Pictures of the world in the history of culture. Cultural picture of the world: concept, formation and main types
Humanity has common roots. But in the process of development it “branches” into many diverse, special cultures. Each of them, growing up in specific conditions (geographical, historical, technological, everyday life, etc.), unfolds its own history, develops its own language, and forms its own worldview.
All the richness of being of a given culture, the integrity of being of a given people forms a certain way of understanding the world and existing in it. The result of this specific vision of the environment is cultural picture of the world- a system of images, ideas, knowledge about the structure of the world and man’s place in it. Human existence is diverse and multi-layered. Some of these layers (namely those associated with primary sensations, the initial attempts of nascent humanity to establish themselves in this world) are not subject to rational control and are unconscious. Therefore, the concept of “cultural picture of the world” is used in the broad and narrow sense of the word.
In a strict, narrow sense, it includes primary intuitions, national archetypes, figurative structure, ways of perceiving time and space, “self-evident” but unproven statements, extra-scientific knowledge. IN in a broad sense, along with the listed elements, it also includes scientific knowledge.
The key moments of the picture of the world are fixed in language. So, if for a German space is thought of as “apartment”, “elimination” (the German term for space is "Kant" - associated with the meaning “empty”), then for the French “space” is associated
with extension, stretching, coming from within. For R. Descartes, space is “stretching”, “spreading”. The space turns out to be filled without a trace. I. Newton clears it again, creating a model of absolute space, which is “hollow”. It was easily geometrized. Space for I. Newton is an infinite container of bodies: it can be filled with matter, or be completely free of it. In both cases, the properties of space are the same everywhere. Emptiness is unchanged, it is empty everywhere. “Emptiness” is the absence of any form, but in relation to it, every form becomes apparent. Thus, emptiness is not something empty and meaningless, it is the possibility of all and all forms. And as a possibility it is real. The special perception of time in different cultures is also reflected in language. Thus, the etymology of the concept “time” is tempus- goes back to lat. tendo- stretch, spread. Hence the terms of Descartes: extension- extension, entendement - understanding. In the German consciousness, time is thought of as a chopped segment, and what stretches and lasts is eternity. These primary sensations of time and space, fixed in language, then result in hypotheses, and later in strictly scientific theories of the structure of the Universe. Such connections can be traced between the understanding of number and the type of mathematics, between the primary sensations of the world, enshrined in primordial symbols, and the figurative structure of the entire culture (as, for example, O. Spengler did).
The cultural picture of the world is built from the point of view of what it (the world) means for the person living in it. But these meanings cannot always become the property of consciousness and will. Culture is the formation of a certain meaningful community between people, connecting and uniting them and open to other existence and experience, in the light of which things function as elements of human rationality, since they bear the imprint of human attitude towards them. In the process of embodying an individual’s plans in an object, an involuntary realization of the subject himself, his abilities, experience, etc. occurs. In the course of various tests of the objective world, this or that thing or phenomenon finds its place in the world order of social life.
With an instrumental approach, the concept of “cultural picture of the world” is reduced only to rational evidence, to a description of knowledge expressed in language (including scientific knowledge) about the world and its various layers. With this approach, the originality and uniqueness of a person is neglected, his existence loses its personal character.
However, its existence cannot be reduced only to the ability to rationally strive for certain goals, since the existential layer of human activity lies not only in the aim to produce the finite, but also to understand the totality, to strive towards the horizon of the universality of human existence.
The cultural picture of the world is constructed as what E. Husserl called “ life world”, which is the concrete historical basis of mutually agreed upon experience. That objective content of the world, which is revealed to a person in the process of his objective-practical activity, is given to him in unity with meaning and significance. Meanings act as guidelines and means of human action; they constitute the expedient structure of the world.
Initially, the cultural picture of the world takes shape in the context of those forms of life that are not recognized as rational conditions for human actions in the world. The elements of this picture of the world are those intuitive ideas about reality and those meanings that provide guidelines human consciousness, will, thinking. The cultural picture of the world presents a transformed and folded into the matter of language perfect shape the existence of the objective world, its properties, connections and relationships revealed by cumulative social practice.
Thus, the cultural picture of the world consists of thematically clear, meaningful and obvious contents of artifacts and of non-thematic meanings and personal meanings, experiences, feelings, motives, and assessments. Therefore, from a content-thematic point of view, we can distinguish scientific, aesthetic, religious, ethical, legal and other similar pictures of the world. From this position, the picture of the world is reduced to a set of information and data. But the construction of these pictures is preceded by the construction of a picture of intuitive ideas, meanings and meanings as an expression of the characteristics of the life of a given culture. Moreover, every meaning is always in a special way represents the universality of the world in which people live.
The development of connections between cultures leads to the “blurring” of the unique features of each of them. So, in the 20th century. peoples and countries begin to unify in everyday life and in thinking. This is especially clearly evidenced by the processes of computerization, which subordinate the logic of thinking of those who work with the computer to a single algorithm. And yet, at the core of every culture, what is preserved is what is “crystallized” under the influence of the country’s nature, its climate, landscapes, food, ethnic type, language, memory of its history and culture. Thus, the cultural picture of the world retains its uniqueness in the processes of universalization of culture.
14.1. The concept of “cultural picture of the world, its content and form
IN modern Russia At the same time, a number of cultural revolutions are taking place: radical changes in cultural material, technology, and technology lead to a change in the role and place of certain industries in society. There is a transformation of the sphere of property, employment of the population, its introduction to those forms of culture that were traditionally outside the field of attention of society, for example, service, trade, information Services, and therefore did not represent significant value until recently. The development of cultural diversity and its pluralism lead to changes in the motivational sphere of human development and the emergence of new incentives for work and leisure. These and a number of other factors pose a new and traditional problem for the cultural system: what and how to teach the younger generation. What cultural picture of the world should be formed among students.
People's actions, as a rule, occur on the basis of some conscious motives, intentions, interests. In different situations, people's actions are different. But sometimes they can differ in the same situations. This means that we can argue that the awareness of actions is different.
Since the actions of people, their actions practically cover a very wide range of areas of culture, and, moreover, this circle is expanding, we assume that the whole world falls into the field of human consciousness, which means that in the human mind there is a a certain image of this world, its picture.
