Main directions of modern cultural studies. Trends in the development of culture Trends in the development of modern material culture
Culture is such a complex phenomenon that it needs to be studied from different sides, from different positions. Therefore, in modern cultural studies, several main directions in the study of culture have emerged.
The study of theoretical problems of culture is most closely connected with philosophical thought. Therefore, the leading direction of modern cultural studies has become philosophical cultural studies, which sets itself the task of recognizing, comprehending and explaining culture through its most general and essential features. It gives a definition and understanding of the essence of culture, its difference from nature, its relationship with civilization and other phenomena. Its subject matter includes consideration of the structure, function and role of culture in human life and society. She identifies the leading trends in the evolution of culture, strives to reveal the reasons for its ups and downs, prosperity and crisis, etc.
The German philosophers Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) made a great contribution to the development of the philosophy of culture. ), Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), Karl Jaspers (1883-1969).
An important area of cultural studies is cultural history. Its main task is to provide specific knowledge about a particular culture. Its subject may be world, national or regional culture, or a historical era.
The history of culture reveals the processes of the historical sequence of development of cultural phenomena, as well as the continuity of cultural development of different eras, countries, peoples. It theoretically reproduces the logic of cultural development, forming certain types and models of cultural development, and studies the cultural appearance of different eras.
The history of culture was studied by the English historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975), the Dutch historian Johann Huizinga (1872-1945), and the French historian Fernand Braudel (1902-1985).
A special direction in modern cultural studies is sociological cultural studies. It explores the real functioning of either culture as a whole or the subcultures within it - mass and elite, urban and rural, women's and youth. The sociology of culture studies current trends in the development of culture, identifies those processes that occur in culture under the influence of social changes, national, ethnographic indicators. This scientific direction is associated with the predictive orientation of cultural studies and with the development of the scientific foundations of cultural policy in society.
The sociology of culture was developed in their works by the German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920), Russian scientists Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky (1822-1885) and Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin (1889-1968).
The sociology of culture is closely related to the psychology of culture or psychological anthropology. Its subject is individual characteristics of attitudes towards culture, the uniqueness of a person’s spiritual behavior within the cultural field. Cultural psychology reveals patterns of formation and development of a person’s psychological parameters depending on his cultural orientations.
The foundations of cultural psychology were laid by the Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961).
Widespread in modern cultural studies ethnological cultural studies, also called cultural anthropology. She studies traditions and customs, rites and rituals, myths and beliefs, as well as the entire way of life of traditional societies and the so-called “archaic” peoples.
Initially, cultural anthropology took shape in the form of ethnology, which studied primitive cultures.
An analysis of the lifestyle and traditions of previously existing peoples led scientists to the conclusion that the differences between these peoples are mainly in the sphere of culture. Having posed the problem of defining the boundaries that exist between the human world and the world of animal cultures, anthropologists identified a special world of artifacts artificially created by human hands. So they came to the need to introduce a special concept - culture to designate the “second nature”, in the conditions of which the formation and formation of man takes place. That is why one of the first scientific definitions of culture was given in the work of the founder of the evolutionary school in the ethnography of the English ethnographer Edward Tylor “Primitive Culture”.
A prominent place in cultural anthropology is occupied by the works of the American scientist Leslie Alvin White (1900-1975) and the French ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908).
A special direction in modern cultural studies is philological cultural studies, in which one or another national culture is studied through the prism of language and literature. In recent years, structural-semiotic concepts of culture, based on the latest linguistic methods, have become widespread in it.
The work of the German linguist Wilhelm Humboldt (1767-1835) had a significant influence on the development of philological cultural studies.
One of the directions of religious and philosophical thought in modern cultural studies is the theology of culture, in which cultural problems are considered based on the principles of religious doctrine.
In Christian cultural thought, Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox versions of the interpretation of cultural problems are distinguished. The ideas of Orthodox cultural studies were formed in the works of the Russian scientist, philosopher, and theologian Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky (1882-1937).
In connection with the development of technical civilization, humanity today faces the problems of protecting and restoring nature. A special branch of scientific knowledge has emerged - ecology, within which there is a search for ways to overcome contradictions between human activity and nature, and the problems of preserving the natural biological environment are being solved. The ecological crisis turned out to be connected with a cultural crisis. Thus, in modern cultural studies, the ecology of culture appeared as a new direction, focused on the development of various problems of preserving cultural heritage. Issues of cultural ecology in our country were first raised by academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev (1906-1999).
And finally, a special direction of modern cultural studies is applied cultural studies, the results of which are aimed at solving practical problems of cultural development. Its tasks include the development of museum affairs, the maintenance of folk traditions, the analysis of the work of writers, artists, musicians and other cultural figures, and the study of the activities of social institutions and cultural institutions.
In modern society and science, cultural studies has acquired increasing importance. It is no coincidence that culturalization today has become characteristic of science, especially social science.
1. The latest trends in the development of culture
.1 Scientific and technological revolution, its achievements and problems generated by it
XX century called the century of scientific and technological revolution. The scientific and technological revolution is a qualitatively new stage in the development of science and technology, associated with their active and fruitful interaction. We are witnessing how discoveries made by scientists lead to rapid changes in the field of technology and technology, and technological progress stimulates and conditions further scientific research.
When did the scientific and technological revolution begin? There is a point of view that this happened at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries. and was expressed in the appearance of the telephone, telegraph, radio, heavier-than-air flying machines, conveyor production systems, etc. According to another point of view, the history of scientific and technological revolution should be counted from the middle of the twentieth century, when electronic computer and biotechnologies arose and began to be deployed, and the use of nuclear energy and space exploration began. There is a third point of view that reconciles the first two. She asserts the existence of two large waves of scientific and technological revolution, which occurred, respectively, at the end of the 19th and mid-20th centuries.
Scientific and technological revolution was prepared by previous successes of science and industry, mainly in countries of European culture. It is important that large capital, public and private, has undertaken to finance the applied aspects of science in order to continue the production race and, by the way, the arms race. If we conduct a more in-depth analysis of the situation, we must admit that the scientific and technological revolution occurred in line with the general process of secularization of European culture. Christianity, a religion that calls people to ascetic self-restraint in the world and to work, first of all, on their spiritual self-improvement, was disappearing from the lives of Europeans. “The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force,” this call of Jesus Christ was losing its attractiveness; in accordance with the spirit of the era, slogans like: “We do not need to wait for favors from nature, it is our task to take them from her.” In short, scientific and technological revolution began in the conditions of an already established industrial society in Europe.
We can talk about the diverse consequences of scientific and technological revolution. Thanks to it, human intervention in natural processes has increased. People have split the atom, people are changing the hereditary properties of animals and plants, extracting minerals from the vast depths of both land and sea, storming outer space... Over the past 100 years, global industrial production has grown more than 50 times, with 75% of the increase achieved since 1950 According to the Russian scientist V. Vernadsky (1863 - 1945), humanity has become the largest geological force on our planet, the biosphere (sphere of life) of the Earth is increasingly turning into the noosphere (sphere of the mind).
In countries that are at the forefront of scientific and technological progress, the overall comfort of life has improved. “A civilized person” can no longer imagine his normal existence without cars, refrigerators, automatic washing machines, microwave ovens, televisions, telephones, including mobile phones, computers, copiers, scanners, etc. In the future, they say some authors, scientific and technological revolution will make it possible to feed a mankind that has grown many times over and defeat almost all diseases known to us. It should also be noted that scientific and technological progress has made countries and continents “closer”, and the processes of mutual influence and interpenetration of cultures have become more intense.
In developed countries, the authority of scientists and engineers has grown, some of whom have directly entered the upper, ruling strata of society along with leaders of politics and business. The philosophy and ideology of scientism (Latin scientia - science, knowledge), associated with the belief in the omnipotence of science and the unconditionally positive nature of its achievements, took hold. Talk began about the advent of the era of technocracy, the power of technical specialists carrying out truly scientific management of society. According to some researchers, the very type of society has changed: in developed countries, the industrial society has been replaced by a post-industrial, or information society. Its main wealth is information, the leading branch of the economy is intellectual production, and thanks to computer networks, “participatory democracy” is achieved.
