Cultural picture of the world definition. The purpose of culture and its meaning

Cultural picture peace

Cultural picture of the world - this is a conventional term that unites the system cultural worldviews of the society under study (2, pp. 252-253), the most general, holistic concept of the world and man’s place in it. The picture of the world develops at the level of an individual people, community, and culture. Picture of the world is formed based on a rational, mythological, political or other system of ideas about world integrity.

The picture of the world is a logical-verbal construct that is built in the process of awareness by a person, community, and people of the surrounding reality. In the methodological literature there is the concept of “physical picture of the world”; one can talk about “mathematical” or “mythological” or other pictures of the world.

In the structural-semiotic school, an applied concept is used to reconstruct cultural integrity - world model (MM)1. Both concepts (picture of the world, model of the world) are conventional and relative as an abstract research or educational technique.

Thus, archaic and traditional societies are characterized by a mythological picture of the world. Rock art from the Paleolithic period tells the story of the ancient painting peace. It shows the three-dimensional division of the world into upper, middle and lower (underground). The upper world is filled with signs of birds and luminaries; humans and animals are located in the middle; in the bottom: amphibians and fish. This division of world space is shown to us by ancient Russian embroidery, images of the three tiers of world space, or the “tree of the world,” on spinning wheels, and paintings on wood, which were used in Russian everyday life until the mid-twentieth century.

The picture of the world in the Middle Ages shapes the world space around the Divine, subordinates it to God, and substantiates the “creatureship” of both the world itself and man. The man of modern times builds a completely different picture of the world. For him, the stars, the earth and the person on it are unique mechanisms, subject to physical laws, knowable and reasonable (respectively, classical, rational, non-classical, post-non-classical pictures of the world).

IN historical reconstructions cultural eras, along with the concept picture of the world or world model, concepts apply life program, or life scenario. The program and life scenario, as a rule, are included in the appropriate picture of the world or model of the world.

Life program corresponding to the mythological picture of the world medieval Rus' - these are traditional actions corresponding to birth - adolescence - maturity - old age. Each stage of this basically biological series has its own scenario, which cannot be violated. The sequence of the life program based on the corresponding tradition is inscribed in the world integrity ( picture or world model).

Modern societies of the European type presuppose a certain independence in the formation of a life program, its scenarios, and fitting them into the appropriate picture of the world. Thus, European culture presupposes a long period of socialization (adolescence), possibly the absence of old age (protracted maturity, adolescence, childhood). Classical modern societies allow the development of their own picture of the world, within which the subject of culture (individual or group) resides. Modern European city presupposes the presence of many cultural communities, each of which draws up its own programs and scenarios, interacting within the urban space in the process of intercultural communication.

The picture of the world of classes, groups, communities of past eras, which did not leave spatial cultural texts, can be reconstructed with a large degree of convention on the basis of archaeological data (the picture of the world of nomadic peoples).

Literature:

1. Petrukhintsev N.N. XX lectures on the history of world culture [Text]: tutorial for students of higher educational institutions / N.N. Petrukhintsev. – M.: Humanite. Ed. VLADOS center, 2001. – 400 p.

2. Flier A.Ya. Culturology for culturologists [Text]: a textbook for undergraduates and graduate students, doctoral students and applicants, as well as teachers of culturology / A.Ya. Flier. – M.: Academic Project; Ekaterinburg: Business book, 2002.- 492 p.

8.4 Mentality of culture

In cultural literature the concept of “mentality” is now often used. They talk about the mentality of different eras, different nations, different cultures. What does this concept mean? Mentality (from the Latin mentalis - mental, spiritual, mental) is a spiritual appearance, a way of thinking, a set of psychological and behavioral attitudes that determine the originality and originality of the worldview and way of life of people of a given culture. According to the definition of P.S. Gurevich, “mentality (or mentality) is the relative integrity of thoughts, beliefs, spiritual skills, which creates a picture of the world and cements unity cultural tradition or some kind of community."

The mentality is formed at the mental level in the depths of the subconscious under the influence of the natural environment, traditions, social experience and connects developed forms of consciousness with semi-conscious cultural codes. It reflects “the deep level of mass consciousness, collective ideas of people, their image of the world, values ​​and attitudes. determining the actions, thoughts and feelings of people." In short, it records not only the types of people’s own thinking and feeling, but also processes that occur unconsciously and exist at the level of social psychology.

Thus, mentality is that general holistic perception of the world that is born from the unity of the natural and cultural, emotional and rational, irrational and rational, social and individual and reveals the idea of ​​the life world of people of a given culture, their inherent way of perceiving reality. AND I. Flier defines mentality as “a mental makeup, a spiritual appearance, typical for people of a given culture, psychological characteristics underlying customs and morals."

Mentalities are revealed in emotional mental reactions developed over centuries, brought to the point of automatism, i.e. performed by people almost mechanically. It is no coincidence that the first researchers of the nature of mentalities were specialists in historical psychology (the luminaries of the famous French school “Annals” and their followers). They also introduced the concept of “mentality” into social science.

As an independent phenomenon, mentality should be distinguished from public sentiments, value orientations, ideology. Public moods are changeable and unstable. Mentality expresses something more stable, habits, addictions, collective emotional patterns. The traits that characterize mentality are very stable and do not change for centuries, which makes it possible to determine ethnic or national identity culture. Thus, the national identity of Russian culture is recognizable both at the stage of the Baptism of Rus', and during the period of the Mongol-Tatar yoke, and during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, and during Peter the Great’s reforms, and under Soviet power, both in emigration and at the present stage of development of Russia.

