Social and cultural dynamics. Dynamics of sociocultural changes

Sociocultural dynamics- the process of cyclical change and development of social and cultural systems, the transition from one state to another under the influence of changes in the dominant value system. The concept of sociocultural dynamics was introduced in scientific circulation Russian-American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin.

Theoretical background. The concept of sociocultural systems by Pitirim Sorokin

Before the appearance of the concept of Pitirim Sorokin, reality in social sciences was presented as something material, studied through scientific research tools.

Sorokin calls this picture of reality “too narrow and inadequate.” According to the concept he developed, sensory perception of the world is only one of the ways of knowing it. Reality is, according to Sorokin’s definition, “indeterminate diversity.” This diversity cannot be known using exclusively scientific methods:

The science of previous centuries has openly and covertly shown a tendency to reduce reality either to matter or to what is perceived by our senses. Such science either denied or had an agnostic attitude towards any non-sensory reality. At present, this concept of reality has largely been rejected by all sciences as narrow and inadequate. It has already been superseded by a broader and more adequate concept of absolute reality...

Aspects and forms of knowledge of reality

According to Sorokin's theory, reality includes many various aspects, among which the most important for a person are three: sensual, rational and supersensible (intuitive). These aspects complement each other, but do not replace each other. Comprehension of each of them requires a corresponding form of knowledge:

...the first mistake is the illusion that there can be only one system of truth, and all three systems - sensory, rational and intuitive - are sources of reliable knowledge... each of them, used for its intended purpose, gives us knowledge of one thing or another important aspect objective reality, and none of them can be considered completely false...

In turn, ways of knowing different aspects of reality exist within different cultural forms. So, for the sensual aspect this is scientific knowledge, for the rational aspect it is philosophy, and for the super-rational (intuitive) aspect it is religion. Sorokin's concept suggests that the most complete study of reality is possible only with an optimal combination of all three ways of cognition.

Contents of the concept of sociocultural dynamics

Values

One of the main concepts of Pitirim Sorokin’s sociocultural concept is the concept of value. Value is the foundation of any culture. A change in the value system leads to a change in cultural and social systems, which transform into a new quality.

Supersystems and phases of cultural development

The model of sociocultural dynamics proposed by Sorokin is based on the principle of cyclical development of culture. Within this model, the history of civilization represents a change in cultural supersystems. The scientist identifies three types of supersystems, each of which corresponds to a specific phase of development of any culture:

Ideational
Sensual
Idealistic

Each of the listed supersystems is based on its own value system:

Ideal supersystem

The basic values of the ideal supersystem are God and the divine supersensible reality, religion. A theocratic type state is emerging, where clergy form the highest strata of society. Public law and ethical standards are based on religious precepts.

...ideational culture is uncreative in the field of science and technology, since it focuses its cognitive energy on the study of the Kingdom of God and the realization of values during man's short earthly journey to eternity...

Important feature religious cultures This kind of neglect of “earthly values” is manifested. Everyday comfort does not matter, but asceticism is welcomed as a fulfillment of duty to God. The art of an ideal society is completely religious. Its themes are God and supersensible existence, atonement for sins and salvation of the soul. Over time, the religious value system begins to decline and a transition to an idealistic supersystem occurs.

Idealistic supersystem

The idealistic supersystem of culture, according to Sorokin, is a kind of synthesis of the idealistic and sensory supersystems. The main value of an idealistic culture is truth. The search for truth is carried out through a combination of supersensible and sensory methods of cognition. Religious values in their essence are embodied through rational knowledge. The structure of an ideal society based on an idealistic culture is described in philosophical concepts. Sorokin includes the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas as such:

... the idealistic system of truth occupies an intermediate link between the sensory and ideational systems and combines in its crucible the three distinctive elements of sensory, religious and rationalistic truth. The systems of Plato and Aristotle, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas - best examples attempts to synthesize divine, sensual and dialectical truth into one whole...

Sensual supersystem

The sensory supersystem is based on the perception of reality through feelings and sensations. Religion in this phase loses its former meaning. Cognition of the world occurs through intelligence and rationality. The main value is the person. Within the sensory supersystem, everyday comfort becomes of great importance.

Although the sensual society is quite successful in producing many technological discoveries aimed at increasing the bodily comfort of sensual life, it is not successful in developing effective technology for the transformation of souls and the “production” of supersensible values of the Kingdom of God.... cares mainly about sensual pleasures, the values of well-being, health, bodily comfort and the thirst for power and glory

The legal and ethical norms of society at the sensory phase of development, in contrast to the ideational ones, are of a purely secular nature. They are created by people, so they can be revised and changed based on the needs of society.

Sensible law presents a completely different picture... Its purpose is purely utilitarian: the preservation of human life, the protection of property and property, peace and order, the happiness and well-being of society in general and the ruling elite that establishes and enforces sensual law in particular. Its norms are relative, changeable and conditional... There is nothing eternal and sacred in such a system of law

The art of the sensual phase is the complete opposite of the ideal art. Its subject is the average person, an ordinary person in various life circumstances. The focus here is on relationships between people, strong feelings, passions and emotions.

Criticism

P. Sorokin's theories caused controversy and resulted in the volume “Pitirim Sorokin in Review”, published in 1963. Distinctive can be considered the polemic of P. Sorokin with the scientist from Australia O. Anderle, who defended the paradigm of civilization as a system, while P. A. Sorokin did not consider systematicity to be the basic quality of civilizations. Sorokin’s theories are large-scale and complex, perhaps because of this A. Kroeber reproaches P. Sorokin for abstraction. The idea of a religious reorganization of humanity is, in particular, the basis of P. Sorokin’s concept. In its origins and essence, this project can be considered similar to the ideas of classical theology. While it was theology that for the most part determined the author’s views. Sorokin sees religion not as an institution or creed, but as a main system, while religion is formulated by society during the historical process. The scientist is also reproached for the fact that when considering history various countries and peoples, the concepts of “Tatar” civilization or “Arab” civilization are used by the author in an abstract, descriptive sense. This also applies to other countries and peoples that have similar characteristics. The ideas of P. Sorokin from the pages of “Sociology of Revolution” were actively criticized and not accepted by the Bolshevik Party and V.I. Lenin himself. In particular, Sorokin pointed out the illusory nature of ideas that are broadcast during periods of revolution and believed that they have a disintegrative effect on society, awakening hostility, anger, and destruction in it. And in 1922, P. Sorokin was expelled from Russia by train.

Among the fundamental problems in modern socio-humanitarian knowledge is the question of cultural changes and the reasons that cause them. In many ways, this explains the interest in this topic on the part of almost all cultural researchers, and

the need for the results of these studies occurs in all areas social life. The drastic changes taking place in society, the need to manage these complex processes (not only the cultural ones themselves, but also political, economic, technical and technological, etc.), their forecasting and design, have brought the problem of transformation and dynamics of society to a new level of actualization of its understanding. Cultures arise, spread, collapse, and many different metamorphoses occur with them, which is why the study of the dynamics of culture is of great importance for understanding the changes that constantly occur in society. The term “dynamics” (from the Greek Suvapiq - force) was introduced into scientific circulation by Leibniz and served as the name of the doctrine of the movement of objects under the influence of forces. But despite the fact that this concept was used primarily in exact sciences- in mechanics and mathematics, the German scientist defined the essence of dynamics much more broadly. He was convinced that when nature was created, God endowed it with an internal capacity for action, for activity - with strength. Leibniz emphasized that it is not mathematics, but metaphysics that must reveal the essential dimensions of natural existence, because not extension, but force is the main essential determination of nature. Dynamics as a science studies the interaction of forces and their direction, relying on mathematics as a method of cognition, but the specificity of force as the basis of being can only be revealed by metaphysics and philosophy,” that is, Leibniz already refers the comprehension of the processes of the dynamics of the world as a whole to the field of humanitarian knowledge.

Modern socio-humanitarian thought focuses its attention on explaining the complex processes of the historical evolution of sociocultural systems, trying to determine the mechanisms that determine the closely interrelated quantitative and qualitative transformations that determine the essence of the development of the entire world culture.

Cultural development is associated with the concept of “cultural change,” which means any movement and interaction, any transformation in culture, including those that lack integrity and do not have a clearly defined direction. When we are talking not just about “cultural changes,” but about changes in which integrity and direction are realized, when certain patterns can be traced, then we talk about “dynamics

culture." Thus, the dynamics of culture are characterized by changes and modifications of cultural features that occur in time and space and are characterized by holism, the presence of ordered tendencies and a directed nature.