But the achievements of scientific and technological revolution also have their opposite, negative side. Of course, there is a connection between scientific and technological revolution and the global problems of our time, among which three stand out. Firstly, this is a global environmental crisis, expressed in the destruction of the natural human habitat and the depletion of the Earth's natural resources. Secondly, there is the threat of a catastrophic planetary war waged using nuclear, chemical, bacteriological and other types of terrible weapons created by scientists. Thirdly, this is the “North-South” problem - a growing gap in living standards and development between countries “ridden” by the scientific and technological revolution (they are located mainly in the Northern Hemisphere) and backward countries, relatively speaking, in the South.
Scientific and technological revolution contributes - directly or indirectly - to the destruction of people's mental health and their moral foundations. The number of stress-forming factors in our lives has increased (the risk of technological disasters, the rapid pace of changes in living conditions, lack of communication with living nature, etc.). According to the American philosopher and sociologist L. Mumford (1895 - 1990), a society saturated with machines itself turns into a mega-machine, an extremely organized, rationalized system. People's dependence on machines is growing, and they themselves are becoming more and more machine-like. These people know the value of everything and know the value of nothing, the scientist K. Lorenz bitterly noted...
The reaction to these problems generated by scientific and technological revolution was the spread of technophobia and anti-scientism in society. Even some scientists and philosophers made proposals to “freeze” further scientific and technological progress, because neither nature nor people themselves can adapt to it. True, the following objection is thrown at them in response: we have come too far on the path of knowledge and transformation of nature, a backward movement will result in our degradation or even death, which means that we must hope for new discoveries by scientists and their more reasonable and humane use.
1.2 Traditions and innovations in the religious life of mankind
The twentieth century did not become the century of the final triumph of atheism, as some thinkers predicted at its dawn, observing the persistent and largely successful struggle of Europeans for a more comfortable, well-fed and free life on Earth. Still, the majority of the inhabitants of our planet continue to consider themselves adherents of one religion or another. Although the share of non-believers in the total population of the Earth has increased significantly. If, according to some estimates, in 1900, out of 1630 million earthlings, 5 million (0.3%) could be considered non-believers, then in 2000, out of 6044 million earthlings, there were 1208 million non-believers (20%).
The development of the process of secularization is manifested not only in the expansion of the circle of people who directly declare their atheism. It is noticeable that the role of religious values in the lives of those who consider themselves believers is being diminished. Thus, 54% of Russians consider themselves Orthodox, but half of them do not go to church even once a year!
The onset of atheism and religious indifference is usually linked to scientific and technological progress. Although there are many believers among scientists, many people are convinced by the successes of scientific and technological progress either in the complete absence of the Divine, or in the fact that even without regard to it, humanity is capable of organizing its affairs on Earth.
Scientific and technological progress, as well as the features of a market economy, stimulate an unbridled race for the production and consumption of material goods, which turns a person into a “money-making machine.” If we add to this an extremely intrusive mass culture that subtly exploits human fears and hopes, it is clear that modern industrial society is capable of drowning out or redirecting the religious need inherent in people.
The regime of rapid renewal in which society lives teaches people to be skeptical about the traditions bequeathed by their ancestors, incl. to their religious heritage. Religious traditions are also being shaken under the influence of the process of globalization of our lives, which brings together and mixes peoples and cultures. Many people involuntarily have a question: “If religions are so different, and everyone insists on their truth, then should they be trusted at all?”
In addition, the development and popularization of historical science brought down on the mass consciousness many depressing facts from the religious history of mankind (extermination of infidels, corruption of clergy, counterfeiting of sacred relics, etc.). The last factor would not have been so effective if, over the past centuries, influential groups of people had not formed whose goal was to defeat “religious prejudices.” At different times and under different slogans, members of Masonic lodges, National Socialists, Communists and some other enthusiasts who wanted to radically make humanity happy strived for this.
In the face of the challenges that the twentieth century posed to religion, there is a division among its defenders. Diametrically opposed positions are occupied by those who support the line of religious modernism and those who take the position of religious fundamentalism. Modernists of various confessions, as a rule, speak out for the simplification of worship, the democratization of religious institutions, and the adaptation of religious doctrine to the modern scientific picture of the world and secular morality. Fundamentalists, on the other hand, oppose any concessions to religion “to the spirit of this age,” and the most ardent of them are even ready to resort to violence against those who ask for relief.
One of the most characteristic features of the religious life of modern humanity has been the spread of non-traditional religiosity in many countries. In some cases, we are talking about the fact that a particular religion begins to be actively preached outside the region, where the ode has long become an organic part of the national cultural tradition (for example, Buddhism penetrates Europe). But often we are dealing with religious movements that have arisen in recent years or decades and cannot yet be considered historically rooted in any country in the world. Such religions are called new or alternative cults. The most famous neo-cults operating in our country include: the Unification Church (Muna Church), the Mother of God Center (Russian Orthodox Church of the Mother of God Sovereign), the Church of the Last Testament (Vissarion Church), the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the Church of Scientology, etc. d.
The main reason for the neo-cult boom in the last century is the disappointment of many people in modern civilization and in those religions that, it seems, have long become an organic part of it. “The new is better than the old”, “it is good where we are not” - these principles, it turns out, are important in religious life. Some neo-cults attract people due to the simplicity of their beliefs and rituals. Others, on the contrary, rely on philosophical sophistication and scientific doctrine, on exhausting cult practice and even social extremism. The idea, preached by many neo-cults, of the need to overcome the limitations of traditional religions by synthesizing all the best in them is well known.
Neo-cults are often criticized by adherents of traditional faiths, who believe that new religions undermine the stability and spiritual health of peoples. Examples are given of neo-cults zombifying their adherents, exploiting their free labor and appropriating their property, driving people to suicide, etc. In response, there are reminders that incriminating evidence can also be collected on traditional religions, as well as appeals to the principle of freedom conscience.
This principle affirms the ability of a person to voluntarily determine his attitude towards religion, to have any religious affiliation or not to have it at all and to be an atheist. The principle of freedom of conscience was the result of centuries of clarification of relations between the state, society and church institutions, the result of a dramatic struggle against religious and anti-religious intolerance. Currently, it is enshrined in a number of international legal documents, incl. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (1949), “Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief” (1981), “Final Document of the Vienna Meeting of Representatives of the States Parties to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe” (1989), “Charter of Paris for a New Europe” (1990).
1.3 Totalitarianism and culture
One of the greatest threats that haunted humanity in the twentieth century. and has not yet retreated, is totalitarianism. Totalitarian (Latin totalitas - integrity, Italian totalitario - covering everything as a whole) are usually called socio-political systems in which the government seeks to put people's lives under complete (total) control, to give it the monotony and coherence of a large anthill. It must be said that totalitarian states in their pure form have so far existed only on the pages of dystopian novels (“We” by E. Zamyatin, “Brave New World” by O. Huxley, “1984” by J. Orwell). In practice, there were states that were more or less similar to totalitarian ones. The USSR during the Stalinist period and Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 are usually cited as examples. Let us also turn to this example to analyze the cultural prerequisites and consequences of totalitarianism.
Critics of Soviet communism and German Nazism like to equate them. Meanwhile, the first was an attempt to modernize the traditional society of Russia, and the second tried to drive the modern (industrial) society of Germany into the “New Middle Ages”. The communists professed the ideal of universal brotherhood and viewed violence as a tactical, transitory means. And the Nazis postulated the fundamental inequality of people (racism) and the right of the “superior” to oppress and exterminate the “inferior” forever and ever. So there was not and could not be a complete coincidence between the USSR and the Nazi Third Reich, between Soviet and Nazi cultures!
