Dialectics of interaction between traditions and innovations. Advances of modern natural science

What are innovation and tradition and how can these seemingly opposing definitions successfully interact and complement each other in our modern and rapidly developing world?
Initially, it is worth deciding what a tradition is, and very much now buzzword innovation.

Tradition- this is a certain set of rituals, habits, foundations, skills of practical activity in one or another sphere of people’s lives, passed on from generation to generation, also acting as a kind of regulator of social relations. Traditions are manifested in almost all spheres of people's lives - education, science, culture, etc. They began to take shape at the dawn of time thousands of years ago and some of them can still be found today.

Now you can try to get acquainted with such a definition as “Innovation”, which in the last couple of decades has gained very great popularity around the world.

Innovation(or how else you can call innovation) - this definition can be understood as some kind of introduced innovation, innovation in various spheres of life of society, ensuring rapid growth in the processes of manufacturing final products, currently in demand by society or updating and modernization of already existing technological and social processes. At the same time, it is the final result of a person’s intellectual activity, his thinking, imagination, creativity, discoveries and mental activity. If we consider innovation (as a definition) on some general example, then we can say that this is the introduction to the market of new goods (services) with relatively new consumer properties.

What do these two definitions have in common? Where exactly do they closely interact and complement each other, in what areas and why can some innovations not do without traditions?

Today people often use innovations, but constantly forgetting simple thing: It is simply impossible to move towards a brilliant and innovative future while staying within the framework of the “empty” intellectual present and past. It is impossible to form any kind of innovative thinking and understanding without traditions as a whole. Traditions are the key, the foundation, the platform on which the innovative future is formed.

How does something innovative arise within the framework of traditional work, and can something fundamentally new appear under these conditions?

The answer to the first part of the question is quite simple. All our activities related to the elimination of ignorance are quite traditional. Misunderstanding and confusion arise at the moment when it comes to something new, something new. stranger- area of ​​ignorance. It is obvious that a person does not penetrate into this very area on purpose, sometimes making discoveries that he did not expect to receive at all.

Nowadays they talk a lot about innovation, but they forget: to launch into a bright innovative future, being within the framework of the “bare” intellectual space, impossible. Without large-scale, high-quality breakthroughs in the field of technology, materials science, engineering and related knowledge in these areas, there simply cannot be any development modern civilization. But still, for any cultural, educated, scientific and business society, it is necessary to understand that traditions are closely interconnected with innovation, and not only understand, but also develop both at the same time. It is impossible to form innovative thinking without traditions. Traditions- this is the basis, the platform on which only movement forward is possible.

IN In the context of this topic, several very interesting examples can be given - these are Swiss manufacturers wristwatch and of course the manufacturer of top-end cars Rolls-Royce.

For decades, Switzerland has retained its leading position in producing the best wristwatches in the world - from relatively budget Luminox watches to such giants as Rolex and Patek Philippe.

It is the combination of such concepts as tradition and innovation that allows this company to occupy a leading position in this market. Traditional manufacturing precision during manual assembly, unique design recognizable all over the world, durability, materials used - these are the few factors that show the centuries-old traditions of Swiss watchmaking.

One of the most interesting indicators in the production of Swiss watches is their direct manual assembly. The smallest parts are assembled by craftsmen (sometimes this happens for years) into one precise and well-functioning mechanism, as has been the case for centuries, but nowadays the most advanced and modern technologies are used, simplifying the work of craftsmen as much as possible - methods of processing materials, assembly methods, auxiliary tools .
Today the Swiss watch industry is at the highest level. All this has become possible today thanks to the accumulated experience of Swiss watchmakers over centuries in watchmaking and the continuous introduction of scientific and technical innovations.

As noted earlier, Rolls-Royce cars are also a successful example when the concepts of innovation and tradition exist as a single whole, mutually complementing each other.

These are the most advanced workshops where car engines, bodies, electronics, and chassis are assembled. All this answers last word technology and meets all safety and dynamics standards required to a modern car. But at the same time, if you at least remember the interior of the car itself, it is traditionally leather and expensive types of wood. All measurements, patterns, as well as individual requests (preferences) of individual clients within the salon are carried out only by hand - since machine labor will never replace the quality of the pattern, sewing chairs, which is provided by the many years of experience of the leading masters of the Rolls-Royce company.

In my opinion, for the successful existence of any modern company, whether it has just embarked on the path of development or is “ a huge giant", producing and selling products and services around the world - you need to understand that the successful combination of accumulated experience, traditions and modern technologies allows you to successfully operate in any market.

Traditions have accompanied humanity throughout its history. They are the most important elements its ontogeny and phylogeny. The role and functions of traditions in society and a person’s attitude towards them serve as an indicator of cultural development, social, political and ideological orientations of a particular community. The word “tradition” goes back to the Latin traditio, usually translated by the nouns “transmission”, “tradition”. Based on its etymology, the term can be defined as a set of formal procedures for storing and transmitting certain content, designed to regulate inheritance mechanisms. In sociology, tradition is understood as a set of elements of sociocultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation and preserved in certain communities or social groups ah for a more or less long period of time. Traditions cover heritage objects (values ​​of a very different order), the processes of transferring this heritage from generation to generation, as well as procedures and methods of inheritance. Traditions can be certain social institutions, behavioral norms, values, ideas, customs, rituals, and individual objects. Traditions are present in almost any manifestation of social life, but their significance in different areas is not the same: in some areas, for example in religion, they are of a fundamental nature and are expressed in a deliberately conservative form, in others, for example in modern art, their presence is minimal. Certain traditions function in all sociocultural systems and are a necessary condition for their life.