But we must keep in mind that any world culture is a meaningful aspect of the joint, i.e. social, life of people, therefore it would be more accurate to talk about the problem of studying the characteristics of sociocultural dynamics.

It is also important to note that a special section in cultural studies is being formed that studies sociocultural transformations - cultural dynamics (sociodynamics of culture). Within the framework of cultural dynamics, processes of variability in sociocultural systems, their conditionality, direction, strength of expression, patterns and factors of adaptation of cultures to new conditions of existence are studied.

The sociodynamics of culture is not limited to the study of the evolution of certain cultural phenomena, the turnover of certain cultural facts, as well as the description of known cultural processes. She tries to identify the determinants of ongoing processes and trends, theoretically explain and comprehend them.

Thus,

Social dynamics of culture is a theoretical discipline whose subject is cultural historical development.

That is, the subject of study becomes not so much culture itself, but the social factors driving it, the social mechanisms of culture.

World scientific thought has accumulated a huge number of ideas, ideas and concepts that make it possible to give a philosophical, sociological, cultural interpretation of the concept of sociocultural dynamics from different cognitive and epistemological positions.

Such methodological pluralism is inevitable when analyzing such a complex basic phenomenon as sociocultural dynamics. The complexity, and in many cases non-obviousness, of cultural change makes different approaches to the study of cultural dynamics equally probable and complementary to each other.

In views on sociocultural dynamic processes, two can be distinguished: opposing positions, there are many more concepts in between. Representatives of one of the extreme positions argue that there is no single history of mankind, which means that there are no general laws of development, and each generation of scientists has the right to interpret history in its own way. K. Popper, for example, believed that belief in the law of progress fetters the historical imagination.

Adherents of another position believe that the course of history, the fate of nations and the life of each person are strictly determined, controlled and predetermined. This could be divine providence, fate, an astrological chart, karma, the law of social development, etc. A person is powerless before this predestination, he can only try to guess his fate, or, having studied the laws of development, exist harmoniously in their field, or learn to control the laws of evolution.

E. Durkheim believes that an illusion is both the imaginary ability of sorcerers and magicians to transform one object into another, and the idea that in the social world everything is arbitrary and random and the will of one legislator can change the appearance and type of society. According to E. Durkheim, it is possible to control historical evolution and change nature, both physical and moral, only in accordance with the laws of science.

The conceptual diversity of the problem of sociocultural development in the macro dimension is grouped around three main directions: firstly, around the idea of linear progressive development - evolutionism, secondly, around the idea of the cyclical nature of the civilizational process and, thirdly, around current social-synergistic approaches. In this regard, we can highlight the main scientific directions and those developed in the process of their development various models sociocultural dynamic processes.

Linear-stage direction (evolutionism). The linear-stage direction is characterized by viewing society as a complex system, the elements of which are closely interconnected. In this system, specific laws of development of a universal nature operate, i.e. development occurs in one direction and has the same stages and patterns. Accordingly, the main task of science is to identify these laws, and therefore, when studying history, it is necessary to clearly determine the factors that determine historical development. This development is called “social progress”. In this process, the cultural identity of each country is recognized.

but fades into the background. We can distinguish three main features inherent in the traditional theory of universal sociocultural evolution:

1. Modern societies classified according to a certain scale - from “primitive” to “developed” (“civilized”).
2. There are clear, discrete stages of development - from “primitive” to “civilized”.
3. All societies go through all stages in the same order.

The dynamics of society and culture are subject to the same laws. This position was held by I.-G. Herder, J.-A. Condorcet, G.-V.-F. Hegel, O. Comte, K. Marx, E. Tylor. Their main methodological differences concerned not the very essence of sociocultural dynamics as a linear process, but the mechanisms that “trigger” it, those factors that become determining for historical changes.

German theoretical thought (Herder, Hegel) is characterized by the construction of world-historical models of cultural development. In its most general form, the idea of linear-stage development world history developed in Hegel's philosophical system.

Hegel considered the development of the world spirit (superhuman mind) to be the essence of the cultural-historical process. The process of unfolding a single world spirit includes the spirit of individual peoples, which goes through the stages of formation, prosperity and decline, after which, having fulfilled its historical purpose, i.e., realizing a certain form awareness of freedom, comes away from historical scene, and as a result we have world history. Hegel defined world history as “progress in the consciousness of freedom.”

At the same time, history, according to Hegel, is carried out out of necessity, that is, it is subject to a single law. In accordance with these principles, Hegel presented world history in the form of successively alternating stages of progress. In Hegel's philosophy of history, the world historical process was presented as a process of progressive embodiment of freedom and its awareness by the spirit. Historical cultures, according to Hegel, are built in a sequential ladder of stages of progress in the consciousness of freedom.

The history of the spirit in time constitutes, according to Hegel, the fundamental basis of sociocultural dynamics that determines the entire world-historical process, its beginning and end, unity and diversity within it.

For O. Comte, the historical process is a consistent transition of human thinking, culture and society from the theological stage to the metaphysical and then to the positive." Therefore, Comte's "social dynamics" is entirely devoted to the derivation and confirmation of the "law of three stages" and those factors that determine it Moreover, O. Comte emphasized that one should not try to build a hierarchy of factors, reducing the movement of the force of history to any one of them, since they are all equivalent.

One of the engines of progress, according to Comte, is the human mind, since it always strives for positive knowledge - thus the thinker psychologizes the idea of progress. Accordingly, the catalyst for progress in Comte’s concept is the spiritual elite - the collective bearer and conductor of the ideas of progressive development, carrying these ideas from generation to generation.

The civilizational approach is characterized by the denial of the concept of “universal civilization.” The development of humanity occurs through a change of original cultural-historical types, and not a single cultural-historical type can be said to be the basis and leader of worldwide social evolution. Theorists of the civilizational direction proceed from the idea of constant return, circulation, the idea of a plurality of cultures, considering humanity as a set of historically established communities, each of which occupies a certain territory and has its own characteristics. specific features, together forming a special cultural and historical type.

Cyclic theories are being developed!, by many philosophers and historians of antiquity, trying to discern a certain order, rhythm, and identify meaning in the chaos of historical events. In this case, analogies were used with cosmic rhythms, the change of seasons, biological cycles, and the circulation of substances in nature.

But only to end of the 19th century centuries, theoretical concepts were formed that provided an explanation for the complex sociocultural processes of development.

In cultural theories and concepts, thinkers of the civilizational direction - N. Ya. Danilevsky, K. N. Leontiev, O. Spengler, A. Toynbee, P. A. Sorokin, K. Jaspers - saw the origins of the dynamics of culture not in the spontaneous, “divine” the development of the human spirit, not in the psyche and not in the biological prehistory of mankind, but in the features of the specific unique development of each national entity.

The founder of the theory of cultural-historical types is the Russian scientist N. Ya. Danilevsky. In the book "Russia and Europe" he presented human history divided into separate and extensive autonomous formations - “historical-cultural types”, or civilizations. The Western - Germanic-Roman civilization - is only one of many that arose in history, since in the reality of a common chronology, which could rationally divide the existence of mankind into periods and which would mean the same thing for everyone, would be equally important for everything the world does not exist. No civilization is better or more perfect; each has its own internal logic of development and goes through various stages unique to it in a certain sequence.

The Russian philosopher noted that the beginnings of a civilization of one cultural-historical type are not transmitted to peoples of another type. Each type itself develops them for itself under the greater or lesser influence of civilizations alien to it, previous or modern. N. Ya. Danilevsky allowed the influence of one civilization on another only in the sense of “soil fertilization.” He absolutely rejected any system-forming influence of alien spiritual principles on culture. All cultural-historical types are equally original and draw the content of their historical life from themselves. But not all of them realize their content with the same completeness and versatility.

N. Ya. Danilevsky formulated the basic principles of sociocultural dynamics, which are similar to the processes occurring in a living organism - the emergence, growth and decline of civilizations.

Danilevsky’s culturological ideas influenced the theoretical views of K. N. Leontyev, who in his work “Byzantism and Slavism” analyzes the causes and mechanisms of sociocultural changes. The process of evolution in the organic world, according to Leontiev, is a gradual transition from simple to complex, constant adaptation, on the one hand, to the environment of similar, related organisms, and on the other, individualization from similar and related phenomena. It is a continuous process of transition from "inexpressiveness" and "simplicity" to originality and complexity, which leads to a gradual increase complex elements. Internal expansion and at the same time continuous integration lead to highest point evolution - highest degree complexity, which is held in place by some internal coercive force.

