Examples of elite culture in cinema. Mass and elite culture

Introduction

Culture is a general concept that covers various classes of phenomena. It is a complex, multi-layered, multi-level whole, including various phenomena. Depending on from what point of view, on what grounds it is analyzed, one or another can be distinguished. structural elements, differing in the nature of the carrier, in the result, in the type of activity, etc., which can coexist, interact, oppose each other, change their status. Structuring culture based on its carrier, we will single out as the subject of analysis only some of its varieties: elite, mass, folk culture. Since at the present stage they receive ambiguous interpretation, in this test we will try to understand the complex modern cultural practice, which is very dynamic and contradictory, as well as contradictory points of view. The test paper presents various historically established, sometimes opposing views, theoretical justifications, approaches, and also takes into account a certain sociocultural context, the relationship of various components in the cultural whole, and their place in modern cultural practice.

And so, the purpose of the test is to consider the varieties of culture, elite, mass and folk.

culture elite mass folk

The emergence and main characteristics of elite culture

Elite culture, its essence, is associated with the concept of elite and is usually contrasted with folk and mass cultures. The elite (elite, French - chosen, best, selected), as a producer and consumer of this type of culture in relation to society, represents, from the point of view of both Western and domestic sociologists and cultural scientists, the highest, privileged strata (stratum), groups, classes , carrying out the functions of management, development of production and culture. This affirms the division of the social structure into the higher, the privileged and the lower, the elite and the rest of the masses. Definitions of the elite in various sociological and cultural theories are ambiguous.

The identification of an elite layer has a long history. Confucius already saw a society consisting of noble men, i.e. minorities, and a people in need of constant moral influence and guidance from these noble ones. In fact, Plato stood in an elitist position. Roman Senator Menenius Agrippa most classified the population as “draft animals”, which require drivers, i.e. aristocrats.

Obviously from ancient times, when in primitive community a division of labor began to occur, the separation of spiritual activity from material activity, processes of stratification according to property, status, etc. began to occur, and not only the categories of rich and poor began to be separated (alienated), but also the people most significant in any respect - priests (magi, shamans) as carriers of special secret knowledge, organizers of religious and ritual actions, leaders, tribal nobility. But the elite itself is formed in class, slave society when, due to the labor of slaves, privileged layers (classes) are freed from exhausting physical labor. Moreover, in societies of various types, the most significant, elite strata, constituting a minority of the population, are, first of all, those who have real power, backed up by the force of arms and law, economic and financial power, which allows them to influence all other spheres of public life, including including sociocultural processes (ideology, education, artistic practice, etc.). Such is the slave-owning, feudal aristocracy (aristocracy is understood as the highest, privileged layer of any class, group), the highest clergy, merchants, industrial, financial oligarchy, etc.

Elite culture is formed within the framework of layers and communities that are privileged in any area (in politics, commerce, art) and includes, like culture folk values, norms, ideas, ideas, knowledge, way of life, etc. in their sign-symbolic and material expression, as well as methods of their practical use. This culture covers different spheres of social space: political, economic, ethical and legal, artistic and aesthetic, religious and other areas of public life. It can be viewed on different scales.

In a broad sense, elite culture can be represented by a fairly extensive part of the national (national) culture. In this case, it has deep roots in it, including folk culture, in another, narrow sense - it declares itself as “sovereign”, sometimes opposed to the national culture, to a certain extent isolated from it.

An example of elite culture in a broad sense is knightly culture as a phenomenon of secular culture in the Western European Middle Ages. Its bearer is the dominant noble-military class (knighthood), within which they have developed their own values, ideals, their own code of honor (loyalty to the oath, adherence to duty, courage, generosity, mercy, etc.). Their own rituals were formed, such as, say, the ritual of knighting (concluding an agreement with a lord, an oath of allegiance, taking vows of obedience, personal perfection, etc.), ritualized and theatrical holding of tournaments to glorify knightly virtues. Special manners and the ability to lead are developed. small talk, play musical instruments, write poems, most often dedicated to the lady of the heart. Knightly musical and poetic creativity, nurtured on national languages and not alien to folk musical and intonation traditions, constituted a whole trend in world culture, but it faded away with the weakening and departure of this class from the historical arena.

Elite culture is contradictory. On the one hand, it quite clearly expresses the search for something new, still unknown, on the other hand, an orientation toward conservation, the preservation of what is already known and familiar. Therefore, probably in science and artistic creativity, new things achieve recognition, sometimes overcoming considerable difficulties. Elite culture, including areas of an experimental, even demonstratively nonconformist nature, contributed to the enrichment of the ideological, theoretical, figurative and content outline, to the expansion of the range of practical skills, means of expression, ideals, images, ideas, scientific theories, technical inventions, philosophical, social -political teachings.