The study of traditions in the humanities has a history of more than two centuries. The first attempt to comprehend the essence of this phenomenon and determine its significance in culture was made at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. folkloristics. The great German philosopher F.W. attached great importance to traditions. Schelling in his "philosophy of myth". For Schelling, the concept of myth, which acquired the character of a paradigm, was closely connected with the possibilities of preserving and transmitting tradition over many generations. No less popular in XIX century there was a theory of “borrowing” that explained the universality of many mythological complexes and traditions by the direct influence of one culture on another. From humanities, which most often turned to factual cultural material and emphasized tradition, it is necessary first of all to call cultural anthropology. It should be noted that in its formation as a scientific discipline, cultural anthropology was closely connected with the ideas of evolutionism, where traditions were given paramount attention. E. Tylor, J. J. Frazer, as well as their opponents represented by representatives of the “functional school” of B. Malinovsky and the “school of historical ethnology” of F. Boas made a significant contribution to the study of traditional societies. The climax this direction can be considered the structural anthropology of C. Lévi-Strauss. In sociology, the concept of tradition appeared a little later - within the framework of this science, the predominant idea of ​​it as a communicative mechanism, the operation of which presupposes the individual’s orientation towards uncritically, superficially and mechanically assimilated social norms, was established. In M. Weber’s “understanding sociology” the concept of tradition was used to designate one of the types of action, opposite in nature to “rational” action, based on the rational-critical assimilation of norms and rules.

Much attention is paid to the study of tradition in the twentieth century. paid by representatives of various directions of philosophical knowledge. Thus, E. Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, addressed the problem of tradition, linking its solution with the main task of his “phenomenological project” - a new justification for scientific rationality. According to the philosopher, the content of tradition is not given in advance; it must be developed in the process of its actualization, its implementation in reality. The establishment of a tradition sets only the most general direction, which does not exclude the individual activity of the cognizing subject. The concept of tradition acquired key importance in the hermeneutics of G. Gadamer. According to the philosopher, understanding that occurs at the intersection of the activities of the interpreter-reader and the author of the text becomes possible only thanks to the existence traditions. Belonging to a tradition turns out to be an ontological, i.e. existential, characteristic of the subject, guaranteeing him the possibility of understanding. In the philosophy of science, it was highlighted in the theory of “scientific revolutions” by T. Kuhn and in the “methodological anarchism” of P. Feyerabend. For the first, the concept of tradition in science practically coincided with the concept of a paradigm, which determines the nature of ideas about the world in any era. For the second, tradition and scientific rationality were considered as equal ways of substantiating knowledge about the surrounding reality. At the same time, the modern advantage of science was determined by purely external, often accidental , or purposefully political and ideological factors and seemed to have no rational justification.

The concept of tradition in cultural studies.

The understanding of tradition in cultural studies coincides with sociological and, more broadly, with scientific and humanitarian interpretations of this concept, but at the same time has its own specifics. When thinking about tradition in scientific circulation the category of heritage is introduced - complex cultural sites, processes, methods of functioning, a repertoire of value guidelines to be preserved (cultivated) and subsequently reproduced in a more or less authentic form. The entire set of cultural forms, both institutionalized and non-institutionalized, can act as a tradition. The richness of existing and existing cultural eras is largely due to the diversity of the corresponding cultural traditions. The basis of the scientific study of traditions should be recognized not at the abstract, but at the concrete-universal level of research, when the originality and uniqueness of cultural and historical phenomena are considered in the context of the typological features of a cultural era.

The cultural era, with all its originality, the presence of subcultural and countercultural formations, has a number of common features, which allows it to be interpreted as a kind of monolithic formation. But any cultural and historical era does not remain unchanged over a long period: in the depths of the old one, a new one is always born. Centuries may pass between the emergence of the leading ideas of a new cultural era and the death of the old one. Thus, the ideas of Christianity arose at the turn of two eras, and the struggle between early Christianity and the ancient tradition continued not only until its adoption by Rome, but also in subsequent centuries - until the 6th century. The duration of the period of change of cultural and historical era is explained in this case by the fact that Christianity was in a dissonant relationship with antiquity. The resonant relations of subsequent eras to previous ones are also known - the Age of Enlightenment, for example, was resonant in relation to the rationalism of the 17th century. -- the processes of changing cultural orientations occurred much faster. A new era can only in some respects be resonant with the old one, be a continuation of some of its characteristics and sharply contrast and discord with it in other respects. Thus, the Renaissance was resonant with many ideas and values ​​of Christianity, but at the same time was dissonant with it, highlighting the idea of ​​human dignity - the basis humanistic tradition all subsequent European culture.

Traditions, figuratively speaking, form the “collective memory” of society and culture, that “reservoir” of imperishable images to which members of a particular social group turn from generation to generation. This ensures self-identity and continuity in the development of individuals and entire communities. Social and group differentiation have a significant impact on the interpretation and use of cultural traditions. The same set of cultural and value guidelines can be understood differently depending on the characteristics specific group, the nature of its activities, its place in the system of social division of rights and responsibilities. Naturally, representatives of the upper strata of society, endowed with unlimited rights and untold wealth, will interpret, for example, the Ten Christian Commandments differently than their fellow citizens from the lower social classes, “humiliated and insulted.” It seems that in both cases we have the same tradition, but its implementation in everyday life, in the specific steps and actions of people, will differ. Equally important is the fact that cultural tradition manifests itself differently in different historical periods. A hundred or two hundred years ago the need and possibility of building a democratic society were understood completely differently than we understand them today.

In differentiated societies, there are many time orientations, aspirations for a particular historical era, considered as truly traditional and exemplary. This is one of the main reasons for the multiplicity and inconsistency of traditional cultural forms and their interpretations. Certain subcultural formations consider one era to be the “golden age” - they return to it again and again and try to implement the main postulates of that time in their everyday life. Other subcultures deliberately “equal” to others. For example, throughout the Soviet period of Russian history, the traditions of the Russian imperial era were treated differently. Official denial by many - but not all! - the traditions of this time, their deliberate ignoring contrasted with a respectful, sometimes sentimental and touching attitude towards them at the everyday level, where they were perceived as synonymous with correctness, nobility, honesty, sincerity, etc. The same can be observed in today's life. The social vector has changed, and modern Russia deliberately neglects most of the traditions of the Soviet era, however, this does not always evoke support from the entire population: the norms and rules of the Soviet sociocultural tradition are supported and reproduced even in changed conditions.

