Gurevich cultural studies. Gurevich P.S.

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GUREVICH Pavel Semenovich, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Philology, Professor. Elected vice-president of the Academy of Humanitarian Studies, full member of the International Academy of Informatization. Academy of Natural Sciences. He is the president of the Moscow Psychoanalytic Association. The sphere of scientific interests is humanitarian issues. Author of a number of monographs on the philosophy of culture and philosophical anthropology. Heads the laboratory of the Institute of Philosophy, rector of the Institute of Psychoanalysis.

The book examines the central problems of the “Cultural Studies” course: what is culture; how it relates to nature; what is the difference between culture and civilization; why many cultures are born and how they interact, etc.

The author interprets cultural studies as an integral expression of humanitarian knowledge and analyzes the development of world history through the cumulative spiritual experience of humanity. The book is intended for teachers and teachers, students and senior students school classes, gymnasiums, lyceums and colleges, for a wide range of readers interested in this fascinating science.

Introduction

On the Andaman Islands belonging to India, in the mountain tropical forests, Negroid tribes live. They have preserved their primitive way of life, engaged in gathering and hunting. These tribes, especially the Jarwa tribe, avoided all contact with the Andaman settlers and did not allow them into their territory. Therefore, the Indian authorities declared the tribe's habitat areas as protected areas and closed to visitors and logging.

And only anthropologists occasionally visit these areas, leaving gifts for the tribes on the beaches - fabrics, bunches of bananas, bags of rice. However, all these gifts were rejected until recently. They were thrown into the sea. Now contacts have become permanent. The Jarwa take the gifts they bring. And the ship's crew is given forest fruits.

Many cultures

The fact may seem local, of purely ethnographic interest. Two different cultures, simultaneously existing on earth, come into contact. The culture is patriarchal and modern. And here is how the French philosopher and ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss describes the culture of the living Indians:

“In the main house, which was located between two canopies, pentagonal loopholes were cut into the trunks that made up the walls, and their outer surface was covered with schematic drawings in red and black using uruku paint and some kind of resin. These drawings depicted characters from some legend: a woman, a harpy eagle, children, a toad, a dog, a large strange quadruped, two zigzag lines, two fish, a jaguar, and finally a symmetrical pattern made up of squares and crescents.

These houses were nothing like the homes of neighboring Indian tribes. Probably, however, they had some traditional form. When Rondon discovered the Tupi-Kawahib Indians, their houses were already square or rectangular with a gable roof. In addition, the mushroom shape does not correspond to the New Brazil construction technique. In addition, various archaeological materials confirm that similar houses with high roofs were characteristic of some pre-Columbian civilizations.”

Here is a description of another culture. Locals At dawn they gather together, bringing their palms to their mouths. Then they raise their hands towards the sun. These notes were written by the influential philosopher Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). He wrote: “While traveling along the equator, I asked why they were doing this, but no one could answer me... Breath means spiritual substance, soul. Consequently, these people offer their souls to God, but they themselves do not know what they are doing and will never know about it.”

Many different cultures coexist on the earth at the same time. How did they come about? What is their fate? Are they able to perceive each other? In the last century, cultural scientists believed that we could only talk about one culture, which personifies specific stages of a single spiritual process. Some cultures look strange, patriarchal, because they truly reflect the ancient self-awareness of humanity, while others, on the contrary, have already advanced sufficiently in their own development and acquired a modern appearance.

However, in the same century, a different idea arose: these cultures are in fact different, extremely original, and have nothing in common with each other. It was then that cultural studies in the literal sense was born. This is the science of the plurality of cultures, their uniqueness and dissimilarity.

Today, all institutes, universities, and colleges teach a new discipline - cultural studies. It is intended to fill the gap that has always, and even more so recently, characterized social science and the education system. In our social illustrations, we extremely rarely went out into the wide world of culture. Public reasoning was confined to the narrow horizon of politics and ideology. Social scientists ignored the obvious fact that any discovery of social dynamics begins precisely as a shift within culture, as a result of new value orientations, as a result of diverse sociocultural patterns.

Thinking about emotional images in painting or the impact of music on the human mentality, about the esoteric symbolism of the Gnostics or about the modern secret writing of culture, about the deep relationship between harmony and chaos, about myth or postmodernism, about Greek sculpture or the lyrics of the Renaissance, about epic or ancient tragedy, about Dionysian and Apollonian cultures, we are trying to break through to a modern understanding of culture, to comprehend its destinies. Many phenomena of art turn out to be more transparent when their interpretation is coupled with a holistic reflection on culture.

Humanitarian knowledge

The relevance of cultural studies is determined primarily by the growing role of humanitarian knowledge. Over the past centuries, exact sciences have been constantly compared with human sciences. In recent times, the palm has invariably belonged to the so-called concrete sciences. When it came to understanding man, humanity, society, culture, the human spirit, one got the impression that humanitarian sciences less important for social dynamics, not always specific and evidence-based.

The phenomenon of humanitarian culture, as an analysis of numerous philosophical, cultural and artistic literature shows, has been little studied. Even this concept itself is extremely rare. Meanwhile, humanitarian and cultural values ​​are necessary for the human race, society and the individual. It is well known that the problem of the emergence of spiritual culture is extremely complex and insufficiently developed.

According to the domestic scientist I.M. Oreshnikov, modern science (archaeology, ethnography, anthropology, historical psychology, linguistics, folkloristics, etc.) provides numerous facts in favor of the natural, earthly origin of spiritual culture. Many scientists believe that morality, religion and art arise somewhere in the Upper Paleolithic period (40-20 thousand years BC), when the Cro-Magnons lived. Interesting stuff on this subject is contained in the works of K. Levy-Bruhl, A.P. Okladnikov, S.A. Tokarev, E. Taylor, J. Fraser and others.

“Only in seven or eight thousand years have we seen the first light and heard the first vague rustles; and behind, in the depths of centuries, there is twilight and silence,” notes the domestic philosopher M. Gershenzon. - But there people wanted and thought the same way as we do, and in the many periods of development that preceded our culture, all the essential experience of humanity was gained. Nothing was added to that knowledge later, just as the physical composition of a person has remained unchanged since ancient times and to this day. Primitive wisdom contained all religions and all science. She was like a turbid stream of protoplasm, teeming with lives, like a tow, from where man to death times will spin the threads of his separate knowledge."

In the humanitarian and cultural heritage of the ancient world, the social and philosophical thought of India, China, Greece and Rome, one can find deep reflections on man, the meaning of life, the highest values, the role of philosophy, morality, law, religion, art, pedagogy and rhetoric in life of people. The ancient world left us magnificent historical monuments, interesting philosophical and historical works, works of art, myths and legends, sculptures, architectural structures, “seven wonders of the world”, etc.

For the creation of a modern humanitarian culture, the experience of past years turns out to be extremely valuable. “People of past eras,” notes E.Yu. Soloviev, “live for us thanks to a special kind of social practice - memorial. It ensures the constant presence of the past in the current consciousness and prevents it from being replaced or invented; those who are no longer there continue to communicate with us through the legacy they left.”

Today we realize the unconditional importance of humanitarian knowledge. It is many-sided and varied. But how to describe it? Humanitarian culture is a comprehensive, “cross-cutting” phenomenon; it is present in different spheres of public life. Humanitarian knowledge directly includes philosophy, social science, human studies, law, morality, art, mythology, religion, pedagogy, philology, “human” social relations, humanitarian education, upbringing and enlightenment.

Culture as a value

Interest in the phenomenon of culture these days is determined by many circumstances. Modern civilization is rapidly transforming environment, social institutions, way of life. In this regard, culture is assessed as a factor in creative life, an inexhaustible source of social innovation. Hence the desire to identify the potential of culture, its internal reserves, and find opportunities for its activation. Considering culture as a means of human self-realization, it is possible to identify new inexhaustible impulses that can have an impact on the historical process, on the person himself.

That is why modern philosophy has shown a keen interest in culture as a factor in social development. Researchers are increasingly coming to the conclusion that it is the spiritual traits, sociocultural characteristics of a particular society or even an entire region that leave their mark on the socio-historical dynamics. Many theorists connect the fate of the world with the philosophical comprehension of culture as a whole or the culture of an individual people.

But at the same time, the radicality and inevitability of the changes taking place in our era are perceived by the consciousness of a particular person as something alien to his own aspirations and spontaneous subjective impulses. A gap arises between the well-being of a real individual and the objective, often impersonal flow of cultural creativity. A person tries to understand where, generally speaking, traditions that have no authorship come from, why there are unforeseen consequences of cultural actions, what final result modern civilized development of humanity.

The need to study cultural phenomena is also due to the destruction of the ecological environment. The thinning of the ozone layer above the Earth, the death of the planet's forests, the pollution of oceans and rivers - these are the fruits human activity are assessed as the result of harmful cultural practices. And here the questions arise: “Isn’t culture hostile to nature? Is it possible to harmonize their relationship?”

Another aspect of cultural analysis is also relevant - culture and society, culture and history. What impact does the cultural process have on social dynamics? What will the movement of history bring to culture? In the past, the social cycle was much shorter than the cultural one. When an individual was born, he found a certain structure of cultural values. It has not changed for many centuries, regulating the life of several generations. In the 20th century, as many researchers believe, there was a break in the social and cultural cycles. This is, in essence, one of the historical patterns of our century. Now, several cultural eras alternate in the course of one life.

Take a person away from his native culture and throw him into a completely new environment, where he will have to instantly react to many completely new ideas about time, space, work, religion, love, sex, etc., you will see what amazing confusion takes over him. And if you also take away from him any hope of returning to a familiar social environment, confusion will develop into depression. Psychological numbness is a terrible symptom of today.

Modern people, having accelerated the pace of change, have broken with the past forever. They abandoned the old way of thinking, the old feelings, the old methods of adapting to changing living conditions. This is what calls into question a person’s ability to adapt: ​​will he survive in a new environment? Will it be able to adapt to new imperatives?

One more aspect of the study can be pointed out, related to the relevance of the topic. The accumulation of knowledge in the modern world occurs much more slowly than social change. Rapid dynamics are ahead of the process of understanding social patterns and the secret workings of cultural mechanisms. In this regard, the researcher’s ability to grasp the conditions that are characteristic of cultural practice acquires special significance.

The relevance of cultural studies is also determined by the crisis of modern - Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment culture. In the public consciousness, the Enlightenment model of culture is intertwined with the post-Enlightenment model, which creates quite complex collisions in today’s understanding of the very phenomenon of culture. Therefore, it is important to show how various components of the educational model of culture become the object of a new philosophical interpretation, causing the desire to identify the potential of culture, its internal reserves, and find opportunities for its activation. The study of modern cultural processes is impossible without deep paradigm shifts in the philosophy of culture that have occurred over the past two centuries.

There is no doubt that the cultural literature of recent times is increasingly being penetrated by reflections on the hostility of culture to the original human nature. This kind of idea is developed by many philosophical directions (psychoanalysis, philosophical anthropology, sociobiology). Modern philosophical anthropologists warn: sociality, like an iron hoop, has shackled man’s natural impulses.

Chapter 1. Culture as a phenomenon

All the hunters went to kill the mammoth. They advanced silently, coming from different directions. The leader of the primitive horde climbed the mound and from there showed the place where the trap was located. The camp was empty. Only children and old people remained. However, there was a middle-aged man standing by the rock. He took off his skin and began to draw the silhouette of a mammoth on the stone. It's a strange activity, isn't it? Who needs this image? Will it replace a living mammoth? Rock paintings are the first proclamation of culture.

Diversity of definitions of culture

What is culture? Why has this phenomenon given rise to so many contradictory definitions? Why does culture as a certain property appear to be an integral feature of various aspects of our social existence? Is it possible, generally speaking, to identify the specifics of this anthropological and social phenomenon?

The concept of “culture” is one of the fundamental ones in modern social science. It is difficult to name another word that would have such a variety of semantic shades. For us, such phrases as “culture of mind”, “culture of feelings”, “culture of behavior”, “physical culture” sound quite familiar. “In ordinary consciousness, culture serves as an evaluative concept and refers to such personality traits that would be more accurately called not culture, but culturality... In science, it is customary to talk about “cultural traits,” “cultural systems,” the development, flourishing and decline of cultures. .."