But in both Russia and Germany, the onset of totalitarianism was preceded and facilitated by a crisis of traditional religious and moral values. This refers, first of all, to the decline of church Christianity, to which the broad masses have cooled. A significant part of the intelligentsia had already become fed up with Enlightenment-style humanism with its cult of the rights and interests of the individual. As has long been noted, “a holy place is never empty.” Doctrines burst into the lives of Russians and Germans that, with religious passion, called for a grandiose reorganization of the world. They caused that explosion of popular enthusiasm and political ambitions that made state tyranny acceptable and a situation of dissent intolerable. The religious hunger of the de-Christianized masses was fueled by the personality cult of infallible leaders - Stalin in the USSR, Hitler in Germany.
The strengthening of totalitarian regimes in both countries was indirectly facilitated by scientific and technological progress. He placed at the disposal of the ruling elite the means (weapons, transport, communications...) that made it possible to effectively control both vast territories and individuals. For example, a radio that brought to remote corners, to dark, illiterate people the voices of national idols and the latest ideological guidelines, and, on occasion, the names of those who should have been caught and destroyed.
If we talk about the specifics of the German situation, then the atomized nature of society immediately attracts attention. The Germans have already felt that the other side of the new European freedom is loneliness and the erosion of national identity. At the beginning of the twentieth century. The popularity of literature calling for the renewal of shaken national unity and the defense of the cultural identity of the Germans is growing. These sentiments were exploited by Hitler, who seduced his compatriots into “flight from freedom.” He really gave them the joyful feeling that they were together again - with one leader, one party, one ideology. This joy, greatly exaggerated by propaganda and official art, allowed the Germans to fight with half the world for almost 6 years.
In the case of Russia, the ignorance of a significant part of the population and the centuries-old tradition of subservience to superiors played a fatal role. This almost inevitably caused a repetition in post-revolutionary Russia of the situation about which the 19th century poet. said: “Below is the power of darkness, above is the power of darkness.” You can also notice that the so-called “Stalinist repressions” were largely due to persistent contradictions in relations between bearers of different types and levels of culture.
The cultural heritage of the totalitarian regimes we are studying is very ambiguous. On the one hand, one can list for a long time the major figures of art and science who accepted these regimes and worked fruitfully under their rule. We may recall that during the period of Stalinism, the educational level of the population increased significantly, and the Nazis carried out a lot of work in their country to develop sports and physical culture. But on the other hand, intolerance of dissent, the restriction of freedom of creativity by the narrow framework of ideology and the tastes of leaders led to the degradation of entire spheres of culture. The greatest sorrow is caused by the dehumanization of morality, which occurred due to the fact that masses of people were involved in denunciation and executioner activities. A type of person with no initiative, with a depressed sense of self-worth and moral responsibility was in demand and was brought up. Fortunately, it did not become predominant in our country, otherwise it would not have withstood the fierce battle with the Third Reich and its allies!
Neither Hitler's Germany nor the USSR has long been gone. But the danger of totalitarianism remains and in some ways has even become more acute. We are on the verge of creating psychotronic weapons that control people’s behavior at a distance, and according to some information, it has already been created. Using the example of the USA and some other so-called democratic countries, we see that totalitarianism can do without concentration camps and exist with full respect for freedom of speech. With the help of stultifying mass culture, especially drug television, with the help of schools that provide partial, unsystematized knowledge, people turn into a crowd of stereotypically thinking “one-dimensional” subjects, whose behavior is predetermined and calculated by those in power.
culture modernism globalization totalitarianism
1.4 Mass culture and its “Americanization”
Already in the 19th century. researchers should have paid attention to the phenomenon of the human mass that flooded the cities of Europe and America. One of the first to do this was the French sociologist, psychologist and publicist G. Le Bon (Le Bon) (1841 - 1931) in his books “Psychology of the Masses” and “Psychology of the Crowd”. He described the mass (and its most extreme case, the crowd) as a multitude of people whose behavior is guided not by traditions and principles, not by personal reason and conscience, but by the herd instinct. The mass is prone to suggestion and irresponsible actions, “it turns away from evidence that it does not like, and prefers to worship error, if only this error seduces it...” Le Bon did not explain this, but in fact, the “massification” of Western society was a consequence of industrialization and urbanization, the collapse estate, church and community structures of pre-capitalist Europe.
The Spanish philosopher J. Ortega y Gasset (1883 - 1955) in his book “The Revolt of the Masses” (1929) stated that the masses (“those who float with the flow and are deprived of guidelines”, who “are not only not depressed, but satisfied with his own indistinguishability") in the twentieth century. achieved dominance. Politicians now curry favor with the “average man,” and artists indulge his whims. Culture as a whole began to “play short,” and J. Ortega y Gasset saw in this signs of a catastrophe on a civilizational scale.
Discussing the causes and consequences of the “revolt of the masses,” the Spanish philosopher gave a very strict assessment of modern “scientific” and “democratic” education, which produces crowds of narrow specialists. He wrote: “We would have to call him (the specialist - author) “a learned ignoramus,” and this is very serious, it means that in all matters unknown to him, he will behave not like a person unfamiliar with the matter, but with authority and ambition inherent in a connoisseur and specialist... Non-recognition of authorities, refusal to obey anyone - typical traits of a mass person - reach their apogee precisely among these rather qualified people. It is these people who symbolize and to a large extent carry out the modern rule of the masses, and their barbarity is the immediate cause of the demoralization of Europe.”
One can argue with the elitist, anti-democratic pathos of Ortega y Gasset, but the fact remains: mass culture has become the main social type of culture in modern times (after 1918). We call it mass because, firstly, it is focused on the stereotypes of mass consciousness, addressed to “man-like-everyone”, and secondly, its products (films, books, music, sports shows...) are mass-produced, literally staged to the stream. Other names: pop culture, commercial culture, entertainment culture, anti-fatigue culture. And critics say that this is semi-culture or even anti-culture.
The role of mass culture in the life of modern society is very ambiguous. On the one hand, we can give examples that it:
.promotes the popularization of genuine scientific, artistic, moral values;
.performs an important integrating function, uniting masses of people (“a crowd of lonely people”);
.helps people relieve the stress of everyday existence in the middle of “concrete jungles” and “asphalt rivers”;
.represents a kind of continuation or feasible replacement of folk culture in the conditions of industrial and post-industrial society;
.produces things made at a high level of professional craftsmanship.
But on the other hand, it is noticeable that the creators of mass culture too often turn to the most unassuming tastes, primitive needs, even the vices of people. One can say about many of them that they come from the position of vulgar Freudianism, named after the famous psychologist of the 20th century. Vulgar Freudianism (it should not be identified with psychoanalysis created by S. Freud, although the connection between them is undeniable) is the idea of a person as a cruel and lustful beast, needing only “bread and circuses.”
In popular culture, commercial interest crowds out the moral and aesthetic assessment of phenomena. As one Western television producer explained, the market forces him to seek out and show the most vile sensations; a story about a priest who teaches good is banal; it is more interesting to report about a priest who raped a girl, or even better, a boy or an old woman... There is a significant amount of deceit in these words. In fact, mass culture, like the entire modern market economy, is not so much oriented toward consumer demand as it creates it. Sellers of mass culture sometimes behave like drug dealers - they deliberately corrupt and dumb down their audience in order to always have on hand people ready to buy new and stronger “doses” of pornography, rudeness and sadism.
The epicenter of the spread of mass culture in the modern world is the United States. Why? In this country with a relatively short history, different cultural traditions were initially mixed, rubbing against each other, “averaging out.” In addition, the “spirit of capitalism” prevailed here very early, involving the masses of people in the race of production and consumption. The United States is now a rich and ambitious country, investing enormous amounts of money in its cultural expansion. Therefore, we have to talk about the “Americanization” of modern culture, about “American cultural imperialism” and even about the “cultural war” that the United States is waging against the rest of the world.
1.5 Modernism and postmodernism in culture
At the turn of the XIX - XX centuries. Modernist (contemporary) art is emerging in Europe and America. Its earliest and most rebellious, extravagant manifestations are usually called avant-garde. Modernists argued that classical realism was outdated, that it was unable to truly convey the spirit of the opening era, the era of great revolutions, discoveries and disasters. As one of the first theorists of modernism, the Italian writer F. T. Marinetti (1876 - 1944), wrote: “We need to sweep away all the already used subjects in order to express our whirlwind life of steel, pride, fever and speed.”