Elite culture, including its esoteric (internal, secret, intended for initiates) directions, are included in different spheres of cultural practice, performing different functions (roles) in it: informational and cognitive, replenishing the treasury of knowledge, technical achievements, works of art; socialization, including a person in the world of culture; normative-regulatory, etc. In elite culture, the cultural-creative function, the function of self-realization, self-actualization of the individual, and the aesthetic-demonstration function (it is sometimes called the exhibition function) come to the fore.

Instructions

Elite culture includes works of various types of art: literature, theater, cinema, etc. Since its understanding requires a certain level of training, it has a very narrow circle of connoisseurs. Not everyone understands the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Alexander Sokurov. A special type of thinking is required to understand the works of Franz Kafka or James Joyce's Ulysses. The creators of elitist culture, like, do not try to achieve high fees. Much more valuable for them is creative self-realization.

Consumers of elite culture are people with a high educational level and developed aesthetic taste. Many of them are creators of works of art themselves or professional researchers of them. First of all, we're talking about about writers, artists, art historians, literary and art critics. This circle also includes connoisseurs and connoisseurs of art, regular visitors to museums, theaters and concert halls.

Moreover, works of the same types of art can belong to both elite and mass culture. For example, classical music belongs to elite culture, and popular music belongs to mass culture, Tarkovsky’s films belong to elite culture, and Indian melodramas belong to mass culture, etc. At the same time, there are literary genres that always belong to mass culture and are unlikely to ever become elite. Among them are detective stories, romance novels, humorous stories and feuilletons.

Sometimes interesting things happen about how works belonging to elite culture can, under certain conditions, become popular. For example, Bach's music is undoubtedly a phenomenon of elite culture, but if it is used as an accompaniment to a figure skating program, it automatically turns into a product popular culture. Or the completely opposite: many of Mozart’s works were most likely “light music” for their time (i.e., they could be classified as mass culture). But now they are perceived rather as elitist.

Most works of elite culture are initially avant-garde or experimental in nature. They use means that will become clear to the mass consciousness several decades later. Sometimes experts even name the exact period – 50 years. In other words, examples of elite culture are half a century ahead of their time.

Related article

The term “classical music” is sometimes interpreted extremely broadly. It includes not only the creations of outstanding composers of past years, but also hits that have become world famous popular artists. However, there is a strictly authentic meaning of "classical" in music.

In the narrow sense, classical music refers to a rather short period in the history of this art, namely the 18th century. The first half of the eighteenth century was marked by the work of such outstanding composers as Bach and Handel. Bach developed the principles of classicism as the construction of a work in strict accordance with the canons in his works. His fugue has become a classical - that is, exemplary - form of musical creativity.

And after the death of Bach, the history of music opens new stage associated with Haydn and Mozart. The rather complex and ponderous sound was replaced by lightness and harmony of melodies, grace and even some coquetry. And yet, it is still a classic: in his creative search, Mozart sought to find the ideal form.

Beethoven's works represent a junction of classical and romantic tradition. In his music there is much more passion and feeling than rational canons. During this period of formation of the European musical tradition, the main genres were formed: opera, symphony, sonata.

A broad interpretation of the term “classical music” implies the work of composers of past eras, which has stood the test of time and has become a standard for other authors. Sometimes classical music means music for symphonic instruments. The most clear (although not widely used) can be considered classical music as author’s, clearly defined and implying execution within a given framework. However, some researchers urge not to confuse academic (that is, squeezed into certain frameworks and rules) and classical music.

In an evaluative approach to defining classics as highest achievements in the history of music, there is a hidden possibility. Who is considered the best? Can the masters of jazz, The Beatles, be considered classics? The Rolling Stones and other recognized authors and performers? On the one hand, yes. This is exactly what we do when we call them exemplary. But on the other hand, in pop-jazz music there is no rigor of the author's musical text, characteristic of classics. In it, on the contrary, everything is based on improvisation and original arrangements. This is where a fundamental difference lies between classical (academic) music and the modern post-jazz school.

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• What is culture? Definition of the word culture. The meaning of the word culture and photo

There are several types of literature, each of which has its own characteristics. Thus, classical literature refers to works that are considered exemplary for a particular era.

History of the term

Classical is a rather broad concept, since this type includes works of different eras and genres. These are generally recognized works, considered exemplary for the eras in which they were written. Many of them are included in the mandatory program.