American cultural scholars Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, in their joint study on definitions of culture, noted the enormous and growing interest in this concept. So, if, according to their calculations, from 1871 to 1919 7 definitions of culture were given (the first, as they believe, belongs to the outstanding English ethnographer Edward Tylor), then from 1920 to 1950 they counted 157 definitions from various authors of this concept. In Russian literature, the willingness to compare different definitions of culture has allowed

How can one explain such a variety of interpretations? First of all, because culture expresses the depth and immeasurability of human existence. To the extent that man is inexhaustible and diverse, culture is multifaceted and multifaceted. We should not be confused by the many definitions. Each researcher pays attention to one aspect of the phenomenon itself. In addition, the approach to culture itself is largely determined by research attitudes. Culture is often the object of study not only by cultural historians, but also by philosophers, sociologists, historians, and axiologists. Depending on the theoretical methodology, the method that helps to comprehend the phenomenon also grows. Is it possible, however, to identify some problems that help discuss the essence of culture?

"Second Nature"

Culture is often defined as “second nature.” This understanding goes back to ancient Greece, in which Democritus considered culture “second nature.” Is this definition correct? In its most general form, one can, of course, accept it. At the same time, we need to figure out whether culture is really opposed to nature? Cultural experts usually classify everything man-made as culture. Nature was created for man, and he, working tirelessly, created a “second nature,” that is, the space of culture. In general, this is self-evident...

However, there is a certain flaw in this approach to the problem. A paradoxical train of thought arises: to create culture, a maximum distance from nature is required. It turns out that nature is not as important for a person as the culture in which he expresses himself. Isn’t this the origin of a predatory, destructive attitude towards nature in this view of cultural creativity? Doesn't the glorification of culture lead to the devaluation of nature?

Culture is, first of all, a natural phenomenon, if only because its creator is man, a biological creature. Without nature there would be no culture, because man creates on the natural landscape. He uses the resources of nature, he reveals his own natural potential. But if man had not crossed the boundaries of nature, he would have been left without culture.

Culture, therefore, is, first of all, an act of overcoming nature, going beyond the boundaries of instinct, creating something that can build on nature.

Culture arises because man overcomes the organic predetermination of his species. Many animals can create something that looks like culture. Bees, for example, build a magnificent architectural structure - a honeycomb. The spider unmistakably makes a fishing tool - a web. Beavers are building a dam. Ants build anthills. It turns out that creatures create something that did not exist in nature.

Is this what culture is? Let us note, however, that the activity of these living beings is programmed by instinct. They can only create what is inherent in the natural program. They are not capable of free creative activity. A bee cannot weave a web, and a spider cannot “take bribes from a flower. A beaver will build a dam, but will not be able to make a tool. Consequently, culture presupposes a spontaneous, free type of activity that overcomes species fixedness.

In order to create a culture, a person had to acquire a certain gift, the ability to create something that was not fixed in his species program. This unexpected discovery is expressed in the ancient myth of fire as the origin of culture.

The Myth of Prometheus

Prometheus is the son of the Titan Iapetus and the goddess Themis from the Oceanid Clymene. The image of this titan is one of the precious creations of Greek mythology. Prometheus became the embodiment of courage and perseverance, proud stubbornness and resistance to the old order, love for freedom and people. It belongs to the most ancient and ever-living symbols of the struggle for progress and happiness of mankind. Few of them mythical heroes received such attention as Prometheus. For more than two and a half thousand years, it continues to live in the works of poets and thinkers from Hesiod and Aeschylus to Calderon, Goethe, Byron, Shelley, and in the 20th century. - A. Zhid and Kazantzakis. Naturally, everyone interpreted this image in their own way and in accordance with their time. However, the main features of this image, unchanged in any image, have become “the common property of mankind.”

Prometheus first appeared on the scene of mythical events when Zeus rebelled against his father, the Titan Kronos. The Titans defended the old order established by Kronos, but Prometheus took the side of Zeus, as he strove for a new, more just order. He helped Zeus with advice and participation in battles and even convinced the Earth goddess Gaia to join him. When, after ten years of stubborn struggle, Zeus won victory with the help of Promstheus, he was in no hurry to reward his ally. But Prometheus did not pay attention to this. He moved away from Zeus only when he set a course for a tough, cruel strengthening of his power. Prometheus openly broke up with the autocrat even later, when Zeus planned to exterminate the helpless earthly race. Prometheus loved people and, moreover, always sympathized with the weak. He decided to save people, even if it brought the wrath of the almighty god upon him.

However, to save people it was necessary that they wanted and were able to help themselves. Therefore, Prometheus breathed hope into them and gave them a powerful weapon. He stole fire from the sacred hearth on Olympus (according to another version, from the furnace of the god Hephaestus in Mount Mosikhl on the island of Lemnos) and brought it as a gift to people. Getting to know fire helped them understand life better; they realized that fire is not only a threat, but also a help. People stopped depending on the vagaries of nature, began to eat better, and became stronger physically and mentally. But that was not all. Prometheus taught them to melt metals in fire and make tools, taught them crafts, counting, writing and reading. He tamed a wild bull for the people and put a yoke on it so that farmers could use it to cultivate their fields. Prometheus harnessed a horse to a cart and made it obey man, and he built the first ship. Finally, he introduced people to medicines and the treatment of the sick and taught them to live happily once they were born.

Thus, Prometheus became the true “creator of man”, at least in the sense that he brought him out of his natural primitive state and raised him into a rational being. Zeus could not stand this. For the numerous services rendered to the human race, he sentenced Prometheus to severe punishment. By order of Zeus, his faithful servants, Strength and Power, grabbed Prometheus and took him to the ends of the world, and there the god Hephaestus had to chain Prometheus to a high rock.

Prometheus was defeated, but not defeated: he did not despair. He knew that Zeus' tyranny would not last forever. Since Prometheus inherited the gift of providence from his mother, he knew when and how Zeus would be overthrown, and he also knew how the supreme god could avoid this. When news of this reached Zeus, he immediately sent the god Hermes to Prometheus so that he would find out about everything. But Prometheus refused to deal with Zeus and his ambassador: “I hate all of you, oh gods! I will not exchange my torment for slavish service to a tyrant!” When Hermes brought this answer, Zeus, with one lightning strike, threw down the rock with the chained Promstheus into the depths of Tartarus.

However, this fall ends only the first part of the tragedy of Prometheus. Zeus did not throw him into eternal prison in order to destroy him and thereby save him from torment (he could not do this, since the titans are immortal). He wanted to break Prometheus' stubbornness. When nothing came of this, Zeus again raised Prometheus into the light to subject him to new torment.

For many years, Prometheus was chained to a rock at the top of the Caucasus. In summer he suffered from the scorching heat of the sun, in winter from freezing cold. And every morning, by order of Zeus, a huge eagle flew to him and pecked his liver with its sharp beak, and during the night the torn liver grew back. But even these torments did not break Prometheus. He remained as proud and did not repent of his help to people.

Meanwhile, a lot has changed in the world. Zeus strengthened his power so much that he could no longer fear for it, so his rule became more moderate. He ceased to be a suspicious and vengeful tyrant, amnestied the titans and released them from dark Tartarus. He even became affectionate with people and, for an appropriate reward in the form of sacrifices, began to maintain order in human society. Only one thing bothered Zeus: a secret that only Prometheus knew. Again he sent Hermes to him with an offer of pardon - in exchange for a secret. And again Prometheus refused. Then Zeus allowed Prometheus’s family and friends, including his wife Hesione and son Deucalion, to visit the condemned man. Everyone unanimously assured Prometheus that the supreme bot had changed a lot for the better, that both gods and people were happy with him. Then Prometheus agreed to recognize him - what is the point of persisting if there is no longer any basis for this. There was only one thing Prometheus did not want: to turn to the almighty ruler with a request for mercy.

For a long time Prometheus hoped that help would come from people - after all, it was for their sake that he endured so much suffering. He agreed to accept help from their hands. And, indeed, one fine day a man appeared under the rock. It was the hero Hercules. Seeing an eagle flying to its daily feast, he immediately pierced it with an arrow. Then, with his heavy club, Hercules broke Prometheus’s shackles and pulled out a huge spike from the rock, with which Prometheus was nailed to it. At that very moment, the messenger of Zeus - Hermes - appeared and, on behalf of the supreme god, promised Prometheus freedom if he revealed the secret that haunted Zeus. “Well, tell Zeus that he should not marry Thetis, which he dreams of, since the son will surpass his father. Let him marry her to a mortal, then her son will pose no danger to any of the gods!”

So, Prometheus achieved freedom - with the help of man and reconciliation with Zeus. Prometheus did not sacrifice his pride and his goals, although for the sake of this he had to endure so much suffering. And to complete the victory, Zeus summoned him to the host of gods on Olympus.

However, Zeus swore that Prometheus would be chained to the rock forever. To prevent this oath from being broken, Prometheus had to wear a ring from his shackles, into which a pebble from the Caucasian rock was set. Then, in honor of Prometheus, people began to wear rings with the stone and still wear them, although the origin of this custom has long been forgotten.

This is a condensed presentation of the myth of Prometheus, which we know from the tragedy of Aeschylus “Chained Prometheus” (about 470 century BC) and from fragments of “Prometheus Unbound.” However, the end of the myth was reconstructed from ancient materials, since the fragments that have reached us do not give an accurate idea of ​​how Aeschylus resolved the outcome of the conflict between Prometheus and Zeus. It seems that he chose a compromise option, adapted to the requirements of the time.

The first part of Aeschylus’s “Promethean Trilogy” has also not survived, and we can only guess about it. In Hesiod's Theogony (VIII-VII centuries BC), this myth begins somewhat differently: the conflict between Prometheus and Zeus occurs when the gods, led by Zeus, gather in Sicyon (west of Corinth) to decide the question of the order of sacrifices to the gods by people. Prometheus then divided the carcass of the sacrificial bull into two parts and arranged things so that Zeus chose the worst part, and the best went to people. Then Zeus, in revenge, deprived people of fire, but Prometheus stole fire on Olympus and gave it to people again, after which he was chained to a rock by order of Zeus...

According to other common ideas, reflected in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Prometheus was the “creator of man” not only in a figurative, symbolic sense, but in the most direct sense: back in the 2nd century. BC. Paviania writes in his “Description of Hellas” that he saw in Phocis hardened lumps of clay that smelled of human skin - these are supposedly the remains of the material from which Prometheus created man.

What meaning can be drawn from this myth? Like any work of this kind, the legend contains inexhaustible content. In line with our topic, we must emphasize that people have long felt intuitively that culture was born as a result of some kind of gift from heaven. Natural creatures have taken on a completely different life. She could not have been born from purely natural preconditions. There has been some kind of turn in the existence of people.

Another touch expressed in the myth. Culture is not at all a cloudless acquisition of a person. Her birth also carries with it some kind of retribution, payment for the acquisition. The myth also emphasizes that the unfolding of culture is associated with a certain drama. Culture promises people not only good, but also a certain reward.

Artifact concept

An artifact is a formation or process of artificial origin. In cultural studies, this concept is used to contrast organics. Everything natural is the antithesis of an artifact. Culture is a treasury of man-made objects. The German philosopher Karl Jaspers, referring to the prehistory of culture, emphasized: “We know nothing either about the creative moments of history, or about the course of spiritual formation, we know only the results. And based on these results we have to draw conclusions. We ask the question of what was essential in the transformation of man into man in the world he creates; about what discoveries he made in dangerous situations, in his struggle, guided by fear and courage; how the relationship between the sexes developed, the attitude towards life and death, towards mother and father.”

What seems to be important here is the following:

1. Use of fire and tools. We would hardly consider an animal being that has neither one nor the other a human being.

2. The appearance of speech. A radical difference from the mutual understanding of animals through the spontaneous expression of their feelings is the ability inherent only in humans to express the meaning realized in speech and conveyed by it. objective world, which is the object of thinking and speech.