The modernists declared their work to be “pure art,” independent of the moral prejudices and artistic preferences of the crowd. They proclaimed the artist’s right to self-expression as bold as he wished, to unrestrained experimentation. What happened as a result, J. Ortega y Gasset called the dehumanization of art, that is, its dehumanization. He wrote that the modern “artist imprisons us in a dark, incomprehensible world, forcing us to deal with objects that are impossible to deal with ‘humanly’.” To some this might sound like madness. But as the famous modernist artist S. Dali (1904 - 1989) admitted: “The only difference between me and a crazy person is that I’m not crazy.”
Modernist art was initially characterized by significant stylistic diversity. Thus, expressionist artists (F. Marc, E. Nolde...) expressed their experiences with the help of “flashy” colors and deformation of the appearance of objects. Cubist artists (P. Picasso, J. Braque...) tried to depict a thing from several sides at once and at the same time reduce it to elementary geometric figures. Surrealist artists (S. Dali, H. Miro...) painted the world of human dreams, nightmares and hallucinations. Representatives of abstract or non-objective art (W. Kandinsky, P. Mondrian...) filled their paintings with colored spots and lines, completely free from any connection with visible reality. There were also futurists, fauvists, minimalists, conceptualists, advocates of pop art, etc. Modernism includes the “stream of consciousness” novels of M. Proust and the dramas of the absurd by S. Beckett, the zoomorphic architecture of A. Gaudi, and the atonal music of A. Schoenberg... We could continue the list of big names and pretentious names for quite a long time.
The general public initially greeted the new art with bewilderment and wariness, especially since some modernists declared their sympathy for socio-political radicals (for example, Marinetti supported the fascists, and Picasso joined the Communist Party). But, if in the USSR (Stalinist and post-Stalinist), as well as in Nazi Germany, modernism was rejected as anti-art, then in Western democracies it over time became fashionable and profitable, enjoying the support of the political and financial elite. However, even there the attitude towards him remains far from unambiguous. For some, modernism is one of the greatest acquisitions of the twentieth century, a powerful breakthrough to the heights of the Spirit, but for others it is the art of bluff, an art that obscures consciousness and destroys a person.
At the end of the 60s. appears, and in the 1980s. The term “postmodernism” is finally established, denoting a number of new trends not only in art, but in the spiritual life of developed countries in general (that’s why cultural scientists say that all Western culture, all Western society has entered the postmodern era). Postmodernism is genetically related to modernism and it is difficult to draw a clear line between them (for example, some authors consider pop art and conceptualism to be the “first signs” of postmodern art). Still, the following differences can be distinguished. Modernism also recognizes the value hierarchy in culture, the ability, through comparison and analysis, to determine what is better and what is worse; postmodernism generally abandons hierarchy, the criteria of judgment and evaluation; it proclaims a radical pluralism of styles and artistic programs, ideological models and cultural languages. Modernism claims to say a new word about the world; postmodernism declares that further creativity is impossible, all paths have been passed, and all we have to do is recombine the known. Modernism is emphatically elitist, and in postmodernism the opposition between elite and mass culture is removed.
Postmodern art is characterized by quotation, collaging, irony, a passion for provocations and blasphemy, and an interest in man “below the heart.” However, postmodernists themselves prefer to talk not about art, but about art practices. A typical example of postmodern art practices was the scandalous exhibition “Caution: Religion!”, held in 2003 in Moscow. It featured images of crosses hung with sausages or formed from naked bodies, icons with slits for those wishing to be photographed, the face of Jesus Christ in a Coca-Cola advertisement, etc.
Commercial art, modernism and postmodernism do not exhaust the wealth of artistic culture of the 20th century. In this century, high art continued to exist and develop, based on the principles of realism, love of humanity and respect for cultural traditions. Among its remarkable representatives one can name, for example, J. Galsworthy and W. Golding, F. Mauriac and C. Lewis, T. Mann and G. Böll, W. Faulkner and V. Rasputin... However, the growing influence of mass culture, fashion on modernist and postmodernist experiments are very symptomatic. According to the Austrian art critic and cultural scientist G. Sedlmayr (1896 - 1984), they indicate that modern culture has lost its Center, then, relatively speaking, the place that was previously occupied by God, the Shrine, and the High Ideal. An “unparalleled extreme situation” has developed, beyond which one can hardly expect anything other than a total catastrophe - or the beginning of a revival. The situation is not like one of those numerous crises, the painful consciousness of which is itself one of the typical signs of the times we are living through, but like a crisis of man as such.”
1.6 Cultural dimension of globalization
Globalization is a word that is now widely heard. It denotes, first of all, the process of merging national economies into a global economic system within which capital, goods, and labor circulate freely. A major role in this process is played by modern means of transport and communication (jet aircraft, the Internet, television, etc.) - products of scientific and technological progress. Globalization is also expressed in the growing influence of supranational political movements and structures (such as the G8, the European Union, Masonic lodges, etc.), but the sovereignty of individual national states is subject to serious restrictions. In the future, the question of the unification of all humanity under the authority of the World Government may arise, and some authors argue that such authority actually already exists.
Globalization is accompanied by active migration of the population. Masses of people have become, as they say, “new nomads”, “human dust”, which is spread around the world. When some African, who receives $20 - $50 a month for his work, sees American or European “soap operas”, an indomitable desire is born in him to break through to the prosperous “North”, where the “golden billion” of our planet lives, especially that the “North” itself needs new workers from time to time. As a result, the appearance of many European cities has seriously changed over the past decades. For example, in Paris, every second child in kindergartens has a dark skin color; in London, half the population is non-white. According to the most minimal estimates, immigrants from the countries of the Muslim East make up 3 million people in Germany, 2 million in France, a million in Britain and 750 thousand in Italy. The Chinese community in Britain has already reached 250 thousand people, and in France - 200 thousand.
Under such conditions, of course, acculturation processes intensify. For now, they are dominated by Western culture, attractive for its dynamism, emancipation, technical achievements and consumer temptations. And yet, humanity is still very far from a state of complete cultural homogeneity, and it is a big question whether this state will be achieved at all. The cultural traditions of different peoples have shown their exceptional vitality; moreover, as cultural scientists note, in the face of the challenge of globalization, archaic elements and layers have become more active - even tribal solidarity.
Italians, Germans, and French complain that the hordes of emigrants who have poured into their countries do not want to adopt the Western way of life; in the middle of Europe they create enclaves of their own culture, different from the European one. Thus, the ground arises for mutual suspicions and fears. A typical example is the scandalous dystopian novel by E. Chudinova “Notre Dame Mosque” (2005), which describes Muslim Paris and the underground struggle of the last knights of Europe and the Christian Church.
As the famous American political scientist S. Huntington predicts: “The fundamental source of conflict in the emerging new world will not be ideology or economics. The greatest divide between humanity will be culture. Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the major conflicts in world politics will be between nations and groups of nations representing different civilizations... The cultural dividing lines of civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.” And, it must be said that the events of recent years (attacks by international terrorists, entirely Muslim radicals, and counter-terrorist operations of Western countries in the countries of the Muslim East) force us to listen to this forecast...
We conclude our acquaintance with the history of world culture on an alarming note. Table culture is a high-risk area. Let’s not turn a blind eye to this and engage in self-deception. We will try to understand where the flow of events is taking us, so as not to be something like a log in it, so that, if necessary, we can raise “the counter current - the current against the current” (A.K. Tolstoy). And let the science of cultural studies help us with this.
List of sources used
1. Shirshov I.E. Culturology - theory and history of culture: textbook / Shirshov I.E. - Mn.: Ecoperspective 2010.
Davidovich V.E. The essence of culture / Davidovich V.E., Zhdanov Yu.I. - Rostov n/d., 1973.
Culturology. Textbook Edited by A. A. Radugin - M., 2001.
Ehrengross B.A. Culturology. Textbook for universities / B.A. Ehrengross, R.G. Apresyan, E. Botvinnik - M.: Onyx, 2007.
Markarian E.S. Theory of culture and modern science / Markaryan E.S. - M., 1983.