Mentality includes value orientations, but is not limited to them. Values ​​are conscious, they express life attitudes and independent choice of shrines. Mentality characterizes the deep level of collective and individual consciousness and goes back to the unconscious. The bearers of a mentality are not always able to express it verbally and visually, so it is most often discovered through research through comparison with another mentality.

Mentality and ideology also differ. Ideology is more analytical; it is formed by consciousness. Mentality, like ideology, motivates a course of action, but does not always offer clear patterns of behavior, based on to a greater extent not on consciousness, but on spontaneous, semi-conscious patterns of behavior.

The phenomenon of mentality is also specific in that, unlike other behavioral and emotional stereotypes of culture, it is characterized by the absence of class differentiation, i.e. this is one of the few features that unites a nobleman and a peasant as representatives of the same ethnic group.

Researchers identify different types of mentalities using various criteria. Depending on the historical era in which a person lives and acts, there are such forms of historical mentality as primitive mentality (this concept was especially actively used in the analysis of archaic structures, the mythological consciousness of primitiveness, and then acquired an expanded meaning when considering various types communities), ancient mentality, medieval mentality, mentality of New and Contemporary times.

There is also an ethno-national mentality - deep structures that determine the ethnic or national identity of a people and are a very stable and stable formation.

The formation of ethnonational mentality is significantly influenced by natural (landscape, climate) factors, type economic life, type of statehood, relationships with other peoples, as well as archetypes (deep, stable and unconscious cultural attitudes of the “collective unconscious”), expressing the fundamental properties of an ethnic group and largely determining the features of their worldview, character, customs, and traditions. This type of mentality helps differentiate between European and American, Western and African cultures.

In addition to the above, scientists identify other types of mentalities characteristic of different eras and peoples. The concept of mentality is currently being developed in French humanities and is actively used in psychoanalysis and sociology.

The evolution of the holistic perception of the world, its disintegration into objective and subjective components found its representation in the picture of the world. The visible and tangible world is one, but it is perceived differently by ethnic groups. This diversity of views is due to the specific mentality of a particular people. If mentality is a way of perceiving and seeing surrounding a person In reality, the picture of the world is the result of this perception.

The cultural picture of the world differs significantly from the scientific, philosophical and religious paintings peace.

Under scientific picture of the world is understood as a certain perfect model reality, created on the basis of scientific ideas and principles. The scientific picture of the world (KP) provides the system with the most general ideas about the world, fundamental concepts and principles of science and acts as a source of possible interpretations of new subjects of science and how research program. For example, the mechanistic picture of the world that emerged in the 17th century gave rise to a new worldview. The action of the laws of nature was likened to the movement of a machine consisting of individual simple elements that can be studied, predicted, and directed. Science, especially in the “face” of mechanics and mathematics, was considered as a tool for understanding the mechanical structure of the world and became the main ideological support of the rationalism that was established during this period.

Philosophical the picture of the world, like the scientific model of the world, is based on scientific knowledge and on the value attitude towards the world. Hence, philosophical picture peace -

it is a synthesis of scientific and value ideas about the world and man.

Religious the picture of the world is a model of reality, expressed in boundless faith in the power of a certain Absolute - in God, in Buddha, transformed into an object of religious emotions and admiration.

Artistic the picture of the world is in many ways similar to the cultural picture of the world, and at the initial stage human history they are even identical. Artistic painting the world as a systematizing fact has spirituality “as a concrete historical embodied subjectivity.”

Cultural model of the world is a set of rational knowledge and ideas about the values, norms, morals, mentality of one’s own culture and the cultures of other peoples.

In different cultures, people perceive, feel and experience the world in their own way and thereby create their own unique image of the world or picture of the world. Thus, cultural studies uses cultural models world as a classification basis.

Preclassical The type of culture characterizes the way of existence of a society, its traditionality, and the “non-Western” way of organizing life. Therefore, its main features are protective: to preserve tradition and subordinate innovation to it. This type of culture is characterized by high moral qualities, spirituality, religiosity, higher

we are collectivities. This picture peace is inherent in Russian culture, formed in the ideals of Orthodoxy and conciliarity.

Classical the type of culture describes the emergence of a person’s “demiurgic” aspirations, focuses on innovation rather than tradition; This type of culture is characterized by a “Western” type of organization of life.

Postclassical The type of culture is a synthesis of pre-classical and classical. This picture of the world became the basis of new thinking at the end of the 20th century, new social practice. This is where global problems arise related to the survival of humanity. The development of humanity appears more contradictory and more multidimensional. Priorities are king Western culture and lifestyle. But there is a practice of lack of spirituality, alienation, economic race, etc. However, within this type of culture there arises a desire to borrow advantages that the West does not have from traditional, pre-classical cultures.

There is a well-known story about a Japanese soldier who was discovered several decades after the end of World War II in the impenetrable Asian jungle, where all these years he continued his little war. By coincidence, he was left there, completely alone. Perhaps he was ordered to remain at this remote position until further notice, and therefore continued to perform his duty with amazing devotion to his homeland, or he was simply too afraid to return to more populated areas. But time passed and no one told him that peace had been declared. Therefore, World War II continued to rage in his imagination.

Don't laugh at this soldier. Apparently he was wrong, but in the same way we are constantly mistaken. He was not well informed, but isn't that the same with us? Everyone, to one degree or another, is hostage to conflicting ideas about what is happening outside that small, close world, about which only one can correctly judge. This does not prevent us from forming judgments about phenomena, sometimes so complex that the mind is, to put it mildly, limited in understanding them. Most of our knowledge is nothing more than an idea of ​​what we know. Other people's actions are only understandable to the extent that we actually know what they think or know. This is not always realized. The inconsistency of most knowledge with the real state of affairs means that we are forever wading through the jungle of misunderstanding, and this comes at a cost.