3. Methods of forming a person’s violence against himself, for example, through taboos (prohibitions). In the very nature of man lies something that cannot be only a part of nature; on the contrary, he shapes himself through art. The nature of man is his artificiality.

4. Formation of groups and communities. The human community is fundamentally different from the instinctively-automatically created states of insects. The main difference between the human community and the groups and relationships of dominance and subordination formed by primates is the awareness of its semantic meaning by people.

There is, apparently, a specifically human phenomenon - the social life of people ends with the formation of a state.

While animals exhibit either temporary associations in herds that disperse at each estrus period, or long-term communities made possible by the asexuality of most individuals, as, for example, in ants, only man was able, without abandoning the needs of sex, to create male companionship. an organization whose tension became a precondition for the lives of people in history.

5. Life formed by myths, the formation of life through images, the subordination of all existence, family structure, social structure, the nature of work and struggle to these images, which in their endless interpretation and deepening in essence are simply carriers of self-consciousness and awareness of one’s being, give a feeling of shelter and confidence - all this is indistinguishable in its origins.

Signs of culture

Nature and culture are truly opposed to each other. But, according to the Russian philosopher of the 19th century. P.A. Florensky, they do not exist outside of each other, but only with each other. After all, culture is never given to us without its elemental underlying basis, the environment and matter that serves it. At the basis of every cultural phenomenon lies a certain natural phenomenon cultivated by culture. Man, as a bearer of culture, does not create anything, but only forms and transforms the elemental.

On the other hand, according to the philosopher, nature is never given to us without its cultural form, which restrains it and makes it accessible to knowledge. Nature does not enter our mind, does not become the property of man, unless it is first transformed by a cultural form. P.A. Florensky gives such an example. We see in the sky not just stars, but something that already has a cultural form. Stars are already a form given to nature by culture. Here a number of preconditions for contemplation reveal themselves - concepts, schemes, theories, methods developed by culture.

The opposite of a cultured man is not a natural man, but a barbarian. There is no natural man at all. There is only a cultured man or a barbarian. If we classify only everything extranatural as culture, then many cultural phenomena will appear to be non-existent. Let us imagine, for example, a logical culture. There are no artifacts in it. The yogi develops his own psychological and spiritual resources. Nothing man-made arises in this case. However, the achievements of yogis are undoubtedly included in the treasury of culture.

Human creations arise initially in thought, in spirit, and only then are they objectified into signs and objects. There is always something concrete in culture: it is a certain kind and way of creativity. And therefore, in a concrete sense, there are as many cultures as there are creative subjects. Therefore, in space and time there are different cultures, different forms and centers of culture. Culture in general is a purely abstract concept. If one day a single form of culture were established on earth, then it would also be some special form of culture, and not culture in general. However, from the fact that there are only various shapes culture, and not abstract culture, it does not follow that these forms are closed on themselves and inaccessible to the influence of others.

Concept of activity

As a human creation, culture is superior to nature, although its source, material and place of action is nature. Human activity is not entirely given by nature, although it is connected with what nature provides in itself. Human nature, considered without this rational activity, is limited only by the faculties of sense perception and instincts, or is considered in a state of embryonic and undeveloped.

Man transforms and completes nature. Culture is formation and creativity. The opposition “nature and man” does not have an exclusive meaning, since man, to a certain extent, is nature, although not only nature... There was and is not a purely natural man. From the beginnings to the end of its history there was, is and will only be a “cultural man,” that is, a “creative man.”

However, mastery of external nature in itself is not yet culture, although it represents one of its conditions. To master nature means to master not only the external, but also the internal, that is, human nature, which only man is capable of. From this point of view, the following approximation to the definition of culture, which is given by the French culturologist A. de Benoit, is possible: “Culture is the specificity of human activity, what characterizes a person as a species. The search for man before culture is in vain; his appearance in the arena of history should be considered as a cultural phenomenon. It is deeply connected with the essence of man, and is part of the definition of man as such.” Man and culture, notes A. de Benoit, are inseparable, like a plant and the soil on which it grows.

Man took the first step towards a break with nature, beginning to build his own world on it, the world of culture as a further stage of world evolution. On the other hand, man serves as a connecting link between nature and culture. Moreover, its internal belonging to both of these systems indicates that between them there is a relationship not of contradiction, but of mutual complementarity.

Culture is nature that a person “recreates,” thereby establishing himself as a human being. Any opposition between them is detrimental to human dignity. He is the only being capable of continuous innovation. Man is a unique creator of history, giving it meaning through the regular change of symbols. For man as such, culture is more important than nature, history is more important than biology. In Russian literature, the contradiction between nature and culture is often overcome through the category of activity. Many scientists note that culture as a phenomenon became possible only thanks to such a human ability as activity. In this sense, culture is defined as the result of all human activity.

And such a thesis also needs critical evaluation. The fact is that a broad interpretation of activity as the basis of culture does not allow us to identify the specifics of culture as a phenomenon. Is it possible in this context to compare, say, culture and society? Both are products of human activity. However, these phenomena are not identical.

Search for meaning

Culture is unthinkable without man: he created it. But what animated him? The desire to establish oneself in nature as a ruler, capable of changing what is given? An unconscious play of creative forces capable of endlessly unfolding their potential? The desire to recreate nature? As soon as the question arises: for what? - human activity turns out to be not at all the same in its own focus and origins.

Not every activity gives rise to culture, but only that part of it that is sacred in nature and associated with the search for meanings read in existence. To penetrate the secret of culture, one must go beyond its boundaries and find criteria that are outside it. When managing life, a person does not always ask the question about the purpose of existence and his own destiny. Culture is not all that a person who is passionate about remaking the original order of things can present.

Human activity is diverse, the products of human activity have many faces. One can point out such human actions that are associated with an intense creative act, a breakthrough into a new spiritual space, and the extraction of meaning from the environment. This is culture. But there are artifacts that do not contain sacred meaning, do not give rise to the burning of the human spirit. Of course

This distinction is conditional, but conceptually it is extremely important for defining culture.

In culture itself there is a certain secret spring of human activity; many things are born for the first time as the discovery of meaning. But many things serve the process of replicating what is once found. There is an undeniable difference between a tower crane and a temple. The temple embodies the hierarchy of existence, something that stands above man, above his worldly needs.

In the interpretation of P.A. Florensky, activity reveals itself in plural: We are talking about activities. When we say the word “tool,” the ones that most immediately come to mind are hammers, saws, plows, or wheels. These are, in the crudest sense of the word, the material tools of technical civilization. For greater clarity, P.A. Florensky calls them machines or tools. It is not the creation of tools as such that acts as a manifestation of culture. And the point is not only that the nature of the tools is different. The creation of devices useful for human survival acquires a sacred, that is, cultural meaning, only when the tool is considered as “an outward projection of the creative depths of the human being, which builds his entire own empirical existence - his body, his spiritual life.” The essence of the stick, hammer, saw, pump is not directly visible. The creativity of the mind is revealed in the production of things whose meaning is not obvious. This is the production of symbols, that is, the creation of culture.

Human activity is diverse. In one case it gives rise to culture, in another - something else: forms of sociality, civilization, etc. Human activity is not always associated with a breakthrough in the field of spirit. “Second nature” includes acts of simple reproduction, copying. The man who invented the wheel is the creator of culture. A worker who places a wheel on an axle on a conveyor belt is a man of civilization. This is how the theme has long revealed itself, which in the 20th century. received coverage as a problem of culture and civilization.

Based on the above, it is necessary to correct the idea of ​​culture that has developed in Russian literature. It is, as a rule, considered as a social phenomenon. In other words, we are talking about the fact that culture connects nature and society through the deployment of human creative activity. At the same time, “the basis for understanding culture is the historically active creative activity of man and, consequently, the development of man himself as a subject of activity. The development of culture with this approach coincides with the development of personality... in any area of ​​social activity.”

Meanwhile, culture is not only a social, but primarily an anthropological (that is, human) phenomenon. Its basis is the disorder of man in nature, the need of man to realize those impulses that are not instinctive. Culture in this sense acts as a product of open human nature, which does not have final fixity. This means that it is important to start discussing culture with anthropological data, and not with entering the space of social history.

Identifying the specifics of culture is impossible without anthropological observations and without identifying the sacred meaning of human activity. Consequently, we can define culture as a phenomenon born of incompleteness, openness of human nature, the deployment of human creative activity aimed at searching for the sacred meaning of existence.

The meaning of the word, its origin

"What is culture?" This question should have long worried humanity, which considers itself cultural humanity. But, oddly enough, no one in world literature has raised such a question, much less tried to answer it. It was believed that there was no need to define the essence of culture, since it itself was evident. When this issue was nevertheless raised, it was declared, with reference to history and modernity, to have been resolved long ago. But today, when events themselves inexorably lead us to the realization that we live in conditions of a dangerous mixture of elements of culture and lack of culture, we must try to determine the essence of true culture.

In its etymological meaning, the concept of culture dates back to antiquity. It can be found in the treatises and letters of Ancient Rome. Cultio - cultivation, processing, like the word "cult", come from the same source. Etymologically in Latin, the more ancient source of the word “culture” is the verb colere - in the original meaning “to cultivate”, “to process” and only in the later meaning “to venerate”, “to worship”.

The concept of “culture” in a figurative sense (and the derived concept of “cult”) initially correlated with the culture of something: the culture of the soul, the culture of the mind, the cult of the gods and the cult of ancestors. Such combinations existed for many centuries until the term “civilization” (Latin: civilis - civil, state) began to be used in Latin countries. It covered the totality of social heritage in the fields of technology, science, art and political institutions.

If you try to translate from Latin the title of the treatise on agriculture, which was written by the Roman statesman and writer Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 BC), you would probably get the word “agriculture”. We are talking not only about cultivating the land, but mainly about caring for the site. Cultivation of the soil is generally impossible without a special mental attitude. Without utmost interest in the site there will be no culture, in other words, proper cultivation.

Then the word "culture" is torn from the earth's soil. It metaphorically relates to rationality. The Roman orator and philosopher Cicero (106-43 BC), speaking about cultivation, did not mean the land, but spirituality. He spoke about the need for culture of the soul, considering philosophy as such. Cicero identified philosophy with the culture of soul and spirit. “Basically, all cultural historians agree that philosophy implies the influence of philosophy on the mind with the purpose of processing it, educating it, and developing mental abilities. But here you can find another meaning, if you remember KatoPhilosophy - This not only the cultivation or education of the mind, but also its veneration, respect and worship. And indeed: philosophy was born out of preference for the spiritual principle in man, out of respect for this principle.”

Another term “occultism” (Latin occultis - secret, hidden) is also close to the concept of culture. In ancient China, the term “culture” (Wen - culture, civilization, writing, citizenship, etc.) was one of the central ones. The teachings of Confucius substantiate the essential role of language in cognition and making the right decisions.

In the ancient consciousness, the concept of culture is identified with paideia, that is, education. Paideia, as defined by Plato, means a guide to change the whole person in his being.

During the Middle Ages, the word “cult” was used more often than culture. It expressed a person’s ability to reveal his own creative potential in the love of God. “From a directly religious point of view, the total order of being is recreated in the cult. Here, at every given historical moment, all the eternally significant events of sacred history take place anew in symbolic form.”

The idea of ​​chivalry as a kind of cult of valor, honor and dignity is born. During the Renaissance, the ancient idea of ​​culture was resurrected. It expresses, first of all, active creativity in a person who gravitates towards harmonious, sublime development. The word culture began to be used in its modern meaning in the 17th century. It appeared as an independent concept in the works of the German lawyer and historiographer S. Pufendorf (1632-1694).

Literature

Batkin L.M. Type of culture as historical integrity / Questions of philosophy. - 1969. -№9.- P.99-109. Bakhtin M.M. Questions of literature and aesthetics. M.: 1975. - P.25. Bakhtin M.M. Towards a philosophy of action / Philosophy and sociology of science and technology. Yearbook 1984-1985. M.: 1986.