The concept of classics developed in the last three centuries of antiquity. Then it denoted certain writers who, for various reasons, were considered models and role models. One of the first such classics was the ancient Greek poet Homer, the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

In the 5th-8th centuries AD. There were authors of texts who determined the theories and norms transmitted in the learning process. IN different schools this canon differed minimally. Gradually, this list was replenished with new names, among which were representatives of the pagan and Christian faiths. These authors became cultural treasures of the public, imitated and quoted.

Modern meaning of the concept

During the Renaissance, European writers turned their attention to the authors of antiquity, due to the liberation of secular culture from excessive pressure. The result of this in literature was an era in which it became fashionable to imitate ancient Greek playwrights such as Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, and follow the canons of classical drama. Then the term “” in a narrow sense began to mean all ancient literature.

In a broad sense, any work that created a canon in its genre began to be called classical. For example, there are eras of modernism, eras, realism, etc. There is a concept of domestic and foreign, as well as world classics. Thus, the recognized classics of Russian literature in Russia are A.S. Pushkin, F.M. Dostoevsky, etc.

As a rule, in the history of literature different countries and nations there is an age in which artistic literature gained its greatest strength, and such an age is called classical. There is an opinion that the work acquires public acceptance, when it carries “eternal values”, something relevant for all times, calls on the reader to think about some universal problems. Classics remain in history and are contrasted with ephemeral works that eventually fall into oblivion.

A person’s ability for emotional and sensory perception of reality and for artistic creativity prompted him to express his experiences figuratively, with the help of colors, lines, words, sounds, etc. This contributed to the emergence of artistic culture in a broad sense.

What is included in the concept

Artistic culture is one of the spheres of public culture. Its essence is the creative reflection of existence (, society and its life) in artistic images. It has important functions, such as the formation of aesthetic perception and consciousness of people, social values, norms, knowledge and experience, and a recreational function (rest and restoration of people).

As a system it includes:
- art as such (individual and group), works and artistic values;
- organizational infrastructure: institutions ensuring the development, preservation, dissemination of artistic culture, creative organizations, educational institutions, demonstration sites, etc.;
- spiritual atmosphere in society - perception, public interest in art creative activity, art, public policy in this area.

TO artistic culture include mass, folk, artistic culture; artistic and aesthetic sides various types activities (political, economic, legal); regional artistic subcultures; artistic subcultures of youth and professional associations, etc.

It manifests itself not only in art, but also in everyday life and in material production, when a person gives expressiveness to the practical and utilitarian objects he creates and, realizing his need for aesthetics and beauty, in creativity. Besides material sphere and physical objects, it also concerns the spiritual sphere.

Artistic culture in the narrow sense

The core of artistic culture is professional and everyday art. This includes Tip 6: Who are geishas, ​​one of which is the word “man”, the other is “art”. Already from the etymology of the word, you can guess that geishas are not Japanese courtesans. For the latter, there are separate words in Japanese - joro, yujo.

Geisha mastered being a woman perfectly. They lifted the spirits of men, creating an atmosphere of joy, ease and emancipation. This was achieved through songs, dances, jokes (often with erotic overtones), tea rooms, which were demonstrated by geishas in men's companies along with casual conversation.

Geishas entertained men both at social events and on personal dates. There was also no place for intimate relationships at the one-on-one meeting. A geisha can have sex with her patron, who took her virginity. For geisha, this is a ritual called mizu-age, which accompanies the transition from apprentice, maiko, to geisha.

If a geisha gets married, then she will leave the profession. Before leaving, she sends her clients, patron, and teachers with a treat - boiled rice, thereby informing them of the severance of communication with them.

Externally, geisha are distinguished by their characteristic makeup with a thick layer of powder and bright red lips, which make a woman’s face look like a mask, as well as an old-fashioned high, fluffy hairstyle. The traditional geisha wears a kimono, the main colors of which are black, red and white.

Modern geisha

It is believed that geisha appeared in the city of Kyoto in the 17th century. The quarters of the city where geisha houses are located are called hanamachi (“flower streets”). There is a school here where, from the age of seven or eight, they are taught to sing, dance, conduct a tea ceremony, play the national Japanese instrument shamisen, conduct a conversation with a man, and are also taught to make up and put on a kimono - everything that a geisha should know and be able to do. .

When the capital of Japan was moved to Tokyo in the 70s of the 19th century, noble Japanese, who made up the bulk of the geisha's clients, also moved there. Geisha festivals, which are held regularly in Kyoto and have become its hallmark, were able to save their craft from the crisis.