The cultural picture of the world is the result, the product of reflection of the real world through human consciousness in ideas, concepts, categories of thinking given by culture.
This picture of the world generalizes a person’s experience and knowledge, gives it certainty and structure, and acts as a mental, conceivable map of this world. With this mental map of the world, its picture, a person checks his actions, with its help he navigates among things and social phenomena, establishes a hierarchy of values and meanings.
The cultural picture of the world is a conventional term within which the entire system of a person’s ideas about the world and his place in it, set by his culture and, in turn, forming the culture of man and society, is united. The cultural picture of the world includes both theoretical and everyday knowledge and ideas of people, both science and religious beliefs, mythological and ideological attitudes, value orientations, moral, aesthetic, economic, political views. Those. The cultural picture of the world is the image of reality that takes shape in a person’s mind and characterizes his mentality.
The cultural picture of the world has a certain universalism, features common to many peoples. At the same time, it is specific to each ethnic group, each person and differs in its characteristics.
The reason for differences in the cultural picture of the world is a number of factors: geography, climate, natural conditions, history, social structure, beliefs, traditions, lifestyle, etc.
The cultural picture of the world differs from the scientific picture of the natural sciences in a number of ways. The scientific picture of the world is formed by science, scientific knowledge. Its object is nature. The perception of the social world serves as the basis for the formation social picture peace. It is reflected in those images, ideas and concepts that are formed social knowledge and practice.
The cultural picture of the world is part of the social picture insofar as culture differs from society. The cultural picture of the world is determined by the culture of society and is a condition for the formation of its culture. It develops under the influence of both objective and subjective factors, both material and ideal, spiritual, i.e. is set by the entire culture of society and man. It is formed by both scientific knowledge and everyday ideas of people.
In its composition and content, the cultural picture of the world includes all the ideas about the world and man’s place in it that have developed in society throughout its history and given by its culture.
In it, the ideas that have developed within the framework interact in a whimsical manner, ensuring compliance. different forms consciousnesses – mythological and ideological, religious, philosophical, economic, ethical, aesthetic, political and many others.
At the same time, old and new, initial (primary) and secondary, derivative and subsequent ideas, judgments, concepts, concepts coexist with each other, ensuring compliance, and sometimes complementing one another, imparting integrity to the cultural picture of the world. As it develops, the cultural picture of the world, being updated, retains many of its old components in those areas in which they retain their effectiveness.
The cultural picture of the world does not remain something given and unchangeable once and for all. It changes and develops, just like culture as a whole. Each cultural era creates its own cultural picture of the world. Thus, antiquity was characterized by the dominance of cosmocentrism, the Middle Ages - theocentrism, the Renaissance asserts anthropocentrism, and the Enlightenment period was dominated by rationalism (rationocentrism) with its desire for renewal and modernism. The modern cultural era is increasingly associated with post-industrial culture, where postmodernism is established.
In the cultural, mental picture of the world, its different components play different role. For example, the human imagination, when constructing an image of reality, does so in such a way that events in it do not occur in some neutral and irrelevant connection and sequence, but are saturated with meaning and obey the laws of this meaning.
In the cultural picture of the world, it is necessary to distinguish between its spiritual, mental, content, composition, and corresponding form.
From the point of view of content, the cultural picture of the world is formed by various kinds of representations, ideas, images, concepts, ideals, given by the culture of society and man and which, in turn, are the condition for the formation of his culture.
From the point of view of form, the cultural picture of the world reflects its most stable, unnamed, structured formations, giving it spatial and temporal certainty. In the future, we will pay more attention not to the content cultural picture the world, but on the forms that it takes in the history of mankind, its culture.
The most important feature The picture of the world is represented by its holistic character, which is not a mechanical image of the world around a person, natural and social, material and spiritual, but is set indirectly, through the cultural norms, attitudes, values, and ideals that have developed in society. Society is always located between man and nature, which means that society, or rather its culture, plays a more important role in shaping the picture of the world. This means that before mastering the picture of the world, a person has to master the cultural picture of the world. Thus, in the picture of the world we distinguish two parts, the first is formed as a picture of the natural world, as something opposing society, different from it, and the second acts as a picture of the social, cultural world, or cultural picture of the world. It should be noted that the picture of the natural world is largely determined by the cultural picture of the world, by those images of the center and periphery, space and time, statics and dynamics, which are set by culture.
Consequently, the cultural picture of the world is directly related to mentality. And if the latter is a way of perceiving and seeing the reality surrounding a person, then the picture of the world is the result of this perception. Their relationship can also be represented as a relationship between content (picture of the world) and form (mentality). The “cultural picture of the world”, or “cultural model of the world”, “cultural image of the world” (here these concepts will be used as identical ones) differs significantly from both the scientific and philosophical pictures of the world, and from the religious picture of the world. Although the cultural model of the world is close to the artistic picture of the world, it nevertheless does not coincide with the latter. The scientific picture of the world is understood as a certain perfect model reality, created on the basis of scientific ideas and principles and serving as the basis for the construction of scientific theories. It embodies the latest achievements of science, and its changes are due to the process of development of knowledge. In its content, the scientific picture of the world is objective and devoid (or almost devoid) of a value-based attitude to the world. The philosophical picture of the world, like the scientific model of the world, is based on scientific knowledge, but, unlike the latter, the philosophical view of the world merges with its assessment. Consequently, the philosophical picture of the world is a synthesis of scientific and value ideas about the world and man. The religious picture of the world is a model of reality, expressed in the form of fantastic, illusory images. Each religious system creates his own image of the world. It is based on faith in a certain Absolute - in God or Buddha, transformed into an object of religious emotions and worship. The relationship between the cultural and artistic pictures of the world is peculiar. It should be noted that the cultural picture of the world to a large extent reveals similarities with the artistic picture of the world, and initial stages human history we can talk about their identity. Their kinship is due