Gurevich P.S. Culture as an object of socio-philosophical analysis / Questions of Philosophy. - 1984. No. 5. - P.48-63.

Gurevich P.S. M. Buber and M. Bakhtin: intellectual controversy / Philosophical Sciences. - 1995. - No. 1.

Davydov Yu.N. Culture - nature - tradition / Tradition in the history of culture. M.: 1978.

Markaryan E.S. Theory of culture and modern science. M.: 1983.

Sokolov E.V. Culturology. M.: 1994.

Silvestrov V.B. Philosophical justification of the theory and history of culture. M.: 1990.

Florensky P.D. Cult, religion, culture / Theological works. M.: 1977.

Review questions

What causes diversity in definitions of culture?

How can we typologize approaches to identifying the specifics of culture?

Why does M.M. Bakhtin contrast the “borders of culture” and its “internal territory”?

Is it true that culture is opposed to the natural basis of man?

How to understand the sacredness of human activity?

What allows us to talk about culture as an anthropological phenomenon? How to understand the openness of human nature?

Test topics

The polysemy of the concept of culture. Culture as the production of man himself. Culture as an anthropological phenomenon. Culture as the realization of an ideal. Culture as an activity. Culture as dialogue. Culture as historical integrity.

Introduction

Culture and civilization

The theory of "local civilizations"

Arguments against"

Typology of civilizations

Cultural-historical types

Civilizations modern world

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

In the history of mankind, there have been many cultures - original, not similar to one another... A variety of cultures coexist on Earth at the same time. How did they come about? What is their fate? Are they able to perceive each other?

In the last century, scientists believed that we could only talk about one culture, which embodied specific stages of a single spiritual process. Some cultures look strange, patriarchal, because they truly reflect the ancient self-awareness of humanity, while others, on the contrary, have already significantly advanced in their development and acquired a modern appearance.

Then another thought arose: these cultures are actually different, original, and even have nothing in common with each other. These questions, thoughts, reasoning led to the birth of cultural studies - the science of the plurality of cultures, their uniqueness, dissimilarity,

Today it can help us understand that any social change begins precisely as a shift within culture, as a result of the emergence of new value orientations, as a result of the action of various sociocultural patterns.

Thinking about emotional images in painting or the impact of music on the spiritual world of man, about the secret symbols of the pyramids or the mysteries of modern culture, about the deep relationship between harmony and chaos in myths or works of postmodernism, about Greek sculpture or Renaissance lyric poetry, about epic or ancient tragedy, about Dionysian and Apollonian cultures, we are trying to understand the patterns of development and functioning of cultures - past and modern, to comprehend their origins and destinies. Many works of art are more transparent when their interpretation is coupled with a holistic reflection on culture.

The relevance of cultural studies is primarily due to the growing role of all humanitarian knowledge. The value of humanitarian knowledge is undoubtedly great. It is many-sided and varied. Humanitarian culture is a comprehensive, “cross-cutting” phenomenon; it is present in different spheres of public life.

“Only in seven or eight thousand years have we seen the first light and heard the first vague rustles; and behind, in the depths of centuries, there is twilight and silence,” notes the Russian philosopher M. Gershenzon. - But there people wanted and thought the same way as we do, and in the many periods of development that preceded our culture, all the essential experience of humanity was gained. Nothing was added to that knowledge later, since the physical composition of a person has remained unchanged since ancient times and to this day. Primitive wisdom contained all religions and all science.

The wealth of culture accumulated by humanity over many centuries is inexhaustible, it still awaits its comprehension. In the humanitarian and cultural heritage of the ancient world, the social and philosophical thought of India, China, Greece and Rome, one can find deep reflections on man, the meaning of life, the highest values, the role of philosophy, morality, law, religion, art, pedagogy and rhetoric in life of people. The ancient world left us magnificent historical monuments, interesting philosophical and historical works, works of art, myths and legends, sculptures, architectural structures, “seven wonders of the world”, etc.

Of all the proposed topics, I decided to take the topic “culture and civilization” because it interests me. In my essay I will examine in detail the concept of “civilization”, the theory of “local civilizations”, its supporters and opponents. The most important thing in my essay is to show the relationship between culture and civilization.

2. Culture and civilization

Civilization and culture are concepts closely related to each other. Currently, at a certain level of development of society or a society that has reached cultural studies and other humanities, civilization is most often understood as a certain stage in its development. It is understood that in the primitive era of human history, all peoples, all tribes had not yet developed those norms of communication, which later became known as civilizational norms. About 5 thousand years ago, civilizations arose in some regions of the Earth, that is, associations of people, a society based on qualitatively new principles of organization and communication.

In the conditions of civilization it is achieved high level development of culture, the greatest values ​​of both spiritual and material culture are created. The problem of the relationship between culture and civilization is the subject of many serious works by famous cultural theorists. Many of them connect it with questions about the fate of culture, civilization and even all of humanity.

The concept of “civilization” has many meanings. The term “civilization” comes from the Latin. a word meaning "civilian". There are at least three main meanings of this word. In the first case, traditional cultural and philosophical problems are born, dating back to the German romantics. In this sense, “culture” and “civilization” are no longer perceived as synonyms. The organic nature of culture is contrasted with the deadening technicalism of civilization. The second meaning of the word suggests the movement of the world from split to unified. A third paradigm is also possible - pluralism of individual disparate civilizations. In this case, the vision of a universal human perspective going back to Christianity is subject to revision.

To develop a more or less accurate definition of civilization, it is necessary, in turn, to study large social and cultural phenomena that exist in the form of wholes, i.e. macrohistorical research. N. Danilevsky calls such phenomena cultural-historical types, O. Spengler - developed cultures, A. Toynbee - civilizations, P. Sorokin - metacultures.

All these social and cultural supersystems do not coincide with either the nation, or the state, or with any social group. They transcend geographic or racial boundaries. However, like deep currents, they define a broader civilizational scheme. And everyone is right in their own way. For there is no modern science without taking into account and justifying the status of the observer.

O. Spengler in his book “The Decline of Europe” formed his understanding of civilization. For Spengler, civilization is a type of development of society when the era of creativity and inspiration is replaced by a stage of ossification of society, a stage of impoverishment of creativity, a stage of spiritual devastation. The creative stage is culture, which is replaced by civilization.

Within the framework of this concept, it turns out, firstly, that civilization means the death of culture, and secondly, that civilization is a transition not to a better, but to a worse state of society.

Spengler's concept became widely known, although it was more controversial than agreed upon. For example, the great humanist A. Schweitzer assessed Spengler's theory as an attempt to legitimize the right to the existence of a civilization free from moral norms, a civilization free from humanistic spiritual principles. According to Schweitzer, the spread in society of the idea of ​​the inevitability of a soulless mechanical civilization can only introduce pessimism into society and weaken the role of moral factors of culture. N. Berdyaev called Spengler’s mistake that he gave “a purely chronological meaning to the words civilization and culture and saw in them a change of eras.” From Berdyaev’s point of view, in the era of civilization there is culture, just as in the era of culture there is civilization.

It should be noted that Berdyaev and Schweitzer considered the distinction between culture and civilization to be quite conditional. Both great thinkers pointed out that French researchers prefer the word “civilisation” and the German word “culture” (“Hochkultur”, i.e. “high culture”) to denote approximately the same processes.

But most researchers still do not reduce the difference between culture and civilization to the characteristics of national languages. In most scientific and reference publications, civilization is understood as a certain stage of development of society, associated with a certain culture and having a number of characteristics that distinguish civilizations from the pre-civilized stage of development of society. The most common signs of civilization are:

1. The presence of the state as a specific organization, a management structure that coordinates the economic, military and some other spheres of life of the entire society.

2. The presence of writing, without which many types of managerial and economic activities are difficult.

3. The presence of a set of laws and legal norms that replaced tribal customs. The system of laws is based on the equal responsibility of every resident of a civilizational society, regardless of his tribal affiliation. Over time, civilizations come to write down a set of laws. Written law is the hallmark of a civilized society. Customs are a sign of an uncivilized society. Consequently, the absence of clear laws and norms is a vestige of clan and tribal relations

4. A certain level of humanism. Even in early civilizations, even if ideas about the right of every person to life and dignity do not prevail there, then, as a rule, they do not accept cannibalism and human sacrifice. Of course, in modern civilizational society, some people with a sick psyche or with criminal inclinations have urges to cannibalism or ritual bloody acts. But society as a whole and laws do not allow barbaric inhumane acts.

It is not without reason that the transition to the civilizational stage among many peoples was associated with the spread of religions carrying humanistic moral values ​​- Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism.

These signs of civilization do not necessarily appear all at once. Some may be formed in specific conditions later or earlier. But the absence of these signs leads to the decline of a certain society. These signs provide a minimum of human security, ensure the effective use of human abilities, and therefore ensure the effectiveness of the economic and political system and ensure the flourishing of spiritual culture.

Typically, researchers of civilizations point to the difficulties of their interpretation: the complexity of the internal composition of each civilization; intense internal struggle within civilizations for dominance over natural and human resources; intense struggle for hegemony in the symbolic sphere in the form of ideology and religion. Moreover, in such a struggle, warring groups, coalitions and cliques often seek external support against fellow civilizations, looking for ways to assert themselves in subcivilizational discord. Material for this kind of reflection is provided by the history of the Arab-Islamic civilization: Hindustan, Indonesian of the 20th century.

Another difficulty for the study of civilizations is their internal dynamism. Their appearance is formed not only by centuries-old historical background. A dramatic process of interaction between Westernizing and soil-based impulses, rationalism and traditionalism is unfolding. This interaction can be traced as one of the defining characteristics of cultural dynamics in non-Western societies. It has been the leitmotif of Russian history for two or three centuries. The same can be said about Turkey, Japan, Latin America, India and the Middle East. This interaction of oppositely directed impulses remains universal. Moreover, since the 19th century. it even managed to establish itself in Western culture - a collision of mondialism and Western centrism.

Political culture, as is obvious, plays a significant role in the interpretation of this problem. One can understand the socioeconomic and psychological preconditions of fundamentalism - in the Islamic world, in Orthodoxy, Hinduism and Judaism. Fundamentalism really takes on the appearance of an eschatologically formidable, all-encompassing phenomenon. But the trends of today are not eternal. In addition, if you look closely at fundamentalism in the bosom of various cultural civilizations, civilizational structures themselves, approaching it culturally, then this is most likely an attempt at an activist restructuring of traditional religious consciousness in the current conditions of a deeply unbalanced Western-centric world in many respects.

Fundamentalism is alien not only to rationalism, but also to traditionalism, since it does not accept tradition in its historical changeability and givenness, tries to establish tradition as something charismatically invented, strives to preserve it along the paths of rational design, to consolidate tradition by rational means. In this sense, we have to talk not about conservatism, but about the radicalism of the main fundamentalist attitudes.

All this indicates that it is difficult to give a strict definition of the concept of civilization. In fact, civilization is understood as a cultural community of people who have a certain social genotype, a social stereotype, who have mastered a large, fairly autonomous, closed world space and, because of this, have received a strong place in the world scenario.

Essentially, in the morphological doctrine of cultures, two directions can be distinguished: the theory of the staged development of civilization and the theory of local civilizations. One of them includes the American anthropologist F. Northrop, A. Kroeber and P.A. Sorokina. To another - N.Ya. Danilevsky, O. Spengler and A. Toynbee.

Stage theories study civilization as a single process of progressive development of humanity, in which certain stages (stages) are distinguished. This process began in ancient times, when primitive society began to disintegrate and part of humanity moved to a state of civilization. It continues today. During this time, great changes took place in the life of mankind, which affected socio-economic relations, spiritual and material culture.

Theories of local civilizations study large historically established communities that occupy a certain territory and have their own characteristics of socio-economic and cultural development. More details about this theory can be found in paragraph 3 of my essay.