Each generation of people, receiving at its disposal a certain set of traditional samples, does not simply perceive and assimilate them in ready-made form. It certainly carries out their own interpretation and choice, endows them with specific meaning, and colors them with values. Some elements of the sociocultural heritage are accepted, while others are rejected, recognized as harmful or false. Therefore, traditions can be both positive and negative. The positive pole is determined by the totality of what is accepted, reproduced, and implemented in the lives of subsequent generations from the heritage of ancestors. Negative traditions include those objects, processes, actions, norms and values ​​of cultural heritage that are recognized as unnecessary and require eradication.

Individuality and tradition.

The correlation between individuality and tradition is one of the aspects of human interaction with the environment, expressing the complex and controversial nature life orientation of his activities. As a subject of culture, a person can be characterized from the standpoint of the general and the special, i.e. both as a representative of a certain sociocultural totality, and as a unique autonomy. The manifestation of individuality is closely related to freedom of choice and self-determination. Meanwhile, the external, normative side human activity is largely determined by the nature of the social and cultural organization of society. To a large extent, the process of socialization and enculturation of an individual is based on tradition. It is tradition that acts as the cultural canon that an individual is invited to assimilate and implement in his life. Thus, it represents a form of collective experience and signifies the fact of inheritance. Through it, the individual connects to group memory, takes root in the past, which allows him to navigate the present.

Only stereotypically organized experience can be transmitted and transmitted from generation to generation - some typical norms, values, patterns of behavior, skills for organizing life, communicative standards - because such assimilation is based on imitation of a model. However, the formation of a cultural subject is not limited to the assimilation of collective sociocultural experience, but is also associated with the development of his own norms and ideas. The separation of a person from a social community occurs due to his awareness of his individuality, originality, and uniqueness. It often happens that tradition turns from a role model into a coercive mechanism: tradition and individuality come into confrontation with each other, which becomes a tragedy for both the individual and entire groups.

The contradictions between tradition and individuality find expression, in particular, in the conflicts between “fathers” and “children”, which are repeated almost throughout the entire development of mankind. In specific historical conditions they can take on a very painful character. However, there have existed in the past and exist to this day cultures that recognize their heritage as a whole as the highest value, regardless of what tribal, ethnocultural, confessional, ideological, political traditions and how exactly they are based and considered traditional. Such cultures tend to be closed and isolated, since they are focused on almost verbatim reproduction of certain sociocultural images, their stable reproduction despite any changes. The importance of the individual principle in such models is minimized. You can select Various types traditionalism. The extreme manifestations of this tendency should be considered the voluntary subordination of one’s self to established norms and complete dissolution in group forms cultural activities and various variants of group violence, when an individual, under the pressure of forceful methods, is forced to submit to tradition, ideologically elevated to the category of strict dogma.

Tradition-oriented cultures.

As already noted, to this day cultures have persisted that place emphasis in their development on non. on change based on creative potential individualities, but on preserving the established, repeating cultural order from century to century. Such cultures are called traditional. The ideal social stereotype in them refers to the past. The present is interpreted as a series of reproductions that are as close as possible to the canon that has been imprinted and has already received multiple implementations in culture. It is generally believed that such a cultural attitude was characteristic of humanity in the early stages of its development. Primitive, as they are often called, sociocultural formations are given as a clear example.

However, it is unfair to consider traditional cultures backward, “underdeveloped”, “primitive”. C. Lévi-Strauss, the great French ethnologist, cultural anthropologist, linguist, philosopher and researcher of preliterate cultures, in his numerous works perfectly demonstrated that a person of a traditional society has the same spiritual and physical characteristics as a modern European, and is in no way inferior to the latter. His intellectual resources are equally rich and multifaceted. The culture of such communities is no less rich and diverse than the European technocratic culture of the twentieth century. It differs from the latter primarily in that it captures a different experience of the relationship between the natural and the cultural, the structural principle of which is the exact reproduction, as verbatim as possible, of cultural models once found, surprisingly successful and convenient, optimal for the environment. Representative traditional culture in the process of its life activity, it simply extracts from the total “cultural archive” a certain template provided for certain specific circumstances and reproduces it without any hesitation. In such societies, ready-made behavioral and semantic stereotypes exist for all occasions. What does not fit into them is either rejected or ignored, falling out completely or partially from the “cultural vision”.

The possibility of manifestation of the individual in traditional culture is minimal. Almost all disciplinary-symbolic spaces are configured to rigidly fix given stereotypes, to maximize the authenticity of their implementation in each subsequent case. Outwardly, such cultures can be in an almost unchanged state; their modern representatives can feel the same way, experience the same desires, and react to the phenomena of the surrounding reality in the same way as those who lived in them 200 or 300 years ago. The template by which actions, speech, and fantasies are patterned in all spheres of life is usually mythology. Mythological thinking and “science of the concrete” are mental invariants of traditional cultures.

A change in social structure does not yet mean a reorientation of traditionalism towards innovation: the culture of Ancient Egypt, ancient eastern civilizations, European Middle Ages were also more focused on reproducing established norms. The personal activity of cultural subjects was reduced to a minimum.

Innovation in culture.

The opposite of tradition is innovation. Innovation in cultural studies refers to mechanisms for the formation of new cultural models at various levels, which create the preconditions for sociocultural changes.

The word "institute" comes from Lat. institutum, which means “establishment, establishment, organization.” Social institutions are an integral part of the social structure, one of the main categories of sociological analysis of society, which is usually understood as a network of ordered and interdependent connections between various elements social system, which captures the methods of organization and functioning characteristic of a given society. The concept of a social institution was borrowed by cultural studies from sociology and jurisprudence and largely retains the semantic connotation associated with the norms of regulatory activity of man and society, however, it has acquired a much broader interpretation, allowing one to approach cultural phenomena from the perspective of their social establishment.

