Culture definition for children. What is culture? Briefly about the main thing

I was unlucky: my mother and grandfather worked in education. Therefore, comments rained down on me every day. Imagine how difficult it was for the child adapt to society, where a different pattern of behavior was in effect. Therefore, I grew up an uptight person, but a cultured one.

Modern youth- another. They give in to their inner call. And the remark: “how uncultured you are” means nothing to them. Today, I will focus on cultural values, and I will reveal the meaning of the most complex concept. What can you do for the bright future of the younger generation?

What is culture: shedding light

Culture - difficult a term that has several definitions. This concept refers to human activity associated with self-expression, self-development, self-knowledge. Understanding a difficult word « culture » have been trying for centuries. After controversy and observations, it was possible to classify the culture.

There are:

Material culture. Expressed in material manifestations. These can be interior items, clothing, accessories that a person buys. It is believed that this form culture demonstrates the everyday side of life.

Artistic culture. Creative activity a person, in the process of which something new is born (painting, book, poem, design project of a room, lyrics of a song).

Spiritual culture. The most complex form of culture, which includes norms of human behavior, spiritual development, intelligence, morality

Physical culture. Covers human activities aimed at caring for appearance, physical exercise, maintaining health.

Lack of culture

An uncultured person is easy to spot even in a crowd. The warning signs are illiterate speech, addressing “you”(to a stranger), obscene language. You can establish a lack of spiritual values by asking a person several provocative questions. Table etiquette will clearly demonstrate a person's culture.

I do not advise you to make hasty conclusions. Because culture is formed over the years. It's never too late start reading books, visiting exhibitions and talk about “high”.

this is the entire aggregate way of life characteristic of a certain group, which accumulates everything that people, as members of a given society, do, think, and everything they possess (patterns of action, thoughts, material support)

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Culture

specific method organization and development human life, represented in the products of material and spiritual production, in the system of social norms and institutions, in spiritual values, in the totality of people’s relationships to nature, among themselves and to themselves. First of all, it is embodied in K. general difference human activity from biological life forms. Human behavior is determined not so much by nature as by upbringing, K. Man differs from animals in his ability to collectively create and transmit symbolic meanings- signs, language. Outside of symbolic, cultural meanings (designations), not a single object can be included in the human world, just as not a single object can be created without a preliminary “project” in a person’s head. The human world is a culturally constructed world; all boundaries in it are of a sociocultural nature. Outside the system of cultural meanings, there is no difference between king and courtier, saint and sinner, beauty and ugliness. The main function of society is the introduction and maintenance of a certain social order. There are material and spiritual K. Material K. includes all spheres of material activity and its results. This includes equipment, housing, clothing, consumer goods, methods of nutrition and settlement, etc., which together constitute a certain image life. Spiritual culture includes all spheres of spiritual activity and its products: knowledge, education, enlightenment, law, philosophy, science, art, religion, etc. Spiritual culture is also embodied in material media (books, paintings, diskettes, etc. .). Therefore, the division of K. into spiritual and material is very conditional. K. reflects the qualitative originality of historically specific forms of human life at various stages of historical development, within different eras, socio-economic formations, ethnic, national and other communities. K. characterizes the characteristics of people’s activities in specific public spheres(political K., economic K., K. labor and life, K. entrepreneurship, etc.), as well as features of the life of social groups (class, youth, etc.). At the same time there are cultural universals- some common to everything cultural heritage elements of humanity (age gradation, division of labor, education, family, calendar, decorative arts, interpretation of dreams, etiquette, etc.). The modern meaning of the term "K." acquired only in the 20th century. Initially (in Ancient Rome, where this word came from) this term meant cultivation, “cultivation” of the soil. In the 18th century the term acquired an elitist character and meant civilization opposed to barbarism. However, in Germany in the 18th century. Culture and civilization were opposed to each other: as the focus of spiritual, moral and aesthetic values, the sphere of individual perfection (C.) - and as something utilitarian, “technical,” material, standardizing human culture and consciousness, threatening the spiritual world of man (civilization ). This opposition formed the basis of the concept of cultural pessimism, or criticism of culture, in fact, criticism of modernity, allegedly leading to the collapse and death of culture (F. Tönnies, F. Nietzsche, O. Spengler, G. Marcuse, etc.). In modern science, the term “civilization” remains ambiguous. The term "K." has lost its former elitist (and generally any evaluative) connotation. From the point of view of modern sociologists, any society develops a specific culture, because it can only exist as a sociocultural community. That is why the historical development of a particular society (country) is a unique sociocultural process that cannot be understood and described using any general schemes. Therefore, any social changes can only be carried out as sociocultural changes, which seriously limits the possibilities of direct foreign borrowing cultural forms- economic, political, educational, etc. In a different sociocultural environment they can acquire (and inevitably acquire) a completely different content and meaning. To analyze cultural dynamics, two main theoretical models have been developed - evolutionary (linear) and cyclical. Evolutionism, whose origins were G. Spencer, E. Taylor, J. Fraser, L. Morgan, was based on the idea of the unity of the human race and the uniformity of development K. Process cultural development seemed linear, general in content, passing general stages. Therefore, it seemed possible to compare different cultures as more or less developed, and to identify “standard” cultures (Eurocentrism and later Americanocentrism). Cyclic theories represent cultural dynamics as a sequence of certain phases (stages) of change and development of culture, which naturally follow one after another (by analogy with human life - birth, childhood, etc.), each culture is considered as unique. Some of them have already completed their cycle, others exist, being at different phases of development. Therefore, one cannot talk about a general, universal history of mankind; one cannot compare and evaluate K. as primitive or highly developed - they are simply different. In modern science, the founder of cyclic theories that arose in antiquity was N. Danilevsky (“Russia and Europe”, 1871). He was followed by O. Spengler, A. Toynbee, P. Sorokin, L. Gumilyov and others. Both evolutionary and cyclic theories emphasize and absolutize only one of the aspects of the real process of cultural dynamics and cannot give its exhaustive description. Modern science offers fundamentally new approaches (for example, the wave theory of quantum waves put forward by O. Toffler). Now humanity is experiencing perhaps the most profound technological, social and cultural transformation in terms of content and global in scope. And it was K. who found herself at the center of this process. Emerges in principle new type K. - K. post-industrial, information society (see Postmodernism).

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What is Culture? Meaning and interpretation of the word kultura, definition of the term

1) Culture- (from lat. cultura - cultivation, upbringing, education, development, veneration) - English. culture; German Kultur. 1. A set of material and spiritual values, expressing a certain level of history. development of a given society and person. 2. The sphere of spiritual life of society, including the system of education, upbringing, and spiritual creativity. 3. Level of mastery of a particular area of knowledge or activity. 4. Forms of social human behavior determined by the level of his upbringing and education.

2) Culture- (from Lat. cultura - cultivation, upbringing, education, development, veneration) - specific. way of organizing and developing people. life activity, presented in the products of material and spiritual labor, in the social system. norms and institutions, in spiritual values, in the totality of people’s relationships to nature, among themselves and to themselves. In the concept of K. it is fixed as a general difference between people. life activity from biological forms of life, as well as the qualitative originality of historically specific forms of this life activity in various ways. stages of societies. development, within certain eras, social-economic. formations, ethnic. and national communities (for example, ancient K, K. Maya, etc.). K. also characterizes the characteristics of behavior, consciousness and activity of people in specific spheres of societies. life (K. labor, K. everyday life, artistic K., political. m In K. the way of life of an individual (personal K.), social group (for example, K. class) or the entire society as a whole can be recorded Lit.: Self-awareness European culture XX century. M., 1991; Culture: theories and problems. M., 1995; Morphology of culture: structure and dynamics. M., 1994; Gurevich P.S. Culturology. M, 1996; Culturology. XX century Anthology. M., 1995. V.M. Mezhuev.

3) Culture- - a set of traditions, customs, social norms, rules governing the behavior of those who live now and transmitted to those who will live tomorrow.

4) Culture- - a system of values, life ideas, patterns of behavior, norms, a set of methods and techniques of human activity, objectified in objective, material media (tools, signs) and transmitted to subsequent generations.