Like Japanese soldier, we perceive the world speculatively. We are forced to create a multi-layered filter in our heads, because the world is too huge and complex to allow ourselves to endlessly absorb knowledge about it without harming our health. For this reason, we live in a fantasy world, built on the basis of many simplified models of what the world looks like or should look like. How the situation is more complicated, the more guesses we are forced to make, and the greater the share of fiction in our perception of reality.

Dependence on our own fantasies sometimes has dramatic consequences not only for us personally, but also for society as a whole. Major political decisions are sometimes based on very shaky foundations and have consequences that are far from planned. We give great importance expression results public opinion, for example in the form of general elections, which only serves as a manifestation of minimal knowledge about the subject.

Becoming informed - interacting with the world around you - means correctly understanding the mechanisms of its functioning. Anyone who has studied the psychology of stock markets has a greater chance of success in these markets; one who is well acquainted with the motivations of people has a better chance of success in relationships with them, and so on. Every mistake we make only shows that we were not as well informed as we thought or hoped. The discrepancy between our perception of reality and the perception of other people, as well as between our own fantasies and reality itself, is too great. People learn from their mistakes: they take them into account and, moving forward, adjust their behavior accordingly. In other words, they use information.

All the richness of the existence of a certain culture forms a certain way of understanding the world and being in it. The result of this specific vision of the world in which man lives is the cultural picture of the world - a system of images, ideas, knowledge about the structure of the world and man’s place in it.

Cultural picture of the world- this is a holistic image of the world, which is formed within the framework of the initial ideological principles. The picture of the world expresses a person’s generalized idea of ​​the universe and contains the most important results of human cognitive, practical and social activity.

From a thematic and content point of view, the following types of cultural pictures of the world can be distinguished: scientific, aesthetic, religious, ethical, legal, etc.

Concepts about the picture of the world may vary depending on the object of reflection or be determined by the characteristics of consciousness, character and psychology of a person as a representative of an era, country, culture, nation or professional group.

Picture of the world as a cultural phenomenon not only objectively reflects reality in its essential manifestations and connections, but thanks to human activity it acquires spiritual, moral and value value, which expresses the diversity of his relationships to the world. The picture of the world exists, can be transmitted and assimilated in the system of knowledge, norms, samples and signs in various branches of science, works of art and beliefs, the language in which this or that group of people communicates. Thus, in the minds of an individual person, the picture of the world can exist as a kind a type of virtual reality.

The most prominent scientists studied the problems of the picture of the world at different times. In antiquity, the ancient Greek thinker Plato(428/427-347) formed the doctrine of eidos (types, appearances), in which the ideal essence of reality is revealed in human consciousness. At the beginning of the 20th century. O.Spengler(1880-1936) in his work “The Decline of Europe” (1918) says that “history is an image through which the human imagination seeks to gain an understanding of the living existence of the world in relation to own life" Not accepting traditional historical science as a set of fragmentary information about the past, and history itself as a linear external scheme of the transition from the past to the present, Spengler proposed to distinguish between the scientific picture of nature - an ordered system of natural laws - and history, which for modern man can exist only as “a certain picture of the world emitted by an individual, in which becoming dominates over what has become.” For every person, “his world is the realization of the spiritual element,” and historical picture world, from Spengler’s point of view, necessarily requires “poetic creativity”, the use various types artistic development of life material. This picture of the world is special variety imprecise knowledge for which “every greek statue there is an image of the present moment.”

Your contribution to modern interpretation problems of the worldview were introduced by one of the prominent representatives of European existentialism M.Heidegger(1889-1976). Calling the picture of the world “the canvas of existence as a whole,” he argued that the world becomes a picture only in modern times, when individualism develops and a person becomes a subject of culture. Creating a picture of the world means that this entire world now comes under the competence of man, becomes the object of application of his abilities and the sphere of his activity. Precisely because, as a result, all aspects of life turn into a starting point for a properly human assessment of the surrounding reality, “observation of the world and the science of the world turn into a science of man,” i.e. into humanism. Overall for philosophical thought XX century the concept of “picture of the world” is relevant due to the formulation of the problem of the relationship between reality and the system of ideas about it, characterizing the cultural consciousness of people of a certain era as an independent and original phenomenon.

The development of connections between cultures leads to “blurring” unique features each of them. So, in the 20th century. peoples and countries begin to unify in everyday life and in thinking. This is especially clearly evidenced by the process of computerization, which subordinates the thinking logic of those who work with the computer to a single algorithm. And yet, at the core of every culture, what is preserved is what is crystallized under the influence of the country’s nature, its climate, landscapes, food ethnic type, language, memory of its history and cultures. Thus, the cultural picture of the world retains its uniqueness in the processes universalization of culture.

The most important components pictures of the world are cultural norms and values.

Norm(Latin norma – guiding principle, rule, model) - a category reflecting the laws and standards of people’s social existence. Several different types of norms can be distinguished.

1. Norms - a system of permissions and prohibitions to perform any actions or express any judgments, assessments, etc. Norms, understood in this sense, can be defined as institutional, recorded in some official documents (political, legal, religious and others) and supported both with the help of the authority of the authorities and the use of violence in necessary cases. Classic example such norms are state laws and decrees, church decrees, criminal code, etc.). Such norms play an important role in maintaining public order and the sociocultural stability of society as a whole, but especially in that part of human existence that is amenable to public control.