The concept of a social institution of culture.

The institutional aspect of the functioning of society is a traditional area of ​​interest in social, scientific and humanitarian thought. The category of social institutions received the greatest elaboration in sociology. Among predecessors modern understanding social institutions in general and social cultural institutions in particular, first of all, one should name O. Comte, G. Spencer, M. Weber and E. Durkheim. In modern scientific literature, both foreign and domestic, there is a fairly wide range of versions and approaches to the interpretation of the concept “ social institutions", which does not allow us to give a rigid and unambiguous definition of this category. One-

(continuity) – necessary condition and the mechanism of creative, constructive activity, increment of culture.

Continuity goes back to tradition.

6.2. Tradition, innovation and innovation

Continuity and tradition permeate the cultural life of a society. Culture contains both stable (traditions) and changeable (innovation) aspects. Traditions and innovation are two sides of a single process of cultural development; they are like two sides of a coin.

Stability and inertia in culture are manifested in the phenomenon of tradition.

The role and significance of traditions

Traditions (Latin traditio: transmission) include elements of sociocultural heritage (ideas, values, customs, rituals, ways of perceiving the world, etc.), the process and methods of their inheritance. They are preserved and passed on from generation to generation. This ensures the stability (“vitality”) of traditions and culture as a whole.

Traditions arose in time immemorial and have long determined the entire social and personal life of a person. They contained instructions, moral and aesthetic norms, rules and skills for economic activity and everyday life (building homes, healing, marriage, raising children, etc.). Closedness cultural life, limited change, absence or poor development of writing in ancient times contributed to the increase regulatory role and the meaning of traditions in people's lives.

Traditions still serve as a means of regulating social relations and behavior. They perform a regulatory function.

Tradition is a living past inherited from grandparents and great-grandfathers. Stability, repetition, consolidation in myths, religious rituals and rites, norms of behavior and customs have made tradition a universal way of accumulating and transmitting cultural experience. The mechanism for transmitting traditions is voluntary imitation and assimilation.

Traditions provide a spiritual connection between generations; they perform a communicative function.

Traditions exist in all forms of culture - spiritual and material. We can talk about moral, religious, scientific, national, labor, artistic, social, family, everyday and other traditions.

Traditions still permeate all areas of life. Progressive traditions contain centuries-old worldly wisdom; they exist and develop today. At the same time, due to inertia, some relict forms of traditional cultural phenomena (archaisms) are preserved. The system of cultural traditions allows us to maintain the integrity and sustainability (stability) of society and its culture, and preserve the social (historical) memory of the people. Collective memory is the basis of culture, conscience and morality.

Traditions determine the basic trends in the development of certain cultures. Each person, a separate social group, and society as a whole have their own traditions (for individuals, habits). Hence the multiplicity and inconsistency of traditions, cultural forms and their interpretations. The diversity of cultures existing in the world is largely due to the multiplicity of corresponding cultural traditions.

Traditions are continuous, irreversible and irrenewable.

If a tradition naturally exhausts itself and is cut short or is artificially interrupted, its re-creation is doomed to failure. Traditions die out when the needs that brought them into existence cease to exist, in the absence of which they cannot be revived.

traditions that once satisfied them have already lost their roots in the surrounding reality.

The forced interruption of tradition irreversibly violates the inertia of its existence in consciousness and everyday life; the habit of performing it is lost and the need for this tradition dries up. There occurs, as philosophers say, a “break in gradualism” (leap), which, due to the laws of dialectics, no longer allows it to be restored in the same form and quality. An artificially revived tradition is not viable, no matter how skillful its restoration may be.

Such a pseudo-tradition, even if it satisfies nostalgic expectations or ethnographic interest, cannot be strong and durable, since the need for it has already died out or life has found other ways to satisfy those needs that were previously served by the reconstructed tradition.

Traditions can only continue, develop, evolve and die off naturally, but it is difficult to return to them, just as it is impossible to step into the same river twice.

Therefore, one should not discard traditions, destroy old spiritual values, or cross out historical memory.

On the other hand, culture cannot live only by tradition. New generations of people are creatively recycling cultural achievements of the past. For example, fashion (innovation) always “corrects” custom (tradition).

Innovation and pioneering

Culture and society cannot exist and develop without renewal and innovation as a creative activity for the production of innovations (Latin: innovation: renewal, innovation).

Innovation is the emergence and spread of an object (object, phenomenon or process) or characteristic feature that did not previously exist within a given culture.

Innovation can be the result of intracultural invention or intercultural borrowing.

Innovations usually arise where and when people’s living conditions sharply worsen or, conversely, improve; innovations are usually not born in the monotony of everyday life. In innovation, the playful element is also important.

Innovations are scientific discoveries and inventions; new ideas, theories and works in science, literature, art, politics; artistic and architectural styles and works of art made in them and buildings erected; new generations of machines, mechanisms and electronic devices; fundamental improvements in everyday life, etc. This creative contribution individual or collective, offered over 1–2 generations for inclusion in social memory

Innovation – creative process creating new cultural patterns (innovations, innovations) based on continuity.

Innovation and innovation are a necessary condition for the development of culture and society.

Aristotle stated: “All men by nature strive for knowledge.”

The thirst for knowledge and curiosity are the two main engines of innovation, and the ability to update is the most important trait of a person in general and an innovator in particular.

Innovation in the psychological sense is the ability to change, experiment, improvise and the ability to question what has long been familiar and see things in a new light, a willingness to take risks.

Innovation is a function of mature people. Young people are more inclined to play than adults; their active curiosity promotes discovery. But the invention still needs to be put into practice, made into an integral part of the lifestyle, that is, to achieve public recognition of the innovation. And here a conflict arises: the younger a person, the greater an innovator he is, but the older he is, the sooner he can persuade others to adopt innovations.