5) Culture- - some complex whole, including spiritual and material products that are produced, socially assimilated and shared by members of society and can be transmitted to other people or subsequent generations.

6) Culture - - a specific way of organizing and developing human life, presented in the products of material and spiritual production, in the system of social norms and institutions, in spiritual values, in the totality of people’s relationships to nature, among themselves and to themselves. Culture embodies, first of all, the general difference between human life and biological forms of life. Human behavior is determined not so much by nature as by upbringing and culture. Man differs from other animals in his ability to collectively create and transmit symbolic meanings - signs, language. Outside of symbolic, cultural meanings (designations), not a single object can be included in the human world. In the same way, no object can be created without a preliminary “design” in a person’s head. The human world is a culturally constructed world; all boundaries in it are of a sociocultural nature. Outside the system of cultural meanings, there is no difference between king and courtier, saint and sinner, beauty and ugliness. The main function of culture is the introduction and maintenance of a certain social order. They distinguish between material and spiritual culture. Material culture includes all areas of material activity and its results. It includes equipment, housing, clothing, consumer goods, a way of eating and living, etc., which together constitute a certain way of life. Spiritual culture includes all spheres of spiritual activity and its products - knowledge, education, enlightenment, law, philosophy, science, art, religion, etc. Outside of spiritual culture, culture does not exist at all, just as not a single type of human activity exists. Spiritual culture is also embodied in material media (books, paintings, diskettes, etc.). Therefore, the division of culture into spiritual and material is very arbitrary. Culture reflects the qualitative originality of historically specific forms of human life at various stages of historical development, within different eras, socio-economic formations, ethnic, national and other communities. Culture characterizes the characteristics of people’s activities in specific social spheres (political culture, economic culture, culture of work and life, culture of entrepreneurship, etc.), as well as the characteristics of the life of social groups (class, youth, etc.). At the same time, there are cultural universals - certain elements common to the entire cultural heritage of mankind (age gradation, division of labor, education, family, calendar, decorative arts, dream interpretation, etiquette, etc. ). J. Murdoch identified more than 70 such universals. The term “culture” acquired its modern meaning only in the 20th century. Initially (in Ancient Rome, where this word came from), this word meant cultivation, “cultivation” of the soil. In the 18th century, the term acquired an elitist character and meant civilization opposed to barbarism. However, in Germany in the 18th century, culture and civilization were opposed to each other - as the focus of spiritual, moral and aesthetic values, the sphere of individual perfection (culture) and as something utilitarian-external, “technical,” material, standardizing human culture and consciousness, threatening the spiritual world human (civilization). This opposition formed the basis of the concept of cultural pessimism, or criticism of culture, in fact, criticism of modernity, allegedly leading to the collapse and death of culture (F. Tennis, F. Nietzsche, O. Spengler, G. Marcuse, etc.). In modern science, the term “civilization” remains ambiguous. The term “culture” has lost its former elitist (and generally any evaluative) connotation. From the point of view of modern sociologists, any society develops a specific culture, because it can only exist as a sociocultural community. That is why the historical development of a particular society (country) is a unique sociocultural process that cannot be understood and described using any general schemes. Therefore, any social changes can only be carried out as sociocultural changes, which seriously limits the possibilities of direct borrowing of foreign cultural forms - economic, political, educational, etc. In a different sociocultural environment, they can acquire (and inevitably acquire) completely different content and meaning. To analyze cultural dynamics, two main theoretical models have been developed - evolutionary (linear) and cyclical. Evolutionism, whose origins were G. Spencer, E. Taylor, J. Fraser, L. Morgan, was based on the idea of the unity of the human race and the uniformity of cultural development. The process of cultural development was presented as linear, general in content, passing through general stages. Therefore, it seemed possible to compare different cultures as more or less developed, and the identification of “standard” cultures (Eurocentrism and later American centrism). Cyclic theories represent cultural dynamics as a sequence of certain phases (stages) of change and development of cultures, which naturally follow one another (by analogy with human life - birth, childhood, etc.), each culture is considered as unique. Some of them have already completed their cycle, others exist, being at different phases of development. Therefore, we cannot talk about a common, universal history of humanity; we cannot compare and evaluate cultures as primitive or highly developed - they are simply different. In modern science, the founder of cyclic theories that arose in antiquity was N.Ya. Danilevsky (“Russia and Europe,” 1871). He was followed by O. Spengler, A. Toynbee, P. Sorokin, L. Gumilyov and others. Both evolutionary and cyclic theories emphasize and absolutize only one side of the real process of cultural dynamics and cannot give its exhaustive description. Modern science offers fundamentally new approaches (for example, the wave theory of culture put forward by O. Toffler). Now humanity is experiencing perhaps the most profound technological, social and cultural transformation in terms of content and global in scope. And it was culture that was at the center of this process. A fundamentally new type of culture is emerging – the culture of a post-industrial, information society. (See postmodernism).

7) Culture- - a system of specifically human activities that create spiritual and material values, and the resulting set of socially significant ideas, symbols, values, ideals, norms and rules of behavior through which people organize their life activities.

8) Culture- - a system of values, life ideas, patterns of behavior, norms, a set of methods and techniques of human activity, objectified in objective, material media (tools, signs) and transmitted to subsequent generations.