to the fact that in both the world is expressed not in its significant, but in its semantic aspect, that is, reality in the artistic and cultural model is presented not as it is in itself, not in its objective meaning, but as such how she appears social community or to the artist - in its semantic meaning. Based on the above, we can formulate working definitions of these two pictures of the world. An artistic picture of the world is its image in its semantic meaning for the artist. The cultural model of the world is the world presented in a semantic meaning for a certain social community. From the above definitions it becomes obvious that the mythological model of the world will be both an artistic and cultural picture of the world. The demarcation between these types of world models is associated with the differentiation of the syncretic artistic complex into the artist and the public, with the professionalization artistic activity, with the separation of the artist from the team and his acquisition of relative creative independence. How is folklore different from professional art The syncteric collective nature of creativity, and the cultural model of the world differs from the picture of the world created by the Professional artist with his “conciliar” vision of the world. Although artistic, religious, scientific and philosophical paintings the world are genetically linked to the cultural model of the world and have a certain influence on the process of its formation, nevertheless, the cultural model of the world is specific education. If the scientific picture of the world strives to present reality as it is, giving its most adequate image, devoid of subjective assessments, then the cultural model of the world is unthinkable without such a subjective principle; it has never been and cannot become a “faithful copy” of reality. One more thing should be mentioned distinctive feature these pictures of the world. The scientific picture presupposes a logical explanation, since its provisions are understood and theoretically substantiated, and the conclusions are motivated with scientific rigor. The situation is fundamentally different with the explanation of the cultural picture of the world. Although each person has his own picture of the world, he nevertheless cannot accurately describe it, since most of it is outside his consciousness, THEREFORE it cannot be analyzed by its bearer. The system of value relations and orientation of a social community (its understanding of good, evil, happiness, justice, aesthetic perfection), its ideas about time and space, the universe, etc. are the meaningful basis of the cultural picture of the world and give it those features of originality that allow one culture to be distinguished from another. In fact, in different cultures people perceive, feel and experience the world in their own way and thereby create their own unique image of the world, or picture of the world. Therefore, the cultural model of the world can be accepted as a classification basis in historical and cultural typology, as proposed, for example, by the authors of the collective study “Artistic Culture in Pre-Capitalist Formations” (1984). Since the cultural model of the world reflects reality in its value aspect, the same phenomenon in the scientific and cultural pictures of the world takes on different meanings. Thus, in the scientific picture of the world, light and color are presented as physical phenomena, while in the cultural model of the world they are expressed as values. In the European medieval cultural picture of the world, which is closely intertwined with religious painting world of that time, semantics white light, for example, is spiritual purity, holiness, and red color is mercy, sacrifice. Both scientific and cultural pictures of the world often operate with the same concepts, but the semantic meaning of the latter is different in them. Such concepts include, for example, space and time. In this regard, attention should be paid to the fact of the existence of three types of space and time. It's about about real, conceptual and perceptual space and time. Real space and time are the physical space and time in which a person lives, objects and things exist, and various processes take place. We deal with conceptual space and time only in theory: conceptual models of space and time are operated in the scientific picture of the world. Perceptual space and time is the space and time as it appears to the perceiving subject. If the scientific picture of the world refers to conceptual space and time, then the cultural model of the world and artistic creativity deal with perceptual space and time, that is, with the space and time as it is perceived and experienced by people of a certain era. If philosophical and natural scientific concepts of space and time (like any other concepts) are subjective in form, but objective in content, then cultural space and time are subjective both in form and content. In the cultural picture of the world, space and time never appear in the form of abstract phenomena; here they are always specific, filled with substantive content and have a “local” character. For example, each cultural and historical community of people has its own ideas about space and time, determined by the conditions of its life. Thus, pastoral and agricultural peoples, due to their natural dependence on nature, associate their perception of time with the change of seasons. Therefore, time is represented by them in the form of “circular” time. Their ideas about space are also unique. In this regard, the conclusions of G.D. Gachev, who studied the specifics of the image of the world of the Kyrgyz people as the Koro people, are interesting. Since these people, he notes, lead a nomadic lifestyle, the people’s ideas about movement and change are associated with space (change of places), and not with time (change of generations on the same land), as is the case among farmers. If the concept of space in the worldview of pastoral peoples, as the scientist claims, prevails over the concept of time, then among farmers it is the opposite: time plays a dominant role in their worldview. In other words, if in the view of the former events unfold primarily in space, then in the view of the latter - in time. Time also finds its own characteristics in the ancient cultural picture of the world. For ancient Greek there is no time as a unit of measurement; It is always associated with specific events: it can be a “happy” time - a time of success and an “unhappy” time - a time of defeats and losses. The Greeks were always attentive to the present time and indifferent, unlike the Romans, to the past, which, by the way, was the basis for O. Spengler to call the Hellenes a non-historical people. This attitude towards time gave them a desire to “stop the moment”, which in turn became one of the stimulating factors of development greek sculpture. The Greeks’ ideas about the direction of the flow of time are also determined by the type of their occupation. Since these were the ideas of winegrowers and plowmen associated with the natural cycle, the movement of time in their picture of the world took on the shape of a circle, that is, it was cyclical time. Thus, time in the cultural picture of the world of the pastoral and agricultural people is cyclical time. Cyclic perception of time, filled life content, remains dominant in the agrarian medieval society. But in the medieval cultural picture of the world, a different idea of time appears - as linear, unidirectional. True, “straightened” time immediately takes on the mystified form of sacred-historical time. Linear time will occupy a dominant position only in the cultural picture of the New Age. People's idea of time plays an important role in the cultural picture of the world, since it determines their attitude to what passes. So, if time, filled with specific events, moves only in a circle, then the conclusion follows that there is nothing new in the world - events repeat themselves, having completed their circle. “Not changes, but repetition,” writes A.Ya. Gurevich about the cultural picture of the world of people of the Middle Ages, “was