According to Leontiev, each cultural organism passes through life cycle three stages: 1) primary simplicity; 2) blooming complexity; 3) secondary “mixing simplification”.

The views of Danilevsky and Leontyev anticipated similar theoretical constructions of O. Spengler. In his main work, “The Decline of Europe,” he made the subject of research “the morphology of world history.” Spengler insisted on the uniqueness of world cultures (or “spiritual eras”), which he viewed as unique organic forms, understood through analogies.

He rejected the generally accepted conventional periodization of the historical and cultural process - “Ancient World-Middle Ages-Modern Times”. Spengler offered a different view on the evolution of world history, explaining it by the succession of a number of cultures independent from each other, living, like living organisms, periods of origin, formation and dying. The decline of any culture, be it Egyptian or “Faustian” (i.e. modern Western), is characterized by the transition from culture to the last stage of its existence - civilization. Hence the key principle of his concept: the opposition of “becoming” - living, creativity, i.e. culture, and “what has become” - dead, formalized, i.e. civilization.

The English historian and sociologist A. Toynbee, under the influence of the ideas of his predecessors, developed his concept of the cultural-historical process, where we're talking about o 21 relatively closed civilization. In this work, Toynbee identified civilizations that were characterized by unique universal religions, specific forms of government and institutionalization, and distinctive art and philosophy. (Later he identified 36 “dead” civilizations and 5 “living” civilizations of the third generation: Western Christian, Orthodox Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Far Eastern.) Each civilization went through four stages in its development: emergence, growth, breakdown and decomposition . Toynbee tried to substantiate the empirical law of recurrence of social development. According to his concept, the evolution of society is carried out through “imitation”. If in primitive societies they imitate old people and ancestors (which makes these societies static), then in “civilizations” they imitate creative individuals, which ensures the dynamics of development. He notes:

Man achieves civilization not as a result of biological talent (heredity) or easy conditions of the geographical environment, but in response to a challenge in a situation of particular difficulty, inspiring a hitherto unprecedented effort*.

Unfavorable natural and climatic conditions, invasions of neighbors and brilliant achievements previous civilizations. If a civilization adequately responds to the challenge of history, then it receives an impetus for further development. If this challenge turned out to be beyond her, then a breakdown of civilization occurs, and then its decline. Driving force civilized

The nation that gives impetus to the search for an answer to the challenge is its elite, the creative minority opposed to the passive majority.

One of the important concepts that substantiates the hypothesis about the nonlinear, cyclic-wave nature of historical processes is presented in the works of P. A. Sorokin. He developed his theory of the circulation of supersystems in the four-volume book “Social and Cultural Dynamics,” introducing the term “sociocultural dynamics” into scientific circulation.

P. Sorokin based the model of socio-cultural macrodynamics on the well-known principle of the cycle historical eras. According to his model, in the history of every civilization, three types of culture successively and inevitably replace each other:

1) sensual, which is characterized by sensory-empirical perception, where the main values are utilitarianism and hedonism;
2) non-rational type, which is characterized by an orientation towards supersensible values - God, the Absolute;
3) idealistic - a mixed type, combining features of the first and second types.

Each of these three types has a unity of values and meanings, which is manifested in all spheres of culture. The dynamics of culture can be represented as the movement of a pendulum from one extreme point - “ideational” - to another extreme point- “sensual”, and vice versa, with passage through the intermediate phase of “idealistic” or integral culture.

The uniqueness of each of the proposed types of culture is embodied in law, art, philosophy, science, religion, the structure of social relations and a certain type of personality. Their radical transformation and change are usually accompanied by crises, wars and revolutions.

The concept of “sociocultural dynamics” was widely used in the second half of the 20th century, when problems of development, change and dissemination actively invaded the field of scientific research cultural institutions, cultural conflicts and innovations, degradation, stagnation and crisis of culture, typologies of cultural development (linear-progressive, phase, cyclically staged, wave, inversion, pendulum and other models), differentiation and diffusion of culture, interaction of different cultures.

One of the most intensively developing approaches to the study of cultural dynamics is the social-synergistic paradigm - a complex scientific direction that has absorbed the achievements of nonequilibrium thermodynamics, control theory, the theory of complex systems and information. Synergetics has radically changed the understanding of the relationship between order and chaos, between entropy and information. A new vision of the cultural world has emerged, representing the state of chaos as transitional from one level of order to another.

The foundation of synergetics is associated with the names of the German physicist G. Haken and the Nobel Prize laureate, the Belgian physicist I. R. Prigogine.

In 1977, G. Haken’s book “Synergetics” was published, where the theory of self-organization in open systems and the formation of structures from chaos, developed by the scientist, was proposed. Prigogine used mathematical theory to describe dynamic processes occurring in the living world. He came to the conclusion that the desire for order leads to the least tension in the system, and this reveals the fundamental principle of social life.

One of the central postulates in the theory is the concept of complex systems. Such systems take place in various spheres of social life - in science, economics, politics, etc., and therefore in culture as a whole. Two aspects of the system are particularly important: the large dimension of space and the multi-level structure. It is precisely because of their complexity that systems have such a property as instability (instability). The state of the system is considered stable if, with a small deviation from it, the system returns to this initial state, and unstable - if the deviation from it increases over time. Complex systems are also characterized by a variety of nonlinear processes. Synergetics also develops a new understanding of the relationship between chance and necessity, recognizing that in the world around us there are both determinism and chance, so it is important to trace how necessity and chance are consistent, complementing one another.

Any complex dynamic system (in particular, a historical event or even a series of events) in its development passes through so-called bifurcation points, or rather polyfurcations - crisis moments in which small accidents, fluctuations (fluctuations) can become decisive in choosing a direction further development. In synergetics, disasters are also distinguished - sudden changes in the behavior of a system in response to changes in external conditions.

Within the framework of the theory of catastrophes, the term “attractor” appeared, i.e. the tendency to structure a system and form order. The opposite tendency to the attractor - the system's desire for chaos - is manifested through the dissipativity (scattering) of the structure. Thus, within the framework of synergetics, the internal instability of the processes of spontaneous ordering of systems is studied, when small impacts or random fluctuations can lead to large consequences in the further self-development of systems. Complex, nonlinear systems are also characterized by self-organization processes that have the following features:

? development occurs through instability, at bifurcation points there is a transition to a qualitatively different state;
? the new appears as unpredictable, but at the same time available in the spectrum of possible states;
? the present is not only determined by the past, but is also shaped by the future;
? in a nonlinear environment, all future states are predetermined, but only one is actualized at the bifurcation point;
? chaos is ambivalent in its essence - destructive, but it is also creative during the transition to new states;
? development is irreversible, the “arrow of time” operates (a term introduced by N. Moiseev).

One of the leading Russian cultural scientists who created the original concept of cultural dynamics within the framework of the synergetic approach was M. S. Kagan.

M. S. Kagan develops a systematic approach in his view of culture, which for him is an integral part of a broader system - being in general, existing in three main interconnected forms: nature-society-man. And culture, as a product of human activity, becomes the fourth, integral form of existence, covering all three spheres equally.

From this alone it is clear that culture includes three complex levels, which is why, notes M. S. Kagan, when understanding such a complex phenomenon as culture, it is necessary to apply a synergetic approach, i.e. consider it as a process determined from within and conditioned by a person’s desire for independent, free and purposeful activity.

Cultural dynamics, according to the philosopher, correlates with the laws that operate in physical processes, i.e., the transition from one level of cultural organization to another occurs through the destruction of the existing order (entropy). Then the level of entropy drops and is replaced by a level of more perfect order. Thus, the history of culture passes through stages of alternating states of harmony and chaos.

In synergetic models, culture and society appear as nonequilibrium systems special type. Culture as an anti-entropy mechanism, as it develops, increases entropy in other systems and leads to periodic anthropogenic crises.

The modern view of culture suggests that culture is not just a system, but an open, complexly organized, self-developing system. That is, culture develops in accordance with certain general laws of self-organization of matter, which forces culture as an open system to exchange energy (information) with the environment. It follows that any changes in the system will be of a systemic nature, for example, it is impossible to change the economic system without changing the value systems in the society that creates this economy, and, accordingly, vice versa. Thus, the synergetic model of evolution reveals broad prospects for understanding, and, consequently, for solving various kinds of sociocultural problems.