9) Culture- (Latin cultura - cultivation, upbringing, education) - a system of historically developing supra-biological programs of human activity, behavior and communication, which act as a condition for the reproduction and change of social life in all its main manifestations. The programs of activity, behavior and communication that make up the K. corpus are represented by diversity various forms: knowledge, skills, norms and ideals, patterns of activity and behavior, ideas and hypotheses, beliefs, social goals and value orientations etc. In their totality and dynamics, they form a historically accumulated social experience. Communication stores, transmits (transmits from generation to generation) and generates programs for the activities, behavior and communication of people. In the life of society, they play approximately the same role as hereditary information (DNA, RNA) in a cell or complex organism; they ensure the reproduction of the diversity of forms of social life, types of activities characteristic of a certain type of society, its inherent objective environment (second nature), its social connections and types of personalities - everything that makes up the real fabric of social life at a certain stage of its historical development. The concept of "K." developed historically. It initially denoted the processes of human development of nature (cultivation of the land, handicraft products), as well as education and training. The term became widely used in European philosophy and historical science starting from the second half of the 18th century. K. begins to be considered as a special aspect of social life, associated with the way human activity is carried out and characterizing the difference human existence from animal existence. Several lines emerge in the development of the problem of culture. In the first of them, culture was considered as a development process human mind and intelligent forms of life, opposing the savagery and barbarism of the primitive existence of mankind (French enlighteners); as the historical development of human spirituality - the evolution of moral, aesthetic, religious, philosophical, scientific, legal and political consciousness, ensuring the progress of humanity (German classical idealism - Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel; German romanticism - Schiller, Schlegel; German enlightenment - Lessing, Herder). The second line focused attention not on the progressive historical development of society, but on its features in various types of society, considering various societies as autonomous systems of values and ideas that determine the type of social organization (neo-Kantianism - G. Rickert, E. Cassirer). O. Spengler, N. Danilevsky, Sorokin, Toynbee adjoined the same line. At the same time, the understanding of culture was expanded by including in it the entire wealth of material culture, ethnic customs, diversity of languages and symbolic systems. At the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th century. When studying cultural issues, the achievements of anthropology, ethnology, structural linguistics, semiotics and information theory began to be actively used (cultural anthropology - Taylor, Boas; social anthropology - Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown; structural anthropology and structuralism - Lévi-Strauss, Foucault, Lacan; neo-Freudianism, etc.). As a result, new prerequisites for solving the problem of society and society arose. On the one hand, society and society are not identical, and on the other hand, society permeates all areas and states of social life without exception. The problem is solved if K. is considered as an informational aspect of the life of society, as socially significant information that regulates the activities, behavior and communication of people. This information, acting as a cumulative historically developing social experience, can be partially recognized by people, but very often it functions as the social subconscious. Its transmission from generation to generation is possible only due to its consolidation in a sign form as the content of various semiotic systems. K. exists as a complex organization of such systems. Their role can be played by any fragments of the human world that acquire the function of signs that record programs of activity, behavior and communication: a person and his actions and deeds when they become models for other people, natural language, various types of artificial languages (the language of science, the language arts, conventional systems of signals and symbols that provide communication, etc.). Objects of second nature created by man can also function as special signs that consolidate accumulated social experience, expressing a certain way of behavior and activity of people in objective world. In this sense, they sometimes talk about tools, technology, and household items as material culture, contrasting them with the phenomena of spiritual culture (works of art, philosophical, ethical, political teachings, scientific knowledge, religious ideas, etc.). However, this opposition is relative, since any phenomena of K. are semiotic formations. Material objects play a dual role in human life: on the one hand, they serve practical purposes, and on the other, they act as means of storing and transmitting socially significant information. Only in their second function do they act as phenomena of K. (Yu. Lotman). Programs of activities, behavior and communication, represented by diversity cultural phenomena, have a complex hierarchical organization. They can be divided into three levels. The first is relict programs, fragments of past K., which live in the modern world, exerting a certain impact on people. People often unconsciously act in accordance with behavioral programs that were formed in the primitive era and which have lost their value as a regulator that ensures the success of practical actions. This includes many superstitions, such as the omens among Russian Pomors that sexual intercourse before going fishing can make it unsuccessful (a remnant of a taboo primitive era that actually regulated sexual relations primitive community during the period of the group family, thus eliminating clashes based on jealousy in the community that disrupted joint production activities). The second level is a layer of programs of behavior, activity, and communication that ensure the current reproduction of a particular type of society. And finally, the third level of cultural phenomena is formed by programs of social life addressed to the future. They are generated by K. through internal operation of sign systems. Theoretical knowledge developed in science, causing a revolution in the technology of subsequent eras; ideals of the future social order that have not yet become the dominant ideology; new moral principles, developed in the field of philosophical and ethical teachings and often ahead of their time - all these are examples of programs for future activities, a prerequisite for changes existing forms social life. How more dynamic society, the more valuable this level of cultural creativity, addressed to the future, acquires. IN modern societies its dynamics are largely ensured by the activities of a special social stratum of people - the creative intelligentsia, which, according to its social purpose, must constantly generate cultural innovation. The diversity of cultural phenomena at all levels, despite their dynamism and relative independence, are organized into an integral system. Their system-forming factor is the ultimate foundations of each historically defined culture. They are represented by worldview universals (categories of culture), which in their interaction and cohesion define a holistic, generalized image of the human world. Worldview universals are categories that accumulate historically accumulated social experience and in the system of which a person of a certain K. evaluates, comprehends and experiences the world, brings into integrity all the phenomena of reality that fall within the sphere of his experience. Categorical structures that provide rubrication and systematization of human experience have been studied by philosophy for a long time. But she explores them in a specific form, as extremely general concepts. In real life, however, they act not only as forms of rational thinking, but also as schematisms that determine human perception of the world, its understanding and experience. We can distinguish two large and interconnected blocks of K universals. The first include categories that capture the most general, attributive characteristics of objects included in human activity. They act as basic structures human consciousness and wear universal character, since any objects (natural and social), including symbolic objects of thinking, can become objects of activity. Their attributive characteristics are fixed in the categories of space, time, movement, thing, relationship, quantity, quality, measure, content, causality, chance, necessity, etc. But besides them, in the historical development of culture, special types of categories are formed and function, through which the definitions of a person as a subject of activity, the structure of his communication, his relationship to other people and society as a whole, to the goals and values of social life are expressed. They form the second block of universals of culture, which includes the categories: “man”, “society”, “consciousness”, “good”, “evil”, “beauty”, “faith”, “hope”, “duty”, “ conscience", "justice", "freedom", etc. These categories are recorded in the most general form historically accumulated experience of an individual’s inclusion in the system of social relations and communications. There is always a mutual correlation between the indicated blocks of K. universals, which expresses the connections between subject-object and subject-subject relations of human life. Therefore, K. universals arise, develop and function as complete system, where each element is directly or indirectly related to others. In the system of universals K. are most expressed general ideas about the main components and aspects of human life, about the place of man in the world, about social relations, spiritual life and values of the human world, about the nature and organization of its objects, etc. They act as a kind of deep programs that predetermine the coupling, reproduction and variations of the entire variety of specific forms and types of behavior and activities characteristic of a certain type of social organization. In ideological universals of philosophy, one can distinguish a unique invariant, some abstractly universal content, characteristic of various types of philosophy and forming the deep structures of human consciousness. But this layer of content does not exist in pure form by myself. It is always connected with specific meanings inherent in culture of a historically specific type of society, which express the peculiarities of the ways of communication and activity of people, the storage and transmission of social experience, and the scale of values adopted in a given culture. It is these meanings that characterize national and ethnic characteristics each K., its characteristic understanding of space and time, good and evil, life and death, attitude to nature, work, personality, etc. They determine the specifics of not only distant but also related cultures - for example, the difference between Japanese and Chinese, American from English, Belarusian from Russian and Ukrainian, etc. In turn, what is historically special in the universals of culture is always concretized in the huge variety of group and individual worldviews and world experiences. For a person formed by the corresponding K., the meanings of its worldview universals most often appear as something self-evident, as presumptions in accordance with which he builds his life activity and which he often does not recognize as its deep foundations. The meanings of the universals of culture, which form a categorical model of the world in their connections, are found in all areas of culture of one or another historical type in everyday language, phenomena of moral consciousness, philosophy, religion, artistic exploration of the world, the functioning of technology, political culture, etc. .P. Resonance various fields K. during the period of the formation of new ideas that have ideological meaning, was noted by philosophers, cultural scientists, historians when analyzing in a synchronous cross-section the various stages of the development of science, art, political and moral consciousness, etc. (Spengler, Cassirer, Toynbee, Losev, Bakhtin). It is possible, for example, to establish a peculiar resonance between the ideas of the theory of relativity in science and the ideas of the linguistic avant-garde of the 1870-1880s (J. Winteler and others), the formation of a new artistic concept of the world in impressionism and post-impressionism, new to literature last third 19th century ways of describing and understanding human situations (for example, in the works of Dostoevsky), when the author’s consciousness, his spiritual world and his worldview concept do not stand above the spiritual worlds of his heroes, as if describing them from the outside from an absolute coordinate system, but coexist with these worlds and enter into an equal dialogue with them. The transformation of society and the type of civilizational development always presupposes a change in the deepest life meanings and values enshrined in the universals of culture. The reorganization of societies is always associated with a revolution in minds, with criticism of previously dominant ideological orientations and the development of new values. No major ones social change are impossible without changes in K. As a social individual, a person is a creation of K. He becomes a person only through the assimilation of the social experience transmitted in K. The process of such assimilation itself is carried out as socialization, training and education. In this process, there is a complex joining of biological programs that characterize his individual heredity, and supra-biological programs of communication, behavior and activity, which constitute a kind of social heredity. By engaging in activities, thanks to the assimilation of these programs, a person is able to invent new patterns, norms, ideas, beliefs, etc., which may correspond to social needs. In this case, they become involved in K. and begin to program the activities of other people. Individual experience turns into social experience, and new states and phenomena appear in culture that consolidate this experience. Any changes in K. arise only due to the creative activity of the individual. Man, being the creation of K., at the same time is also its creator. See also: Categories of culture. V.S. Stepin