After World War II, Japan was taken over by popular culture, leaving Japanese culture on the margins. national traditions. The number of geishas has decreased significantly, but those who have remained faithful to the profession consider themselves guardians of true Japanese culture. Many continue to fully follow the ancient way of life of the geisha, some only partially. But being in the company of a geisha still remains the prerogative of the elite segments of the population.

Sources:

• Geisha world

In contact with

Classmates

The concepts of mass and elite culture define two types of culture in modern society, which are associated with the peculiarities of the way culture exists in society: the methods of its production, reproduction and distribution in society, the position that culture occupies in the social structure of society, the attitude of culture and its creators towards Everyday life people and socio-political problems of society. Elite culture arises before mass culture, but in modern society they coexist and are in complex interaction.

Mass culture

Definition of the concept

In modern scientific literature There are various definitions of popular culture. Some associate mass culture with the development in the twentieth century of new communication and reproductive systems (mass press and book publishing, audio and video recording, radio and television, xerography, telex and telefax, satellite communications, computer technology) and global information exchange that arose thanks to the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution. Other definitions of mass culture emphasize its connection with the development of a new type of social structure of industrial and post-industrial society, which led to the creation of a new way of organizing the production and transmission of culture. The second understanding of mass culture is more complete and comprehensive, because it not only includes the changed technical and technological basis of cultural creativity, but also considers the socio-historical context and trends in cultural transformations of modern society.

Popular culture This is a type of product that is produced in large quantities every day. This is a set of cultural phenomena of the 20th century and the peculiarities of the production of cultural values ​​in modern industrial society, designed for mass consumption. In other words, this is a conveyor belt production through various channels, including the media and communications.

It is assumed that mass culture is consumed by all people, regardless of place and country of residence. This is the culture of everyday life, presented on the widest possible channels, including TV.

The emergence of mass culture

Relatively prerequisites for the emergence of mass culture There are several points of view:

1. Mass culture arose at the dawn of Christian civilization. As an example, simplified versions of the Bible are cited (for children, for the poor), designed for a mass audience.
2. IN XVII-XVIII centuries In Western Europe, the genre of adventure novel appears, which significantly expanded the readership due to huge circulations. (Example: Daniel Defoe - the novel “Robinson Crusoe” and 481 other biographies of people in risky professions: investigators, military men, thieves, prostitutes, etc.).
3. In 1870, a law on universal literacy was passed in Great Britain, which allowed many to master the main form artistic creativity XIX century - novel. But this is only the prehistory of mass culture. In the proper sense, mass culture first manifested itself in the United States at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The emergence of mass culture is associated with the massification of life at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At this time, the role of the human masses increased in various areas of life: economics, politics, management and communication between people. Ortega y Gaset defines the concept of the masses this way:

Mass is a crowd. A crowd in quantitative and visual terms is a multitude, and a multitude from a sociological point of view is a mass. Weight - average person. Society has always been a moving unity of the minority and the masses. A minority is a set of persons who are specially singled out; the mass is a group of people who are not singled out in any way. Ortega sees the reason for the promotion of the masses to the forefront of history in the low quality of culture, when a person of a given culture “does not differ from the rest and repeats the general type.”

The prerequisites for mass culture also include the emergence of a system of mass communications during the formation of bourgeois society(press, mass book publishing, then radio, television, cinema) and the development of transport, which made it possible to reduce the space and time necessary for the transmission and dissemination of cultural values ​​in society. Culture emerges from local existence and begins to function on a global scale. nation state(a national culture emerges, overcoming ethnic restrictions), and then enters the system of interethnic communication.

The prerequisites for mass culture also include the creation within bourgeois society of a special structure of institutions for the production and dissemination of cultural values:

1. The emergence of public educational institutions (comprehensive schools, professional school, higher education institutions);
2. Creation of institutions producing scientific knowledge;
3. Appearance professional art(academies of fine arts, theater, opera, ballet, conservatory, literary magazines, publishing houses and associations, exhibitions, public museums, exhibition galleries, libraries), which also included the emergence of the institution of art criticism as a means of popularizing and developing his works.

Features and significance of mass culture

Mass culture in its most concentrated form is manifested in artistic culture, as well as in the spheres of leisure, communication, management and economics. The term "mass culture" was first introduced by the German professor M. Horkheimer in 1941 and the American scientist D. MacDonald in 1944. The content of this term is quite contradictory. On the one hand, mass culture - "culture for all", on the other hand, this is "not quite culture". The definition of mass culture emphasizes spreadthe vulnerability and general accessibility of spiritual values, as well as the ease of their assimilation, which does not require special developed taste and perception.