the defining moment of their consciousness and behavior. An isolated thing that never happened had no independent value for them.” People's ideas about space are not identical in different cultures. If the shepherd people, for example, perceive it as something boundless, limitless, then the ancient Greek farmer and artisan thought of it as a limited perceived space. The space of a Hellene is, first of all, the polis in which he lives, surrounding him objective world and visible space. The idea of the infinity of space, the boundlessness of space, could not become an element of the Hellenic picture of the world. Therefore, A. Samossky’s hypothesis about the multitude of worlds and the boundlessness of the universe, expressed by him in the 3rd century BC, was not accepted by his contemporaries. It contradicted their ideas about the world and space and was soon forgotten. The brilliant guess of the ancient natural philosopher would be highly appreciated much later - in the teachings of the Polish astronomer and thinker N. Copernicus. The world space as a whole for the Greek represented harmony and perfection and was filled with specific creatures and objects. And if in the European medieval cultural picture of the world God was the center of the universe, then in the center of the Greek cosmos stood man with the gods he created, which for him were nothing more than ideal images of people. In ancient civilizations, the picture of the universe was reflected in numerical expressions. The numbers “three”, “four” and “seven” were considered the most perfect and fundamental among them. The logic of such selectivity was that the number “three” was associated with the “world axis”, which connects the three elements - heaven, earth and the underworld; The cardinal directions were designated by the number “four”. The totality of the vertical and horizontal plane, expressed in numerical value, adds up to the number “seven”. But the number here acts as something more than a quantitative quantity: in this culture it is given a symbolic and magical meaning. Thus, “three” is a symbol of masculine, positive principles, and “four” is a symbol of feminine, negative principles. They are adequately replaced by the corresponding geometric figures- triangle and square. According to the meaning of the symbolism existing here, the unity of a man and a woman can be expressed both by the number seven and by connecting a triangle with a square. People of this cultural era they were also convinced that in a week consisting of seven days, there are three days for men (good, kind) and four days for women (bad). It is known that the number was endowed with a special, magical meaning in all kinds of predictions and fortune-telling. The content of the image of the world, along with people’s ideas about space, time and number, are also their aesthetic assessments of the surrounding reality and themselves. In certain cultural pictures of the world, the aesthetic principle can play a decisive role. Thus, A-FLosev, for example, has every reason to call the attitude of the ancient Greeks to the world aesthetic, since the Hellenic looked at nature, space, society and man through a unique aesthetic prism. In this culture, even philosophy was a synthesis of philosophical consciousness and aesthetic assessments. In the aesthetic aspect, cultural models of the world differ, on the one hand, in what aesthetic image(beautiful, sublime or tragic) is the dominant one, and on the other hand, the idea of beauty. It is known, for example, that in the culture of Ancient Egypt, where the dominant social life there was an idea divine essence pharaoh, the eternity and limitlessness of his power, and the pyramids and sculptural portraits were an expression, symbols of such greatness, the image of the sublime dominates. In culture ancient Greece oriented not at exalting the power of the ruler, but at glorifying man, the dominant image was of beauty. That is why Greek architecture does not overwhelm with its grandeur, and sculptural images (even of gods) evoke positive aesthetic emotions. During crisis periods in the cultural history of mankind (for example, the eve of the fall of Rome, the beginning of the 20th century in Europe), the tragic principle dominates the picture of the world. The question of aesthetic assessments in the picture of the world, as already noted, has another side: what is taken for aesthetic perfection, beauty. If for the ancient Greek of the classical period, beauty is predominantly sensual, physical beauty (beauty human body, the beauty of the material cosmos), then in the medieval image of the world beauty is understood as spiritual beauty. These ideas about beauty find adequate expression in Greece - in sculptures and buildings, where bodily perfection dominates; V medieval culture- in icons, church frescoes and mosaics; in the Renaissance picture of the world, beauty appears as the unity and balance of the material and spiritual, and for this reason alone the sculpture and painting of the Renaissance are not an adequate reproduction of ancient aesthetic principles. We encounter different ideas about beauty in the picture of the world modern Japan. The measures of beauty in it are such concepts as “sabi”, “wabi”, “shibui” and “yugen”. Here sabi means the charm of antiquity, and therefore the Japanese are attracted to everything where he finds traces of age - an old set, a mossy stone. Wabi has the beauty of simplicity and practicality and the flashy is perceived as vulgar. Shibui is the embodiment of both in one object, that is, Shibui is the beauty of naturalness, simplicity and practicality. According to the aesthetic principle of yugen, beauty lies in understatement, in hint. Based on Japanese poetry, he largely determined its originality, introduced into it that strange element from the point of view of another culture, which creates for a person of a different mentality not only difficulty in discovering aesthetic attractiveness in it, but also difficulty in understanding it artistic meaning. Here, for example, is the poetic form in which the Japanese poet Basho expresses feelings of grief and sadness to a father who lost his son with his head drooping to the ground, as if the whole world had been turned upside down, bamboo crushed by snow. In the same style, in the haiku style (three lines) and in accordance with artistic principle The south also conveys the poetics of the landscape: The peak is covered in snow, But the slopes are covered in mist. The evening faded. (Sogi) The symbolism, allusion, and understatement of these poetic lines give them a unique artistic flavor, making them especially attractive to the Japanese reader and mysterious to the European. Features of the cultural picture of the world are expressed in the specifics of language. Thus, the mythological picture of the world that developed at that stage of cultural development, when man had not yet isolated himself from nature and the latter was experienced by him and presented to him as something living, corresponds figurative language. Until now, in the monuments of folk literature one can hear words and expressions that embody visual plastic imagery mythological picture world: “creep” - a blizzard spreading low on the ground, “leaf blower” - autumn wind. Knitting finds appropriate expressions and personified natural phenomena. Today, for example, we say: “the sun is setting”, “the wind is howling”, without thinking about the fact that once these were expressions that were understood by people in a literal, and not in a figurative (like irpb) sense. Later, when a person separates himself from nature and finds his “I,” his picture of the world changes, and the word loses its figurative, pictorial character and becomes abstract concept, a sign indicating the designated object. As already noted when considering the essence of mentality, one of the aspects of the Russian mentality is due to the fact that the Russian people have retained a certain pristine connection with nature, the ideal of which is the steppe expanses and vast forests. The peculiarity of Russian people’s perception of “contrastism” is embodied in ideas and concepts that