2. Statistical norms, i.e., emerging spontaneously in the form of a mass custom of doing one way and not another, evaluating and comprehending something from this perspective and not from some other. Such norms can be conditionally called ethnographic, since the mechanism of their formation and action is practically indistinguishable from other ethnographic rules, customs, and patterns. The unofficial nature of these norms does not at all guarantee a liberal attitude towards their violators, who may be subject to rather severe punishment. Example of ethnographic norms – folk traditions(albeit only a normative function social role traditions are not exhausted).

3. Conventional rules, i.e. born in the process of a social contract, but not having the force of law. Such norms occupy an intermediate position between institutional and ethnographic, in each specific case gravitating towards one or the other pole. Examples: rules of neighborly behavior, norms of friendly or loving relationships, where the boundaries of what is permitted, prohibited and left to the discretion of everyone, on the one hand, are intuitively and culturally more or less clear, on the other hand, are not subject to strict regulation. The implementation of conventional norms is primarily left to the discretion of each person and is a matter of his private life (unlike, say, ethnographic norms, the observance of which is usually controlled by the entire community or small social group).

4. Reference standards- specially created as a role model. In this sense, the influence of art on people through demonstrating to them certain standard norms of behavior, judgment, worldview, lifestyle, etc. is the most powerful.

Changing norms is one of the mechanisms for changing the nature and direction human activity. Norms have two ways of being consolidated: symbolic (codes, laws, codes and rules) and social (embedded as patterns in activity, behavior, communication).

Norms can be quite strict (especially “taboo”), and the expression of immediate social needs and interests can be quite soft (primarily permissions).

There is a differentiation of norms according to the areas of their application: ethical, social, cultural, aesthetic, legal, etc.

In general, a norm is a means of spiritual and practical development of the world, ways of cognition and action of subjects, necessary condition establishing interaction with each other.

The cultural picture of the world includes value judgments. Values arise as a result of a person’s comprehension of the significance for him of certain objects (material or spiritual). Each sphere cultural activities a person acquires a value dimension that is dual to it. There are values ​​of material life, economics, social order, politics, morality, art, science, religion. Each type of culture has its own hierarchy of values ​​and value changes. Thus, in antiquity, of all value dimensions, the aesthetic approach to the world comes first, in the Middle Ages - the religious and moral one, in modern times - the scientific and value approach. The process of cultural development is always accompanied by a revaluation of values.

Values - these are the preferred meanings of phenomena for an individual or group. These are ideas about what is significant and important, which determine a person’s life activity, make it possible to distinguish between what is desirable and what is undesirable, what one should strive for and what should be avoided (evaluation - reference to value). There are different values:

Terminal (goal values),

Instrumental (means values),

Situational.

The entire variety of values ​​can be conditionally classified based on identifying those areas of life in which they are realized:

Vital values: life, health, safety, quality of life;

Economic values: the presence of equal conditions for commodity producers and favorable conditions for the development of production of goods and services, goals and meaning economic activity;

Social values: social status, hard work, family, prosperity, gender equality, personal independence, ability to achieve, tolerance;

Political values: patriotism, civic activism, civil liberties, civil peace;

Moral values: goodness, goodness, love, friendship, duty, honor, selflessness, honesty, fidelity, love for children, justice, decency, mutual assistance, respect for elders;

Religious values: God, faith, salvation, grace, Holy Bible and legend;

Aesthetic values: beauty, harmony, style, etc.

By cultural values ​​we mean the sum of the most outstanding in quality works (masterpieces) of intellectual, artistic and religious creativity. This list also includes outstanding architectural and other structures, unique works of craft, as well as the entire set of archaeological and partly ethnographic rarities due to their antiquity and the uniqueness of each specimen. This is an archaeological and art history approach to the problem.

Culturologists understand by cultural values ​​a certain quintessence of the social experience of society, within the framework of which the most justified principles of life activity that have shown the greatest social efficiency are collected: mores, customs, stereotypes of behavior and consciousness, samples, assessments, images, opinions, interpretations, etc. , that is, fundamental norms of behavior and judgment that lead to increased social integration of the community, to an increase in mutual understanding between people, their complementarity, solidarity, mutual assistance, etc. Cultural values, interpreted in this sense, represent a certain “core” social culture community, quintessence folk wisdom and high intellectual revelations contained in various “cultural texts” “accumulated” by the community over the centuries. In the same way, masterpieces of art and literature are the “core” of the corresponding specialized areas of culture.

Values ​​can be:

Recognized, and they may or may not strive for them;

Unrecognized, but valid;

Potential.

Cultural value is neither an enforceable norm nor a theoretically pursued ideal. It is, rather, a certain “reserve” of already acquired and accumulated social experience, which underlies the historical and social stability of a given culture.

Introduction

In this test work the “cultural picture of the world” is considered.
The relevance of this topic lies in the fact that the picture of the world is the foundation for assessing life and understanding the world, and reflects the peculiarities of thinking of representatives of a particular culture. It represents a set of rational knowledge and ideas about the values, norms, morals, and mentality of one’s own culture and the cultures of other peoples. This knowledge and ideas give the culture of each nation its originality, making it possible to distinguish one culture from another.
The study of this topic will help answer questions such as: The cultural picture of the world as a category of culture. What is the cultural picture of the world? What are its features? What is the essence of the concepts of “mentality” and “archetype” and their influence on the cultural picture of the world? What are the norms and values ​​of the culture?
Accordingly, the task of this study is to find answers to the questions posed above.
The logic of the study determined the structure of the test work, consisting of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion and literature. Chapter 1 examines the cultural picture of the world as a category of cultural studies, its essence, and features. Chapter 2 discusses the concepts“mentality” and “archetype” and their influence on the cultural picture of the world. Chapter 3 is devoted to the norms and values ​​of culture.