Therefore the peak innovative creativity falls at the age of “under forty”.

The ideal innovator, according to the modern English biologist Desmond Morris, should be mature enough to have knowledge and life experience, but at the same time young enough not to lose the spirit of play and not be afraid of risk. Not surprisingly, most innovation occurs between the ages of 35 and 40. The creative zenith, says D. Morris, is 38 years. Of course, there are exceptions, for example, innovators in mathematics are usually younger; in politics, they are more mature people1.

Acting as the opposite of traditions, cultural innovations form a dialectical unity with them. For innovation and tradition are the designation of the same phenomenon, only at different stages of its existence. Innovation is its infancy, and tradition is its old age. Traditions do not develop overnight; they initially arise as innovations. And only useful innovations turn into traditions over time. Therefore, there are always fewer traditions than innovations.

All traditions begin as innovations, but not every innovation becomes a tradition.

We can say that tradition is a surviving innovation.

Any innovation arises and is introduced into everyday life only where and when there is a pressing social need for it and appropriate social conditions have developed. No power, no authority can simply, on command, elevate innovation to the rank of tradition.

Usually, an innovation becomes a tradition and is recognized as such in everyday life after 75–100 years, after at least three generations have passed, when the stories of contemporaries about the appearance of the innovation are already forgotten, and the tradition itself becomes a habit. Nowadays, due to the acceleration of scientific and technological progress and the pace public life this period is reduced to 20–30 years (the time it takes to reach active life new generation).

The number of innovations and the speed of their implementation are constantly increasing.

1 Morris D. New is always extremes, but mediocrity only causes stagnation // Deutschland. 2004. N 4 (August–September). P. 48–49.

Before our eyes, once strong epistolary traditions (the habit of writing letters) are becoming a thing of the past, replaced by e-mail and SMS correspondence; visiting cinemas is replaced by watching TV shows, videotapes and DVDs; typewritten texts are giving way to computer typing; Various forms of interactive communication on the Internet are becoming commonplace.

Cultural innovations can be divided into two groups:

1) arose among different peoples independently of each other as an intracultural invention (primary);

2) originated in one or several centers of culture and subsequently spread widely as a result

intercultural borrowing during contacts between peoples - trade, migrations and wars (secondary).

Since ancient times, traders, warriors and migrants have been peddlers of culture.

At the dawn of mankind, innovations of the first group were: the ability to make tools, make fire and build houses; articulate speech; the original forms of religion, art and morality; agriculture, cattle breeding and crafts, etc. They are determined general patterns development of various human communities.

The second group of innovations includes rice and chess in India, gunpowder and tea in China, coffee in Ethiopia, potatoes in America. Many important innovations originated initially in Ancient Egypt and Sumer (Mesopotamia). This included cultivating the land with the help of domestic animals, artificially irrigating fields, smelting and processing metals, riding in chariots, building cities and funeral temples, and the emergence of writing.

The transformation of innovation into tradition does not happen immediately and not without struggle. To do this, they must be tested over time and receive public recognition. For example, the introduction of potatoes in Russia in the second half of the 18th century was accompanied by resistance from peasants (the so-called potato riots), and only in the 19th century did it become a traditional agricultural crop.

However, not every innovation, but only the socially necessary, becomes a fact of culture. Novelty for the sake of novelty

The article attempts to reveal the mechanisms of contact and mutual influence of various components of the modern cultural field, both patriarchal and traditional, and those that arose in the era of modernity and postmodernity. The author proceeds from an analysis of the essence of such concepts as tradition (traditional culture, ethnoculture) and innovation to the context of the intersections of phenomena that are deeply rooted and innovative in nature, exploring different points of view on this subject.

Among the possible concepts and interpretations of this problem, the author dwells on the possibility of choosing whether tradition corresponds to roots or new technologies, information culture, noting that modern stage The development of culture is marked by the desire for symbiosis and synthesis of everything that came before it, and fundamentally new possibilities of technology.

The article is an attempt to uncover the mechanism of connections and influence of different parts of the culture both patriarchal, traditional and the ones appeared in the epoch of "modern" and "postmodern". Author, observing different opinions and theories, goes from the analysis of basic ideas as traditional culture, ethnic culture and innovation to the conception of interaction phenomena which are rooted deeply and the same time are novelties by there nature.

Amidst many conceptions and interpretations of this subject author selected the one that considers the choice of conformity either to the traditions and roots or to the modern technology and information culture. Author notes that the latest stage of cultural development is characterized by aspiration to the synthesis of traditional staff and absolutely newest technical possibilities.

To the question “what is tradition?” Many famous authors tried to answer, among whom were the philosophers W. Windelband and E. Husserl,

Ogorodova Alena Vladimirovna- Associate Professor of the Belgorodsky Pop Orchestra and Ensemble Department state institute culture and arts (Belgorod).

historians L. Febvre and M. Blok, anthropologists R. Redfield and B. Malinovsky, sociologists F. Tennis, M. Weber and E. Durkheim. And yet, the theory of tradition was never created. What we have today are only certain approaches to theory, sometimes outlined only in the most general outline. They were most often created separately from each other and related different facts, which led to a significant difference in points of view and filling the term “tradition” with a wide variety of meanings.



However, the term is very widely used today. Clear signs of emotional approval or disapproval of “tradition” are easily traced in a variety of scientific discussions of the 20th century, when opponents advocate either “modernity” or tradition, without bothering to explain what, in fact, is hidden under these conventional names. They directly appeal to emotions that famous words commonly called in our culture. Some set themselves the task of freeing people from the “yoke of the past”, others - to explain to people that connection with the past is the only source of life. Both see in tradition not so much a fact as a value.

So, for example, if the term “tradition” is understood in its literal meaning, then – as the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences states – “all elements of social life will be traditional, with the exception of those relatively few innovations that each century creates for itself, and those direct borrowings from other societies, which can be observed when the process of diffusion takes place.” But with this understanding, the concept of “tradition” becomes almost synonymous with the term “culture”.