are absent in the words and expressions of other peoples. So, for example, a European applies the concept of “freedom”, the main meaning of which for him is that it is the right granted to him by the state to make his own | g k > p and bear responsibility for it. For a Russian person, the forest is an adequate expression of his ideas about freedom and is the concept of “will”. Russian “will,” as subtly emphasized by D.S. Likhachev in “Notes on the Russian,” is freedom, raised with space, with no restrictions on pro-JP.IHCTBOM. To what has been said, it should be added that will, or, as they say about it, “free will” in the Russian image of the world is also called unlimited freedom, which does not fit in with the European cultural picture of the world. The Russian man of freedom successfully expressed, for example, in his poem A.V. Koltsov: I will equip a horse, I will fly into the forests, I will live in those forests with my free will. Poetry of elemental space as an element of Russian culture-||)| The pictures of the world sound both in Russian epics and in Russian songs. The Cossack Duma cannot do without it. She finds bright ideas in the works of Russian writers and poets. |k, for example, the vision and experience of space was expressed in his prose by I.A. Bunin: “Old big road, overgrown with curly grass, cut by dried ruts, traces of the ancient life of our fathers and grandfathers, went before us into the endless Russian distance.” “...Wherever his (Russian man’s) fate takes him, his native sky will be above him, and the boundless sky will be all around him. native Rus'"(I.A. Bunin. Mowers). M-YuLermontov loves in Russia - Its cold silence of its steppes, Its boundless swaying forests, The floods of its rivers, like seas. This kind of poetry and prose is closest and most understandable to the Russian reader, since it successfully “overlays” his mentality and is in accordance with his cultural picture of the world. This phenomenon of intelligibility of the figurative fabric of art finds an interesting explanation in the literary article by D-S-Merezhkovsky "dedicated to the analysis of the work of V.G. Korolenko. In the depths of the Russian national temperament, he says, there remains "responsiveness to the poetry of spontaneous will that lurks in our soul , as a vague, unconscious instinct, as a feeling inherited from distant ancestors, as a vague atavism - perhaps connecting us with the ancient folk freemen. That is why in art poetic motifs in which the feeling of steppe freedom resounds cannot but be found echo in the hearts of Russian readers""12. So, here only individual elements of the cultural picture of the world were considered and an attempt was made to show how their content changes in various models peace. This confirmed the main idea about the uniqueness of each cultural picture of the world. To embrace theoretical analysis the whole series of elements that make up the content of the cultural image of the world is practically impossible not only in textbook, but even in a special monographic study. In conclusion, it should be noted that for cultural studies and cultural history, the category “cultural picture of the world” has important cognitive and methodological significance - say, the reproduction of a culturally defined picture of the world.” * Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky (1865 - 1941) - Russian writer, poet, literary critic, religious thinker, one of the founders of Russian symbolism. Confrontation with Soviet ideology and politics ended for him with the “exodus to the West.”
The cultural picture of the world is the world presented in a semantic meaning for a certain social community and individual. COMPONENT OF THE CULTURAL KATRINA OF THE WORLD 1) Ontological categories - which express the idea of the most general attributes of the surrounding objective world (space, time, movement. Cause, effect, change, property, quantity, quality, randomness. pattern.) 2) Social categories - characterizing of a person in society, the most important circumstances of people’s lives, their relationships, spiritual world(labor, property, power, church, money, justice, equality, kindness, conscience, duty) 3) System of value relations and value orientations. In every cultural picture of the world. Personalities. A people or a historical era develops its own hierarchy of values and value dimensions (family, love, friendship, money). In the Middle Ages, values were morality and religiosity. In modern times - values - rationality, science. Modern times There is a strictly pragmatic approach to everything. KKM in developed cultures (especially in the modern era) is multi-layered and polyvariant. It includes a wide variety of knowledge and ideas. scientific, philosophical, scientific, everyday, psychological. In accordance with the dominance of one or another of the listed components, the following types and types are distinguished. There are different pictures of the world: 1) scientific theory (for example, when a person is sick, he goes to the doctor.) 2) philosophical theory. 3) Artistic K.m. 4) religious km. (Belief in the supernatural) 4) Everyday km. 5) Mythological k.m. (presence of ritual)
10. The concept of cultural dynamics and types of cultural changes.
1. Culture is the process of constant adaptation of a person to the changing conditions of his existence by transforming these conditions in the process of human activity.
One of the branches of cultural studies that studies the origin of cultures is cultural genesis. This concept is used to analyze the processes of sustainability and cultural development. Culturogenesis is a type of social and historical dynamics of culture, which consists in the creation of new cultural forms and their integration into existing cultural systems. (In a narrow sense, cultural genesis is understood as the process of formation and origin of culture.)
Culturogenesis consists in the process of constant self-renewal of culture, both through the renewal and complementarity of already existing forms of culture, and through the creation of new directions and phenomena that correspond to the cultural dynamics of time. Culturogenesis, as the process of generating new forms of culture, occurs constantly, and not only at the stage of the emergence of culture. Three phases can be distinguished in the genesis of cultural forms:
a) initiation, development of innovations,
b) creation on their basis of new cultural forms,
c) their introduction into social practice, their replacement of old cultural forms or the coexistence of old and new.
Types of Cultural Change
Cultural variability is understood as the property of self-renewal of culture, including the development, degradation or desemantization (loss of meaning) of its individual features or entire complexes. The reasons for cultural variability are:
Adaptation to the changed external conditions of life of communities;
The need to resolve accumulated internal contradictions;
Creative initiative of individuals.
Variability can be progressive, or it can be degrading. The latter is associated with a decrease in the functional efficiency of certain objects and structures. Desemantization of an object is the loss of its original meaning, a change in this meaning, or a reinterpretation of the given content of the object in the public consciousness. The predominance of statics over cultural dynamics inevitably leads to cultural stagnation. True, the destructive crises were not in vain - the culture regressed and became simplified.
Cultural stagnation is a state of long-term unchanged culture, in which innovations are sharply limited or prohibited. Norms, values, methods of activity, ideals are reproduced practically unchanged. Society is “conserved”, protected from external influences by the “Chinese wall” of isolationism, and from internal changes - with the help of strict control by various social institutions - the state, church, education system, etc. A culture can remain in a state of stagnation for as short as historical scale, and for a long time. Of course, there are some cultural changes taking place here, but they do not go beyond the existing cultural traditions.