10) Culture- (culture) - human creation and the use of symbols, crafts. Culture can be understood as the "life path" of an entire society, and this will include norms of customs, dress, language, rituals, behavior and belief systems. Sociologists emphasize that human behavior is primarily the result not so much of nature (biological determinants) as of nurture (social determinants) (see The nature-nurture debate). Indeed, what distinguishes its being from other animals is its ability to collectively create and communicate symbolic meanings (see Language). Knowledge of culture is acquired through a complex process that is essentially social in origin. People act on the basis of culture and are influenced by it back, and also give rise to its new forms and meanings. Therefore, cultures are characterized historical character, relativity and diversity (see Cultural relativism). They are affected by changes in the economic, social and political organization of society. In addition, people are culturally transformed due to the unique ability to be reflective (see Reflexivity). In many societies there is a belief that culture and nature are in conflict with each other; that the former must strive to conquer the latter through the process of civilization. This idea can be found in the natural scientific traditions of Western societies, as well as in the theory of Freud, who sees culture emerging beyond the containment and sublimation of the motives of human behavior (Eros and Thanatos). Many, however, regard this relationship not as a contradiction, but as a complement. In feminist works recent years it is suggested that belief systems that advocate an antagonistic relationship between nature and culture have proven to be environmentally destructive. After all, humans are nature and have nature consciousness (Griffin, 1982). They are not only capable of creating cultural forms and, in turn, being maintained by those forms, but also theorizing about culture itself. In many sociological approaches there were hidden ideas about the relative merits of certain life paths and cultural forms. For example, cultural theorists both within and outside their discipline have made distinctions between “higher” and “lower” cultures, popular culture, and popular and mass culture. The latter concept has been used by both radical and conservative critics to express dissatisfaction with the current state of art, literature, language and culture in general. With very different political ideologies, both groups argue that 20th-century culture has become impoverished and weakened. The place of an independent, knowledgeable and critical public has been replaced by an unstructured and largely indifferent mass. Radical theorists see a threat to the quality of culture not from this mass, but from the aforementioned public. This is most clearly expressed in the definition of the “capitalist cultural industry” of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, because capitalist means mass media have the ability to control the tastes, shortcomings and needs of the masses. However, conservative and elitist cultural theorists, led by Ortega y Gasset (1930) and T.S. Eliot (1948), take the opposite view: through increasing power, the masses endanger the culturally creative elites. Human behavior virtually cannot exist outside the influence of culture. What initially seems to be a natural feature of our lives - sexuality, aging, death - has been made significant by culture and its transformative influence. Even food consumption, while apparently natural, is imbued with cultural meaning and customs. See also Anthropology; Mass society; Subculture.

Culture

(from lat. cultura - cultivation, upbringing, education, development, veneration) - English. culture; German Kultur. 1. A set of material and spiritual values, expressing a certain level of history. development of a given society and person. 2. The sphere of spiritual life of society, including the system of education, upbringing, and spiritual creativity. 3. Level of mastery of a particular area of knowledge or activity. 4. Forms of social human behavior determined by the level of his upbringing and education.

(from lat. cultura - cultivation, upbringing, education, development, veneration) - specific. way of organizing and developing people. life activity, presented in the products of material and spiritual labor, in the social system. norms and institutions, in spiritual values, in the totality of people’s relationships to nature, among themselves and to themselves. In the concept of K. it is fixed as a general difference between people. life activity from biological forms of life, as well as the qualitative originality of historically specific forms of this life activity in various ways. stages of societies. development, within certain eras, social-economic. formations, ethnic. and national communities (for example, ancient K, K. Maya, etc.). K. also characterizes the characteristics of behavior, consciousness and activity of people in specific spheres of societies. life (K. labor, K. everyday life, artistic K., political. m In K. the way of life of an individual (personal K.), social group (for example, K. class) or the entire society as a whole can be recorded Lit.: Self-awareness of European culture of the twentieth century. M., 1991; Culture: theories and problems. M., 1995; Morphology of culture: structure and dynamics. M., 1994; Gurevich P.S. Culturology. M., 1996; Culturology XX century. Anthology. M., 1995. V. M. Mezhuev.

A set of traditions, customs, social norms, rules governing the behavior of those who live now and transmitted to those who will live tomorrow.

A system of values, life ideas, patterns of behavior, norms, a set of methods and techniques of human activity, objectified in objective, material media (tools, signs) and passed on to subsequent generations.

Some complex whole that includes spiritual and material products that are produced, socially learned and shared by members of society and can be transmitted to other people or subsequent generations.

- a specific way of organizing and developing human life, presented in the products of material and spiritual production, in the system of social norms and institutions, in spiritual values, in the totality of people’s relationships to nature, among themselves and to themselves. Culture embodies, first of all, the general difference between human life and biological forms of life. Human behavior is determined not so much by nature as by upbringing and culture. Man differs from other animals in his ability to collectively create and transmit symbolic meanings - signs, language. Outside of symbolic, cultural meanings (designations), not a single object can be included in the human world. In the same way, no object can be created without a preliminary “design” in a person’s head. The human world is a culturally constructed world; all boundaries in it are of a sociocultural nature. Outside the system of cultural meanings, there is no difference between king and courtier, saint and sinner, beauty and ugliness. The main function of culture is the introduction and maintenance of a certain social order. They distinguish between material and spiritual culture. Material culture includes all areas of material activity and its results. It includes equipment, housing, clothing, consumer goods, a way of eating and living, etc., which together constitute a certain way of life. Spiritual culture includes all spheres of spiritual activity and its products - knowledge, education, enlightenment, law, philosophy, science, art, religion, etc. Outside of spiritual culture, culture does not exist at all, just as not a single type of human activity exists. Spiritual culture is also embodied in material media (books, paintings, diskettes, etc.). Therefore, the division of culture into spiritual and material is very arbitrary. Culture reflects the qualitative originality of historically specific forms of human life at various stages of historical development, within different eras, socio-economic formations, ethnic, national and other communities. Culture characterizes the characteristics of people’s activities in specific social spheres (political culture, economic culture, culture of work and life, culture of entrepreneurship, etc.), as well as the characteristics of the life of social groups (class, youth, etc.). At the same time, there are cultural universals - certain elements common to the entire cultural heritage of mankind (age gradation, division of labor, education, family, calendar, decorative arts, dream interpretation, etiquette, etc. ). J. Murdoch identified more than 70 such universals. The term “culture” acquired its modern meaning only in the 20th century. Initially (in Ancient Rome, where this word came from), this word meant cultivation, “cultivation” of the soil. In the 18th century, the term acquired an elitist character and meant civilization opposed to barbarism. However, in Germany in the 18th century, culture and civilization were opposed to each other - as the focus of spiritual, moral and aesthetic values, the sphere of individual perfection (culture) and as something utilitarian-external, “technical,” material, standardizing human culture and consciousness, threatening the spiritual world human (civilization). This opposition formed the basis of the concept of cultural pessimism, or criticism of culture, in fact, criticism of modernity, allegedly leading to the collapse and death of culture (F. Tennis, F. Nietzsche, O. Spengler, G. Marcuse, etc.). In modern science, the term “civilization” remains ambiguous. The term “culture” has lost its former elitist (and generally any evaluative) connotation. From the point of view of modern sociologists, any society develops a specific culture, because it can only exist as a sociocultural community. That is why the historical development of a particular society (country) is a unique sociocultural process that cannot be understood and described using any general schemes. Therefore, any social changes can only be carried out as sociocultural changes, which seriously limits the possibilities of direct borrowing of foreign cultural forms - economic, political, educational, etc. In a different sociocultural environment, they can acquire (and inevitably acquire) completely different content and meaning. To analyze cultural dynamics, two main theoretical models have been developed - evolutionary (linear) and cyclical. Evolutionism, whose origins were G. Spencer, E. Taylor, J. Fraser, L. Morgan, was based on the idea of the unity of the human race and the uniformity of cultural development. The process of cultural development was presented as linear, general in content, passing through general stages. Therefore, it seemed possible to compare different cultures as more or less developed, and to identify “standard” cultures (Eurocentrism and later American centrism). Cyclic theories represent cultural dynamics as a sequence of certain phases (stages) of change and development of cultures, which naturally follow one after another (by analogy with human life - birth, childhood, etc. ), each culture is viewed as unique. Some of them have already completed their cycle, others exist, being at different phases of development. Therefore, we cannot talk about a common, universal history of humanity; we cannot compare and evaluate cultures as primitive or highly developed - they are simply different. In modern science, the founder of cyclic theories that arose in antiquity was N.Ya. Danilevsky (“Russia and Europe,” 1871). He was followed by O. Spengler, A. Toynbee, P. Sorokin, L. Gumilyov and others. Both evolutionary and cyclic theories emphasize and absolutize only one side of the real process of cultural dynamics and cannot give its exhaustive description. Modern science offers fundamentally new approaches (for example, the wave theory of culture put forward by O. Toffler). Now humanity is experiencing perhaps the most profound technological, social and cultural transformation in terms of content and global in scope. And it was culture that was at the center of this process. A fundamentally new type of culture is emerging – the culture of a post-industrial, information society. (See postmodernism).