As P.A. points out. Sorokin, there are a number of points of contact between both directions, and the conclusions reached by representatives of both directions are very close. Both recognize the existence of a relatively small number of cultures that do not coincide with nations or states and are different in nature. Each such culture is an integrity, a holistic unity, in which the parts and the whole are interconnected and interdependent, although the reality of the whole does not correspond to the sum of the realities of the individual parts. Both theories—stage and local—make it possible to see history differently. In the stage theory, the general comes to the fore—the laws of development that are common to all mankind. In the theory of local civilizations - individual, diversity of historical procession. Thus, both theories have advantages and complement each other.

3. The theory of “local civilizations”

Among the most representative theories of civilizations is, first of all, the theory of A. Toynbee (1889-1975), who continues the line of N.Ya. Danilevsky and O. Spengler. His theory can be considered the culminating point in the development of theories of “local civilizations”. Monumental Study A. Toynbee's “Comprehension of History” is recognized by many scientists as a masterpiece of historical and macrosociological science. The English cultural scientist begins his study with the assertion that the true field of historical analysis should be societies that have an extension both in time and in space greater than national states. They are called "local civilizations".

Toynbee has more than twenty such developed “local civilizations”. These are Western, two Orthodox (Russian and Byzantine), Iranian, Arab, Indian, two Far Eastern, ancient, Syrian, Indus civilization, Chinese, Minoan, Sumerian, Hittite, Babylonian, Andean, Mexican, Yucatan, Mayan, Egyptian, etc. He also points to four civilizations that stopped in their development - Eskimo, Momadic, Ottoman and Spartan, and five “stillborn”.

However, the question immediately arises: why do some societies, like many primitive groups, become immobile at an early stage of their existence and do not develop into civilization, while others reach this level? Toynbee's answer is this: the genesis of civilization cannot be explained either by a racial factor, or by a geographical environment, or by a specific combination of such two conditions as the presence in a given society of a creative minority and an environment that is neither too unfavorable nor too favorable.

Groups in which these conditions are present emerge in civilization. Groups that do not possess them remain at a pre-civilized level. The mechanism of the birth of civilizations under these conditions is formulated as an interaction of challenge and response. A moderately unfavorable environment continuously challenges society, and society, through its creative minority, responds to the challenge and solves problems. Such a society knows no rest, it is always in motion, thanks to movement it sooner or later reaches the level of civilization.

A second question arises: why four civilizations (Far Western Christian (Irish), Far Eastern Christian (Nestorian in Central Asia), Scandinavian and Syrian developed abnormally and were born dead. Toynbee is trying to understand why five civilizations (Polynesian, Eskimo, nomadic, Spartan and Ottoman ) froze in their development at an early stage, while the rest developed successfully.

The growth of civilization, according to the scientist, is by no means reduced to the geographical spread of society. He is not called by him. If geographic distribution is positively associated with anything, it is with stunting and decay rather than with growth. Likewise, the growth of civilizations is not limited or caused by technological progress and the growing power of society over the physical environment. The cultural scientist does not recognize any clear relationship between the progress of technology and the progress of civilization.

Toynbee believes that the growth of civilization consists in the progressive and accumulative internal self-determination or self-expression of civilization, in the transition from coarser to more subtle religion and culture. Growth is a continuous “retreat and return” of the charismatic (God-chosen, destined from above to power) minority of society in the process of an always new successful response to always new challenges of the external environment.

An interesting idea is Toynbee's idea that a growing civilization is a constant unity. Its society consists of a creative minority, which is freely followed and imitated by the majority - the internal proletariat of society and the external proletariat of its barbarian neighbors. In such a society there are no fratricidal fights, no solid, frozen differences. As a result, the growth process represents an increase in the integrity and individual identity of the developing civilization.

And one more, third question: how and why do civilizations “break, decay and fall apart”? No less than 16 of the 26 civilizations are now “dead and buried.” Of the ten surviving civilizations, “the Polynesian and the nomadic... are now on their last legs; and seven of the eight others are, to a greater or lesser extent, under threat of destruction or assimilation by our Western civilization.” Moreover, no less than six of these seven civilizations show signs of breakdown and incipient decay.

Decline, according to Toynbee, cannot be attributed to cosmic causes, geographical factors, racial degeneration or the onslaught of enemies from without, which, as a rule, strengthens a growing civilization. Nor can it be explained by the decline of technique and technology, because in all cases the decline of civilization is the cause, and the decline of technology is the consequence or symptom of the former.

The decline itself is not a one-time act, but a very long stage, which, according to Toynbee, consists of the breakdown, decomposition and death of civilizations. Between the breakdown and the death of a civilization, centuries and sometimes millennia often pass. For example, the breakdown of Egyptian civilization occurred in the 16th century. BC, and she died only in the 5th century. AD The period between breakdown and death covers almost 2000 years of “petrified existence”, “life in death”. But no matter how long it lasts, the fate of most, if not all, civilizations leads them to eventual extinction, sooner or later. As for Western society, it apparently, according to Toynbee, exhibits all the symptoms of breakdown and decay. But still, he believes that we can and should pray that we will not be denied a reprieve, and ask for it again and again with a contrite spirit and a heart full of repentance.

A detailed analysis of the recurring moments, symptoms and phases of the decline of civilizations is given in the various volumes of Toynbee's study. We can only touch on a few here. The creative minority, intoxicated by victory, begins to “rest on its laurels” and worship relative values ​​as absolute. It loses its charismatic appeal and most do not imitate or follow it. Therefore, it is necessary to use force more and more to control the internal and external proletariat. During this process, the minority organizes a "universal (universal) state", similar to the Roman Empire, created by the Hellenistic dominant minority to preserve themselves and their civilization; enters into wars; becomes a slave to inert institutions; and itself leads itself and its civilization to destruction.

It is during such periods that the “inner proletariat” separates from the minority and often gives birth to a “universal (universal) church,” for example, Christianity or Buddhism, as its own faith and establishment.

Thus, the non-creative forces of society perform a creative act. This, generally speaking, is one of the many contradictions in Toynbee’s system. When the "universal state" of the dominant minority collapses, the "universal church" of the internal proletariat (for example, Christianity) serves as a bridge and foundation for new civilization, alienated and at the same time subsidiary in relation to the former.

What does the external proletariat do in such a situation? Striving to grow into the old civilization? Not at all. He organizes and begins to storm the falling civilization. Thus, schism enters the body and soul of civilization. It leads to an increase in strife and fratricidal wars... A split in the soul reveals itself in a profound change in the mood and behavior of members of a decaying society. It leads to the emergence of four types of personalities and "saviors": archaists, futurists (saviors with a sword), renounced and indifferent Stoics and, finally, a transfigured religious savior who found support in the supersensible world of God.

At such times, the feeling of being lost in the flow, the feeling of sin increases. Sexual promiscuity and displacement of principles (syncretism) become dominant. Vulgarization and “proletarianization” take over the arts and sciences, philosophy and language, religion and ethics, morals and institutions. Short of transformation, no effort or savior can stop the decay. In the best case, as noted, civilization “petrifies” and can exist for centuries and even millennia in this form of “life and death.”

But sooner or later it usually disappears. The only fruitful path is the path of transformation, the transfer of goals and values ​​into the supersensible kingdom of God. It cannot stop the decomposition of a given civilization, but it can serve as a seed from which a new daughter civilization grows. Thus, this is a step forward in the eternal process of elevation from man to superman, from “the city of man to the city of God,” as the ultimate sum of man and civilization.

Toynbee ends these reflections on an almost apocalyptic note: “The purpose of transfiguration is to give light to those who are mired in darkness... It is achieved in the search for the kingdom of God in order to put his life into action... Thus, the purpose of transfiguration is the kingdom of God. ..”

Consequently, the entire human history or the entire process of civilization turns into a creative tradition. Through individual civilizations and their rhythms, coinciding in unity, but specifically different, reality unfolds its richness and leads from “subman” and “subcivilization” to man and civilization, and ultimately to the superman and the transformed sublimated (ethereal) supercivilization of the kingdom of God.

The activity of the spirit, flowing through the earth and drawing its threads along the loom of time, is the history of man, as he manifests himself in the genesis and growth, in the decomposition of human societies. In all this swaying of life we ​​can hear the beating of the basic rhythm of call and response, retreat and return, frustration and connection, alienation and adoption, split and rebirth.

The eternal turns of the wheel are not empty repetition, if with each turn they draw the chariot closer to the goal, and if “rebirth” means the birth of something new, then the wheel of existence is not just a diabolical invention, not a simple means of subjecting the condemned Ixion to eternal torment. Creation would not be creative if it did not absorb everything that exists in heaven and on earth.

4. Arguments against

Not all researchers agree with the theory of “local civilizations” proposed by Toynbee. The most extensive criticism is contained in the works of P.A. Sorokina (1889-1968). In his opinion, it is enough to ask how reliable the general scheme of the theory of the rise and decline of civilizations is, and how assessments immediately change. The work, generally speaking, is too extensive and clearly oversaturated with plump quotations from the Bible, mythology, and poetry. The desire to use overly expanded poetic and symbolic images prevented the author from more clearly building his theory and making it much more accessible P.A. Sorokin believes that, despite his amazing erudition, Toynbee displays either ignorance or deliberate neglect of many sociological works, and his knowledge of history is uneven. It is excellent in relation to the Hellenic (Greco-Roman) civilization, but much more modest in relation to other civilizations. His familiarity with the accumulated knowledge of the theory of art, philosophy, exact sciences, law and some others is also not always sufficient.

According to P.A. Sorokin, Toynbee’s work has two fundamental defects that relate not to details, but to the very core of his philosophy of history: firstly, to the “civilization” chosen by Toynbee as the unit of historical research, secondly, to the conceptual scheme of genesis, growth and the decline of civilizations, which forms the basis of his philosophy of history.

By “civilization” Toynbee does not mean simply “a field of historical study”, but unified system, or a whole, the parts of which are connected to each other by causal connections. Therefore, as in any such system, in its “civilization” the parts must depend on each other and on the whole, and the whole on the parts. He categorically asserts again and again that civilizations are wholes whose parts all correspond to each other and mutually influence each other. One of the characteristic features of a civilization in the process of growth is that all aspects and aspects of it social life coordinated into a single social whole in which the elements of economics, politics and culture are held in fine harmony with each other by the internal harmony of the growing social organism.

As P.A. shows Sorokin, “civilizations,” from Toynbee’s point of view, are real systems, and not just clusters, aggregates and conglomerates of phenomena and objects of culture (or civilization), adjacent in space and time, but devoid of any causal or other meaningful connection.

We can agree with P.A. Sorokin in his criticism of Toynbee’s purely poetic metaphor: civilization is something like a living body. But he is perhaps wrong in denying any unity of a historically real civilization. Mistaking various aggregations (aggregates) for systems, Toynbee begins to interpret civilizations as “types of society” and zealously hunt for uniformity in their genesis, growth and decline.

Obviously, Toynbee was also wrong in recognizing the old conceptual scheme of “genesis-growth-decline”, going from Florus to Spengler, as a uniform model for the development of civilizations. This concept is based on a simple analogy and is not a theory of real changes in socio-cultural facts, but an evaluative theory of socio-cultural progress, suggesting how cultural phenomena should change. This becomes obvious already in the formulas of “growth” and “decomposition”, where normative concepts of progress and regression dominate, and the formulas for real changes disappear,

Factual and logical errors in Toynbee’s philosophy of history naturally follow from such a theoretical scheme. First of all, we must say about his classification of civilizations. Many historians, anthropologists and sociologists reject it as arbitrary, devoid of a clear logical criterion for choice. Some Christian civilizations are treated as separate and distinct (Western Europe, Byzantium, Russia). Toynbee views Orthodoxy and Catholicism as two different religions, and unites a conglomerate of different (religious and other) systems into one civilization. Meanwhile, even great cultural and religious shifts only increase diversity in the unity of civilization if the bearers of differences are peoples who represent to the outside world and to themselves everything that was previously identified in the ecumene cultural space. The confessional break between Protestants and Catholicism was much more radical than the dogmatic and ritual peculiarities that once separated the Eastern and Western churches. But the first only modified the civilizations of the West, while the second, according to F.I. Tyutchev, it was the divergence of two “humanities” that sanctioned.