Tutoring
Need help studying a topic?
Our specialists will advise or provide tutoring services on topics that interest you.
Submit your application indicating the topic right now to find out about the possibility of obtaining a consultation.
Current cultural situation:
· Eurocentrism and Westernization have become the basis of world culture;
· rationalism,
· subjectivism,
· Americanism – expansion of the norms and values of American culture,
· change of the model of cognition – gradual abandonment of the traditional orientation towards knowledge and transition to an information model, transformation of knowledge into unified and impersonal information; "Diagnosis of our time" (Karl Mannheim) – this is the formation of a global information space, where general stereotypes, general assessments, general parameters of behavior dominate,
· pragmatic tendency - everything that is done must have a practical orientation, a measure of commensurate modernity - calculation, benefit and benefit,
· economiccentrism – the desire to see the most essential in economic processes,
· recognition of the absolute importance of technology and technical progress,
· strict specialization,
accelerating progress
· democratization,
· the tendency of universalization of world culture and particularism,
· the desire for globalization in all spheres of human life,
· transformation of human life into a process of communication,
· in relation to the world, the importance of the subject is exaggerated, the cult of individual success,
· cultural pluralism – the coexistence of different cultural values.
Westernization – penetration of American culture into the European continent in the second half of the twentieth century.
Globalization – the process of the development of any phenomenon into a phenomenon on a global scale, the prerequisites are the emergence of a single world infrastructure, a supranational level of standardization and unification, a distinctive feature of the modern cultural situation, gives rise to a contradictory trend - ethnicization, a return to the traditional style of behavior, when tribalism comes first ethnic isolation. Global culture was formed in the 20th century. Prerequisite The process of globalization is the creation of supranational institutions.
Modern, modernism - one of the main trends in European culture. XIX – beginning XX centuries, the last monological cultural and historical era with a clearly expressed system of hierarchical value systems, manifested in all aspects of human activity. Abstractionism – a modernist movement in the art of the 20th century, which fundamentally abandoned the depiction of real objects in painting, sculpture and graphics. Avant-garde – a set of experimental, modernist, emphatically unusual, exploratory endeavors in the art of the 20th century. Pop Art – a direction in fine avant-garde art of the 1950s-1960s, “revealing the aesthetic values” of samples of mass production. An image borrowed from popular culture is placed in a different context: the scale and material change; a technique or technical method is exposed; information interference is detected, etc. Surrealism – a movement in literature and art of the 20th century that emerged in the 1920s. The general features of the art of surrealism are: absurd fantasy, alogism, paradoxical combinations of forms, visual instability and variability of images (S. Dali, R. Magritte). Cubism – an avant-garde movement in fine art of the first quarter of the 20th century, whose representatives depict the objective world in the form of combinations of regular geometric volumes: cube, sphere, cylinder, cone (P. Picasso, Barque).
Modernization of cultural life – modernization (fr. newest, modern) has several meanings:
· modernism – a complex of avant-garde phenomena in the culture of the first half of the twentieth century,
· modernism - one of the main directions of European culture of the mid-nineteenth - early twentieth centuries. The last monologue era with a clearly expressed system of hierarchical value systems, manifested in all aspects of human activity,
· postmodernism – a broad cultural movement of the last 30 years of the twentieth century, a reaction to the innovation of modernism, the desire to include in contemporary art the entire experience of world artistic practice by citing it,
· modernization – complex and diverse processes of cultural transformation, innovative changes,
· modernization – a revolutionary transition from pre-industrial to industrial society through comprehensive reforms. Changes of the last 50 years, the processes of bringing any social education into line with modern standards. The method of entry of backward countries into the world economic system.
Modernization theories are among the most influential areas of Western “development sociology” today. The main attention is paid to the problems of developing countries, their transition from agricultural to economically developed ones.
In the 50-60s. XX century the concept of modernization was understood as the influence of developed countries on social processes in developing countries through an increase in economic “aid” - the transfer of modern technologies and public investments to the “third world” countries. But the “help” turned out to increase internal social contradictions and inequality, led to a slowdown in the rate of economic development, increased unemployment, poverty, and increased social tension.
Concept "lagging" modernization argues that the direct and formal borrowing of “rational” Western socio-economic models, not supported by social institutions and socio-cultural structures, leads to an “irrational” industrial society that absorbs more resources than it has a social “return”.
Two types of modernization:
· organic – the moment of the country’s own development, prepared by the entire course of previous evolution, begins with culture, and not with the economy,
· inorganic - a response to an external challenge from more developed countries, a method of catch-up development undertaken by the government in order to overcome backwardness and avoid foreign dependence. Done by purchasing foreign equipment, patents, borrowing foreign technologies, inviting specialists, attracting investments, it begins not with culture, but with economics and politics.
Scientific and technological revolution – a set of qualitative changes in technology, technology and production organization, occurring under the influence of major scientific achievements and discoveries and having a certain impact on the socio-economic conditions of public life; processes that began in the 1940-1950s. in the development of science and technology, which caused the transformation of science into a decisive factor in sociocultural development. For modern stage of scientific and technological revolution characteristic processes:
· a new structure of the social division of labor, where scientific activity becomes one of the leading elements,
· transformation of science into a direct productive force
· radical transformation of objects of labor, instruments of production and workers,
· use of fundamentally new types of technology.
Particularism– practice of cultural isolation, political disunity and fragmentation; movement towards the isolation and separation of individual territorial units of the state.
Contradictions of modern culture - increased individual freedom and violence; elitism and mass character, pluralism and unification.
Modern Western culture – spirit of entrepreneurship, dynamism, modernism and postmodernism, scientific and technological revolution, computerization, global problems, “consumer society” and its vices (cult of individual success, lack of spirituality, asocial tendencies, drug addiction, crime, terrorism).
Trends in modern world sociocultural development – the formation of a new socio-cultural stratification of the bulk of the population, the formation of a large elite stratum of highly qualified international specialists, the reduction of mass secondary education to the level of mastering an elementary “picture of the world”.
Universalism of culture – ideological orientation towards the rapprochement of cultures, their synthesis. Representatives of this concept, despite the diversity of cultures, believe that there is a single line of universal human culture.
Ecumenical movement - arose at the beginning of the 20th century. movement for the unification of all Christian denominations, with the goal of: strengthening the influence of religion; resistance to the process of secularization; and the development of a general Christian social program suitable for believers living in countries with different social systems.
The relevance of the topic of culture, its current state and development trends is beyond doubt. The relevance of the problem under consideration is due primarily to the fact that the modern world is oversaturated with conflicts and disasters, the main reason for which is the clash of people professing different cultural values. This could be religious strife, the desire of autonomies to gain independence, the struggle of financial groups. By examining the motives of such conflicts, one can always find differences in spiritual values among the conflicting parties. There are groups of people who perceive foreign culture as something hostile. Fortunately, there are those who, on the contrary, understand and recognize the equivalence of any manifestations of spirituality and culture. Consequently, modern civilization will be able to resist self-destruction only if, in addition to technological progress and an increase in material values, the spiritual potential of its culture becomes the basis for the development of society. Thus, cultural values have not lost their significance today.
In addition, the relevance of the problem of culture is associated with the so-called “crisis of culture”. Almost every day we hear addresses from Russian President D.A. on TV screens. Medvedev and other famous politicians about the need to improve the level of culture in our society. It should be noted that the topic of culture is relatively new for our school. Previously, this topic was studied in cultural institutes, art and theater schools, and philosophy departments at universities. There are special textbooks and programs on the theory of culture that were written in the spirit of, so to speak, stagnant times. The entire understanding of culture was reduced mainly to the Marxist-Leninist one, little attention was paid to world culture and the teachings of foreign authors. It was believed that the “true” culture is in our country, and its development is possible only on the basis of a certain ideology. However, the perestroika processes forced us to look differently at our own cultural achievements and evaluate them more modestly. It is also important that our domestic culture was recognized as part of the world.