Tendencies towards self-isolation and conservation of traditions and cultural norms manifest themselves primarily in small, local ethnic or religious-sectarian groups. Still in tropical Africa or in the South American jungle they find tribes that have no contact with the “big world” and have stopped in their social and cultural development at the level of the Stone Age. But highly developed civilizations can also find themselves in a state of stagnation - let’s remember Ancient Egypt during the era of the Pharaohs or the cultures of the Mayans and Aztecs. Cultural stagnation is dangerous for the degradation of society. The emergence of anomie (a state of decomposition of the value system, apathy and disappointment) in conditions of a sociocultural crisis leads to the barbarization of society. The French historian E. Ladurie argued that the chaotization of public life leads to extreme instability of the mood of the masses, who are prone to irrational outbursts of indignation and cruelty. During this period, the place of destroyed norms and mental attitudes is taken by a primitive layer of consciousness. Sociocultural degradation is expressed in the substitution of class thinking or the thinking of sustainable social groups with their certain value guidelines, primitivized consciousness of non-classical or non-group types of human communities. In these conditions, as a rule, the lower, lumpen strata of society, united in a crowd, are active. The “crowd effect” was also studied by Le Bon, Tarde and Siegele, who showed the primitive and even pathological level of the psyche of any crowd and mass. G. Tarde believed that a crowd is a negative and active cohesive set of individuals. In it, the individual’s critical attitude to reality and to current events is reduced. The crowd is charged primarily with destructive energy against someone; primitive reactions of imitation and mental infection predominate in it. This imitation reaction, as shown by B.F. Porshnev, is primarily characteristic of herd animals and represents an atavism in humans.
Not all cultural changes lead to a way out of cultural stagnation. Cultural dynamics is always a holistic, orderly process that has a directional character. It should not be confused with the concept of “cultural change,” which implies any transformation in culture. If we take the history of the development of society, then cultural dynamics can be implemented in the following main forms: progressive-linear and cyclic. Cyclic changes differ, for example, from evolutionary ones in that they are repeatable. If we study the cultural dynamics within society, we can talk about the emergence of cultural phenomena, their spread, and functioning.
^ 2. The word “dynamics” (from the gr. dinamie) is translated as force. In physics, this is a branch of mechanics where the movement of bodies under the influence of forces applied to them is studied. In cultural studies, cultural dynamics refers to changes that occur in culture under the influence of external and internal forces. The term "change" has many meanings. It implies any transformation that has occurred in a particular cultural system. Therefore, to assess the nature of the changes taking place, the term “development” is used. Cultural development is a change in the material and spiritual components of culture, as a result of which a change in composition or structure occurs, the emergence, transformation or disappearance of any cultural elements and connections, a transition to a new qualitative state. Cultural development is characterized by the simultaneous presence of three main properties of dynamics: irreversibility, directionality, regularity. Since reversibility characterizes cyclic processes, the reproduction of a constant system of functions, the lack of regularity is characteristic of random processes of a catastrophic type; in the absence of direction, changes cannot accumulate, and therefore the process of change is deprived of a single internally connected line characteristic of development.
Development includes both an ascending line - progress, and a descending line - regression. Progress (from Latin progressus - movement forward, success) is a type of directed development, characterized by a transition from lower to higher, from simple to complex, from less perfect to more perfect. In cultural studies, there are two main approaches to the problem of cultural progress.
The first approach is based on the evidence of changing stages in the development of culture, as an enrichment of its system of values, the development of all forms of human life. Within the framework of this approach, many forms and types of culture, with all their diversity, form single line spiritual and material production development of humanity and consider the progress of culture as an expression of the integrity of its nature and the unity of cultural diversity.
Another approach questions the existence of cultural progress as a progressive development unified culture, comes from the understanding of its various types as local, autonomous, having their own life cycle (O. Spengler, A. Toynbee, P. Sorokin), like different options cultural systems that are not reducible to each other. This, naturally, narrows the possibilities for comparing them, which significantly limits the understanding of progress within the framework of “one’s own culture”, the cyclical nature of its development, and mainly in the spiritual sphere.
It should also be noted that culture is a contradictory unity of preservation, reproduction and renewal, the development of its elements, properties and relationships. The state of peace and immutability of culture is expressed by the concept of “statics”; and those changes that occur in culture and in the interaction of different cultures are expressed by the concept of “dynamics”.
Therefore, culture contains both stable and changeable aspects. Stability, “inertia” in culture is, first of all, tradition.
Traditions are elements of cultural heritage (ideas, values, customs, rituals, ways of perceiving the world, etc.), which are preserved and passed on from generation to generation unchanged. Traditions exist in all forms of culture. We can talk about scientific, religious, moral, national, labor and other traditions. The system of traditions reflects the integrity, stability, and statics of the social organism. You cannot interfere in it roughly, “clumsily,” as this violates important mechanisms of culture. In particular, one should not “improve” spiritual life by completely destroying old spiritual values and historical memory. In this situation, the “innovator” will find himself in the role of Genghis Khan, who captured the agricultural region of Kang Su. His military leaders said they did not know what to do with the cultivated lands. The best thing to do, in their opinion, with the “fruits of victory” is to destroy the rural population, then the fields, left to their own devices, would again become a steppe, returning to the noble state of pasture. (Today such historical oblivion is demonstrated in relation to Soviet culture.)
Culture cannot exist without updating. Creativity and change are the other side of the development of society. Novation (from Latin novatio - renewal, change) is a way of renewing culture. The unity of tradition and renewal is a universal characteristic of any culture. Man is the subject of creative activity in culture. However, not every innovation becomes a fact of culture. Novelty for the sake of novelty does not contain real creative content and turns into meaningless antics. The creation of cultural values is always of a universally significant nature. A scientific discovery or a work of art must spread throughout society and gain feedback in the minds and hearts of people. Of course, we are not talking about momentary recognition. At one time, I. Severyanin, and not his contemporaries A. Blok or S. Yesenin, was proclaimed the “king of poets”. However, history has put everything in its place. Any innovation in culture that has deep content and value is tested by time and re-evaluated by each subsequent generation of people.
The different ratio of traditions and renewal, creativity in culture provides the basis for classifying societies into traditional and modern. In traditional societies, tradition dominates creativity. Cultural patterns are reproduced in their “primordial” form. Changes are made within the tradition in an unsystematic and random manner. Deviations from the norm are usually disapproved or denied. For example, in medieval society, the artist’s main task was to reflect what had already happened - sacred history, the history of Christ’s coming to earth, his torment and death to atone for the sins of the human race - what was recorded in the Bible. Thus, the model for the famous icon painting “Savior Not Made by Hands” (the image of the face of Christ) was the imprint of the Savior’s face on a towel described in the legend. What is important for the artist here is not self-expression of his creative self, but adherence to the traditional image - the canon. This explains the indifference of medieval masters to the problem of individual authorship, when entire pieces literary text(musical plays, operas, etc.) moved from work to work without any indication of the source of citation.