Sparta was arbitrarily torn out, according to P.A. Sorokin, from the rest of the Hellenic civilization, while the Roman civilization is united with the Greek... Polynesian and Eskimo civilizations, or "subcivilizations" (in one place Toynbee argues that they were living-born civilizations; in another - that they remained at the level of "subcivilization" and never reached the level of civilization), are considered as separate civilizations along tribal lines, while all the nomads of all continents are united into one civilization, etc.

Toynbee calls most civilizations either “stillborn,” “frozen,” “petrified,” “broken,” “decaying,” or “dead and buried.” According to Toynbee, of the 26 civilizations, only one Western civilization may still be alive at the present time, and all the rest are either dead or half-dead (“frozen,” “petrified,” “decaying”). Thus, in accordance with the accepted scheme, civilizations must go through breakdown, decay and death. Toynbee can either bury them or declare them stillborn, “frozen,” “petrified,” or, finally, broken, decaying. But Toynbee does not have any clear criterion of what death or breakdown, revival or decay of civilization actually means; he voluntarily takes on the role of gravedigger of civilizations.

Bravely following his scheme, Toynbee is not embarrassed that some of his civilizations, which, according to the scheme, should have died long ago, after their breakdown live for centuries, even thousands of years, and are now still alive. He gets out of the difficulties by simply inventing the term "petrified" civilization. Thus, China petrified for a thousand years. (How can this be combined with the current dynamism of the country?) Egypt - for two thousand years. Hellenic civilization either decayed or petrified from the Peloponnesian War to the 5th century. AD The whole of Roman history is a continuous decomposition, from beginning to end. The same thing happens with other civilizations. In Toynbee's concept, civilizations barely have the right to live and grow. If they weren't stillborn, like some of them, then they freeze. If they are not frozen, they will break down almost immediately after birth, and they will begin to decompose or turn into a “fossil”...

The previous explains why Toynbee's work analyzes so little the stage of growth of civilizations. There are only extremely vague statements that at this stage there is a creative minority that successfully meets all challenges. There is no class struggle, no wars between peoples and states, and everything is going well, becoming more and more exalted. This characterization of the growth process of its many civilizations is clearly fantastic.

To accept Toynbee's scheme would mean to agree with him that in Greece until 431-403. BC. (the breakdown of Hellenic civilization, according to Toynbee) there were no wars, revolutions, class struggle, slavery, traditionalism, uncreative minorities and that all these disasters appeared only after the Peloponnesian War. And besides, we should accept other points; for example, that after this creativity ceased in Greece and Rome, there was no Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno, Polybius, church fathers, Lucretius, scientific discoveries- nothing creative. It is not clear what stage Western civilization is at, because Toynbee’s position is ambivalent. In many places he says that she has already experienced her breakdown and is in the process of decay, in other places he refuses to pass judgment. But whatever his diagnosis, Western civilization until the 15th century. is considered by him to be in the growth stage. If this is so, then, according to the scheme, no revolutions, no serious wars, no rigid and stable class distinctions should have existed in Europe before this century.

Meanwhile, the XIII and XIV centuries. - the most revolutionary (until the 19th-20th centuries) in the history of Europe. Serfdom and other class differences were rigid and persistent, and there were many wars - large and small... As a result, the medieval Western society The period of growth does not reveal many of the features characteristic of growing civilizations. The same is true for other civilizations. This means that Toynbee's uniformity in the rise and fall of civilizations is completely fantastical and not based on fact.

Sorokin emphasized that many of the uniformities that Toynbee claims in connection with his scheme are either false or overestimated. For example, its uniformity of negative relationship between geographical distribution civilization and its internal rhythm; between war and growth; between technological progress and growth. There is a certain amount of truth in Toynbee's statements, but as categorical statements they are certainly erroneous.

All Toynbee's civilizations are complex complexes that spread over vast territories and population groups... Moreover, he assumes that such spread occurred peacefully, without war, thanks to the involuntary submission of the “barbarians” to the charm of civilization. This statement is again incorrect. IN real story All civilizations during their growth spread not only peacefully, but also through force, violence, and war. In addition, many of them contracted rather than expanded during the period of decomposition, and were more peaceful than during growth.

Following Spengler, Toynbee attributes various dominant tendencies to some civilizations: aesthetic - Hellenic, religious - Indian (Indus Valley), mechanistic-technical - Western (he did not find such dominant tendencies in the other eighteen civilizations).

Such summary characteristics themselves are very doubtful. Western civilization did not become dominant until about the 13th century: from the 6th to the end of the 12th century. there was almost no movement of technical inventions and scientific discoveries. From VI to XVIII centuries. this mechanical civilization was religious from top to bottom, even more religious than the Indian or Hindu at many periods of their history... The supposedly aesthetic Hellenic civilization did not reveal its aesthetic (in Toynbee's sense) attraction until the 6th century. BC. and, conversely, showed a certain scientific and technological impulse between 600 BC. and 200 AD Arab civilization, whose dominant feature Toynbee did not emphasize, showed an exceptional impulse towards scientific and technical pursuits in the 8th-13th centuries, much greater than Western society in the same centuries. All this means that the attribution, in the spirit of Spengler and Toynbee, to some specifically eternal tendency of this or that civilization, regardless of the stage of its development, does not correspond to the facts and is misleading.

5. Typology of civilizations

P.A. Sorokin created a more rational theory of civilizations. Like M. Weber, he rejected as “reductionist” the concepts of culture that were created by his predecessors. Culture is a special kind of phenomenon, much more complex and perfect than a living organism. In addition, in his opinion, it is not directly determined by the economy.

According to P.A. Sorokin, culture acts as a system of meanings - values. With their help, society integrates and maintains the interconnection of its institutions. Culture determines the energy and direction of human endeavor. Only understanding the process of development of civilizations will allow us to correctly assess the course of social and cultural development of mankind and direct it in the right direction. He believed that the holistic theory as understood by representatives morphological school is not applicable to cultures because they are not closed complexes.

Unlike Toynbee, Sorokin identified several trends in the development of modern civilizations. The first of them is the movement of the center of creative forces. As is known, these centers have constantly moved throughout human history. The last center known to us was Western European. Now his strength has dried up, and the creative initiative is moving to the American continent (in general) and to the east, in particular to Russia. The second trend is found in the gradual decline of sensualistic culture, the basis of which is the belief that beyond the evidence of our senses there is neither reality nor value. Having supplanted the medieval spiritualistic culture, which was formed on the basis of the belief that God and the kingdom of God are the true reality, the sensualistic culture spread throughout Europe and dominated from the 15th to the 20th centuries.

According to Sorokin, by the beginning of the 20th century. her creative powers have almost completely dried up, continuing to act only in the field of science and technology. But even here it becomes a destructive force. Instead of serving the god of creativity, science, or at least a number of its branches, serves the devil of destruction. Nothing can revive this culture. In view of her great services to humanity, she should, as Sorokin suggests, be placed in a museum with gratitude and respect. Accordingly, the emergence of a new culture, or “a new integral sociocultural order,” in his terminology, is planned.

The struggle between a dying and an emerging new culture is going on everywhere, in every person, in every group and society as a whole. The idea of ​​the nature of true reality and true value is changing. Not only in religion and philosophy, but also in science, the idea is affirmed that true reality has not only an empirical, sensationalistic aspect, but also non-sensualistic, rational and super-rational aspects.

The emerging integral culture starts from the premise that true reality and value are infinite in their aspects and that we have no terminology to reflect them. The idea of ​​man has also changed: according to the new idea, man is a creator with super-rationalistic capabilities and sparks of genius. There is also a struggle in philosophy. Materialist philosophy is still shared by many, but, according to Sorokin, it has added little to the previous materialist systems. In other words, as P.A. believes. Sorokin, there is no spark of genius here. We find it in a number of new movements, idealistic or integral in nature. A similar process is observed in religion, where dogmatic religious systems are being replaced by the “holy spirit of creativity” and the “universal religion of creative altruistic love.” Thus, according to Sorokin, if an apocalyptic catastrophe does not occur, integral culture will help humanity enter a new creative era.

“The totality of meanings,” values ​​and norms in science, in the greatest philosophical, religious, ethical or artistic senses, forms, according to Sorokin, an ideological whole. This ideological system realizes itself quite tangibly in objects of material culture, in the behavior of its carriers, agents and members. In addition to extensive cultural systems, there are even more extensive systems that could be called cultural supersystems. The ideology of any of the supersystems, according to P.A. Sorokin, is based on certain basic premises or certain final principles, the development, development and proclamation of which together form the ideology of the supersystem. Since supersystem ideologies are the broadest of ideologies, then their basic premises or ultimate principles are the most generalized of truths, assumptions or values.

Humanity was faced with the question: “What is the nature of true and ultimate value?” And there were three answers to this question. Ultimate true value is sensory. Apart from it, there are no other realities and there are no extrasensory values ​​- this was the first answer. From this basic premise a huge supersystem called the sensitive system developed. There was a second answer to this question: the ultimate true goal is the supersensible and superintelligent god (Brahma, Tao, Sacred Nothing and other hypostases of God). Sensual or any other realities or values ​​are either mirages or base and shadow-like pseudo-realities. Such a basic premise and its corresponding cultural one; the system is called ideational.

The third answer is that the ultimate true value is the Many-faced Infinity, embracing all differences, infinite in quality and quantity. Human: the mind, which is subject to certain limits, cannot reproduce it authentically, cannot comprehend it. This Many-faced Infinity is inexpressible. We are only capable of a very, distant approach to three of Its aspects: rational (logical), sensual and supersensible (supermind). All three aspects are real and harmoniously united in Her. Her supersensory-intelligent and sensual values ​​are real. It can be called God, Tao, nirvana, Sacred Nothing, super-essence (by Dionysius the Areopagite) and “dismembered aesthetic continuity” (by the American philosopher of history F.S.K. Northrop).

This typically mystical concept of ultimate truth, reality and value (and the corresponding supersystem based on it) is called idealistic (integral).

Each supersystem contains within itself the extensive systems described above. A sensitive supersystem is formed from sensitive science, sensitive philosophy, sensitive religion (or something like that), sensitive art, sensitive morality and law, economics and politics, and at the same time - from sensitive thinking individuals, groups, and lifestyles based on sensory teaching and social institutions. The same applies to ideational and ideological supersystems. Thus, in the medieval culture of Europe from the 11th to the end of the 12th century. we discover the dominance of the ideational (spiritualistic) supersystem. Its most important position was the Christian creed with the supersonic and supersensible Trinity representing the ultimate and true reality and value. This symbol of faith was also proclaimed by the “science”, art, law, morality, economics, politics, and philosophy that dominated in the Middle Ages.

Theology was considered the queen of sciences, and all other sciences were unconditionally subordinate to her. Strange as it may sound today, the natural and other sciences were the handmaidens of theology. Medieval philosophy hardly differed from theology and religion. Medieval architecture and sculpture were nothing more than a “bible in stone”, proclaiming the same creed. The same role was played by painting and music, literature and drama.

But as for the pan-European culture of the 16th-20th centuries, it, according to Sorokin, presents a completely different picture. During this period, it is dominated by a sensitive (sensual) rather than a collapsed ideational supersystem. For the past four centuries, most subdivisions of European culture have proclaimed that "ultimate reality and value are sensually knowable." All divisions of this culture went through a corresponding secularization. Religion and theology have lost their former influence and prestige. Indifferent to religion, at times completely non-religious, sensitive science has turned into the highest objective truth, and the true truth has now become the truth of sense data, empirically perceived and verified.

The philosophy of sensationalism (materialism, empiricism, skepticism, pragmatism, etc.), sensualist architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture supplanted the religious art of the Middle Ages. Sensualistic, utilitarian, hedonistic, relativistic laws and moral norms created by man replaced the spiritualistic, unconditional, “God-given” laws and sacred norms of the Middle Ages. Material values, prosperity, comfort, pleasure, power, fame and popularity have become the main values ​​for which today's sensitive person fights.