Cultural dynamics examines the changes that occur in culture and people under the influence of external and internal forces. Within the framework of cultural theory, the following classification of sources that form and support changes in culture:

1. Dynamic processes that in culture are distinguished by location and duration.

So, large scale changes in culture are considered time intervals of 100-1000 years (civilizational shifts), micro-scale- periods from 25-30 years (time active life in the culture of one generation) up to 100 years, fast-passing- from one month to several years (for example, seasonal changes in fashion, jargon of youth culture that are not able to gain a foothold in the deep layers of cultural life).

2. Cultural innovation - cultural creativity, the emergence of new

elements or their combinations in culture.

The category of innovation includes discoveries and inventions that bring new knowledge about the world or new technologies for mastering this knowledge. The carriers of innovation, as a rule, are creative individuals or innovative groups that put forward new ideas, norms, and methods of activity that differ from those accepted in a given society. A major role in the implementation of these ideas is played by the degree of readiness of society to perceive certain discoveries. Any innovation is doomed to eclipse and rejection if it does not meet with understanding from society. The traditions of society demonstrate a particularly strong rejection of innovations. Therefore, having appeared, they are doomed either to quick oblivion or to be used within narrow boundaries. Compass, gunpowder, paper, matches, porcelain - all these are inventions, the primacy of which belongs to the Chinese. However, they did not lead to a radical revolution in the way of life, although they were used. But a small share of these inventions, some of which were made by Europeans on their own (porcelain production, printing), and some were borrowed, turned out to be enough to make a real revolution in the way of life of society.

Inventions and discoveries spread to other cultures in three main ways.

1. Cultural borrowing (purposeful imitation).

The concept of cultural borrowing indicates what and how exactly is adopted: material objects, scientific ideas, customs and traditions, values and norms of life.

One people does not borrow everything from another, but only that:

a) is close and understandable, necessary own culture, that is, something that the natives can appreciate and use;
b) will bring obvious or hidden benefits, increase the prestige of the people, and allow them to have some advantage over other nations;
c) meets the authentic needs of a given ethnic group, that is, it satisfies such fundamental needs that cultural artifacts and cultural complexes at its disposal cannot satisfy.
2. Cultural diffusion (spontaneous spread). Cultural diffusion is the mutual penetration of cultural forms, samples of material and spiritual subsystems when they come into contact, where these cultural elements turn out to be in demand, borrowed by societies that previously did not own such forms.

Cultural contact may not leave any trace in both cultures, or it may result in an equal and strong influence on each other, or an equally strong, but one-sided influence.

Diffusion channels include migration, tourism, missionary activities, trade, war, scientific conferences, trade exhibitions and fairs, exchange of students and specialists, etc.

3. Independent discoveries. This means that the same invention was made independently of each other in different countries in approximately the same time period. Independent inventions are the discovery of the same cultural forms in different cultures as a consequence of the action of the same needs or objective conditions.

Among the factors influencing the nature of borrowing are the following:

? The degree of intensity of contacts manifesting themselves in cultural expansion (from Lat. expansion - dissemination), in the process of which a society fights for the spheres of influence of its national culture and its expansion beyond the original limits or state borders. Constant or frequent borrowing by societies leads to the rapid assimilation of foreign elements. Thus, people living on the outskirts of the nation or in shopping centers usually assimilate elements of other cultures faster than residents of the outback.
? Conditions of contact: the forced imposition of culture inevitably gives rise to a reaction of rejection and resistance to the “occupation culture.”
? The state and degree of differentiation of society. The borrowing process is influenced by the degree of readiness of society to assimilate foreign innovations, which also means the presence of a social group that can accept these innovations in their way of life.

Reproduction of culture, or transmission, i.e. intergenerational transmission of culture through the socialization and inculturation of the younger generation, their mastery of cumulative sociocultural experience, the assimilation of traditions and methods of communication, the development cultural heritage, characteristic of a given society, which, in turn, is the procedure for the reproduction of this society as an integral, stable and specific human community - all this relates to the mechanisms of transmission of cultural heritage.

Thanks to cultural transmission, each subsequent generation gets the opportunity to start where the previous one left off, i.e., there is a cultural accumulation of the experience of previous generations. As a result of accumulation, a cultural heritage is formed, i.e., material and spiritual culture, which is created by past generations and passed on to the next as something valuable and revered. It preserves everything that at one stage or another was created in the spiritual culture of society, including that which was rejected for a while, but later again found its place in society.

A type of cultural transmission is fundamentalism. Closely associated with religious practice, it is focused on the replication of cultural patterns, purifying them from the layers of time and preserving them intact. This is an extreme sociocultural trend, which manifests itself as a reaction to the accelerated decay of traditions and values in countries where modernization encounters active resistance from the public consciousness.

The history of mankind shows that no society stands still: it either moves forward, and when the sum of the positive consequences of large-scale changes in society exceeds the sum of the negative, we are talking about progress, or freezes in place, and then we talk about regression.

There are different types of sociocultural movements.

Reformist- leads to partial improvement in any area of life; gradual transformations do not affect the foundations of the existing social system. Reforms are purposeful, pre-planned and organized in a certain way.

Revolutionary- entails a comprehensive change in all or most aspects of social life, affecting the foundations of the existing system. This type is realized spasmodically and represents a transition of society from one qualitative state to another. Along with reformist and revolutionary development, some researchers highlight what is called cultural lag.“Cultural lag” is a concept introduced by W. Osborne (1922), which coincides in its semantic content with the concept of “lag of development.” The term “cultural lag” is used to describe a situation where some parts of a culture change faster, while others change more slowly. W. Osborne suggested that a person’s value world does not have time to adapt to too rapid changes in the material sphere. Young people especially suffer from this. Their spiritual world is not able to change as dynamically as happens with their mothers.

For more details see: Erasov B. S. Social cultural studies. M, 2000.

nal sphere. Therefore, there is a time gap between cultural and social dynamics. Technological inventions have already appeared in society, but cultural and social adaptation to them has not occurred.

Thus, a society that maintains a certain degree of sustainability and stability has more opportunities to effectively assimilate new things without destructive consequences for its development.

A. Ya. Flier, whom we have already talked about, suggests that in the process of studying sociocultural dynamics, we also take into account the factor of sociocultural destruction. He defines it as a process of reducing the level of systemic hierarchical structuring, complexity and polyfunctionality of the cultural complex of a community as a whole or individual subsystems of this complex, i.e., complete or partial degradation of a given local culture as a system. In his opinion, any local culture also includes a certain layer of extra-systemic phenomena (“marginal fields” and other phenomena), although its socially integrating core is a relatively rigidly structured and hierarchized system value orientations, forms and norms social organization and regulation, languages and channels of sociocultural communication, complexes of cultural institutions, stratified lifestyles, ideology, morality and ethics, ceremonial and ritual forms of behavior, mechanisms of socialization and inculturation of the individual, normative parameters of its social and cultural adequacy, acceptable forms of innovative and creative activity etc. II.

Sociocultural destruction leads to dysfunction of the integrity and balance of the cultural system, which leads to a decrease in the ability to effectively regulate the social life of people and the increasing marginalization of the population.

Summing up the consideration of the problems of sociocultural dynamics, which were presented only in the very general view, it should be noted that dynamic processes in culture are a multifactorial phenomenon, they are complex nature, which determines the presence of pluralistic theoretical positions among their researchers. The construction of models of sociocultural dynamics depends on the scientific school and the time of their appearance, on the scientific preferences of the researcher and the cognitive task that is being solved in this process. In one way or another

degrees of the model are aimed at understanding sociocultural changes that allow us to more deeply see and understand the meaning of culture as such.

For more details, see: Durkheim E. 1) Sociology: Its subject, method, purpose. M„ 1995; 2) Elementary forms of religious life // Classics of world religious studies. Anthology / Comp. and general ed. A. N. Krasnikova. M., 1998. P. 230. Toynbee A. Comprehension of history. M., 1990. P. 148.

See: Haken G. Synergetics. M., 2005.

Moiseev I. N. Parting with simplicity. M., 1998.

Kagan M. S. Philosophy of culture. St. Petersburg, 1996; Kagan M.S. Synergetics and culturology // Synergetics and methods of science. St. Petersburg, 1998. pp. 201-219.

Flier A. Ya. Culturology for culturologists. M., 2000.