Chapter 1. “Cultural picture of the world” as a category of cultural studies

Culturology is the science of the laws of existence and development of culture, of the interrelations between culture and other areas of human activity.
Culturology has developed as humanities about the most general laws of development and functioning of culture. In its structure there are following components :
-An object;
-Item;
-Content;
-Categories;
-Principles;
-Methods;
-Laws;
-Functions.
Categories of cultural studies . Categories are basic logical concepts that reflect the most general and essential connections and relationships between objects and phenomena of reality.
Among the categories, culturologists distinguish the following:
-categories of social and human sciences;
-categories of sciences that are at the intersection with cultural studies;
-own categories (culture, civilization, cultural picture of the world, mentality, mentality, etc.)
Let us consider the cultural picture of the world in more detail.
Culture is a product of the joint life activity of people, it is a system of agreed upon ways of their collective coexistence, ordered norms and rules. This system is formed as a result of long-term joint residence of people in a certain territory, their economic activities, defense against external enemies. All this forms a common understanding of the world among people, single image life, manner of communication, specifics of clothing, features of cooking, etc.
But each ethnic culture is not a mechanical sum of all acts of life of people of the corresponding ethnic group. Its core is a “set of rules” that developed in the process of their collective coexistence. Unlike human biological properties, these “rules of the game” are not inherited genetically, but are learned only through learning. For this reason, a single universal culture that unites all people on Earth is impossible.
Already ancient thinkers (Herodotus, Thucydides), who were engaged in historical descriptions, noticed that each culture has specific features that distinguish it from the cultures of other peoples. Growing up in specific living conditions (geographical, historical, technological, everyday, etc.), a culture unfolds its history, develops its own language, and forms its own worldview. The entire richness of the existence of a culture, the entire integrity of the existence of a people determines the way of understanding the world and being in it. The result of this specific vision of the world in which man lives is the cultural picture of the world.
Cultural picture of the world – a set of rational knowledge and ideas about the values, norms, morals, mentality of one’s own culture and the cultures of other peoples, a system of images, ideas, knowledge about the structure of the world and man’s place in it.
The cultural picture of the world is expressed in different attitudes to cultural phenomena, includes ideas about the individual, his relationship to society, freedom, equality, honor, good and evil, law and labor, family, the course of history and values time, about the relationship between new and old, about death and the soul. The cultural picture of the world is passed on from generation to generation, transformed during the development of society, it is inexhaustible in content and serves as the basis for human behavior.
The cultural characteristics of a particular people can manifest themselves in various aspects of human life: in the satisfaction of biological, material or spiritual needs, in natural behavioral habits, types of clothing and housing, types of tools, methods of labor operations, etc.
The cultural picture is formed depending on the meaning of the world for the person living in it. And a person satisfies even the most primitive needs and impulses in life in a strictly defined way.
Serious cultural differences among different nations are observed in the processes of eating food, its quantity, behavior at the table, forms of showing attention to the guest, etc. When satisfying hunger or thirst, a person follows established traditions characteristic of his culture: he uses certain utensils, certain cooking procedures and eating rituals. The meal thus acquires a special ritual and symbolic meaning for a person.
Thus, Russians, by tradition, immediately lead the invited guest to the table, which surprises Americans, since dinner is usually preceded by small talk with a glass of wine and light snacks. At the table, Russians place each guest on a plate with a variety of appetizers and main dishes, while in the United States, dishes are passed around so that each guest can put the right amount of food on their plate. Russian housewives are trying hard to feed the guest, which is unusual for Americans, since this is not accepted in their culture.
All life manifestations of a person as a subject of a certain culture are fixed by certain rites, rituals, norms, rules, which are significant components of culture that regulate temporal and spatial processes human life.
Often peoples living in similar geographical conditions and in close proximity to each other build houses differently. Russian northerners traditionally place their houses facing the street, while Russian southerners place their homes along the street. Balkars, Ossetians, and Karachais have lived in the Caucasus as neighbors for many centuries. However, the first build one-story stone houses, the second two-story, and the third - wooden houses.
Human life is inexhaustibly rich, diverse and multi-layered. Some of its moments, especially those associated with primary sensations, the first attempts of the emerging humanity to realize themselves in this world, are not subject to rational control and arise unconsciously. Therefore, the concept of “cultural picture of the world” is used in a broad and in the narrow sense words.
In a narrow sense, the cultural picture of the world usually includes primary intuitions, national archetypes, figurative structures, ways of perceiving time and space, “self-evident” but unproven statements, and extra-scientific knowledge. IN in a broad sense, along with the listed elements, scientific knowledge is also included in the cultural picture of the world.
The cultural picture of the world is specific and differs among different peoples. This is due to a number of factors: geography, climate, natural conditions, history, social structure, beliefs, traditions, way of life, etc. In addition, each historical era has its own picture of the world, and they are all different from one another.
At the same time, it is possible to identify a universal picture of the world, characteristic of all humanity, although it will be too abstract. So, for all people, apparently, a binary opposition of white and black is characteristic, but for some groups white will correspond to the positive principle - life, and black - to the negative principle - death, and for others, for example, the Chinese, on the contrary. Any nation will have its own idea of ​​good and evil, norms and values, but each nation will have different ideas.