Finally, if we take Greek culture V century BC. or European culture XIII c., then we will find that they were dominated by an idealistic cultural supersystem. This culture, with all its main divisions, affirmed the most important provisions of idealism, that the true ultimate reality and value is the Many-faced Infinity, partly sensually perceived, partly rational, partly superintelligent and supersensible. Here are three supersystems - the most extensive yet known.

Sorokin's doctrine of cultural supersystems turns out to be nothing more than a doctrine of the typology of civilizations. The modern world has undergone profound changes and dramatic shifts. They inevitably had to replace the idea of ​​the nation as a unit of the historical process with some other concepts. The disadvantages of Eurocentrism became apparent, and the threat of the disappearance of Western culture helped people to transform this directly experienced danger into their understanding of the past. Civilization thus becomes the main category of modern historical science.

6. Cultural and historical types

A significant contribution to understanding the problem of the relationship between culture and civilization was made by the Russian philosopher N.Ya. Danilevsky (1822-1885). In particular, he formulated a fundamentally new cultural concept, which marked a break with the previous tradition.

Danilevsky believed that many heterogeneous cultures, or cultural-historical types, exist in the world at the same time, i.e. special cultures that reveal their capabilities in specific historical periods.

According to the philosopher, “humanity” is an abstract concept. It is devoid of any real meaning. In fact, many heterogeneous cultures, or cultural-historical types, coexist in the world at the same time. Note that the concept of “cultural-historical type” in N.Ya. Danilevsky included both culture and civilization; it was often identified by the philosopher either with culture or with civilization.

Actual bearers of historical life, according to N.Ya. Danilevsky, are “natural groups”, i.e. any tribe or family of peoples, characterized by a separate language or group of languages ​​and constituting an original cultural and historical type, if it has already emerged from infancy and, according to its spiritual inclinations, is capable of historical development.

The philosopher rejected the geographical division of general culture into parts of the world. He considered the division of history into ancient, medieval and modern to be equally erroneous. The fall of the Roman Empire in 476 BC, an event that marked the end of ancient history and the beginning of the Middle Ages, was significant for Europe, but not at all for China and the rest of humanity. According to N.Ya. Danilevsky, the cultures of Rome, Greece, India, Egypt and others had their own ancient, medieval and modern periods.

He put forward the idea that there were multiple civilizations that were expressions of the infinitely rich creative genius of humanity. Each of them arises, develops its own forms of life (language, methods of communication, work, forms of life, etc.), its own moral and spiritual values, and then dies along with them. N.Ya. Danilevsky divided all peoples into three main classes: 1) positive creators of history who created great civilizations, or cultural-historical types; 2) negative creators of history, who, like the Huns, Mongols and Turks, did not create great civilizations; and, finally, 3) peoples whose creative spirit for some reason is delayed in its development at an early stage and therefore they cannot become either a creative or destructive force in history. They represent “ethnographic material” used by creative peoples to enrich their civilizations or give impetus to their new development. Only a few peoples were able to create great civilizations and become cultural and historical types.

In total, the philosopher counted ten civilizations: Egyptian, Indian, Iranian, Jewish, Greek, Roman, New Semitic (Arabian), Romano-Germanic (European). To these undoubted, according to N.Ya. Danilevsky, he considered two “dubious” types of civilizations to be “natural” groups: American and Peruvian (Indian), which died a violent death and did not have time to complete their development. As for the groups of the new America (modern USA), their significance was not yet clear to him. He hesitated whether to recognize them as a special cultural-historical type.

The Russian philosopher noted that the beginnings of a civilization of one cultural-historical type are not transmitted to peoples of another type. Each type develops it for itself, with greater or lesser influence from previous or modern civilizations alien to it. Such influence of N.Ya. Danilevsky allowed only in the sense of “soil fertilization”. He absolutely rejected any educational influence of alien spiritual principles. All cultural-historical types are equally original and draw the content of their historical life from themselves. But not all of them realize their content with the same completeness and versatility. It’s interesting how N.Ya. Danilevsky formulated the basic patterns (laws) of the emergence, growth and decline of civilizations.

1. Any tribe or people speaking the same language or belonging to the same language group, represent a cultural-historical type if they are spiritually capable of historical development and have passed the stage of childhood.

2. For the true birth and development of culture, the people must achieve political independence.

3. The basic principles of existence of every civilization are closed, i.e. inaccessible to other peoples. Thus, numerous attempts to spread Greek civilization among non-Aryan or Oriental peoples failed... The British suffered a similar defeat when trying to transfer European civilization to India. However, this pattern does not apply to individual elements or features of civilizations that can be transmitted from one civilization to another. The simplest method of transmission is colonization, thus, according to N.Ya. Danilevsky, the Phoenicians transferred their civilization to Carthage, the Greeks to Southern Italy and Sicily, the British to North America and Australia. Another way is to graft a cutting onto someone else's tree. The cutting remains a foreign body on the tree, exploiting it without giving anything in return. Hellenistic Alexandria was such a cutting on the Egyptian tree. The third way is mutual fertilization, in which the values ​​of one civilization are used by another if they suit it.

4. A civilization of a given cultural-historical type reaches its full flowering only if its “ethnographic material” is diverse and it has political independence.

5. The existence of cultural and historical types resembles the life of perennial plants, the growth period of which lasts endlessly, and the period of flowering and fruiting is relatively short and completely depletes their strength. The first stage is the emergence great culture- can last a very long time. It ends when culture moves from an ethnographic form of existence to a state one. At this second stage, cultural and political independence is formalized. The third stage - flourishing - represents the full development of creative potential and the implementation of the ideas of justice, freedom, wisdom, social and individual well-being. This stage ends with the complete exhaustion of the creative forces of civilization. Then the nation petrifies, becomes uncreative and disperses, torn apart by internal contradictions. The first and second stages can last for a very long time, but the last - flowering - is usually short and lasts on average 400-600 years. The stage of decline occurs somewhat earlier than can be observed. Thus, the decline of European civilization began, according to N.Ya. Danilevsky, already in the 18th century, however (let’s continue the philosopher’s thought) its obvious signs appeared only in the 20th century, at the zenith of its heyday.

As N.Ya. believed. Danilevsky, most civilizations are creative not in all, but only in one or several areas of activity. Thus, Greek civilization reached unsurpassed heights in the aesthetic field, Semitic - in religious, Roman - in the field of law and political organization. The progress of humanity consists, according to N.Ya. Danilevsky, it is not about going in one direction, but about the entire field that makes up the field of historical activity proceeding in different directions.

The substantiation of the concept of cultural-historical type was of great importance for cultural studies. Undoubtedly, there are many cultures on Earth, and they develop differently. After work N.Ya. Danilevsky, our ideas about the cultural process have become deeper and richer. Indeed, the influence of one culture on another is not all-pervasive.

7. Civilization of the modern world

Western civilization. The West did not long experience the euphoria of victory in the Cold War in the Persian Gulf, Samali, and Yugoslavia. Subsequent events intensified internal integration trends. Thus, after the collapse of communism, the response to the hostility of the outside world was the creation of the North American Trade Association on one side of the Atlantic, and the program of intensive and extensive evolution of the European Union on the other. Four more European countries (Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Austria) joined the EU, and the active strengthening of the group’s borders began - the Schengen agreements quite sharply limited access to the EU; The US Coast Guard does not allow Haitians, Cubans, Chinese and others into the country. A number of countries have passed laws restricting the entry of people from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. The official motivation for the adoption of such laws is most transparent in British legislation: “In order to avoid a situation of cultural confrontation.” This formulation is radically different from those adopted before: then it was, on the one hand, about ideology, hostile regimes, economic considerations, and on the other, about ecumenical values, the global altruism of A. Schweitzer and Mother Teresa.

Today, the West is openly discussing the question of when the decline of the region began. If in 1920 the West exercised control over half of the earth's surface - 25.5 million square meters. miles out of 52.5 million total land area, then by 1993 the control zone had decreased to 12.7 million square meters. miles (the Western European region itself plus North America, Australia and New Zealand). The Western population currently accounts for approximately 13% of the world's population and is projected to decline to 10% in 2025 (second in size to the Chinese, Hindu and Islamic civilizations).

For about 100 years, the West's share accounted for about two-thirds of world industrial production. The peak occurred in 1928 - 84.2%. Subsequently, the West's share of world industrial production fell to 64.1% in 1950 and to 48.8% in 1992. By 2015, the West's share of world GDP will fall to approximately 30%. If in 1900 the armies of the West accounted for 44% of the world's military personnel, in 1991 - 21%, then by 2025, presumably, only 10%. But the most important thing is qualitative changes - a slower growth rate, a significant decrease in the level of savings, a depletion of investment flows, a low population growth rate, constant growth expenses for individual consumption, hedonistic tendencies to the detriment of work ethics.

The following moral considerations are cited as the reasons for the ongoing decline of the West: weakening family ties, an increase in the number of divorces and the number of single-parent families, early sexual experience; refusal of citizens to participate in voluntary associations and the obligations associated with this participation; weakening of natural diligence, the work ethic on which the power of the nation was built; the spread of antisocial, criminal behavior, drug addiction, rampant violence; decline in the authority of education, the prestige of scientists and teachers.

The old scheme, when hardworking immigrants strive for assimilation as quickly as possible, ceases to work. Society begins to lose unity. Preaching multiculturalism simply masks social divisions. Supporters of multiculturalism, according to A. Schlesinger, “are very often ethnocentric separatists who see nothing but crimes in the Western heritage.”

Replacing individual rights with group rights will mean a weakening of Western civilization and will deal it the first blow. The second most significant blow could be the split of the West into North American and Western European parts. The third danger for the West is to stubbornly believe in its universal universality and impose this belief in all directions. Western civilization, we repeat once again, is valuable and strong not because it is universal, but because it is unique.

Latin American civilization is clearly a departure from the West and is now an independent branch with fragile democratic traditions, a corporate mystical culture (absent in the West), Catholicism without signs of the ideas of the Reformation, the influence of local culture (exterminated in North America), extremely unique literature and culture in general. The leader, Brazil, actively protects its industry from imports. One gets the impression that this civilization has come to terms with the role of a kind of “basement” of the West, with its backwardness, so clearly demonstrated in the war on the Falkland Islands and, of course, in world markets. This civilization harbors faint hopes for the expansion of NAFTA to the south, actively maneuvers, attracting Japanese and Western capital, seeks monocultures, essentially doomedly agreeing to the role of virtually the junior (as evidenced by such an indicator as the share of GNP per capita) partner of the West. At the beginning of the 20th century. 3.2% of the population belonged to the Latin American civilization, in 1995 - 9.3% - According to the forecast, in 2025, 9.2% of the world's population will live in the area of ​​Latin American civilization. The production of these countries in 1950 was 5.6% of the world, and in 1992 - 8.3%. The military composition of the armies of Latin American countries in 1991 reached 6.3% of the global total.

Eastern European civilization, descended from the Byzantine one (where Russia rushed about in search of its place), after the collapse of communism, quickly discovered that communism was not the only obstacle on its way towards the West. Orthodoxy, collectivism, a different work ethic, lack of organization, a different historical experience, different from the Western mentality, differences in the views of the elite and the masses - this and much more prevents the building of rational capitalism in an irrational society, the formation of a free market in an atmosphere of a power vacuum and the creation of a center of industriousness in conditions of rejection of competitive ethics. Now the states of the Eastern European civilizational code are looking for ways to survive, feeling the civilizational commonality of destinies. In 1900, 8.5% of the world's population belonged to the Orthodox civilization, in 1995 - 6.1%, in 2025 (forecast) - 4.9%. In 1980, the countries of the Orthodox area produced 16.4% of the world's gross product; this share in 1992; fell to 6.2%. The armed forces of this region amounted to in the early 90s. about 15% of the world's military personnel.