In modern society, the basic value is renewal and innovation. The principle of “prohibition of plagiarism” applies here. Every innovation - scientific, artistic, technological - has an individual author. Repetition and copying are valued very low by society. A true artist or scientist is always the creator of something new. Modern society is permeated by the race for novelty. This has a significant effect. Over the 300 years of its existence in countries affected by the scientific and technological revolution, experimental science has made it possible to increase the standard of living by 15-20 times. However, this race leads to the fact that social and cultural subsystems are subject to constant pressure, which gives rise to crisis phenomena. Therefore, stabilization and sustainable development are extremely relevant for modern society.
Stability is understood as the natural, normal development of society as opposed to instability, often identified with crisis. However, these concepts must be separated and distinguished from each other, since each of them has its own, specific content. One of the main features of stable and sustainable development of society is the absence of violence unauthorized by the state and the ability of the state and its bodies to quickly and effectively respond to social problems and suppress emerging pockets of illegitimate violence. In this way, society preserves itself.
There is a classification of forms of stability based on the methods of achieving it. Minimal and democratic stability are distinguished. Minimum stability can be achieved through total, coercive, violent methods of control, with the help of which the possibility of national and civil wars and armed conflicts is suppressed from above. Democratic stability is formed in a democratic society, in which the threat to stability is eliminated through the rapid response of democratic structures to the threat of illegitimate forms of violence. The constitutional order is one of the determining factors of stability. According to S. Huntington, stability is defined as “order plus continuity.” The legitimacy of the existing system largely depends on the level of political culture of the population, on the support of voters for a given system of power and the values it represents. At the same time, the activity and involvement of the population in political process, the importance of public opinion are necessary conditions for stability within a democracy. Sociocultural institutions function in a stable manner if they are based on the same values and attitudes that dominate the family, the education system, and everyday life. In addition, the most important feature of a stable society is certain behavior patterns that have the status of psychological habits and social standards.
The concept of instability is associated with non-compliance with the conditions and violation of the parameters discussed above. An unstable society cannot cope with the changes and innovations that inevitably arise in the development of its culture. In particular, in modern Russia the main reason for instability (according to A. Flier) is the lack of conditions and cultural skills for the equal participation of all citizens in free social competition in the labor and capital markets, which leads to the depreciation of cultural norms and values that ensure the sustainable development of the country .
Thus, the question of cultural progress is a question of the continuity of the elements and values of culture in the progressive historical development of society, in the relationship of various historical eras and periods of human development, individual countries, peoples and communities.
The identification of the unity and integrity of culture, which is a way of organizing human activity in the process of its progressive transformation, the continuity of its enduring values at various stages of the development of society, can be carried out through understanding the essential generic characteristics associated with the practical-transformative attitude of man to the world around him, the boundlessness of his cognitive and practical possibilities, his ability to act according to the logic of all things and objects.
Therefore, the most important essential generic characteristic of a person is his potential universality, infinity and universality. Of course, in each specific historical period, man is limited by the entire totality of natural and social conditions. However, the place and role of man in knowledge and practice are determined by his essential generic universality and generality.
mentality cultural conflict archetype
Culture is a product of the joint life activity of people, it is a system of agreed upon ways of their collective coexistence, ordered norms and rules. This system is formed as a result of long-term joint residence of people in a certain territory, their economic activity, defense from external enemies. All this forms a common understanding of the world among people, single image life, manner of communication, specifics of clothing, features of cooking, etc.
But every ethnic culture is not a mechanical sum of all acts of life of people of the corresponding ethnic group. Its core is a “set of rules” that developed in the process of their collective coexistence. Unlike biological properties In humans, these “rules of the game” are not inherited genetically, but are acquired only through training. For this reason, a single universal culture that unites all people on Earth is impossible.
Already ancient thinkers (Herodotus, Thucydides), who dealt with historical descriptions, noticed that each culture has specific features that distinguish it from the cultures of other peoples. Growing up in specific living conditions (geographical, historical, technological, everyday, etc.), a culture unfolds its history, develops its own language, and forms its own worldview. The entire richness of the existence of a culture, the entire integrity of the existence of a people determines the way of understanding the world and being in it. The result of this specific vision of the world in which man lives is the cultural picture of the world.
The cultural picture of the world is a set of rational knowledge and ideas about values, norms, morals, mentality own culture and cultures of other peoples, a system of images, ideas, knowledge about the structure of the world and man’s place in it.
The cultural picture of the world finds its expression in in different ways to cultural phenomena, includes ideas about the individual, his relationship to society, about freedom, equality, honor, good and evil, about law and labor, about family and sexual relations, about the course of history and the value of time, about the relationship between new and old, about death and the soul. The cultural picture of the world is passed on from generation to generation, transformed during the development of society, it is inexhaustible in content and serves as the basis for human behavior.
The cultural characteristics of a particular people may manifest themselves in various aspects human life: in the satisfaction of biological, material or spiritual needs, in natural habits of behavior, types of clothing and housing, types of tools, methods of labor operations, etc.
The cultural picture is formed depending on the meaning of the world for the person living in it. And a person satisfies even the most primitive needs and impulses in life in a strictly defined way.
Serious cultural differences different nations observed in the processes of eating, its quantity, behavior at the table, forms of showing attention to the guest, etc. When satisfying hunger or thirst, a person follows established traditions characteristic of his culture: he uses certain utensils, certain cooking procedures and eating rituals. The meal thus acquires a special ritual and symbolic meaning for a person.
Thus, Russians, according to tradition, immediately lead the invited guest to the table, which surprises Americans, since their dinner is usually preceded by socialite talk with a glass of wine and light snacks. At the table, Russians place each guest on a plate with a variety of appetizers and main dishes, while in the United States, dishes are passed around so that each guest can put the right amount of food on their plate. Russian housewives are trying hard to feed the guest, which is unusual for Americans, since this is not accepted in their culture.
All life manifestations of a person as a subject of a certain culture are fixed by certain rites, rituals, norms, rules, which are significant components of culture that regulate the temporal and spatial processes of human life.