A system of specifically human activities that create spiritual and material values, and the resulting set of socially significant ideas, symbols, values, ideals, norms and rules of behavior through which people organize their life activities.

– a system of values, life ideas, patterns of behavior, norms, a set of methods and techniques of human activity, objectified in objective, material media (tools, signs) and transmitted to subsequent generations.

(Latin cultura - cultivation, upbringing, education) - a system of historically developing supra-biological programs of human activity, behavior and communication, which act as a condition for the reproduction and change of social life in all its main manifestations. The programs of activity, behavior and communication that make up the body of knowledge are represented by a variety of different forms: knowledge, skills, norms and ideals, patterns of activity and behavior, ideas and hypotheses, beliefs, social goals and value orientations, etc. In their totality and dynamics, they form a historically accumulated social experience. Communication stores, transmits (transmits from generation to generation) and generates programs for the activities, behavior and communication of people. In the life of society, they play approximately the same role as hereditary information (DNA, RNA) in a cell or complex organism; they ensure the reproduction of the diversity of forms of social life, types of activities characteristic of a certain type of society, its inherent objective environment (second nature), its social connections and types of personalities - everything that makes up the real fabric of social life at a certain stage of its historical development. The concept of "K." developed historically. It initially denoted the processes of human development of nature (cultivation of the land, handicraft products), as well as education and training. The term became widely used in European philosophy and historical science starting from the second half of the 18th century. K. begins to be considered as a special aspect of social life, associated with the way human activity is carried out and characterizing the difference between human existence and animal existence. Several lines emerge in the development of the problems of culture. In the first of them, culture was considered as a process of development of the human mind and intelligent forms of life, opposing the savagery and barbarism of the primitive existence of mankind (French enlighteners); as the historical development of human spirituality - the evolution of moral, aesthetic, religious, philosophical, scientific, legal and political consciousness, ensuring the progress of humanity (German classical idealism - Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel; German romanticism - Schiller, Schlegel; German enlightenment - Lessing, Herder). The second line focused attention not on the progressive historical development of society, but on its features in various types of society, considering various society as autonomous systems of values and ideas that determine the type of social organization (neo-Kantianism - G. Rickert, E. Cassirer). O. Spengler, N. Danilevsky, Sorokin, Toynbee adjoined the same line. At the same time, the understanding of culture was expanded to include the entire wealth of material culture, ethnic customs, and the diversity of languages and symbolic systems. At the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th century. When studying cultural issues, the achievements of anthropology, ethnology, structural linguistics, semiotics and information theory began to be actively used (cultural anthropology - Taylor, Boas; social anthropology - Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown; structural anthropology and structuralism - Lévi-Strauss, Foucault, Lacan; neo-Freudianism, etc.). As a result, new prerequisites for solving the problem of society and society arose. On the one hand, society and society are not identical, and on the other hand, society permeates all areas and states of social life without exception. The problem is solved if K. is considered as an informational aspect of the life of society, as socially significant information that regulates the activities, behavior and communication of people. This information, acting as a cumulative historically developing social experience, can be partially recognized by people, but very often it functions as the social subconscious. Its transmission from generation to generation is possible only due to its consolidation in a sign form as the content of various semiotic systems. K. exists as a complex organization of such systems. Their role can be played by any fragments of the human world that acquire the function of signs that record programs of activity, behavior and communication: a person and his actions and deeds when they become models for other people, natural language, various types of artificial languages (the language of science, the language arts, conventional systems of signals and symbols that provide communication, etc.). Objects of second nature created by man can also function as special signs that consolidate accumulated social experience, expressing a certain way of behavior and activity of people in the objective world. In this sense, they sometimes talk about tools, technology, and household items as material culture, contrasting them with the phenomena of spiritual culture (works of art, philosophical, ethical, political teachings, scientific knowledge, religious ideas, etc.). However, this opposition is relative, since any phenomena of K. are semiotic formations. Material objects play a dual role in human life: on the one hand, they serve practical purposes, and on the other, they act as means of storing and transmitting socially significant information. Only in their second function do they act as phenomena of K. (Yu. Lotman). Programs of activity, behavior and communication, represented by a variety of cultural phenomena, have a complex hierarchical organization. They can be divided into three levels. The first is relict programs, fragments of past K., which live in the modern world, exerting a certain impact on people. People often unconsciously act in accordance with behavioral programs that were formed in the primitive era and which have lost their value as a regulator that ensures the success of practical actions. This includes many superstitions, such as the omens among the Russian Pomors that sexual relations before going fishing can make it unsuccessful (a relic of the taboos of the primitive era, which actually regulated the sexual relations of the primitive community during the period of the group family, thus eliminating clashes based on jealousy in community that violated joint production activities). The second level is a layer of programs of behavior, activity, and communication that ensure the current reproduction of a particular type of society. And finally, the third level of cultural phenomena is formed by programs of social life addressed to the future. They are generated by K. through internal operation of sign systems. Theoretical knowledge developed in science, causing a revolution in the technology of subsequent eras; ideals of the future social order that have not yet become the dominant ideology; new moral principles developed in the field of philosophical and ethical teachings and often ahead of their time - all these are examples of programs for future activities, a prerequisite for changes in existing forms of social life. The more dynamic the society, the greater the value of this level of cultural creativity, addressed to the future. In modern societies, its dynamics are largely ensured by the activities of a special social layer of people - the creative intelligentsia, which, according to its social purpose, must constantly generate cultural innovations. The diversity of cultural phenomena at all levels, despite their dynamism and relative independence, are organized into an integral system. Their system-forming factor is the ultimate foundations of each historically defined culture. They are represented by worldview universals (categories of culture), which in their interaction and cohesion define a holistic, generalized image of the human world. Worldview universals are categories that accumulate historically accumulated social experience and in the system of which a person of a certain K. evaluates, comprehends and experiences the world, brings into integrity all the phenomena of reality that fall within the sphere of his experience. Categorical structures that provide rubrication and systematization of human experience have been studied by philosophy for a long time. But she explores them in a specific form, as extremely general concepts. In real life, however, they act not only as forms of rational thinking, but also as schematisms that determine human perception of the world, its understanding and experience. We can distinguish two large and interconnected blocks of K universals. The first include categories that capture the most general, attributive characteristics of objects included in human activity. They act as the basic structures of human consciousness and are universal in nature, since any objects (natural and social), including symbolic objects of thinking, can become objects of activity. Their attributive characteristics are fixed in the categories of space, time, movement, thing, relationship, quantity, quality, measure, content, causality, chance, necessity, etc. But besides them, in the historical development of culture, special types of categories are formed and function, through which the definitions of a person as a subject of activity, the structure of his communication, his relationship to other people and society as a whole, to the goals and values of social life are expressed. They form the second block of universals of culture, which includes the categories: “man”, “society”, “consciousness”, “good”, “evil”, “beauty”, “faith”, “hope”, “duty”, “ conscience", "justice", "freedom", etc. These categories capture in the most general form the historically accumulated experience of an individual’s inclusion in the system of social relations and communications. There is always a mutual correlation between the indicated blocks of K. universals, which expresses the connections between subject-object and subject-subject relations of human life. Therefore, the universals of culture arise, develop, and function as an integral system, where each element is directly or indirectly connected with others. The system of universals of culture expresses the most general ideas about the main components and aspects of human life, about the place of man in the world, about social relations, spiritual life and the values of the human world, about the nature and organization of its objects, etc. They act as a kind of deep programs that predetermine the coupling, reproduction and variations of the entire variety of specific forms and types of behavior and activities characteristic of a certain type of social organization. In ideological universals of philosophy, one can distinguish a unique invariant, some abstractly universal content, characteristic of various types of philosophy and forming the deep structures of human consciousness. But this layer of content does not exist in its pure form by itself. It is always connected with specific meanings inherent in culture of a historically specific type of society, which express the peculiarities of the ways of communication and activity of people, the storage and transmission of social experience, and the scale of values adopted in a given culture. It is these meanings that characterize the national and ethnic characteristics of each culture, its inherent understanding of space and time, good and evil, life and death, attitude to nature, work, personality, etc. They determine the specifics of not only distant but also related cultures - for example, the difference between Japanese and Chinese, American from English, Belarusian from Russian and Ukrainian, etc. In turn, what is historically special in the universals of culture is always concretized in the huge variety of group and individual worldviews and world experiences. For a person formed by the corresponding K., the meanings of its worldview universals most often appear as something self-evident, as presumptions in accordance with which he builds his life activity and which he often does not recognize as its deep foundations. The meanings of the universals of culture, which form a categorical model of the world in their connections, are found in all areas of culture of one or another historical type in everyday language, phenomena of moral consciousness, philosophy, religion, artistic exploration of the world, the functioning of technology, political culture, etc. .P. The resonance of various spheres of culture during the period of the formation of new ideas that have ideological meaning was noted by philosophers, cultural scientists, and historians when analyzing in a synchronous cross-section the various stages of the development of science, art, political and moral consciousness, etc. (Spengler, Cassirer, Toynbee, Losev, Bakhtin). It is possible, for example, to establish a peculiar resonance between the ideas of the theory of relativity in science and the ideas of the linguistic avant-garde of the 1870-1880s (J. Winteler and others), the formation of a new artistic concept of the world in impressionism and post-impressionism, new to the literature of the last third of the 19th century. ways of describing and understanding human situations (for example, in the works of Dostoevsky), when the author’s consciousness, his spiritual world and his worldview concept do not stand above the spiritual worlds of his heroes, as if describing them from the outside from an absolute coordinate system, but coexist with these worlds and enter into an equal dialogue with them. The transformation of society and the type of civilizational development always presupposes a change in the deepest life meanings and values enshrined in the universals of culture. The reorganization of societies is always associated with a revolution in minds, with criticism of previously dominant ideological orientations and the development of new values. No major social changes are possible without changes in K. As a social individual, a person is a creation of K. He becomes a person only through the assimilation of the social experience transmitted in K. The process of such assimilation itself is carried out as socialization, training and education. In this process, there is a complex joining of biological programs that characterize his individual heredity, and supra-biological programs of communication, behavior and activity, which constitute a kind of social heredity. By engaging in activities, thanks to the assimilation of these programs, a person is able to invent new patterns, norms, ideas, beliefs, etc., which may correspond to social needs. In this case, they become involved in K. and begin to program the activities of other people. Individual experience turns into social experience, and new states and phenomena appear in culture that consolidate this experience. Any changes in K. arise only due to the creative activity of the individual. Man, being the creation of K., at the same time is also its creator. See also: Categories of culture. V.S. Stepin