Islamic civilization, born in the 7th century. in Arabian trade routes, covered a huge region of the world - from the Atlantic to Southeast Asia. Turkish, Arab, and Malay cultures can be easily identified here, but there is also a unifying core. Islamic civilization has demonstrated internal solidarity (exceptions are well known), simultaneously turning the external borders of its world in the Middle East (Palestine, Golan), Europe (Bosnia, Chechnya), Asia (Punjab and Khalistan), Africa (southern Sudan and Nigeria) into authentic fronts of the 90s. In 1900, the number of Muslims in the world was 4.2% of the total population, in 1995 - 15.9%, in 2025 (forecast) - 19.2%. Their share in the world's industrial production is also growing - from 2.9% in 1950 to 11% in 1992. The armies of Muslim countries account for 20% of the world's military personnel.

Hindu civilization, which arose at least 4 thousand years ago, turned to its own fundamentalism during bloody clashes with Muslims. Literally before our eyes, Delhi - the capital of the almost cosmopolitan Indian National Congress - is turning into a militant camp of Hinduism, ready to confront Buddhism in the south and east, Islam in the north and west. At the same time, neither the lack of a common language nor the difference in the economic development of the regions of India fragmented the country, since civilizational factors - religion, folk traditions, common history - contributed to the preservation of unity. Hinduism turned out to be “more than a religion or a social system, it became the true basis of Indian civilization.” The fundamentalism of the Hindus manifested itself in a rather unexpected intensification of their militancy, the development and modernization of religious teachings, and the mobilization of the population of the country, which in 15-20 years will be the most populous in the world - 17%. India's gross domestic product in 1992 was 3.5% of the world's GDP, and India has a very bright future ahead.

The Confucian civilization of mainland China, Chinese communities in neighboring countries, as well as the related cultures of Korea and Vietnam, precisely in our days, despite communism and capitalism, have discovered the potential for rapprochement and grouping in the East Asian zone on the basis of Confucian ethics - hard work, reverence for authorities and elders, a stoic perception of life , i.e. just like in the rest of the world - on the basis of fundamentalist cravings. It is striking that there are no internal conflicts here (despite obvious social inequality). The region has rich integration opportunities, which it realizes by combining the latest technologies and the traditional stoic character of the population, an exceptional growth of self-awareness that rejects the inferiority complex. In 1950, China accounted for 3.3% of world GDP, and in 1992 - already 10%, and this growth will apparently continue. According to forecasts, in 2025 at least 21% of the world's population will live within the Chinese civilization. In 1993, the total army of this civilization was already the first in the world in size: 25.7%.

Japanese civilization, although it spun off from the Chinese in the first centuries of the new era, acquired unimitable, unique features, about which more than enough has been said and written. Today Japan accounts for 2.2% of the world's population, and by 2025. – approximately 1.5%, whereas in 1992 Japan's share in world industrial production was 8%.

So, the world, which just 5 years ago was divided into the first, second and third, has adopted a new internal configuration - seven civilizational complexes that developed many centuries before the emergence of social ideologies and outlived them.

8. Conclusion

There is no consensus in the humanities about how many civilizations have arisen throughout human history. Various civilizations except common features, have

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The textbook “Culturology” introduces readers to different cultures, their types and stages of development; talks about the interactions of cultures, gradually leading readers to the general patterns of their formation.

What is culture? How does it relate to nature? What is the difference between culture and civilization? Why are so many cultures born and how do they interact with each other? The textbook also shows the structure of culture and its various spheres.

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INTRODUCTION 10

Chapter I. WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDY?

Eurocentrism 13

Unity of Humanity 16

Crisis of Eurocentrism 18

Cultural and historical types 20

Modernization of the world 23

Conclusion. Questions. Literature. Abstract topics 25

Chapter II. CULTURAL WORLDS

Variety of definitions 27

“Culture” as an explanatory concept 31

Where is culture concentrated? 38

Conclusion. Questions. Literature. Abstract topics 40

Chapter III. PHENOMENON OF CULTURE

Culture as a descriptive concept 42

"Second Nature" 44

Transition to the supernatural.46

Culture is not born outside of nature 47

Concept of activity 49

Lifestyle of a particular society 51

Conclusion. Questions. Literature. Abstract topics 54

Chapter IV. CULTURE AS A SEARCH FOR MEANING

Work as a blessing 56

Breakthrough to something new. , ...

Relax - look at pictures, jokes and funny statuses

Various aphorisms

Stupid people get married, smart people get married.

Quotes and Statuses with meaning

One clove of garlic will get rid of onion smell.

Jokes from school essays

Brezhnev had large eyebrows and strangely delivered speech. He was outstanding and amazing person, his actions served for the benefit of Russia and that’s why we all love him and know him as a plump and big-browed man. He directed his activities in different directions. I'd shake hands with someone like that to an outstanding person like Brezhnev.

P.S. Gurevich CULTURAL SCIENCE Recommended by the Educational and Methodological Center “Professional Textbook” as a textbook for secondary vocational educational institutions Moscow z 2012 UDC 37.016:008 BBK 71я723-1 G95 Editor-in-Chief of the publishing house N.D. Eriashvili, Candidate of Legal Sciences, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor, laureate of the Russian Government Prize in the field of science and technology G95 Gurevich, Pavel Semenovich.<...> Cultural studies: textbook for secondary vocational educational institutions / P.S. Gurevich.<...>Why is it born a bunch of crops and how do they interact with each other?<...>Many theorists connect the fate of the world with comprehension culture in general or culture a separate people.<...>A gap arises between the well-being of a real individual and the objective, often impersonal, flow cultural creativity. <...>What impact does the cultural process have on public dynamics? <...>Alvin Toffler believes that the world is shaped by unique waves of social development.<...>Technology determines type society and type culture. <...> Toffler analyzes various aspects of social life, but at the same time takes transformations in the technosphere as dominant.<...>There is a great role here not only consciousness, but also intuition.<...>Of great importance in this body of knowledge is “ adventure thoughts", creative imagination. <...>Unlike philosophers who relied on the strength of their own crazy and fantasies and tried to quickly guess, grasp by intuition and crazy the general picture of the emergence and formation of society, sociologists tried to study specific groups and social organizations in more detail.<...>This is cultural studies, the science of plurality crops, about their uniqueness and dissimilarity and about the patterns of the cultural and historical process.<...>Culturology (from Latin cultura cultivation and Greek logos teaching) is a humanitarian discipline that studies culture as an integral system, the diversity of cultures, their interaction, types cultural creativity, structure and functions of culture<...>

Culturology._Textbook_for_SPUZ._Grif_UMC_Professional_textbook._(Series_Textbooks_of_Professor_P.S._Gurevich).pdf

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UDC 37.016:008 BBK 71ÿ723-1 Ã95 Editor-in-chief of the publishing house N.D. Eriashvili, Candidate of Legal Sciences, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor, laureate of the Russian Government Prize in the field of science and technology Gurevich, Pavel Semenovich. G95 Culturology: a textbook for secondary vocational educational institutions / P.S. Gosh. - M.: ÞÍÈÒÈ-ÄÀÍÀ, - 327 s. - (Says of “Professor P.S. Gagarin’s words”). ISBN 978-5-238-01289-6 Agency CIP RSL The publication introduces students of secondary vocational educational institutions, as well as high school students, to various cultures, their types and stages of development, talks about the interaction of cultures and their mutual influences, gradually leading readers to general patterns their development and problems of cultural studies as a scientific discipline. What is culture? How does it relate to nature? What is the difference between culture and civilization? Why are many cultures born and how do they interact with each other? The textbook also shows the structure of culture and its various spheres. BBK 71ÿ723-1 ISBN 978-5-238-01289-6 © P.S. Góðåâè÷, 2006 © PUBLISHING HOUSE ÞÍÈÒÈ-ÄÀÀÀ, 2006 The exclusive right to use and distribute the publication is owned. Reproduction of the entire book or any part thereof by any means or in any form, including on the Internet, is prohibited without the written permission of the publisher.

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Contents Introduction Anthropological principle in social cognition Culturology and philosophy Variants of cultural studies Topic 2. CULTURE AS A PHENOMENON Definition of culture Culture and life Various cultural worlds Zones of cultural creativity N.A. Berdyaev: “Culture is the great failure of life” Rene Guenon on the descending cycle of time Threat to culture Crisis of rationalism Diversity of definitions of culture Topic 3. DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF CULTURE Culture as a descriptive concept Culture as a product of human activity Culture as a way of life of a particular society Culture as a search for meaning The concept of “cult” » Topic 4. ORIGIN OF CULTURE Tool-evolutionary version Psychoanalytic explanation of the origin of culture Game as a harbinger of culture Culture - the production of symbols The origin of culture as a philosophical problem, as a riddle and secret Topic 5. CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION What is civilization Cultural-historical types Cyclic development of cultures Typology of civilizations Theory of local civilizations A. Toynby Civilization values ​​Clamping of civilizations Topic 6. Typology of cultures The difference between the concepts of “Classification” and “Typology” Topic 1. Culturology as humanitarian discipline 9 specifics of humanitarian knowledge 3 9 Culturology and other branches of cultural knowledge 14 History of culture 12 16 18 23 30 30 32 34 37 39 40 41 41 42 45 45 47 48 51 53 60 60 64 67 71 76 78 78 81 88 91 92 94 95 100 100 Comparison of East and West as different cultural cosmos 104 Ideal types of cultures 325 108

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Chronological typology of cultures Medieval culture Renaissance: a world without gods Counterculture and subculture The relationship between subculture and counterculture Specifics of the relationship between culture, subculture and counterculture in history Topic 7. SIGNS AND SYMBOLS AS THE LANGUAGE OF CULTURE Sign systems The nature of symbols Language as a metaphor Cultural codes Domestic semiotic school Topic 8 THE VALUE NATURE OF CULTURE What is value? Classification of values ​​The concept of “axiology” Polarization of values ​​Arsenal of values ​​The value of life The shrine of freedom Topic 9. CULTURAL TRADITIONS AND WAY OF LIFE Civilization and “savagery” Unity of humanity Crisis of Eurocentrism Various cultural attitudes Modernization of the world Topic 10. ELITE AND MASS CULTURE Characteristic features of elite culture Mass society Mass culture Functions of mass culture Mass drug Topic 11. TRANSFORMATION OF VALUES IN CULTURE Labor as a value in ancient religions Protestant ethic The collapse of the work ethic Personality or community? Transformation on the path to collapse Civilization in the intercivilizational space Factors that influenced the formation of Russian civilization Between East and West History of the Russian soul Attitude to power 326 112 113 114 117 119 122 126 126 127 128 132 135 Sociocode 138 Postmodernism as a phenomenon Simulacrum 139 149 151 151 153 154 155 157 158 162 168 168 170 172 174 182 185 185 187 189 190 191 199 199 204 207 207 211 Topic 12. LOCALITY OF RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION 214 Russian civilization - peripheral 214 215 216 220 223 225

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Topic 13. SOCIAL DYNAMICS OF CULTURE Development of culture Tradition as a phenomenon Specifics of traditional society Vedic culture as a historical type Upanishads Reincarnation and karma “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata” Topic 14. NATURE AND CULTURE “Second nature” Transition to the supernatural Culture is not born outside of nature The emergence of man Worship of nature Conquest of nature Attitude to nature in the East Ecological disaster Topic 15. SCIENCE AS A FORM OF CULTURE What is science? Features of scientific creativity Preservation and transfer of knowledge Synergetics - a new view of the world Responsibility of science Topic 16. RELIGION AS A PHENOMENON OF CULTURE Religion is an integral part of culture What is religion? Functions of religion Ideas about God Religion as a phenomenon of world culture Secularization Topic 17. EDUCATION AND UPBRINGING The Age of Enlightenment - the cradle of modern education and upbringing Education today The problem of education at the beginning of the 21st century. Topic 18. CULTURE AND HISTORY Alternatives to history Neoliberal concepts of the development of history Neoconservative concepts of the development of history Neo-radical concepts of the development of history Dictionary of terms and concepts 230 230 231 233 234 236 237 237 “Balla” 239 Concepts of modernization 2 41 245 245 246 247 249 253 255 260 262 268 268 269 ​​271 272 273 276 276 277 278 278 279 281 288 288 290 292 296 296 300 311 318 320 327