Often peoples living in similar geographical conditions and next door to each other, they build houses in different ways. Russian northerners traditionally place their houses facing the street, while Russian southerners place their homes along the street. Balkars, Ossetians, and Karachais have lived in the Caucasus as neighbors for many centuries. However, the first build one-story stone houses, the second two-story, and the third - wooden houses.
Human life is inexhaustibly rich, diverse and multi-layered. Some of its moments, especially those associated with primary sensations, the first attempts of the emerging humanity to realize themselves in this world, are not subject to rational control and arise unconsciously. Therefore, the concept of “cultural picture of the world” is used in the broad and narrow sense of the word.
In a narrow sense, the cultural picture of the world usually includes primary intuitions, national archetypes, figurative structures, ways of perceiving time and space, “self-evident” but unproven statements, and extra-scientific knowledge. In a broad sense, along with the listed elements, scientific knowledge is also included in the cultural picture of the world.
The cultural picture of the world is specific and differs among different peoples. This is due to a number of factors: geography, climate, natural conditions, history, social structure, beliefs, traditions, way of life, etc. In addition, each historical era has its own picture of the world, and they are all different from one another.
At the same time, it is possible to identify a universal picture of the world, characteristic of all humanity, although it will be too abstract. So, for all people, apparently, a binary opposition of white and black is characteristic, but for some groups white will correspond to the positive principle - life, and black - to the negative principle - death, and for others, for example, the Chinese, vice versa. Any nation will have its own idea of good and evil, norms and values, but each nation will have different ideas.
Each person will also have their own picture of the world, and it will depend primarily on their character: for a sanguine person it is one, for a phlegmatic person it is completely different.
It should also be borne in mind that the picture of the world depends on the language spoken by its speakers, and, conversely, the main points of the picture of the world are always fixed in the language. Of course, the cultural picture of the world is fuller, deeper and richer than the linguistic picture of the world. In addition, the cultural picture of the world is primary in relation to the linguistic one, but it is in language that the cultural picture of the world is verbalized, realized, stored and passed on from generation to generation. Language is capable of describing everything that is in the cultural picture of the world: features of geography, climate, history, living conditions, etc.
Here is a typical example from the field of language interaction. How in different languages are the colors indicated? It is known that the retina human eye, with the exception of individual pathological deviations, fixes color in exactly the same way, regardless of whose eye perceives the color - an Arab, a Jew, a Chukchi, a Russian, a Chinese or a German. But each language has established its own color system, and these systems often differ from each other. For example, in the Eskimo language there are 14-20 (according to various sources) synonyms for the word white to denote different shades and types of snow. A person speaking English does not distinguish between the colors blue and blue, unlike a person speaking Russian, and sees only blue.
But such differences, naturally, concern not only the color scheme, but also other objects and phenomena of the surrounding reality. In Arabic, there are several designations for the word camel: there are separate names for a tired camel, a pregnant camel, etc.
Language imposes a certain vision of the world on a person. When mastering their native language, an English-speaking child sees two objects: foot and leg, where a Russian-speaking child sees only one - a leg.
In Russian, quite obvious reasons, there is a blizzard, a blizzard, a blizzard, a blizzard, a blizzard, and drifting snow, and all this is associated with snow and winter, and in English this diversity is expressed by the word snowstorm, which is quite sufficient to describe all snow manifestations in the English-speaking world .
Almost every culture has similar examples. Thus, in the Hindi language there are numerous names for a certain type of nut. This is explained by the role that general culture and subcultures of the Hindustan Peninsula, the fruits of the areca palm (Areca catechu) and hard nuts “supari” are played.
India annually consumes more than 200 thousand tons of such nuts: areca palms grow in a hot, humid climate, primarily along the Arabian Sea, in the Konkan. The fruits are collected unripe, ripe and overripe; they are dried in the sun, in the shade or in the wind; boiled in milk, water or fried in oil squeezed from other nuts - a change in technology entails an immediate change in taste, and each new option has its own name and has its own purpose. Among Hindu rituals - regular, calendar and extraordinary - there is no such thing where one could do without the fruits of the areca palm.”
The existence of a very close connection and interdependence between a language and its speakers is beyond doubt. Language is inextricably linked with the life and development of the speech community that uses it as a means of communication.
The social nature of a language is manifested both in the external conditions of its functioning in a given society, and in the very structure of the language, in its syntax and grammar. Between language and the real world stands man. It is man who perceives and comprehends the world with the help of his senses and, on this basis, creates a system of ideas about the world. Having passed them through his consciousness, having comprehended the results of this perception, he transmits them to other members of his speech community using language.
Language as a way to express a thought and transmit it from person to person is closely connected with thinking. The path from the real world to the concept and further to verbal expression is not the same for different peoples, which is due to differences in history, geography, the peculiarities of life of these peoples and, accordingly, differences in the development of their social consciousness. Since our consciousness is determined both collectively (by way of life, customs, traditions, etc.) and individually (by the specific perception of the world characteristic of this particular individual), language reflects reality not directly, but through two zigzags: from the real world to thinking and from thinking to language. The cultural and linguistic pictures of the world are closely interconnected, are in a state of continuous interaction and go back to the real picture of the world, or rather, simply to real world, surrounding a person.
But language is not the only component of the cultural picture of the world; it is also formed from thematically understandable, conscious and undoubted contents of artifacts and unconscious meanings and personal meanings, as well as experiences, experiences, and assessments. As a result, from a content-thematic point of view, scientific, aesthetic, religious, ethical, legal and other similar pictures of the world are usually distinguished; from this position, the picture of the world is reduced to a set of information and data. The appearance of these paintings is preceded by the appearance of another picture of the world - a picture of intuitive ideas, meanings and meanings as an expression of the characteristics of the life of a given culture. Moreover, each meaning always represents in a special way the universality of the world in which people live.
The development of connections between cultures leads to the disappearance of the unique characteristics of each of them. So, in the 20th century. peoples and countries begin to unify in everyday life and in thinking. This is especially clearly evidenced by the processes of computerization, which subordinate the logic of thinking of those who work with the computer to a single algorithm. And yet, at the core of every culture, what is preserved is what is “crystallized” under the influence of the country’s nature, its climate, landscapes, food, ethnic type, language, memory of its history and culture. Thus, the cultural picture of the world retains its uniqueness in the processes of universalization of culture.