Sociocultural dynamics are those changes that can occur in culture and society over certain periods of time. Among such changes we can distinguish natural and random.

TO natural changes belong mainly to cyclic processes. A cyclic process is by definition periodic and renewable. In the culture of any nation there is a certain set of periodically changing parameters. This is most characteristic of archaic (pre-civilization) cultures. Archaic societies existed in full accordance with natural cycles, depended only on them and built their lives in accordance with them. Each year in the life practice of these peoples exactly repeated the previous one, so that they actually had no history, and there was no need to maintain any kind of chronology.

With the emergence of civilizations, the dependence of culture on natural cycles sharply weakened, but other cycles appeared, previously unknown, for example, economic ups and downs. Certain phases appeared in the development of these cultures, which we can roughly designate as:

¾progress (a period of increased spiritual power, social unity and economic well-being);

¾stagnation (period of stagnation);

¾regression (period of decline);

¾ crisis (it can take quite acute forms, up to the chaos and destruction of troubled times);

¾ revival (a new cycle of development of the same civilization) or the emergence of a new type of culture.

Cyclic development culture may be:

A) CLOSED CYCLES: birth, development, decline and death of a particular culture. Here we are talking, of course, about the existence of individual civilizations, so the existence of such cycles is calculated in many centuries. Such a cycle relates only to a certain “local” culture and is completely exhausted by the time of its existence. Babylon, Egypt, Rome, Byzantium, etc. -they all went through this cycle and became history. Single cycles are also associated with the birth and development of ethnic groups, as L.N. once showed. Gumilev.

B) REPEATING CYCLES.

Russian sociologist Pitirim Sorokin developed a theory of wave-like alternation of types of cultures. In his opinion, society consists of social groups, institutions and individuals. It is united through value systems (beliefs, norms, concepts of what is proper and sacred). P. Sorokin puts forward the idea of cultural supersystems and their wave-like movement. The ideal types of these supersystems depend on the values that are proclaimed in a given society. The Thinker lists three such types:

Ideational. The worldview of society is aimed at comprehending the Absolute and is based on dominant ideas. The main value is God, as the embodiment of everything spiritual. Perception and knowledge of the world occurs through revelation, intuition, and mystical experience. Art tends towards convention, symbolism, is created in accordance with certain canons and is most often impersonal. Example: Western European Middle Ages, Israeli society of the times of the prophets, Arab Caliphate.

Sensual. Society's attention shifts to the material world, life's goods, secularism and empirical experience. The main values are property, wealth, physical health, personal success. The world is perceived as given in sensory experience. Experience is the only criterion of truth. The art style tends towards naturalism. An example is the culture of Rome during the empire, or the culture of the modern Western world.

Idealistic type-intermediate. It is as if there is a harmonious merging of two types of worldviews into a single whole. Example¾Greek antiquity of the era of Pericles or the European Renaissance.

All three supersystems alternate with the inevitable change of seasons. While the value system is young, it arouses enthusiasm, it is believed and followed. Then it spreads throughout society and, as it were, loses its reserve of strength, becomes sluggish, superficial... Decay and crisis sets in. P. Sorokin believed that Europe of the twentieth century was living at the end of the “sensual” era.

In the mythology of different peoples, ideas about sociocultural dynamics are reflected in a number of MYTHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS OF CULTURAL CYCLES. For example, according to Hindu beliefs, earthly life cyclically passes through the following stages: Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, Kali Yuga(Gold, Silver, Copper, Iron Age A). The meaning of the alternation of these stages is the ever deeper immersion of humanity into the abyss of delusions, suffering and misfortune. A period full of the most severe trials - Kali Yuga (Iron Age) - is precisely the time that we are now experiencing; it must end in a deep crisis and the subsequent revival of new life in Krita-south. The four yugas make up one large cycle: manvantara. The largest cycle, including many manvantaras, is kalpa, that is, the full cycle of existence, during which the gods create the world, enjoy the world and then, having destroyed their creation, plunge into cosmic sleep (“Brahma’s day” and “Brahma’s night”).

It should be said that any pagan tradition adheres to cyclical models in its mythology, because paganism is still very close to natural phenomena and, therefore, psychologically depends on rhythmically repeating, in harmony with annual and daily cycles, phenomena in nature.

Progressive natural development. We have already touched on these views on sociocultural dynamics when we discussed the concept of historical progress of culture. The theories of such Western European philosophers as Georg F. Hegel and Teilhard de Chardin are very close to these views. Hegel connects the development of human culture with the evolutionary expansion of the self-knowing spirit, and de Chardin - with a global evolutionary process in which living matter conquers higher and higher levels of consciousness and, accordingly, new, more complex forms of life (at the human stage these are forms of culture). The ultimate goal of the progressive ascent of the evolutionary processes of earthly life is to achieve the “Omega point”, i.e. merger with God.

It is quite natural that concepts of this kind imply time scales much wider than the lifetime of individual civilizations. Time itself appears here not as a vicious circle, but as a continuous ascending line. Indeed, if we take the development of human culture in broad retrospect, that is, at least on the scale of the last five thousand years, then the tendency towards increasing complexity and technical equipment of almost all aspects of culture seems indisputable. From the stone ax, magical dances and bloody sacrifices at a pagan temple - to the computer, modern ballet and church liturgy - there really is a huge distance. These changes are irreversible, therefore, we have the right to consider them evidence of the continuity of the cultural and spiritual evolution of humanity.

The mythological interpretation of linear time is given in the Old and New Testaments. According to these sacred texts, human history is a drama, the cause of which was once the fall of the first people (Adam and Eve). The meaning of this drama is the desire of people to reunite with the Creator, and the end will be the “Last Judgment”, after which eternal life should begin: life in the Spirit and a transformed body. Thus, according to the Bible, human history has a beginning and an end, it is irreversible and does not know cyclical repetitions.

Random (one-time) culture changes: o neither can occur for three reasons: either society is experiencing a natural cataclysm, forcing it, in order to survive, to dramatically change the stereotypes of its culture, or someone’s successful military expansion introduces violent changes into it, or reformatory actions of the supreme power dramatically change the sociocultural situation.

An example of a sharp change (or rather, breakdown) in cultural life after a natural disaster is the decline of the Cretan kingdom after the catastrophic eruption of the Santorini volcano on the island of Thera (mid-2nd millennium BC). This was the end of the first civilization in European history. After the disaster, life on Crete followed a different cultural “scenario”: it was forgotten ancient language, writing disappeared, and the independent statehood of Crete also disappeared.

As for the conquests, they repeatedly destroyed or at least greatly deformed the cultural life of the conquered peoples; it is enough to refer to the example of Byzantium, conquered by Turkey, or the Polabian Slavs, conquered by the Germans. Even in cases where the conquered people did not lose their culture, something new appeared in it, often contradicting ancient traditions. Thus, in India, conquered by the Arabs, Islam arose; in Dacia, conquered by the ancient Romans, they began to venerate the Roman gods and build ancient temples; The Czech Republic, considered part of the German lands for over 300 years, has experienced the powerful influence of German culture. It also happens that a conquering people, having a level of culture lower than the people they conquered, themselves adopt a foreign culture. This once happened, for example, with the Romans, who conquered ancient Greece, and with the Manchus, who conquered medieval China.

Even more often, abrupt changes in culture occur due to unauthorized reform actions on the part of the authorities. Any reform, if it goes against existing traditions, ends either in complete failure (as was the case, for example, with the reforms of P.A. Stolypin at the beginning of the twentieth century in Russia), or it leads to powerful cultural upheavals with unpredictable consequences. The reforms of Peter I in Russia led to such results, the consequence of which was the emergence of completely new classes (bureaucratic bureaucracy and the enlightened nobility) and a sociocultural split that was disastrous for our country, ending with the revolution of 1917 and the complete collapse of the old culture.

Control questions

¾ What are sociocultural dynamics?

¾ What types of these dynamics can be distinguished?

¾ What are the cyclical processes in culture?

¾ What is P. Sorokin’s “wave” concept?

¾ What are the varieties and signs of progressive development in culture? Who developed this concept?

¾ What could cause random changes in culture and what are the possible consequences of these changes?