« Philosophical Dictionary“The concept of “tradition” is defined as follows: “Tradition (Latin Traditio - transmission, tradition) - historically established customs, rituals, social institutions, ideas and values, norms of behavior, etc., passed on from generation to generation; elements of socio-cultural heritage that are preserved in society or in certain social groups for a long time.” In other words, the concept of “tradition” in this source is identified with spiritual culture. The dictionary also adds an evaluative, emotional and tasteful side to this, distinguishing between progressive and reactionary traditions.

The Dictionary of Cultural Studies gives a broader definition: “Tradition is a social and cultural heritage transmitted from generation to generation and reproduced in certain societies and social groups for a long time. Traditions include: objects of sociocultural heritage (material and spiritual values)

ti); processes of sociocultural inheritance; methods of this inheritance. Tradition is defined as certain cultural patterns, institutions, norms, values, ideas, customs, rituals, styles, etc.” . In other words, according to this definition, tradition is both spiritual and material culture, as well as processes and methods of cultural inheritance.

It becomes obvious that the word "tradition" is most often used to designate one of hundreds modern definitions concept of "culture". Consequently, “traditional culture” is a certain stable part of culture that remains minus its “variable” part - the one that changes from generation to generation.

There is an opinion that the closest thing to the term “traditional culture” is the concept of “folk culture”, because it is the people who are the main creator and custodian of traditions.

The concept of “folk” also has many interpretations - “relating to the people,” “closely connected with the people, corresponding to the spirit of the people, their culture, worldview.” However, V. Zhidkov and K. Sokolov note the ambiguity key concept“people”: it is defined as “the population of a country, state” or “a cultural and historical community of people connected by the same origin and language.”

At the same time, the cultural dictionary provides two important clarifications related to the definition of the concept of “folk culture”. Firstly, “its common feature is its non-professional status.” Secondly, an indication that it is a picture of the world. It turns out that its “invariant content” consists of “ideas about nature, space, man’s place in the world, religious and mythological concepts about man’s relationship with the supernatural.” higher powers, ideas about the ideals of wisdom, the power of heroism, beauty, goodness, about the forms of “correct” and “wrong” social behavior and the structure of life, about serving people, the homeland, etc.” .

Folk (traditional) culture can be characterized by ethnic characteristics, i.e. in the depths of which ethnic group it is formed and acquires its ethnic characteristics and characteristics. In this case, the adjective “ethnic” is added to the concept of “folk culture” and is read as one concept “folk ethnic culture”.

N. Gorelik emphasizes vitality ethnic cultures, which in modern conditions preserve “...their language, traditional features life in cities, or the way of life in them. In modified

In its new form, the ethnic group also retains customs, myths, religious faith, moral and artistic values ​​( folk art)". For example, deeply traditional oriental cultures successfully “fit” into the modernization process: they “... while modernizing, ignore the root paradigms of this process, hiding archetypes in the depths of the psyche.” M. Kuzmin, with some challenge, contrasts progressivism with his fundamental conservatism, reliance on the church, historically defined, defining rituals and even everyday life, on private life: “doing your job, living at home and family, decorating and illuminating every step with custom , - that’s what is needed solely and exclusively.” The religious and philosophical basis of any traditional culture is also noted by A. Khvylya-Olinter.

Along with this, there is an opinion that tradition is necessarily something conservative, inert, and must be overcome; that this category rather refers to the ordinary, everyday. K. Chistov rightly notes in this regard that “... in every state of culture and in every tradition there are elements of different times in origin, and not always the oldest of them have the least relevance.” The same idea is developed and given practical confirmation by the director of the Belarusian ensemble “Stary Olsy”, performing medieval music, D. Sosnovsky: “Tradition is not a bone formation. Tradition improves over time; those. any living tradition is not destroyed, it absorbs the influences of other cultures and digests it within itself.”

It is also important to analyze the degree of interaction between traditional and innovative elements in various philosophical, cultural and logical aspects.

The term “innovation” (lat. Innovatio) is: 1) innovation, novelty; 2) a set of measures aimed at introducing into the economy new technology, technologies, inventions, etc.; modernization; 3) a linguistically new phenomenon in the language (for example, a lexical idiom).

At this stage, the term “innovation” has acquired a general social meaning. This is due to the role that innovation has begun to play in today’s world, having transformed into a sociocultural phenomenon. Based on this, it is hardly possible to dwell on the definition given in the study by S. Kryuchkova, which describes the innovation process as a movement from fundamental scientific ideas to applied use and consumption.

At this stage of development of this sociocultural phenomenon At least two ways of generating innovation have been identified. One of them

is associated with the so-called “internal functional conflict”, i.e. the discrepancy between the values ​​and interests of various social groups, as a result of which certain social contradictions constantly take place in society. As a result of compromise, new ways of interaction between people and the social structure as a whole are developed, which often leads to a rather radical reorganization of the entire social organization of society, without destroying it as a cultural integrity.

Another way to generate innovation is usually defined as creativity. Among the various motivations for creativity, the following stand out: social order, intuitive insight of a professional; personal dissatisfaction with the course of events, the state of things in society; human ambitions and aspirations, as well as certain complexes of physical limitations or individual inferiority, mental deviations that initiate a non-trivial view of problems, etc. In connection with a certain scientific uncertainty about the nature of the emergence of, for example, intuitive insight, we note that modern synergetic approaches allow us to look at this process from a new point vision. Since creative thinking of an individual is a process of self-organization of internal (neuro- and psychophysiological) and external (sociocultural) factors, the synergetic foundations of neural networks make it possible to understand the underlying mechanisms of the emergence of new ideas that are difficult to study using traditional methods. On the other hand, this process is greatly influenced by interpersonal communication, as well as information from the surrounding sociocultural environment. Thus, the synergetic approach allows us to avoid a one-sided interpretation of the generation of innovations as exclusively the result of a certain social order.