Today we need new assessments and ideological approaches; in particular, it is necessary to recognize that the level of culture of a society is represented not in individual highest achievements, but in the everyday life of millions of people. It’s exactly the same here as in physical culture: we have world-class achievements in many sports, but the general physical culture of the masses is very low. And this, as we know, affects the health of society as a whole.
The achievement of recent years has been the understanding of a simple fact: what matters first of all is the level of culture of ordinary human life. That is, the culture of everyday life, production, the culture of streets and public institutions, the culture of everyday communication between people. Society and the state can either promote the development of culture, or, on the contrary, hinder its development. However, they will never replace an individual in creating culture.
But what is culture? Why do we miss it? What does it mean? How is it that there is a lack of culture? What exactly is missing? There are people, there are houses, there are cars, mechanisms, factories, there are theaters and libraries too. What is missing, what is perceived as a lack or low level of culture?
In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to turn to the history of the origin of the word and concept “culture”. Note that it is necessary to distinguish between a word and a concept. The word appears before the concept and serves to designate or name something. The concept already contains an understanding of the designated object or action, i.e. expresses a person's attitude towards him.
So, the word “culture” appeared in Latin. It was used in treatises and letters by poets and scientists of Ancient Rome. It denoted the action of cultivating or processing something. Roman statesman and writer Marcus Porcius Cato(234-149 BC) wrote a treatise on agriculture, the name of which in Latin would sound something like this: agriculture. This treatise is devoted not just to cultivating the land, but specifically to caring for a plot, a field, which presupposes not only the cultivation of the soil, but also a special emotional attitude towards it. There is, for example, advice on purchasing a plot of land. Cato wrote that one should not be lazy and walk around the plot of land being purchased several times. If the site is good, the more often you inspect it, the more you will like it. This is the “like” you should definitely have. If it doesn’t exist, then there won’t be good care, i.e. there will be no culture.
Consequently, the word “culture”, even in its early days of use, meant not only processing, but also veneration, perhaps even worship. It is no coincidence that there is also a related word “cult”.
The Romans used the word “culture” with some object in the genitive case: culture of behavior, culture of speech, etc. The Roman orator and philosopher Cicero (106-43 BC) used the word to refer to spirituality. He considered philosophy to be the culture of the spirit or mind. Basically, all cultural historians agree that this implies the influence of philosophy on the mind with the purpose of processing it, educating it, and developing mental abilities. But another meaning can be found here if we remember Cato. Philosophy is not only the cultivation or education of the mind, but also its veneration, respect for it and worship of it. And indeed: philosophy was born out of preference for the spiritual principle in man, out of respect for this principle.
In the Middle Ages, the word “cult” was used more often than the word “culture”. What was meant was the possibility and ability to express the creative power and will of God through a certain attitude towards him and ritual. As is known, there was also the concept of chivalry, i.e. a kind of cult or culture of valor, honor and dignity.
During the Renaissance, there was a return to the ancient meaning of the word “culture” as the harmonious and sublime development of man, containing his active, creative beginning.
In its independent meaning, the concept of “culture” appeared in the works of the German lawyer S. Pufendorf(1632-1694). He used it to denote the results of the activities of a social person. Culture is opposed to the natural or natural state of man. This sense of something extra-natural, something developed and cultivated by man has been preserved to this day in the concept of “culture”. Culture was understood as the confrontation of man and his activities with the wild elements of nature, its dark and unbridled forces. This concept is used more and more often in the sense of enlightenment, education, and good manners of a person. It is no coincidence that the birth of the concept of “culture” coincided in time with the emergence and development of new relations in society towards man and nature.
It was New Times. Its novelty lay in the fact that people for the most part began to live not in accordance with the rhythms, cycles or patterns of nature, but in the mode of urban life. A new way of life became the basis for a person’s new idea of himself. The labor activity of the townspeople also mattered. Even in the Middle Ages, village artisans made up the original population of cities. Gradually, the craft gained independence and lost its service character in relation to agriculture. Ultimately, it rose above him and became an indicator of Man’s superiority over nature, turning it into the means and object of his actions.
The city dweller was, as it were, fenced off from nature; his life was largely artificial or simply man-made, if we mean craft as his main occupation. This gave him a reason to recognize himself as a bearer of culture. By the way, city-polises were understood in antiquity as unique cultural spaces.
Bourgeois”, “burghers” (as the first inhabitants of medieval cities in Western Europe were called) gradually turned into a new class - the bourgeoisie. This process was accompanied by the accumulation of capital and the emergence of a mass of poor people, i.e. proletarians. Naturally, it was the bourgeoisie who became the owner of cultural values.
In addition, it was the era of technical and industrial revolutions, the emergence of machine production, the era of great geographical discoveries and colonial conquests. Life, activity and its results were increasingly determined by the person himself. This was especially obvious in comparing the life of a European and a resident of overseas colonies. The obviousness of the determining role of man served as the basis for the understanding of culture as an independent phenomenon.
All these events were accompanied by the formation of a new worldview. Not only people’s relationships with each other and with nature changed, but also everyone’s relationship with God.
Man no longer needed a mediator to communicate with him; he bore personal responsibility for his actions directly before God. On the other hand, an earthly measure of personal success and dignity appears: property and wealth in general, which every person could possess. In the era of initial accumulation of capital, this wealth could still arise through robbery, but as legal relations took shape in bourgeois society, personal initiative and enterprise became the source of success and well-being. A person had to hope and rely only on himself. A type of active, calculating person was being formed, for whom his own work became his own measure. We must not forget that all this happened against the backdrop of poverty and deprivation of the masses, whose situation was perceived as the result of a person’s lack of necessary business qualities. Naturally, such qualities included, first of all, rationality and enlightenment - what generally distinguishes a person from an animal. “Knowledge is power,” proclaimed the English thinker and one of the founders of modern philosophy, F. Bacon. Only a knowledgeable person is actually a person and can count on the obedience of nature. And an indicator of knowledge is the ability to do something reasonable and expedient, which ultimately elevates a person above the elements of nature as a cultural being.
French enlighteners of the 18th century. (Voltaire, Condorcet, Turgot) reduced the content of the cultural-historical process to the development of human spirituality. The history of society was understood as its gradual development from the stage of barbarism and ignorance to an enlightened and cultural state. Ignorance is the “mother of all vices,” and human enlightenment is the highest good and virtue. The cult of reason becomes synonymous with culture. This position of the enlighteners reveals pride, “secret arrogance,” as E. Soloviev called this trait. The revaluation of reason and culture became the subject of Rousseau's philosophizing. He did not associate any hopes for the eradication of vices in man with the progress of culture and contrasted the depravity and moral depravity of a civilized person with the simplicity and purity of morals of the patriarchal life of people.
It was typical for the figures of the Enlightenment to search for the meaning of history precisely in connection with the concept of “culture.” The attitude towards history, in which not only something happens, but is naturally formed, develops, and grows, took shape in the concept of “philosophy of history,” which was introduced into use by Voltaire. The concept of “civilization,” as established by the French linguist E. Benveniste, appeared in European languages in the period from 1757 to 1772. It contained the idea of a new way of life, the essence of which was urbanization and the increasing role of material and technical culture. The term “humanitarianism” or “humanitarian” was increasingly used in relation to an educated person with extensive knowledge in all spheres of human activity, to whom “nothing human is alien.” It was believed that a person acquires his knowledge by studying the “liberal arts” and classical languages. In this way, an idea of the cultural level or cultural norm was formed.
The Enlightenmentists contributed to the fact that man’s sensory relationship to reality became the subject of rational or scientific knowledge. The German philosopher Baumgarten (1714-1762) called the science of perfect sensory knowledge the term “aesthetics,” which later began to be used by some thinkers as a synonym for culture in general.
The concept of “culture” in classical German philosophy. Rousseau was the founder of a critical attitude towards culture. In essence, this attitude became the main motive in the teachings of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and philosophers of Germany at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. For them, the contradictions and factors that existed in bourgeois culture and civilization that impeded the free development of man and his spirituality were obvious. Culture easily turns into its opposite if the material, mass, quantitative principle begins to predominate in it. Culture is the self-liberation of the spirit, thanks to which nature becomes more perfect and spiritual. The means of liberation of the spirit were called moral (Kant), aesthetic (Schiller, romanticism), philosophical (Hegel) consciousness. Culture, therefore, was understood as the area of human spiritual freedom. This understanding was based on the recognition of the diversity of types and types of culture, which are the steps in a person’s ascent to the freedom of his own spirit.