1. Types of cultural change.
a) The phase (stage) type of cultural dynamics largely coincides with the so-called “historical periodization”. Each stage has its own dominant type of social relations: 1) before industrial society(interpersonal type of relationship); 2) industrial society ( commodity-money relations); 3) post-industrial society(factors that form the mass community are at work).
b) Change of spiritual styles, artistic genres, orientations and fashions; change of centers of active cultural activity. This is the sphere of the history of art, culture, literature, etc. Thus, the entire history of Western European culture can be represented as a historical change of styles (this can be seen especially clearly in the example of painting): Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism , realism, modernism (impressionism, post-impressionism, surrealism, avant-garde, etc.), postmodernism.
c) Changes leading to the enrichment and differentiation of culture or the relationships between its different elements, which means the formation of new genres and types of art as a result creative process or external influences.
d) Cultural stagnation: conservation of the general value system; dogmatization of religion, ideology; canonization of artistic life; rejection of innovations and borrowings, which leads to long-term stagnation of society as a whole. At the same time, the stability of customs, norms and styles should not be confused with stagnation, since it implies the preservation of the originality of a given society. Stagnation is a characteristic feature of stable small ethnic cultures; it serves as a mechanism of self-preservation in the process of interaction with other more “powerful” civilizations. The long period of existence of ancient civilizations (Pharaonic Egypt, etc.), the civilization of pre-Columbian America, etc. should be characterized as stagnation.
e) Changes leading to a weakening of differentiation, a simplification of cultural life, which is defined as the decline and degradation of culture. Such processes are described by ethnographers caught in the orbits strong cultures. Decline is taking place in various areas high culture- in the case when the spiritual significance of certain directions and genres weakens, and other options for artistic understanding of the world gain recognition in society. An example of the decline of culture is the tendency to primitivize and archaize life (manifested in the structures of the criminal world, in the way of life and organization of armed detachments and gangs, in places of detention, etc.).
f) A cultural crisis is defined as a situation or tendency of a rupture between old spiritual structures and institutions and the formation of new ones. In modern times, a cultural crisis usually arises during the accelerated modernization of society. Cyclic changes differ from evolutionary ones in that they are repeatable. These cycles receive stable fixation in mythology, rituals, and the calendar. As a variant of cyclicity, one should consider inversion (pendulum changes), which manifests itself in the absence of a stable core, a “golden mean” in culture.
g) Transformation of culture is an intensive process of renewal in society. New elements are introduced through rethinking the historical heritage, giving new meaning to traditions through borrowing from the outside. However, borrowed elements are subject to qualitative change, resulting in synthesis.
2. The cumulative social experience of people living together and adapting to specific natural and historical conditions is the main content of the culture of any society. Forms of its manifestation:
- - products and results of any goal-oriented activity;
- - norms of relationships between people;
- - socio-political and economic organization;
- - religion;
- - education;
- - all types of creative activity, etc.

Special forms of accumulation of experience: traditions, mores, customs, language, a system of cultural codes and images, value orientations, etc., but most of all - a body of historically established “cultural texts” that specifically accumulate and systematize experience and knowledge. This includes: transmission to the next generations of the social experience of consolidation, cohabitation, survival and development of a given society, i.e. social and cultural reproduction of this society as a stable socio-cultural integrity, a system of accepted orders and norms, and its cultural specificity.

The main institutions for such broadcasting are:

- traditions (translating the most ancient and stable patterns of predominantly symbolic behavior of people);
- education (translating the bulk of the norms of interpersonal everyday communication, the basics of language and the main cultural codes and norms necessary for practical social survival);
- education - general and special - (translating a complex of minimal general scientific and general humanitarian erudition and deep specialized knowledge in a specific area);
- education (demonstrating standard examples of humanitarian cultural erudition of an individual), etc.
3. Socio-historical reproduction of society as a whole social organism with its inherent cultural specificity. Essence of the problem:
- - cultural specificity as a product of the history of a given society and the accumulation of its social experience;
- - social reproduction of society, possible only through the appropriate education of its subjects (socialization and inculturation).
4. A feature of culture that is not genetically passed on to the child from the parents, but is transmitted only by the method of upbringing, training, etc. Translation of traits: linguistic, ethnic, social class, religious. If full-scale broadcast is not possible social specifics of a given culture, a process of cultural assimilation of people begins in the external social environment (other people).
5. Processes of cultural assimilation of people in the external social environment:
- - determination of personality by the sociocultural system;
- - human personality as a “product”, “performer” and “creator” of culture, its forms and samples;
- - personality in the history of culture;
- - the problem of interpreting cultural forms as the main problem of the existence of culture in society;
- - conflict of interpretations as social conflict cultural values (hierarchization of its forms according to axiological criteria), characteristic of various social subcultures;
- - the problem of individual “experience” of culture and its components (norms, forms, canons) by its individual performers;
- - the conflict between the individual and society as a purely cultural contradiction between a social norm and its personal interpretation.
6. Social need for socialization and enculturation of the individual:
- - socialization and inculturation as processes of an individual’s entry into society and its culture;
- - socialization - development social norms adequate behavior and communication, laws, norms and forms of manifestation of socio-political loyalty to the existing order, hierarchy social statuses and roles;
- - inculturation as mastering the intricacies of etiquette and one’s own social role, peculiarities of worldview and assessments, customs and mores, general humanitarian and religious erudition accepted in a given society, acceptable boundaries of individual interpretation of culture
- - inculturation as a process that ensures not only the reproduction of a “cultural person”, but also contains a mechanism for implementing changes in culture;
- - the main stages of socialization and inculturation: primary (children) and secondary (adults) and their cultural characteristics;
- - specificity of the processes of socialization and inculturation in traditional, industrial and post-industrial societies.

The first condition for inculturation should be a person’s self-affirmation over time: the appropriation of acquired knowledge and skills, preparing opportunities for creativity and thus gaining a certain independence from natural and social conditions.

The second condition for the “conquest” of culture is appropriation in various ways visions. To be able to see means to be able to predict by “reading” space.

7. System of control, coercion and sanctions for non-compliance with cultural regulations:
- - administrative;
- - legal;
- - moral.

Freedom and responsibility are the springs of human historical activity, the way of his existence in legal and moral relations. Law is a formally specific historically determined measure of freedom. Moreover, we are not talking about abstract freedom, but about those scales of it that are determined by a specific method of production, social structure, and cultural development of society.

Morality and law are closely interconnected; moreover, we can talk about the deep interpenetration of law and morality. They mutually condition, complement and mutually support each other in regulating social relations. The objective conditionality of such interaction is determined by the fact that legal laws embody the principles of humanism, justice, and equality of people. In other words, the laws of the rule of law embody the highest moral requirements of modern society. When exploring the issue of interaction between law and morality, most jurists note that everything regulated by law, one way or another, is regulated morally, i.e. subject to moral assessment.

The greatest moral value represent fundamental human rights - the legal expression of his freedom and dignity. The actual implementation of these rights is a condition for achieving human happiness, since human rights are essentially his desire for happiness, recognized by law.

Human interests are not in harmony with each other. It is therefore inconceivable that law would ever do justice to all legitimate interests at the same time. It is just as little capable of cutting down all claims equally, for there is no scale for this. It will invariably contain elements of partisanship and injustice.

A solid legal organization is needed that could add to internal motives the restraining power of external law and the protective supervision of power. Only the organization of a solid legal order brings into society a lasting and sustainable reconciliation of various social elements. But when this goal of more lasting external pacification is achieved, better soil is created for the development of moral relations. Under the protective canopy of the law, which ensures public order, moral ties are established and strengthened.

On the other hand, by prohibiting and punishing evil manifestations of the human will, the right has a certain educational value: it destroys the unbridled arbitrariness of human passions and leaves traces of its influence in the innermost world of man.

The separation of law from morality is caused by the development of social life, when more complex relationships and more frequent clashes between individuals force us to take care of establishing more solid foundations of legal circulation. The separation of morality from law is determined by the development of personality, when awakened consciousness refuses to follow the compulsory leadership of society in everything and demands freedom of belief and action for its spiritual life.

Moral commandments should neither bind a person’s freedom with petty and detailed definitions of his actions, much less impose them on him through acts of coercion and violence. They just have to guide him free activity and provide reference points for his own decisions. Threats contained in laws, direct encouragement to implement legal norms, punishment for their non-compliance - this is the apparatus of external means in which the coercive nature of law is expressed and with the help of which its mandatory value is maintained. But the more law acquires such a character, the more it tends to renounce direct connection with morality, the ideal of which is the free implementation of the law, regardless of the control of power and coercive force.

