non-binary) identities are widespread in BGS. In addition to the biological identification of intersex people, elements of both or neither gender form the basis for a variety of identities: bigender, agender, queergender, etc.

Criticism

Many researchers dispute the existence of a strict binary of gender. A lot of material shows that dividing people into two separate categories is the source of many problems. For example, one of them is the fact that the differences between people within each of the dichotomies are often much greater than the differences between the dichotomies themselves. This confirms that GBS is unfounded and leads to false expectations from both genders.

Currently, there is growing support for eliminating additional categorization of people and considering each individual as, first and foremost, an individual. With the push to make gender more fluid, people are increasingly able to express themselves in ways that feel comfortable to them.

Another problem with BGS is the assertion that men are masculine and women are feminine. This causes people who express themselves outside of their gender role to be scrutinized by others. Moreover, masculine and feminine are not synonymous with masculine and feminine, as the latter terms are not mutually exclusive. Also, the assertion that femininity only applies to women and masculinity only to men has fundamental flaws. It is important to use the concepts of masculinity and femininity as descriptions of behavior and attitude without linking them to male or female gender. Using these terms in connection with a particular gender makes them a tool of oppression and discrimination.

Notes

1. Rosenblum, Darren "Trapped" in Sing-Sing: Transgendered Prisoners Caught in the Gender Binarism" // Michigan Journal of Gender & Law. - 2000. - No. 6.
2. Claudia Card. Adventures in Lesbian Philosophy. - Retrieved September 18, 2012. - Indiana University Press, 1994. - P. p. 127. - ISBN 978-0-253-20899-6.
3. Marjorie Garber Vested Interests: Cross-dressing and Cultural Anxiety // Psychology Press. - November 25, 1997. - pp. 2, 10, 14–16, 47. - ISBN 978-0-415-91951-7.
4. 1 2 Lorber, Judith "Believing is Seeing: Biology as Ideology." // The Gendered Society Reader. - Oxford University Press, 2011. - pp. 11-18.
5. Beckwith, Karen A Common Language of Gender. // Politics and Gender. - 2005. - No. 1. - P. 128-137. - DOI:10.1017/S1743923X05211017

binary system, binary number system