The role of human spiritual liberation was critically rethought by K. Marx. The condition for such liberation must be fundamental changes in the sphere of material production and relations in society. The liberation and development of genuine culture is associated in Marxism with the practical activities of the proletariat, the political and cultural revolutions that it must carry out. All history is a successive series of socio-economic formations, each of which is more culturally developed than the previous one, which is determined by the development of the method of material production. This development is the basis of the unity of world culture.
In Marxism, therefore, culture is understood as the sphere of practical human activity, as well as the totality of the natural and social results of this activity. The development of culture is a contradictory process of interaction between “two cultures,” each of which expresses the interests and goals of antagonistic classes. Culture, having gone through the stages of resolving contradictions, will ultimately become the unity of man and nature and will have a universal (communist) character. The condition for achieving such a state of culture is the dictatorship of the proletariat, the elimination of private property and the construction of a classless society.
In Marxist teaching, each formation has its own type of culture. It follows from this that each type of culture, like culture as a whole, is the result of human activity and represents a variety of changes in nature and society. Moreover, activity or labor act only as socially productive forces of man. Outside of this activity, as well as outside of society, a person simply does not exist. A person is a cultural being to the extent that he participates in social (material or spiritual) production. It not only creates culture, but also turns out to be its result and its actual content. In this understanding, culture can be defined as a way of naturally and socially conditioned active existence of a person.
Variety of definitions of the term “culture”. According to cultural theorist L.E. Kertman, there are over four hundred definitions. This is due to the diversity of culture itself and the use of this term. This situation exists, of course, not only with the word “culture”. The word “science,” for example, also has a very wide range of definitions. We are usually irritated by the lack of any one definition. But this comes from our mental laziness, from the desire to memorize and remember rather than understand and comprehend. The diversity of definitions of culture should not irritate us, since behind it lies the diversity of culture itself. And its diversity is one of the main reasons for its existence at all. Culture is like life: it exists only because it is different. And the monotony of culture is a sign of its approaching death.
From all the variety of definitions of culture, one can single out, according to L.E. Kertman, three main approaches, conventionally called anthropological, sociological and philosophical. The essence of the first approach is the recognition of the intrinsic value of the culture of each people, no matter what stage of its development it is at, as well as the recognition of the equivalence of all cultures on earth. In accordance with this approach, any culture, like any person, is unique and inimitable, being a way of life of an individual or society. There is not just one level of culture in the world, to which all peoples should strive, but many “local” cultures, each of which contains its own values and has its own level of development. To understand the essence of this approach, we provide several definitions. Culture is:
- “everything that is created by man, be it material objects, external behavior, symbolic behavior or social organization” (L. Bernard);
- “a general way of life, a specific way of adapting a person to his natural environment and economic needs” (K. Dawson);
- “the entirety of the activity of a social person” (A. Kroeber);
- “everything that is created or modified as a result of the conscious or unconscious activity of two or more individuals interacting with each other or mutually determining behavior (P. Sorokin);
- “a way of life followed by a community or tribe” (K. Whisler).
It is easy to see that with an anthropological approach, culture is understood very broadly and in content coincides with the entire life of society in its history.
Sociological understanding of culture. Too broad a definition and lack of indication of any specific characteristics make it difficult to understand culture. The sociological approach tries to identify precisely such signs. Culture here is interpreted as a factor in the organization and formation of the life of a society. It is understood that in every society (as in every living organism) there are certain culture-creating “forces” that direct its life along an organized, rather than chaotic path of development. Cultural values are created by society itself, but they then determine the development of this society, the life of which begins to increasingly depend on the values it produces. This is the uniqueness of social life: a person is often dominated by what is born of himself. Here are some definitions of culture characteristic of its sociological understanding. Culture is:
- “strong beliefs, values and norms of behavior that organize social connections and make possible a common interpretation of life experience” (W. Becket);
- “inherited inventions, things, technical processes, ideas, customs and values” (V. Malinovsky);
- “language, beliefs, aesthetic tastes, knowledge, professional skills and all kinds of customs” (A. Radcliffe-Brown);
- “a general and accepted way of thinking” (C. Jung).
In 1871, the book “Primitive Culture” by the English ethnographer E. Tylor was published. He is, so to speak, one of the fathers of cultural studies. In general, his views can be attributed to the anthropological understanding of culture, but he had several definitions of it, including those close to the sociological. “From an ideal point of view, culture can be looked at as the general improvement of the human race through the higher organization of the individual with the goal of simultaneously promoting the development of morality, strength and happiness of man,” wrote E. Tylor. Here, culture includes such aspects of the development of society as “general improvement”, “higher organization”, and “goal”. These seem to be understandable things, but the difficulty is that, as they say, they cannot be touched or seen directly. And yet it is difficult to argue against the fact that they play a major role in the life of a person and society.
Philosophical approach to culture differs from other approaches precisely in that, through analysis, certain features, characteristics, and patterns are identified in the life of society. They are understood as what constitutes the basis of culture or the reason for its development. Here it is important to understand the specifics of the philosophical approach as such, and not only to culture. Philosophy usually deals with that which is inaccessible to simple, direct perception. We are not talking about any special, abstruse things. Philosophy explores what already seems understandable and known. But it often turns out that in reality we do not have an understanding, that it just seemed to us that we understood something. You need to look with special vision - speculation, i.e. understand, not just watch. Seeing and understanding are two different things. Philosophy deals With understanding. That's why The philosophical approach to culture is not limited to describing or listing cultural phenomena. It involves penetration(through thinking, understanding) into their essence. Culture is understood as the “content” or “way of being” of society. Here are some definitions in line with this approach:
- “culture is a relatively constant intangible content transmitted in society through the process of socialization” (G. Becker);
- “a symbolic expression rooted in the subconscious and brought into the public consciousness, where it is preserved and remains in history (D. Regin).
Thus, it is important to note that from a philosophical point of view, culture is understood not simply as a sum of ideas or things that can be isolated, separated from each other, described. Man’s whole world is the world of his culture, and the question of culture is, in essence, a question about man himself, about his human way of existence and about his attitude towards himself. This attitude is characteristic only of man, and to understand its essence, its birth and development is the task of research in the field of philosophy of culture.
Let us now return to the problems of modern culture and the main trends in its development. Of course, the development of world culture in the 21st century. is a complex and contradictory process. It was influenced by a number of factors:
Two world wars and several local ones;
Dividing the world into two camps;
The establishment and fall of fascist regimes in a number of countries;
Revolutionary pro-communist movement;
Collapse of the socialist system, etc.
All this made its own adjustments to the world cultural and historical process. In the 21st century, there are four types of cultural activities:
1. religious;
2. actually cultural:
a) theoretical-scientific,
b) aesthetic and artistic,
c) technical and industrial;
3. political;
4. socio-economic. The socio-economic sphere has received the greatest development. Lately you can see process of industrialization of culture, which is manifested both in the development of science and technology, and in the emergence of technical branches of culture, as well as in the industrial production of works of literature and art.
The scientific and technological revolution has entered a new stage of its development. Today, the problems of automation and computerization of production are being solved. But the scientific and technological revolution had not only positive, but also negative consequences. It led to the formulation of the question of human survival, which was reflected in artistic creativity.
The industrialization of culture led to the movement of the center of world cultural progress to the most economically developed country - the USA. Using its industrial power, the United States gradually expanded its influence in the world. American stereotypes of thinking and cultural values are being imposed. This was especially clearly reflected in the development of world cinema and music. The expansion of the United States created the preconditions for establishing a monopoly in the field of culture. This forced many European and Eastern countries to intensify efforts to preserve their cultural and national traditions. However, this problem still remains unresolved. This seems problematic, especially with modern means of communication.