With the gradual complication of social relations and the ever-increasing diversity of positions and opinions, the possibility of a clash between moral consciousness individuals and the beliefs of the environment to which they belong. If, in cases of such clashes, society considers all its ethical requirements as norms subject to enforcement, this should cause protests and opposition from those who do not agree with these requirements. To act in accordance with the general norm, but contrary to one’s moral decision, seems so unbearable for a morally developed person internal contradiction that sooner or later she must demand and win for herself freedom in this regard. The forced system of morality, in the event of a person’s disagreement with general requirements, leaves no other options than hypocrisy for the weak and martyrdom for the strong. By depriving a person of the opportunity to do good on his own impulse and to comprehend the truth through the power of his own internal development, it, in essence, blocks access to higher moral improvement.

Law, for example, allows a poor man who has not paid his money on time to be driven out of his apartment, because it allows him to demand his own, allowing selfishness within certain limits. On the contrary, morality, under all conditions, requires compassion for one’s neighbor; it is based on love, and love, according to famous saying, is different in that it “does not look for its own.” In many cases, what is permitted by law is prohibited by morality, which addresses a person with higher and stricter commandments.

Law can never be completely imbued with the principles of justice and love. But if in certain cases it comes into conflict with moral precepts, then it cannot be called moral, even to a minimal extent. This, of course, does not exclude the fact that it is influenced by morality and partly embodies its requirements.

12. Dynamics of the social structure of Russian society

The colossal diversity of social connections in society gives rise to equally rich relationships in the sphere of political power. And yet, if we talk about developed industrial countries, we can identify a number of stable trends in changes in the social structure and their political consequences.

In general, as practice shows, changes in the social structure occur primarily under the influence of new production and information technologies, the growth of the material well-being of citizens, the strengthening of their value orientations in favor of free time and culture, and the expansion of interstate ties and relationships. The share of the population employed in the non-productive sphere (services, communications maintenance, banking, etc.) is noticeably increasing, the number of active population, existing thanks to political and administrative support from the state, is growing (students, pensioners, disabled people, the unemployed, etc.) . There is a balance in interethnic and racial relations, and an increase in the diversity of sociocultural lifestyles. In a number of countries, a significant stratum of foreign workers has formed, etc.

The features of the state and dynamics of the social structure in modern Russian society are primarily determined by the transitional state of social relations. The most important changes are that the actual democratic transformations (although they are not guaranteed to be reversible) have given rise to new social mechanisms for the redistribution of resources and statuses, forms of social stratification.

These social processes exist, as it were, in parallel with traditional structuring mechanisms, which are primarily associated with the functioning of subsidized and non-competitive sectors of the economy, the old economic infrastructure and division of labor, the former privileged position of a number of national groups, etc. These stratification factors are usually associated with employees of low-profit and unprofitable public sector enterprises, a number of government institutions that poorly fit into the market economy, residents of small towns and rural areas, where the results of reforms are least noticeable, pensioners, some categories of students, etc.

Along with the indicated sources of structuring, new mechanisms are also emerging, caused by the introduction of private property, capitalization of economic relations, urbanization, restructuring of communications, growth of national self-awareness, etc. They led to the emergence of groups of entrepreneurs, farmers, large and small owners, highly qualified managers, and increased diversity ethnocultural groups (Cossacks) and lifestyles that cannot be reduced to traditional class characteristics.

In general, in the social structure of Russian society, three groups of macrosocial contradictions can be distinguished, causing powerful political flows, namely: within traditional stratification, within the new (relatively speaking, market) stratification, and also between these two types of sociality. At the same time, contradictory trends are observed, indicating not only an objective complication, but also a simplification of the social structure.

The diversity and richness of social relationships in modern Russian society give rise to the interweaving of many political processes: groups interested in market transformations and encouraging the state to expand support for entrepreneurship compete with forces not interested in structural restructuring of the economy and seeking to maintain the policy of state regulation and paternalism; nomenklatura clans in the state apparatus, trying to take the course of reforms into their service, are faced with protest from broad social strata trying to establish the principles of social justice and freedom in society; The struggle between forces and layers associated with the criminalized and “honest” economy is taking on the most acute forms, up to and including acts of political terror, etc.

In general, the collision of various political currents causes serious crises in the activities of the state, maintains a value split in the political culture of society, and initiates political protest among broad social strata of the population.

Experience shows that the mitigation of political tension in Russia, as in other countries with a transitional social structure, is usually associated with strengthening the social orientation of government activities (especially in relation to the least protected segments of the population), the fight against the privileges of the state bureaucracy and crime, and the expansion of professional opportunities. retraining of citizens and a number of other measures.

Sociodynamics of culture is a theoretical discipline whose subject is cultural and historical development.

That is, the subject of study becomes not so much culture itself, but the social factors driving it, the social mechanisms of culture.

Such methodological pluralism is inevitable when analyzing such a complex basic phenomenon as sociocultural dynamics. The complexity, and in many cases non-obviousness, of changes in culture makes different approaches to the study of cultural dynamics equally probable and complementary to each other.

The conceptual diversity of the problem of sociocultural development in the macro dimension is grouped around three main directions: firstly, around the idea of linear progressive development - evolutionism, secondly, around ideas of cyclicality civilizational process and, thirdly, around current social-synergetic approaches. In this regard, we can identify the main scientific directions and various models of sociocultural dynamic processes developed in the process of their development.

1. Modern societies are classified according to a certain scale - from “primitive” to “developed” (“civilized”).

2. There are clear, discrete stages of development - from “primitive” to “civilized”.

3. All societies go through all stages in the same order.

The dynamics of society and culture are subject to the same laws. This position was adhered to by J. - G. Herder, J. - A. Condorcet, G. - W. - F. Hegel, O. Comte, K. Marx, E. Tylor. Their main methodological differences concerned not the very essence of sociocultural dynamics as a linear process, but the mechanisms that “trigger” it, those factors that become determining for historical changes.

German theoretical thought (Herder, Hegel) is characterized by the construction of world-historical models of cultural development. In its most generalized form, the idea of linear-stage development of world history was developed in Hegel’s philosophical system.

Hegel considered the development of the world spirit (superhuman mind) to be the essence of the cultural-historical process. The process of unfolding a single world spirit includes the spirit of individual peoples, which goes through the stages of formation, prosperity and decline, after which, having fulfilled its historical purpose, that is, having realized a certain form of awareness of freedom, it leaves the historical stage, and as a result we have a world history. Hegel defined world history as “progress in the consciousness of freedom.”

For O. Comte, the historical process is a consistent transition of human thinking, culture and society from the theological stage to the metaphysical and then to the positive.] Therefore, Comte’s “social dynamics” is entirely devoted to the derivation and confirmation of the “law of three stages” and those factors that determine it. Moreover, O. Comte emphasized that one should not try to build a hierarchy of factors, reducing the movement of the force of history to any one of them, since they are all equivalent.

K. Marx's teaching on socio-economic formations rejected the idealistic philosophy of history and brought to the fore the question of the materialist understanding of social development, its objective dialectical laws.

Marx was convinced of the priority of the economy, which is why for him the foundation of any society, its “basis” is the method of material production as a set of “productive forces”, including people and means of production, and “relations of production”, characterized as a form of ownership of the means of production, and the corresponding social division of labor.

The history of society appears as the history of methods of production, which, in fact, act as sources of social development - the basis of socio-cultural dynamics, and the change in forms of socio-economic formations and class struggle served in Marx’s concept as the key to explaining historical patterns.

Another direction, closely related to the linear-stage approach to explaining sociocultural dynamics, is evolutionism itself, which addressed issues of the relationship between the universal and the national in culture, the role of the individual and the people, the relationship between Eastern and Western cultures, the purpose and meaning of history. Evolutionism attracted many scientists, its most famous supporters L. Morgan, G. Spencer, J. McLennan, J. Lubbock, J. Fraser. But the founder of the evolutionary theory of cultural development is considered to be the English scientist E. Tylor, the author of the fundamental work “Primitive Culture”. His concept was based on several simple provisions, the meaning of which boils down to the fact that humanity is a single species. That human nature is the same everywhere. That the evolution of society and culture obeys the same laws everywhere. Evolutionary development at the same time it goes from simple to complex, from lower to higher. The character of culture then corresponds to the stage of evolution at which society is located. Similarities and differences between cultures are explained primarily by the degree of development of cultures. And the path passed European peoples, is common to all humanity.