Each person will also have their own picture of the world, and it will depend primarily on their character: for a sanguine person it is one, for a phlegmatic person it is completely different.
It should also be borne in mind that the picture of the world depends on the language spoken by its speakers, and, conversely, the main points of the picture of the world are always fixed in the language. Of course, the cultural picture of the world is fuller, deeper and richer than the linguistic picture of the world. In addition, the cultural picture of the world is primary in relation to the linguistic one, but it is in language that the cultural picture of the world is verbalized, realized, stored and passed on from generation to generation. Language is capable of describing everything that is in the cultural picture of the world: features of geography, climate, history, living conditions, etc.
Here is a typical example from the field of language interaction. How are colors indicated in different languages? It is known that the retina of the human eye, with the exception of individual pathological deviations, records color in exactly the same way, regardless of whose eye perceives the color - an Arab, a Jew, a Chukchi, a Russian, a Chinese or a German. But each language has established its own color system, and these systems often differ from each other. For example, in the Eskimo language, to denote different shades and types of snow, there are 14-20 (according to various sources) synonyms for the word white. A person who speaks English is color blind blue and blue, in difference from a Russian speaker, and sees only blue.
But such differences concern, naturally, not only color range, but also other objects and phenomena of the surrounding reality. In Arabic there are several symbols for the word camel: there are separate names for a tired camel, a pregnant camel, etc.
Language imposes a certain vision of the world on a person. Assimilating native language, an English-speaking child sees two objects: foot And leg where a Russian speaker sees only one thing - a leg.
In Russian, for obvious reasons, there is and a blizzard, and a blizzard, and a blizzard, and a blizzard, and a blizzard, and drifting snow, and all this is connected with snow and winter, and in English this diversity is expressed by the word snowstorm, which is quite sufficient to describe all snow manifestations in the English-speaking world.
Almost every culture has similar examples. Thus, in the Hindi language there are numerous names for a certain type of nut. This is explained by the role that the fruits of the areca palm (Areca catechu) and hard nuts “supari” play in the general culture and subcultures of the Hindustan Peninsula.
India annually consumes more than 200 thousand tons of such nuts: areca palms grow in a hot, humid climate, primarily along the Arabian Sea, in the Konkan. The fruits are collected unripe, ripe and overripe; they are dried in the sun, in the shade or in the wind; boiled in milk, water or fried in oil squeezed from other nuts - a change in technology entails an immediate change in taste, and each new option has its own name and has its own purpose. Among the Hindu rituals - regular, calendar and extraordinary - there is no such thing where one could do without the fruits of the areca palm.”
The existence of a very close connection and interdependence between a language and its speakers is beyond doubt. Language is inextricably linked with the life and development of the speech community that uses it as a means of communication.
The social nature of a language is manifested both in the external conditions of its functioning in a given society, and in the very structure of the language, in its syntax and grammar. Between language and the real world stands man. It is man who perceives and comprehends the world with the help of his senses and, on this basis, creates a system of ideas about the world. Having passed them through his consciousness, having comprehended the results of this perception, he transmits them to other members of his speech community using language.
Language as a way to express a thought and transmit it from person to person is closely connected with thinking. The path from the real world to the concept and further to verbal expression is not the same for different peoples, which is due to differences in history, geography, the peculiarities of life of these peoples and, accordingly, differences in the development of their social consciousness. Since our consciousness is determined both collectively (by way of life, customs, traditions, etc.) and individually (by the specific perception of the world characteristic of this particular individual), language reflects reality not directly, but through two zigzags: from the real world to thinking and from thinking to language. The cultural and linguistic pictures of the world are closely interconnected, are in a state of continuous interaction and go back to the real picture of the world, or rather, simply to real world surrounding a person 1.
But language is not the only component of the cultural picture of the world; it is also formed from thematically understandable, conscious and undoubted contents of artifacts and unconscious meanings and personal meanings, as well as experiences, experiences, and assessments. As a result, from a content-thematic point of view, scientific, aesthetic, religious, ethical, legal and other similar pictures of the world are usually distinguished; from this position, the picture of the world is reduced to a set of information and data. The appearance of these pictures is preceded by the appearance of another picture of the world - a picture of intuitive ideas, meanings and meanings as an expression of the characteristics of the life of a given culture. Moreover, each meaning always represents in a special way the universality of the world in which people live.
The development of connections between cultures leads to the disappearance of the unique characteristics of each of them. So, in the 20th century. peoples and countries begin to unify in everyday life and in thinking. This is especially clearly evidenced by the processes of computerization, which subordinate the logic of thinking of those who work with the computer to a single algorithm. And yet, at the core of every culture, what is preserved is what is “crystallized” under the influence of the country’s nature, its climate, landscapes, food, ethnic type, language, memory of its history and culture. Thus, the cultural picture of the world retains its uniqueness in the processes of universalization of culture.