Analyzed scientific approaches allow us to consider the specifics of the relationship between traditional and innovative, tradition and modernity. The technology of this process includes several stages. At the first stage, the destruction of previous cultural institutions occurs, the emergence and accumulation of contradictions and tensions between old forms that have lost their relevance and new vital interests and needs. As a result, the state of chaos, which is always present from the point of view of synergetics in a sociocultural system along with the processes of ordering, significantly intensifies, expands and deepens, capturing almost all of its areas. In this case, the destructive beginning of chaos as a state of natural spontaneity can prevail and, through bifurcation, shocks, lead either to collapse

cultural system as the apotheosis of the destructive side of chaos, or to sociocultural anomie - “a value-normative vacuum”, “inconsistency of the value world” according to R. Merton, which eliminated the “function of stabilizing society” according to T. Parsons.

Thus, anomie seems to many thinkers to be one of the most dangerous results of the development of destructive processes in the sociocultural system and is one of the regularities of the initial stage of the transitional type of culture. This pattern finds its manifestation in the “situation of rupture” (according to B. Erasov), a violation of continuity, which to one degree or another is inherent in the initial stage of any transitional type of culture. In such conditions, the rate of innovation generation increases significantly. However, they are not yet filled with meaning; their cognitive content is absent. This leads to a total substitution of value guidelines, which is replaced by cultural omnivorousness. It is then that the danger of losing support for tradition and loss of originality increases. national culture. Obviously, due to self-protective tendencies, as well as the desire to restore a holistic picture of the world at the personal and social-group level, interest in mythology and myth-making is being renewed and updated.

The renaissance of cultural myth-making is especially noticeable in initial stage transitional type of culture, because, according to researchers, myth turns out to be a connecting link between ancient and modern times, not only because “poetically minded people yearned for it, but also because the very structure of the myth reflected similarities cultural situations different eras". Thus, the mythologization of consciousness within the framework of a transitional type of culture is a consistent stage in the development of cultural dynamics.

The next pattern is related to the semiotic sphere of culture. In the functioning of culture as a sign system, meaning-genetic processes always occur that create certain dissystemic elements that significantly contribute to the generation of innovative fields. At the same time, initially, culture simply does not notice dis-systemic new formations, since it does not yet have the semantic tools to comprehend and describe them. Subsequently, elements of the dissystemic sphere gradually begin to be comprehended in improper, substituted forms as something syncretically fused with system blocks already known in culture. And only after the dissystem elements are naturally organized into their own system, alternative to the original one, are more or

less adequate and rather specialized forms of description and understanding of these elements. From this moment the interaction between the system and the countersystem begins.

Thus, in conditions of chaos and “cultural omnivorousness,” tradition has unconditional priority, preserving culture as a self-developing system from collapse. Innovations, despite their abundance and diversity, play a subordinate role. We can say that, in general, traditionalization prevails, which is understood as “the constitutionalization of traditions and other elements of culture and social structure, which ensure the priority of prescribed norms and rules of behavior of subjects (traditional actions) in comparison with the possibilities of their innovative actions.”

However, traditionalization is not the only possible and optimal strategy for social existence. In cultural dynamics, as a result of the development of reflection, the ability to assimilate, but not reject innovations, changes are observed that lead to a smoothing out of the contradictions that have arisen between tradition and innovation, and the beginning of their dialogue. As a result, a new relationship between traditions and innovations arises, which constitutes the essential feature of the next, second stage of dynamic changes in the transitional type of culture. An important pattern of the new stage is the awareness at the mass level of the discrepancy between the desired (innovation) and reality (traditions), triggering a universal mechanism of self-organization.

The internal impulse that initiates the processes of self-development and self-organization of culture, according to N. Gorelik, is utilitarianism, understood as a value-semantic paradigm of human activity. Utilitarianism can be qualified as one of the entropy mechanisms of the dynamics of a transitional type of culture. If the core of traditionalism is based on the authority of tradition, then utilitarianism, based on the principle of benefit, demonstrates its “value omnivorousness,” i.e. not only forms some of its specific values, but also uses others - the values ​​of traditionalism and liberalism. “The actualization of utilitarianism against the background of traditionalism,” notes E. Yarkova, “means, in essence, the birth of a new image of what should be, which, not excluding the old, traditional one, exists as a second voice, an echo in the polyphonic score of culture. In philosophical categories, this can be conceptualized as a phenomenon of bifurcation of the vector of culture: one part of it is still directed towards traditional, absolute, transcendental meanings, and

the other turns to utilitarian, relative, immanent meanings.”

The further dynamics of the relationship between traditions and innovations constitute the essence of the next, third stage of development of the transitional type of culture. It is characterized, first of all, by the emergence of a conflict between two images of what should be, due to the subordinate position of tradition. It is here, at this critical point, that the fate of the transitional type of culture is decided. An adequate solution to this contradiction leads to the birth of a new phenomenon, which represents the germ of the future, a new type of culture. Thus, we can say that a new type of culture assimilates utilitarian values, overcoming their limitations, and makes utilitarianism one of the elements of self-organization of culture.