(culture) - human creation and the use of symbols and crafts. Culture can be understood as the "life path" of an entire society, and this will include norms of customs, dress, language, rituals, behavior and belief systems. Sociologists emphasize that human behavior is primarily the result not so much of nature (biological determinants) as of nurture (social determinants) (see The nature-nurture debate). Indeed, what distinguishes its being from other animals is its ability to collectively create and communicate symbolic meanings (see Language). Knowledge of culture is acquired through a complex process that is essentially social in origin. People act on the basis of culture and are influenced by it back, and also give rise to its new forms and meanings. Therefore, cultures are characterized by historical character, relativity and diversity (see Cultural relativism). They are affected by changes in the economic, social and political organization of society. In addition, people are culturally transformed due to the unique ability to be reflective (see Reflexivity). In many societies there is a belief that culture and nature are in conflict with each other; that the former must strive to conquer the latter through the process of civilization. This idea can be found in the natural scientific traditions of Western societies, as well as in the theory of Freud, who sees culture emerging beyond the containment and sublimation of the motives of human behavior (Eros and Thanatos). Many, however, regard this relationship not as a contradiction, but as a complement. Feminist work in recent years has suggested that belief systems that advocate an antagonistic relationship between nature and culture have proven to be environmentally destructive. After all, humans are nature and have nature consciousness (Griffin, 1982). They are not only capable of creating cultural forms and, in turn, being maintained by those forms, but also theorizing about culture itself. Implicit in many sociological approaches were ideas about the relative merits of certain life paths and cultural forms. For example, cultural theorists both within and outside their discipline have made distinctions between “higher” and “lower” cultures, popular culture, and popular and mass culture. The latter concept has been used by both radical and conservative critics to express dissatisfaction with the current state of art, literature, language and culture in general. With very different political ideologies, both groups argue that 20th-century culture has become impoverished and weakened. The place of an independent, knowledgeable and critical public has been replaced by an unstructured and largely indifferent mass. Radical theorists see a threat to the quality of culture not from this mass, but from the aforementioned public. This is most clearly expressed in the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory's definition of the "capitalist culture industry", for capitalist media have the ability to manipulate the tastes, vices and needs of the masses. However, conservative and elitist cultural theorists, led by Ortega y Gasset (1930) and T.S. Eliot (1948), take the opposite view: through increasing power, the masses endanger the culturally creative elites. Human behavior virtually cannot exist outside the influence of culture. What initially seems to be a natural feature of our lives - sexuality, aging, death - has been made significant by culture and its transformative influence. Even food consumption, while apparently natural, is imbued with cultural meaning and customs. See also Anthropology; Mass society; Subculture.

Anti-communism - English anticommunism; German Anticommunismus. Ideologies and organizations...

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Culture

Basically, culture is understood as human activity in its most diverse manifestations, including all forms and methods of human self-expression and self-knowledge, the accumulation of skills and abilities by man and society as a whole. Culture also appears as a manifestation of human subjectivity and objectivity ( character, competencies, skills, abilities and knowledge).

Culture is a set of sustainable forms of human activity, without which it cannot be reproduced, and therefore cannot exist.

Culture is a set of codes that prescribe a person a certain behavior with his inherent experiences and thoughts, thereby exerting a managerial influence on him. Therefore, for every researcher the question about the starting point of research in this regard cannot but arise.

Different definitions of culture

The variety of philosophical and scientific definitions of culture existing in the world does not allow us to refer to this concept as the most obvious designation of an object and subject of culture and requires a clearer and narrower specification: Culture is understood as...

History of the term

Antiquity

IN Ancient Greece close to the term culture was paideia, which expressed the concept of “internal culture,” or, in other words, “culture of the soul.”

In Latin sources, the word first appears in the treatise on agriculture by Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder (234-149 BC) De Agri Cultura(c. 160 BC) - the earliest monument of Latin prose.

This treatise is devoted not just to cultivating the land, but to caring for the field, which presupposes not only cultivation, but also a special emotional attitude towards it. For example, Cato gives the following advice on acquiring land plot: you need not to be lazy and walk around the plot of land you are buying several times; If the site is good, the more often you inspect it, the more you will like it. This is the “like” you should definitely have. If it is not there, then there will be no good care, i.e. there will be no culture.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

In Latin the word has several meanings:

The Romans used the word culture with some object in the genitive case, that is, only in phrases meaning improvement, improvement of what was combined with: “culture juries” - development of rules of behavior, “culture lingual” - improvement of language, etc.

In Europe in the 17th-18th centuries

Johann Gottfried Herder

In the meaning of an independent concept culture appeared in the works of the German lawyer and historian Samuel Pufendorf (1632-1694). He used this term in relation to “artificial man”, brought up in society, as opposed to “natural” man, uneducated.

In philosophical, and then scientific and everyday use, the first word culture launched by the German educator I. K. Adelung, who published the book “An Experience in the History of the Culture of the Human Race” in 1782.

We can call this human genesis in the second sense whatever we want, we can call it culture, that is, cultivation of the soil, or we can remember the image of light and call it enlightenment, then the chain of culture and light will stretch to the very ends of the earth.

In Russia in the 18th-19th centuries

In the 18th century and in the first quarter of the 19th, the lexeme “culture” was absent from the Russian language, as evidenced, for example, by N. M. Yanovsky’s “New Interpreter, Arranged Alphabetically” (St. Petersburg, 1804. Part II. From K to N.S. 454). Bilingual dictionaries offered possible translations of the word into Russian. The two German words proposed by Herder as synonyms to denote a new concept had only one correspondence in the Russian language - enlightenment.