2. The essence of the concepts of “mentality” and “archetype”
and their influence on the cultural picture of the world

In the 20s In the 20th century, the concept of “ mentality " Its development was carried out by representatives of historical-psychological and cultural-anthropological directions: L. Levy-Bruhl, L. Febvre, M. Blok. In the original context, “mentality” meant the presence among representatives of a particular society, interpreted as a national-ethnic or socio-cultural community of people, of a certain “mental toolkit”, a kind of “psychological equipment”, which makes it possible to perceive and realize in their own way their natural and social environment and themselves.
Currently, two main trends are emerging in understanding the essence of mentality: on the one hand, mentality includes a way of life, features of folk realities, rituals, style of behavior, moral precepts of the people, and self-identification of a person in the social world. In a narrow sense, mentality is what allows you to uniformly perceive the surrounding reality, evaluate it and act in it in accordance with certain established norms and patterns of behavior in society, while adequately perceiving and understanding each other.
Mentality is a mindset, attitude, worldview, spiritual identity of the worldview, world experiences and attitudes of a community and an individual representing a particular culture. Mentality contains unconscious, natural of a given people value orientations, archetypes that underlie collective ideas about the world and man’s place in it, as well as national images of culture, unconscious and behavioral reactions that cannot be comprehended in any other way than in the word of the national language. Mentality differs from public sentiments, value orientations and ideology in that it is more stable. Mentality is always a certain integrity of the “worldview”, the unity of opposite principles - natural and cultural, emotional and rational, irrational and rational, individual and social.
Mentality is a certain set of symbols formed within the framework of each historical and cultural era and nationality. This set of symbols is fixed in people's minds during dialogue with other people. These symbols (concepts, images, ideas) serve as explanations in everyday life, by expressing knowledge about the world and man’s place in it.
Mentality includes basic ideas about man, his place in nature and society, his understanding of nature and God as the creator of everything. These are emotional and valuable orientations, collective psychology, the way of thinking of both the individual and the collective;
Mentality, as the specificity of people’s psychological life, is revealed through:
- a system of views and assessments, norms of mentality, based on the knowledge and beliefs existing in a given society;
- language. Language analysis makes it possible to very accurately identify cultural specificity the relationship of people to the world around them and represents the inner world of a person. One can learn through language the style of thinking;
- the dominant motives in a given group, through the hierarchy of values, which are manifested in beliefs, ideals and interests. All this makes it possible to identify social attitudes that ensure readiness to act in a certain way. Mentality is most clearly manifested in the typical behavior of people, representatives of a given culture, expressed primarily in stereotypes of behavior and decision-making, which in fact mean the choice of one of the behavioral alternatives;
- emotional sphere, through the dominance of any feelings;
- analysis of the main socio-political and ethnic categories that everyday consciousness operates on: “freedom”, “work”, “time”, “space”, “family”.
The concept of “mentality”, which is close in meaning, can be found among representatives of the psychological concepts of E. Fromm, K.G. Jung, Z. Freud, etc. Thus, the Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist K.G. Jung, trying to comprehend the deep foundations of collective psychology, used the concept of “archetype”.
Archetype represents the mental structures of the collective unconscious, which is not a personal acquisition of a person, but inherited from our distant ancestors. Archetypes are unique forms of understanding the world, in accordance with which the thoughts and feelings of people are formed and determine everything. mental processes related to their behavior.
The French ethnographer and psychologist L. Lévy-Bruhl thus designates a number of symbolic forms that exist in primitive thinking. The concept of “archetype” received the greatest development in analytical psychology by K.G. Jung, who, exploring, under the influence of S. Freud, the “individual unconscious,” gradually came to the conclusion that there is a deeper layer in the human psyche - the “collective unconscious,” which is a reflection of the experience of previous generations, “imprinted” in the structures of the brain.
Unlike the mentality , limited by spatiotemporal and sociocultural frameworks, the archetype is universal regardless of time and place. If mentality depends on the sociocultural context, with its inherent axiological ideas, then the archetype is axiologically neutral. It represents the basis of cultural and historical processes, to which mentality gives a certain form. Thus, the archetype is a deeply abstract category, and the mentality is historical. It is the archetype of the collective unconscious that, according to Jung, forms a certain image of the world, which is then reflected in the mentalities of various types of societies.
Thus, cultural archetypes– basic elements of culture that form constant models of spiritual life. The content of cultural archetypes is typical in culture, and in this regard, archetypes are objective and transpersonal. The formation of cultural archetypes occurs at the level of the culture of all humanity and the culture of large historical communities in the process of systematization and schematization of cultural experience. Because of this, the individual is not clearly aware of his involvement in cultural archetypes, and the reproduction of the archetype by a specific person is a rationally unintentional act.
The most fundamental in the composition of culture universal cultural archetypes And ethnic cultural archetypes(ethnocultural archetypes).
In culture, understood as the “non-hereditary memory of the collective” (B.A. Uspensky), cultural archetypes act as spontaneously operating stable structures for processing, storing and representing collective experience. By preserving and reproducing the collective experience of cultural genesis, universal cultural archetypes ensure the continuity and unity of general cultural development. Ethnic archetypes (ethnocultural archetypes) are constants of national spirituality that express and consolidate the fundamental properties of an ethnic group as a cultural integrity. Each national culture is dominated by its own ethnocultural archetypes, which significantly determine the characteristics of their worldview, character, artistic creativity and historical fate people.
According to Jung, the actualization of an archetype is a “step into the past,” a return to the archaic qualities of spirituality, however, the strengthening of the archetypal can also be a projection into the future, because ethnocultural archetypes express not only the experience of the past, but also the aspirations of the future, the dream of the people. The active presence of ethnocultural archetypes is an important condition for preserving the identity and integrity of national culture.
Cultural archetypes, while remaining essentially unchanged, manifest themselves diachronically and synchronically in a wide variety of forms ( mythological images and plot elements, religious teachings and rituals, national ideals, etc.).
Returning to the consideration of mentality, let us dwell on Russian mentality, around which there has been an aura of mystery, mystery, and incomprehensibility for many centuries.
Modern researchers of Russian mentality note a clash in the minds of Russian people of contradictory attitudes and behavioral stereotypes, which is explained by the middle position of culture in relation to the Western and Eastern ones. “Western” and “Eastern” features in the Russian mentality do not strictly contradict each other, but rather combine and complement each other. Let's try to understand the peculiarities of the mentality of the Russian people and the reasons for their occurrence.
The Russian ethnos took root in the center of Eurasia, on a plain not protected from the west or east by either seas or mountains and accessible to military invasions from both East Asia and Western Europe, and was historically, geographically and psychologically doomed to resist the cruellest pressure from outside. The only way to maintain independence in such conditions is to occupy as much territory as possible, in which any enemy armies would be bogged down.
A huge, sparsely populated territory required for its development a special type of people, capable of decisive action, daring and courageous. Settling over a vast territory, the Russians created a network of fortress settlements, which also played the role of economic centers for the development of the territory. The population of such prisons was distinguished by their entrepreneurial spirit, extraordinary love of freedom and rebellion.
Colossal spaces, harsh climate and the need to resist the combined forces of many peoples from the West and East at the same time gave rise to the prevailing type of subconscious and conscious psychological attitudes, which were reflected in the mindset of the Russians, in the manner of their thinking.
In general, the variety of traits of a Russian person can be reduced to five main behavioral orientations:
- on collectivism(hospitality, mutual assistance, generosity, trustfulness, etc.);
- on spiritual values(justice, conscientiousness, wisdom, talent, etc.);
- on power(veneration of rank, creation of idols, controllability, etc.);
- on better future(hope for “maybe”, irresponsibility, carelessness, impracticality, lack of self-confidence, etc.);
- on quick solution to life problems
etc.................