Tylor viewed culture as a consciously created rational device for improving the lives of people in society, therefore, in contrast primarily to O. Comte, he considered reason only one of the manifestations of culture, along with iron smelting, cattle breeding, and magic. It seemed to him that culture was driven not so much by reason as by the power of habits, instincts, and simple associations. Free thought, invention, innovation look like something rare, even exotic. Therefore, the main goal of cultural research is to systematize facts, to develop a theoretical natural science basis for social science - evolutionary theory.

Scientific thought of the 18th–19th centuries. was focused on studying the diversity of linear developmental trends unfolding over time and space. She operated mainly with the concept of “humanity in general” and sought to find the “dynamic laws of evolution and progress” that determine the main direction of human history. Relatively little attention has been paid to sociocultural processes that repeat themselves in space (in different societies), in time, or in space and time. This is largely why the linear, Eurocentric concept of sociocultural dynamics of development did not provide a satisfactory explanation of the evolution of the East, Russia and other regions that were apart from the developed Western European civilization.

In the last third of the 19th century. The work of N. Ya. Danilevsky “Russia and Europe” (1869) was published, which laid the foundations of a new paradigm in explaining the processes of sociocultural dynamics and became the basis of a new scientific approach - civilizational (cyclical), a new understanding of the principles and mechanisms of the cultural dynamics of social processes.

The civilizational approach is characterized by the denial of the concept of “universal civilization.” The development of humanity occurs through a change of original cultural-historical types, and not a single cultural-historical type can be said to be the basis and leader of worldwide social evolution. Theorists of the civilizational direction proceed from the idea of constant return, circulation, the idea of a plurality of cultures, considering humanity as a set of historically established communities, each of which occupies a certain territory and has specific features inherent only to it, which together form a special cultural-historical type.

Cyclic theories were developed by many philosophers and historians of antiquity, seeking to discern a certain order, rhythm, and identify meaning in the chaos of historical events. In this case, analogies were used with cosmic rhythms, the change of seasons, biological cycles, and the circulation of substances in nature.

But only towards the end XIX century Theoretical concepts were formed in which an explanation was given for the complex sociocultural processes of development.

The founder of the theory of cultural and historical types is the Russian scientist N. Ya. Danilevsky. In the book “Russia and Europe”, he presented human history as divided into separate and vast autonomous formations - “historical and cultural types”, or civilizations. The Western - Germanic-Roman civilization - is only one of many that arose in history, since in the reality of a common chronology, which could rationally divide the existence of mankind into periods and which would mean the same thing for everyone, would be equally important for everything the world does not exist. No civilization is better or more perfect; each has its own internal logic of development and goes through various stages unique to it in a certain sequence.

N. Ya. Danilevsky formulated the basic principles of sociocultural dynamics, which are similar to the processes occurring in a living organism - the emergence, growth and decline of civilizations.

Danilevsky’s culturological ideas influenced the theoretical views of K. N. Leontyev, who in his work “Byzantium and Slavism] analyzes the causes and mechanisms of sociocultural changes. The process of evolution in the organic world, according to Leontiev, is a gradual transition from simple to complex, constant adaptation, on the one hand, to the environment of similar, related organisms, and on the other, individualization from similar and related phenomena. It is a continuous process of transition from "vapidity" and "simplicity" to originality and complexity, which leads to a gradual increase in complex elements. Internal increase and at the same time continuous integration lead to the highest point of evolution - the highest degree of complexity, which is held by some internal coercive force.

According to Leontiev, every cultural organism goes through three stages during its life cycle: 1) primary simplicity; 2) blooming complexity; 3) secondary “mixing simplification”.

He rejected the generally accepted conventional periodization of the historical and cultural process - “Ancient World-Middle Ages-Modern Times”. Spengler offered a different view on the evolution of world history, explaining it by the succession of a number of cultures independent from each other, living, like living organisms, periods of origin, formation and dying. The decline of any culture, be it Egyptian or “Faustian” (i.e. modern Western), is characterized by the transition from culture to the last stage of its existence - civilization. Hence the key principle of his concept: the opposition of “becoming” - a living, creative principle, i.e. culture, and “becoming” - dead, formalized, i.e. civilization.

The English historian and sociologist A. Toynbee, under the influence of the ideas of his predecessors, developed his concept of the cultural-historical process, which deals with 21 relatively closed civilizations. In this work, Toynbee identified civilizations that were characterized by unique universal religions, specific forms of government and institutionalization, and distinctive art and philosophy. (Later he identified 36 “dead” civilizations and 5 “living” civilizations of the third generation: Western Christian, Orthodox Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Far Eastern.) Each civilization went through four stages in its development: emergence, growth, breakdown and decay . Toynbee tried to substantiate the empirical law of recurrence of social development. According to his concept, the evolution of society is carried out through “imitation”. If in primitive societies they imitate old people and ancestors (which makes these societies static), then in “civilizations” they imitate creative individuals, which ensures the dynamics of development. He notes: a person achieves civilization not as a result of biological talent (heredity) or easy conditions of the geographical environment, but in response to a challenge in a situation of particular difficulty, inspiring a hitherto unprecedented effort.

Unfavorable natural and climatic conditions, invasions of neighbors and brilliant achievements of previous civilizations are considered as “challenges”. If a civilization adequately responds to the challenge of history, then it receives an impetus for further development. If this challenge turned out to be beyond her, then a breakdown of civilization occurs, and then its decline. The driving force of civilization, which gives impetus to the search for an answer to the challenge, is its elite, the creative minority opposed to the passive majority.

P. Sorokin based the model of socio-cultural macrodynamics on the well-known principle of the cycle of historical eras. According to his model, in the history of every civilization, three types of culture successively and inevitably replace each other:

1) sensual, which is characterized by sensory-empirical perception, where the main values are utilitarianism and hedonism;

2) the ideational type, which is characterized by an orientation towards supersensible values - God, the Absolute;

3) idealistic - a mixed type, combining features of the first and second types.

Each of these three types has a unity of values and meanings, which is manifested in all spheres of culture. The dynamics of culture can be represented as the movement of a pendulum from one extreme point - “ideational” - to another extreme point - “sensual”, and back, passing through the intermediate phase of “idealistic” or integral culture.

The concept of “sociocultural dynamics” was widely used in the second half of the 20th century, when problems of development, change and spread of cultural institutions, cultural conflicts and innovations, degradation, stagnation and crisis of culture, typologies of cultural development (linear-progressive, phase, cyclically staged, wave, inversion, pendulum and other models), differentiation and diffusion of culture, interaction of different cultures.

The foundation of synergetics is associated with the names of the German physicist G. Haken and the Nobel Prize winner, the Belgian physicist I. R. Prigogine.

In 1977, G. Haken’s book “Synergetics” was published, where the scientist’s theory of self-organization in open systems and the formation of structures from chaos was proposed. Prigogine used mathematical theory to describe the dynamic processes occurring in the living world. He came to the conclusion that the desire for order leads to the least tension in the system, and this reveals the fundamental principle of social life.

Any complex dynamic system (in particular, a historical event or even a series of events) in its development passes through so-called bifurcation points, or rather polyfurcations - crisis moments in which small accidents, fluctuations (fluctuations) can become decisive in choosing the direction of further development. In synergetics, disasters are also distinguished - sudden changes in the behavior of a system in response to changes in external conditions.

Within the framework of the theory of catastrophes, the term “attractor” appeared, i.e. the tendency to structure a system and form order. The opposite tendency to the attractor—the system’s desire for chaos—manifests itself through the dissipativity (scattering) of the structure. Thus, within the framework of synergetics, the internal instability of the processes of spontaneous ordering of systems is studied, when small impacts or random fluctuations can lead to large consequences in the further self-development of systems. Complex, nonlinear systems are also characterized by self-organization processes that have the following features:

Development occurs through instability, at bifurcation points there is a transition to a qualitatively different state;

The new appears as unpredictable, but at the same time existing in the spectrum of possible states;

The present is not only determined by the past, but is also shaped by the future;

In a nonlinear environment, all future states are predetermined, but only one is actualized at the bifurcation point;

Chaos is ambivalent in its essence - destructive, but it is also creative during the transition to new states;

Development is irreversible, the “arrow of time” operates (a term introduced by N. Moiseev).

One of the leading Russian culturologists who created the original concept of cultural dynamics within the framework of the synergetic approach was M. S. Kagan.

In synergetic models, culture and society appear as nonequilibrium systems of a special type. Culture as an anti-entropy mechanism, as it develops, increases entropy in other systems and leads to periodic anthropogenic crises.