Word culture entered Russian only in the mid-30s of the 19th century. The presence of this word in the Russian lexicon was recorded by I. Renofantz, published in 1837, “A Pocket Book for an Enthusiast of Reading Russian Books, Newspapers and Magazines.” The said dictionary distinguished two meanings of the lexeme: firstly, “plowing, farming”; secondly, “education”.

A year before the publication of the Renofantz dictionary, from the definitions of which it is clear that the word culture had not yet entered the consciousness of society as a scientific term, as a philosophical category, a work appeared in Russia, the author of which not only addressed the concept culture, but also gave it a detailed definition and theoretical basis. It's about about the essay by academician and emeritus professor of the Imperial St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy Danila Mikhailovich Vellansky (1774-1847) “Basic outlines of general and particular physiology or physics” organic world" It is from this natural philosophical work of a medical scientist and Schellingian philosopher that one should begin not only with the introduction of the term “culture” into scientific use, but also with the formation of cultural and philosophical ideas in Russia.

Nature, cultivated by the human spirit, is Culture, corresponding to Nature in the same way that a concept corresponds to a thing. The subject of Culture consists of ideal things, and the subject of Nature consists of real concepts. Actions in Culture are carried out with conscience, works in Nature occur without conscience. Therefore, Culture has an ideal quality, Nature has a real quality. - Both, in their content, are parallel; and the three kingdoms of Nature: fossil, vegetable and animal, correspond to the regions of Culture, containing the subjects of the Arts, Sciences and Moral Education.

Material objects of Nature correspond ideal concepts Cultures, which, according to the content of their knowledge, are physical qualities and mental properties. Objective concepts relate to the study of physical objects, while subjective concepts relate to the occurrences of the human spirit and its aesthetic works.

In Russia in the 19th-20th centuries

Berdyaev, Nikolai Alexandrovich

The contrast and juxtaposition of nature and culture in Vellansky’s work is not the classical opposition of nature and “second nature” (man-made), but a correlation real world and him ideal image. Culture is spirituality, a reflection of the World Spirit, which can have both a bodily embodiment and an ideal embodiment - in abstract concepts (objective and subjective, judging by the subject to which knowledge is directed).

Culture is connected with a cult, it develops from a religious cult, it is the result of the differentiation of a cult, the unfolding of its content in different directions. Philosophical thought, scientific knowledge, architecture, painting, sculpture, music, poetry, morality - everything is organically contained in the church cult, in a form that has not yet been developed and differentiated. The most ancient of Cultures - the Culture of Egypt began in the temple, and its first creators were the priests. Culture is associated with the cult of ancestors, with legend and tradition. It is full of sacred symbolism, it contains signs and similarities of another, spiritual reality. Every Culture (even material Culture) is a Culture of the spirit, every Culture has a spiritual basis - it is a product of the creative work of the spirit on natural elements.

Roerich, Nikolai Konstantinovich

Expanded and deepened the interpretation of the word culture, his contemporary, Russian artist, philosopher, publicist, archaeologist, traveler and public figure- Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich (1874-1947), who devoted most of his life to the development, dissemination and protection of culture. He more than once called Culture “worship of Light”, and in the article “Synthesis” he even split the lexeme into parts: “Cult” and “Ur”:

The cult will always remain the veneration of the Good Beginning, and the word Ur reminds us of an old eastern root meaning Light, Fire.

In the same article he writes:

...Now I would like to clarify the definition of two concepts that we encounter every day in our everyday life. It is significant to repeat the concept of Culture and Civilization. Surprisingly, one has to notice that these concepts, seemingly so refined by their roots, are already subject to reinterpretation and distortion. For example, many people still believe it is quite possible to replace the word Culture with civilization. At the same time, it is completely missed that the Latin root Cult itself has a very deep spiritual meaning, while civilization at its root has a civil, social structure of life. It would seem to be absolutely clear that each country goes through a degree of publicity, that is, civilization, which in a high synthesis creates the eternal, indestructible concept of Culture. As we see in many examples, civilization can perish, can be completely destroyed, but Culture in indestructible spiritual tablets creates a great heritage that feeds future young shoots.

Every manufacturer of standard products, every factory owner, of course, is already a civilized person, but no one will insist that every factory owner is already a cultured person. And it may very well turn out that the lowest worker in a factory can be the bearer of undoubted Culture, while its owner will be only within the boundaries of civilization. You can easily imagine a “House of Culture,” but it will sound very awkward: “House of Civilization.” The name “cultural worker” sounds quite definite, but “civilized worker” will mean something completely different. Every university professor will be quite satisfied with the title of cultural worker, but try telling the venerable professor that he is a civilized worker; For such a nickname, every scientist, every creator will feel internal awkwardness, if not resentment. We know the expressions “civilization of Greece”, “civilization of Egypt”, “civilization of France”, but they in no way exclude the following, highest in its inviolability, expression when we talk about great culture Egypt, Greece, Rome, France...

Periodization of cultural history

IN modern cultural studies The following periodization of the history of European culture has been adopted:

Primitive culture (up to 4 thousand BC);
The culture of the Ancient World (4 thousand BC - 5th century AD), in which the culture of the Ancient East and the culture of Antiquity are distinguished;
Culture of the Middle Ages (V-XIV centuries);
Culture of the Renaissance or Renaissance (XIV-XVI centuries);
Culture of the New Time (16th-19th centuries);

The main feature of the periodization of cultural history is the identification of the culture of the Renaissance as independent period development of culture, while in historical science this era is considered the late Middle Ages or early modern times.

Culture and nature

It is not difficult to see that the removal of man from the principles of rational cooperation with the nature that generates him leads to the decline of the accumulated cultural heritage, and then to the decline of civilized life itself. An example of this is the decline of many developed states of the ancient world and the numerous manifestations of the cultural crisis in the life of modern megacities.

Modern understanding of culture

In practice, the concept of culture refers to all the best products and actions, including in the fields of art and classical music. From this point of view, the concept of “cultural” includes people who are in some way connected with these areas. At the same time, people involved in classical music are, by definition, at a higher level than rap fans from working-class neighborhoods or the aborigines of Australia.

However, within the framework of this worldview, there is a current - where less “cultured” people are seen, in many ways, as more “natural”, and the suppression of “human nature” is attributed to “high” culture. This point of view is found in the works of many authors since the 18th century. They emphasize, for example, that folk music (as created by ordinary people) more honestly expresses the natural way of life, while classical music looks superficial and decadent. Following this opinion, people outside the " Western civilization" - "noble savages" not corrupted by Western capitalism.

Today, most researchers reject both extremes. They do not accept either the concept of the “only correct” culture or its complete opposition to nature. IN in this case it is recognized that the “non-elite” can be just as highly cultured as the “elite”, and that “non-Western” people can be just as cultured, just that their culture is expressed in different ways. However, this concept makes a distinction between “high” culture as the culture of elites and “mass” culture, implying goods and works aimed at the needs of ordinary people. It should also be noted that in some works both types of culture, “high” and “low”, simply refer to different subcultures.

Artifacts or works material culture, are usually derived from the first two components.

Examples.

Thus, culture (assessed as experience and knowledge), when assimilated into the sphere of architecture, becomes an element of material culture - a building. A building, as an object of the material world, affects a person through his senses.

When assimilating the experience and knowledge of a people by one person (the study of mathematics, history, politics, etc.), we get a person who has a mathematical culture, political culture, etc.

Subculture concept

The subculture has the following explanation. Since the distribution of knowledge and experience in society is not uniform (people have different mental abilities), and experience that is relevant for one social stratum will not be relevant for another (the rich do not need to save on products, choosing what is cheaper), in this regard, culture will have fragmentation.