The study of the process of cultural genesis unambiguously shows that humanity, united by its roots, in the process of development “branches” into many diverse, special cultures. Therefore, considering culture as complex system, it should be remembered that each of the cultures, growing up in specific living conditions (geographical, historical, technological, everyday, etc.), unfolds its own history, develops its own language, and forms its own worldview. The result of this specific vision of the world in which man lives is a cultural picture of the world - a system of images, ideas, knowledge about the structure of the world and man’s place in it.

The concept of a cultural picture of the world

In the very general view is a product of the joint life activity of people, a system of agreed upon ways of their collective existence, ordered norms and rules for satisfying group and individual needs, etc. Its occurrence is due to the fact that when people live together for a long time in one territory, their collective economic activity, defense against attacks form their common, unified way of life, manner of communication, style of clothing, etc. However, each group exists in its own specific conditions - climatic, geographical, historical, etc. For this reason, the existence of a single universal culture that unites all people on Earth becomes impossible. In historical practice, culture appears as a multitude of cultures of different eras and regions, and within them in the form of cultures of individual countries and peoples, which are usually called local (or ethnic) cultures. Some local cultures are similar to each other due to their genetic relatedness and the similarity of the conditions of their origin. Other cultures vary only as much as the conditions that gave rise to them. In all the diversity of local cultures, there is not a single “nobody’s” culture. Each individual culture embodies a specific life experience any particular people or community of people. This experience gives the culture of each nation unique features and determines its uniqueness.

The uniqueness of culture can manifest itself in a variety of aspects of human life - in the satisfaction of biological, material or spiritual needs, in natural behavioral habits, types of clothing and housing, types of tools, methods of labor operations, etc. So, according to the observations of ethnographers. peoples living in similar geographical conditions and next door to each other, houses are often built differently. Russian northerners traditionally place their houses next to the street, while Russian southerners place their homes along the street. Balkars, Ossetians, and Karachais have lived next door to each other in the Caucasus for many centuries. However, the first build one-story stone houses, the second - two-story, and the third - wooden. Previously, only an Uzbek skullcap made it possible to determine from which locality its owner came, and the clothes of a Russian peasant woman of the 19th century. indicated exactly in which province she was born.

The originality of any local or ethnic culture gets its completion in cultural picture of the world, which is an expression of the fact that in different cultures people perceive, feel and experience the world in their own way and thereby create their own unique image of the world, a special idea of ​​the world. In its content, the cultural picture of the world is a set of rational knowledge and ideas about values, norms, mores, the mentality of one’s own culture and the cultures of other peoples, includes unconscious meanings, personal meanings, experiences and assessments. The cultural picture of the world is not a syncretic integrity, but consists of private pictures - scientific, aesthetic, religious, artistic, ethical, legal, etc.

The most important components of the cultural picture of the world are space and time, as well as movement, change, property, quality, quantity, cause, effect, chance, regularity - ontological categories of culture. These categories are closely related to social categories, such as labor, property, power, state, freedom, justice, etc.

They are woven into the structure of the language in which people speak, they cover the entire cultural space, forming together a kind of “grid of coordinates” through which the speakers of a particular culture perceive the world and create their own national images peace." On their basis, a mentality characteristic of a given culture is formed - the general state of mind, the mindset of people belonging to the same culture. Mentality includes both conscious and unconscious moments, therefore the concepts of “mentality” and cultural “picture of the world” can be considered as synonyms.

Mentality always reflects the specific features of a particular culture, in other words, it is always culturally dependent, its content is entirely determined by the culture of a given people. This is a historically determined phenomenon, therefore the mentality, although generally stable and conservative, is still changing, albeit very slowly. Mentality is formed in every person in childhood, in the process of enculturation, and enters the structure of the individual psyche, taking root in the unconscious. It can be argued that the mentality of the people is at the same time the mentality individual person. Therefore, the mentality of an individual is determined by the type of society, the characteristics of ethnic and national culture, as well as those subcultures that this person belongs to.