Exacerbation of social contradictions in the 20th century. contributed politicization of culture. This was expressed in its ideologization, in the political content of works of literature and art, in their transformation into means of propaganda, in the use of scientific and technological achievements for military-political purposes, as well as in the personal participation of cultural figures in socio-political movements. All this led, to a certain extent, to the dehumanization of world art.
Related information.
Trends in the development of culture in the modern world.
The current state of culture causes reasonable concern. One of the global problems in the development of society is the erosion of spiritual culture, which arises as a result of the total dissemination of monotonous information, isolating its consumers from the work of developing ideas about the meaning of existence in the socio-cultural process, aggravating the situation of “loss of meaning” in culture.
Overcoming the crisis and preserving culture are based on the main trends of its self-development and evolution.
Culture is an open system, that is, it is not complete, it continues to develop and interact with non-culture. For this reason, first let us pay attention to the external trend in the development of culture.
Culture is “not nature”; it arose and develops in interaction with nature. Their relationship was not easy. Gradually emerging from the power of natural forces, man - the creator of culture - made of his creation an instrument, an instrument for conquering and subjugating nature. Moreover, as soon as power over earthly nature began to be concentrated in the hands of people, the most perspicacious of them came to the conclusion that, along with nature, culture, within which negative processes arose, fell into slavery to the power of human labor. Having changed the attitude towards oneself as part of nature to the attitude towards nature as a “stranger”, man found himself in a difficult situation. After all, he and his body are inseparable from nature, which has become “alien” to culture. For this reason, man forced himself to make a choice between nature and culture. Started in the 18th century. J.-J. Rousseau's criticism of culture in some concepts was carried to the point of its complete denial, the idea of the “natural anti-culture” of man was put forward, and culture itself was interpreted as a means of his suppression and enslavement (F. Nietzsche). 3. Freud viewed culture as a mechanism of social suppression and sublimation of unconscious mental processes. And all this at a time when humanity was actively creating ways to suppress nature.
The confrontation between culture and nature has not disappeared today. At the same time, there has been a tendency to overcome it. The idea of the noosphere - the future kingdom of Reason, Goodness, Beauty - revealed in the teachings of V.I. Vernadsky and P. Teilhard de Chardin is finding an ever wider response. As one of the attributes of cultural development, the principle of conformity to nature is recognized, based on the mutually mediated ideas of culture’s responsibility to nature, on the one hand, and the relative freedom of the “second nature” from the “first”, the artificial from the natural, a certain inevitable distance between sociocultural and biological processes - with another.
The main patterns of internal development of culture are closely intertwined with the external trend of cultural development, the evolution of its relations with nature.
One of the basic trends in the internal development of culture is associated with a change in the balance of physical and mental expenditure of human energy in favor of the latter. Since the middle of the 20th century. Thanks to the use of scientific and technological advances, the need for hard physical labor began to sharply decrease. Human physical efforts play an increasingly smaller role in the reproduction of the sociocultural process. Culture, thus, increasingly defines itself as a product of the creativity of the human spirit, mind, soul. The value of spiritual efforts in this regard will steadily increase. And if previously natural science knowledge was often considered as a criterion for the progressiveness of culture, now its parity with humanitarian knowledge will be gradually restored.
Another internal trend in the evolution of culture is the transition from confrontation of “local”, “group”, “subjective” cultures to their dialogue. The 20th century introduced intense drama and a tragic sense of irreparable loss into the understanding of the cultural process. The idea of discontinuity of culture and incomparability of cultures is most consistently embodied in the concept of O. Spengler. The perception of the cultures of individual social subjects as “sealed organisms” is based on the belief that each culture grows out of its own unique “proto-phenomenon” - a way of “experiencing life.” If in the theory of cultural-historical types and cultural circles this approach is used when analyzing relations between cultures of different ethnic groups, then in left- and right-wing radical doctrines it is used when comparing cultures of different classes (the theory of “two cultures” in a class society), and in the doctrine “new left”, and then “right” - from the same positions the relationship between the “new” counterculture and the “old” culture is characterized. However, within the framework of the sociology of economic determinism, the carriers of incompatible, mutually exclusive cultures are classes, for the “new” ones - youth and the older generation. Conflict, mutual misunderstanding and rejection of cultures are seen as an absolute inevitability.
At the same time, the current situation in the sociocultural process demonstrates the futility and even disastrousness of the position of mutual ignorance of cultures.
Posted on ref.rf
The need for the integrity of culture is comprehended “by contradiction” - through the awareness of the impossibility of its further existence in the form of a conglomerate of cultures.
Another important trend in the evolution of culture should be expressed as overcoming the conflict (while maintaining contradiction) between traditional culture and innovative culture. This trend is embodied in the culture of postmodernism.
No matter how conventional the designation of entire eras in the cultural life of society with the concepts of “classicism” or “modernism” is, it allows us to see how discontinuous culture is perceived in a given period.
At the beginning of the 20th century. The “modern” style established itself in culture. Modernism - the desire to reflect reality and especially culture in a new way as “not nature”, as an unnatural, artificial, pure, refined phenomenon - has permeated all spheres of spiritual life and, first of all, art and the humanities. Non-triviality, unconventionality and anti-traditionality are considered within the framework of this style as identical concepts. Gradually, what was modernism was partially included in the tradition, from which the avant-garde of culture carefully distanced itself. At the same time, in the search for forms and meanings that are not in contact with what already existed in culture (and therefore old and unnecessary), the avant-garde led itself into the dead end of the absurd - tuneless music, non-representative painting, non-explanatory science, ideology that serves not self-preservation, but self-destruction of the subject of ideology, breaking with the tradition of mythology. The natural need of the creator of culture to express the absurdity and disharmony of the world is satisfied in such a way that it leads to a deepening of the absurd.
In a culture filled with cacaphony, the need for silence is increasingly felt, which is sometimes defined as the only thing that is still missing “to replenish the golden fund of cultural values of humanity.”
Gradually, “silence” leads to calm, once-burned bridges to traditional culture are restored, and values acquired and developed by the cultures of previous eras reappear in a modern-enriched form. The broken connection of times is being restored, and once again it is revealed that “manuscripts do not burn.”
Contemporary postmodern culture is a culture that painfully but steadily overcomes the gap between the old and the new, the created and the created. Its fabric is saturated with “signs”, symbols of culture; it develops a “consensus” of desires to preserve tradition and keep up with the times.
Finally, the last of the identified trends in the evolution of culture at the present stage reflects the process of change in personality as a subject of culture. The diversity of culture from the external personality becomes internal, turns into the most important characteristic of its internal life.
The creation of modern culture by an individual presupposes its distance from both attempts to abandon the desire for integrity and from a false imitation of integrity. Internal contradiction and the desire to resolve it are the natural state of the spiritual life of the individual as a subject of culture. The one-dimensional person is replaced by a person who perceives contradiction not as a tragedy, but as a stimulus for the unfolding of the creative process.
Literature:
Main:
1. Babosov, E. M. General sociology: textbook. allowance / E. M. Babosov. -Minsk, 2006.
2. Babosov, E. M. Applied sociology: textbook. manual for universities / E. M. Babosov. - Minsk, 1999.
3. Babosov, E. M. Sociology. General sociological theory: textbook. manual for universities / E. M. Babosov. - Minsk, 1998.
4. Giddens, E. Sociology / E. Giddens. - M., 2004.
5. Lapin, N. I. General sociology: textbook. manual for universities / N. I. Lapin. -M., 2006.
6. Sociological encyclopedia / edited by. ed. A. N. Danilova. -Minsk, 2003.
7. Sociology: textbook. manual for universities / under general. ed. A. N. Elsukova. -Minsk. 2004.
Additional:
8. Durkheim, E. On the division of social labor. Method of sociology / E. Durkheim. - M., 1990.
9. Kirienko V.V. The mentality of modern Belarusians as a factor of social reform // Sociology. 1999. No. 1. pp. 35 – 57.
10. Kravchenko, A. I. Sociology: a reader for universities / A. I. Kravchenko. -M., 2002.
Trends in the development of culture in the modern world. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Trends in the development of culture in the modern world." 2017, 2018.