An original interpretation of the relationship between traditional and innovative elements is offered by A. Dugin: “Simple inertial conservatism is always paired with modernism, and modernism certainly wins - it is ahead, at least in the current era... Modernists - they are closer to the abyss, they know that there is no further way and we need to take off. But a conservative is always sure that there is still solid ground, and does not want to go to the abyss. But the modernist always drags the conservative towards the abyss, and he resists... Therefore, the work of creating the art of “new empires” is the work of modernist artists who, in fact, authentically experienced the dramatic experience of the abyss. It is very important here that the Japanese, Russians, Arabs are now involved in the process of modernity, i.e. ethnic groups that organically belong to traditional society. Nihilism must wash away all conservative prejudices to reveal a global, totalitarian fundamentalism. We will build “ecstatic empires” - after all, only ecstaticism can resist the technocratic and bureaucratic “Empire”. “New empires” will arise only from a sharp impulse forward, but not from attempts to defend something out of inertia.” However, about the simultaneously operating two principles in culture - conservative, turned to the past and maintaining a continuous connection with it, and creative, aimed at the future creating new values ​​- stated even earlier by H.A. Berdyaev, emphasizing that in culture “... a revolutionary, destructive principle cannot operate. The revolutionary principle is essentially hostile to culture, anti-cultural. Culture is unthinkable without hierarchical continuity, without qualitative inequality. The revolutionary principle is hostile to any hierarchism and is aimed at the destruction of qualities.”

Thinking about modern culture and art precisely in the context of the intersections of traditional and innovative elements, I. Zemtsovsky considered the same paradoxical phenomena. One of them is that “... art, willingly and unwillingly, strives to be “today” (chronologically, in its themes and trends), and at the same time, like any creativity, it cannot help but rush into the future.” Tradition is “...this is also a functioning, an expression of the qualitative certainty of time, outside of which it cannot exist and dies.” Traditions are capable of changing beyond recognition, until they become their opposite, but it is impossible to avoid their presence altogether; In this regard, let us cite as an example the words of K. Marx: “The traditions of all dead generations weigh like a nightmare over the minds of the living.”

Another pattern of modern culture, according to I. Zemtsovsky, is the continuous change in perception and assessments of the past, present and future, as a result of which the same phenomena can appear in in different light, A various phenomena- be integrated by our perception or radically (but also not forever) overestimated.

The specificity of the relationship between tradition and modernity also worries D. Sosnovsky: “Every culture has always looked back, and in every culture there were people who believed that this was a decline. I sure that modern culture- a full-fledged normal culture with its own characteristics. Therefore, it is another period, a separate period in the development of culture. Moreover, modern culture, for the first time in history, is trying to synthesize all previous periods taken together; because it is a strange symbiosis of everything that came before it and at the same time, something created absolutely from scratch, based on fundamentally new technical capabilities, on completely new technologies. I like to live in this time when there is both old and completely new. Moreover, this is combined in the same people, in the same events, cultural and artistic phenomena. Our modern culture gives us the opportunity to choose in art: to be more consistent with tradition and roots and in to a lesser extent correspond to this new technological, information culture. Or vice versa, to be more modern and less attached to antiquity. The absolutely natural desire of any new generation and any new period is to create their own.”

Thus, we state that the interaction of traditional and innovative elements in various fields life activity of mankind (sociocultural, ethnic, geopolitical) at the present stage is one of the most current problems culture.

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©PERSONALITY. CULTURE. SOCIETY.2007. Vol. 4(39)

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Culture, like any dialectically developing process,

There are sustainable and developing (innovative) sides.

The sustainable side of culture is cultural tradition, thanks to

which accumulates and transmits human experience in history, and

each new generation of people can update this experience, relying on

their activities on what was created by previous generations.

In so-called traditional societies, people, assimilating culture

They reproduce its samples, and if they make any changes, then

within the framework of tradition. On its basis, culture functions.

Tradition prevails over creativity. Creativity in this case manifests itself

is that a person forms himself as a subject of culture, which acts

as a certain set of ready-made, stereotypical programs (customs, rituals, etc.)

activities with material and ideal objects. Changes in themselves

programs occur extremely slowly. This is basically the culture

primitive society and later traditional culture.

Such a stable cultural tradition in certain conditions

necessary for the survival of human groups. But if one or another

societies abandon hypertrophied traditionalism and develop

more dynamic types of culture, this does not mean that they can refuse

from cultural traditions in general. Culture cannot exist without traditions

Cultural traditions like historical memory- an indispensable condition is not

only the existence, but also the development of culture, even in the case of creative

qualities new culture, dialectically denying, includes

continuity, assimilation of the positive results of the previous

activities are common law development, which also operates in the cultural sphere

of particular importance. How important is this question in practice?

The experience of our country also shows this. After the October Revolution and in

circumstances of the general revolutionary situation in artistic society

culture, a movement arose whose leaders wanted to build a new one,

progressive culture based on complete denial and destruction

previous culture. And this has led in many cases to losses in

cultural sphere and the destruction of its material monuments.

Since culture reflects differences in worldviews in the system

values ​​in ideological attitudes, therefore it is legitimate to talk about reactionary and

progressive trends in culture. But it does not follow from this that it is possible

discard the previous culture - create a new one from scratch

high culture is impossible.

The question of traditions in culture and attitudes towards cultural heritage

concerns not only the preservation, but also the development of culture, i.e. creation

new, an increase in cultural wealth in the process of creativity. Although

the creative process has objective prerequisites both in reality itself and in

cultural heritage, it is directly carried out by the subject of creative

activities. It should be noted right away that not every innovation is

creativity of culture. Creating something new becomes creativity at the same time

cultural values ​​when it does not contain universal content,

acquiring general significance, it receives echoes from other people.

In the creativity of culture, the universal organic is fused with uniqueness:

Each cultural value is unique, whether we are talking about artistic

work, invention, etc. Replication in one form or another has already

known, already created earlier - this is distribution, not creation

culture. But it is also necessary because it involves a wide range of people in

the process of functioning of culture in society. And the creativity of culture

necessarily involves the inclusion of something new in the process of historical development

culture-creating human activity, therefore, is

source of innovation. But just as not every innovation is a phenomenon

culture, not everything new that is included in the cultural process is

advanced, progressive, corresponding to the humanistic intentions of culture. IN

culture has both progressive and reactionary tendencies. Development

culture is a contradictory process that reflects a wide spectrum

sometimes opposite and opposing social class,

national interests of a given historical era. For approval of advanced

and the progressive in culture must be fought. This is the concept of culture,

developed in Soviet philosophical literature.