Changes in culture

Development, change and progress in culture are almost identically equal to dynamics; it acts as a more general concept. Dynamics is an ordered set of multidirectional processes and transformations in culture, taken within a certain period

any changes in culture are causally determined by many factors
dependence of the development of any culture on the measure of innovation (the ratio of stable elements of culture and the scope of experiments)

Natural resources
communication
cultural diffusion (mutual penetration (borrowing) cultural traits and complexes from one society to another when they come into contact (cultural contact)
economic technologies
social institutions and organizations
value-semantic
rational-cognitive

Cultural studies

Culture is a subject of study and reflection within a number of academic disciplines. Among the main ones are cultural studies, cultural studies, cultural anthropology, philosophy of culture, sociology of culture and others. In Russia, the main science of culture is considered to be culturology, while in Western, predominantly English-speaking countries, the term culturology is usually understood in a narrower sense as the study of culture as a cultural system. General interdisciplinary area of study cultural processes In these countries cultural studies are prominent. cultural studies) . Cultural anthropology studies the diversity of human culture and society, and one of its main tasks is to explain the reasons for the existence of this diversity. The sociology of culture is engaged in the study of culture and its phenomena using the methodological means of sociology and the establishment of dependencies between culture and society. Philosophy of culture is a specifically philosophical study of the essence, meaning and status of culture.

Notes

*Culturology. XX century Encyclopedia in two volumes / Chief editor and compiler S.Ya. Levit. - St. Petersburg. : University Book, 1998. - 640 p. - 10,000 copies, copies. - ISBN 5-7914-0022-5
Vyzhletsov G.P. Axiology of culture. - St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg State University. - P.66
Pelipenko A. A., Yakovenko I. G. Culture as a system. - M.: Languages of Russian culture, 1998.
Etymology of the word “culture” - Cultural Studies mailing archive
"cultura" in translation dictionaries - Yandex. Dictionaries
Sugai L. A. The terms “culture”, “civilization” and “enlightenment” in Russia XIX- beginning of the 20th century // Proceedings of GASK. Issue II. World of Culture.-M.: GASK, 2000.-p.39-53
Gulyga A.V. Kant today // I. Kant. Treatises and letters. M.: Nauka, 1980. P. 26
Renofants I. A pocket book for those who like to read Russian books, newspapers and magazines. St. Petersburg, 1837. P. 139.
Chernykh P.Ya Historical and etymological dictionary of the modern Russian language. M., 1993. T. I. P. 453.
Vellansky D.M. Basic outlines of general and particular physiology or physics of the organic world. St. Petersburg, 1836. pp. 196-197.
Vellansky D.M. Basic outlines of general and particular physiology or physics of the organic world. St. Petersburg, 1836. P. 209.
Sugai L. A. The terms “culture”, “civilization” and “enlightenment” in Russia in the 19th - early 20th centuries // Proceedings of GASK. Issue II. World of Culture.-M.: GASK, 2000.-pp.39-53.
Berdyaev N. A. The meaning of history. M., 1990 °C. 166.
Roerich N.K. Culture and civilization M., 1994. P. 109.
Nicholas Roerich. Synthesis
White A Symbolism as a worldview C 18
White A Symbolism as a worldview C 308
Article “Pain of the Planet” from the collection “Fiery Stronghold” http://magister.msk.ru/library/roerich/roer252.htm
New philosophical encyclopedia. M., 2001.
White, Leslie "The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome." McGraw-Hill, New York (1959)
White, Leslie, (1975) "The Concept of Cultural Systems: A Key to Understanding Tribes and Nations", Columbia University, New York
Usmanova A. R. “Cultural research” // Postmodernism: Encyclopedia / Mn.: Interpressservice; Book House, 2001. - 1040 p. - (World of Encyclopedias)
Abushenko V.L. Sociology of culture // Sociology: Encyclopedia / Comp. A. A. Gritsanov, V. L. Abushenko, G. M. Evelkin, G. N. Sokolova, O. V. Tereshchenko. - Mn.: Book House, 2003. - 1312 p. - (World of Encyclopedias)
Davydov Yu. N. Philosophy of culture // Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Literature

Georg Schwarz, Kulturexperimente im Altertum, Berlin 2010.
Etymology of the word "culture"
Ionin L. G. History of the word “culture”. Sociology of culture. -M.: Logos, 1998. - p.9-12.
Sugai L. A. The terms “culture”, “civilization” and “enlightenment” in Russia in the 19th - early 20th centuries // Proceedings of GASK. Issue II. World of Culture.-M.: GASK, 2000.-pp.39-53.
Chuchin-Rusov A. E. Convergence of cultures. - M.: Master, 1997.
Asoyan Yu., Malafeev A. Historiography of the concept “cultura” (Antiquity - Renaissance - Modern times) // Asoyan Yu., Malafeev A. Discovery of the idea of culture. Experience of Russian cultural studies mid-19th- beginning of the 20th century. M. 2000, p. 29-61.
Zenkin S. Cultural relativism: Towards the history of an idea // Zenkin S. N. French romanticism and the idea of culture. M.: RSUH, 2001, p. 21-31.
Korotaev A. V., Malkov A. S., Khalturina D. A. Laws of history. Mathematical modeling of the development of the World System. Demography, economics, culture. 2nd ed. M.: URSS, 2007.
Lukov Vl. A. Cultural history of Europe in the 18th–19th centuries. - M.: GITR, 2011. - 80 p. - 100 copies. - ISBN 978-5-94237-038-1
Leach Edmund. Culture and communication: the logic of the relationship of symbols. Towards the use of structural analysis in anthropology. Per. from English - M.: Publishing house "Eastern Literature". RAS, 2001. - 142 p.
Markaryan E. S. Essays on the history of culture. - Yerevan: Publishing house. ArmSSR, 1968.
Markaryan E. S. Theory of culture and modern science. - M.: Mysl, 1983.
Flier A. Ya. History of culture as a change in dominant types of identity // Personality. Culture. Society. 2012. Volume 14. Issue. 1 (69-70). pp. 108-122.
Flier A. Ya. Vector cultural evolution// Observatory of Culture. 2011. No. 5. P. 4-16.
Shendrik A.I. Theory of culture. - M.: Publishing house of political literature "Unity", 2002. - 519 p.

Links

Vavilin E. A., Fofanov V. P.

level, degree of development achieved in any branch of knowledge or activity (work culture, speech culture...) - the degree of social and mental development inherent in someone.

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CULTURE

a historically determined level of development of society, creative powers and abilities of a person, expressed in the types and forms of organization of people’s lives and activities, in their relationships, as well as in the material and spiritual values they create. K. is a complex interdisciplinary general methodological concept. The concept of "K." used to characterize a certain historical era(for example, ancient K.), specific societies, nationalities and nations (K. Maya), as well as specific spheres of activity or life (K. labor, political, economic, etc.). There are two spheres of K. - material and spiritual. Material K. includes subject results activities of people (machines, structures, results of knowledge, works of art, norms of morality and law, etc.), spiritual culture unites those phenomena that are associated with consciousness, with intellectual and emotional-psychic activity of a person (language, knowledge, skills , skills, level of intelligence, moral and aesthetic development, worldview, methods and forms of communication between people). Material and spiritual K. are in organic unity, integrating into a certain unified type of K., which is historically changeable, but at each new stage of its development inherits everything that is most valuable created by the previous K. The core of K. consists of universal human goals and values, as well as historically established ways of perceiving and achieving them. But acting as a universal phenomenon, K. is perceived, mastered and reproduced by each person individually, determining his formation as an individual. The transfer of knowledge from generation to generation includes the mastery of the experience accumulated by mankind, but does not coincide with the utilitarian mastery of the results of previous activity. Cultural continuity is not automatic; it is necessary to organize a system of upbringing and education based on scientific research forms, methods, directions and mechanisms of personality development. The assimilation of K. is a mutually directed process for which all basic principles are valid. patterns of communicative activity. - a high level of something, high development, skill (eg, work culture, speech culture). (Chernik B.P. Effective participation in educational exhibitions. - Novosibirsk, 2001.) See also Culture of behavior, Culture of speech

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	Portal "Culture"
	Culture in Wiktionary
	Culture in Wikibooks
	Culture in Wikiquote
	in Wikisource
	Culture on Wikimedia Commons
	Culture in Wikinews

Culture definition for children. What is culture? Briefly about the main thing

What is culture: shedding light

Lack of culture

Culture

What is Culture? Meaning and interpretation of the word kultura, definition of the term

Different definitions of culture

History of the term

Antiquity

In Europe in the 17th-18th centuries

In Russia in the 18th-19th centuries

In Russia in the 19th-20th centuries

Periodization of cultural history

Culture and nature

Modern understanding of culture

Changes in culture

Cultural studies

Notes

Literature

see also

Links

CULTURE