The existence of mass culture is based on the activities of the media, the so-called technical arts (cinema, television, video). Mass culture exists not only in democratic social systems, but also in totalitarian regimes, where everyone is a “cog” and everyone is equal.

Currently, some researchers abandon the view of “mass culture” as an area of ​​“bad taste” and do not consider it anti-cultural. Many people realize that mass culture has not only negative features. It influences:

• the ability of people to adapt to the conditions of a market economy;
• respond adequately to sudden situational social changes.

Besides, mass culture is capable:

• compensate for the lack of personal communication and dissatisfaction with life;
• increase the population's involvement in political events;
• increase the psychological stability of the population in difficult social situations;
• make the achievements of science and technology accessible to many.

It should be recognized that mass culture is an objective indicator of the state of society, its misconceptions, typical forms of behavior, cultural stereotypes and the real value system.

In the sphere of artistic culture, she encourages a person not to rebel against social system, but to fit into it, find and take one’s place in a market-type industrial society.

TO negative consequences of mass culture refers to its ability to mythologize human consciousness, to mystify real processes occurring in nature and society. There is a rejection of the rational principle in consciousness.

There were once beautiful poetic images. They talked about the wealth of imagination of people who could not yet correctly understand and explain the action of the forces of nature. Nowadays myths serve the poverty of thinking.

On the one hand, one might think that the purpose of mass culture is to relieve tension and stress in a person in an industrial society - after all, it is entertaining. But in fact, this culture does not so much fill leisure time as stimulate the consumer consciousness of the viewer, listener, and reader. A type of passive, uncritical perception of this culture arises in a person. And if so, a personality is created, whose consciousness easy mamanipulate, whose emotions are easy to direct to the rightside.

In other words, mass culture exploits the instincts of the subconscious sphere of human feelings and, above all, feelings of loneliness, guilt, hostility, fear, self-preservation.

In the practice of mass culture, mass consciousness has specific means of expression. Popular culture in to a greater extent focuses not on realistic images, but on artificial created images- images and stereotypes.

Popular culture creates a hero formula, repetitive image, stereotype. This situation creates idolatry. An artificial “Olympus” is created, the gods are “stars” and a crowd of fanatical admirers and admirers arises. In this regard, mass artistic culture successfully embodies the most desirable human myth - myth of a happy world. At the same time, she does not call her listener, viewer, reader to build such a world - her task is to offer a person refuge from reality.

The origins of the widespread spread of mass culture in modern world lie in the commercial nature of all social relations. The concept of “product” defines the entire diversity of social relations in society.

Spiritual activity: cinema, books, music, etc., in connection with the development of mass media, become a commodity in the conditions of assembly line production. The commercial attitude is transferred to the sphere of artistic culture. And this determines the entertaining nature of works of art. It is necessary that the clip pays off, the money spent on the production of the film produces a profit.

Mass culture forms a social stratum in society, called “ middle class» . This class became the core of life in industrial society. For modern representative"middle class" is characterized by:

1. Striving for success. Achievement and success are the values ​​that culture in such a society is oriented towards. It is no coincidence that stories about how someone escaped from poor to rich, from a poor emigrant family to a highly paid “star” of mass culture are so popular in it.
2. The second distinctive feature of a “middle class” person is possession private property . A prestigious car, a castle in England, a house on the Cote d'Azur, an apartment in Monaco... As a result, relations between people are replaced by relations of capital, income, i.e. they are impersonally formal. A person must be in constant tension, survive in conditions of fierce competition. And the strongest survive, that is, those who succeed in the pursuit of profit.
3. Third value human"middle class" - individualism . This is recognition of individual rights, its freedom and independence from society and the state. The energy of a free personality is directed into the sphere of economic and political activity. This contributes to the accelerated development of productive forces. Equality is possible stey, competition, personal success - on the one hand, this is good. But, on the other hand, this leads to a contradiction between the ideals of a free personality and reality. In other words, as the principle of the relationship between man and man individualism is inhumane, and as a norm of a person’s relationship to society - antisocial .

In art and artistic creativity, mass culture performs the following social functions:

• introduces a person to the world of illusory experience and unrealistic dreams;
• promotes the dominant way of life;
• distracts the broad masses of people from social activity and forces them to adapt.

Hence the use in art of such genres as detective, western, melodrama, musicals, comics, advertising, etc.

Elite culture

Definition of the concept

Elite culture (from the French elite - selected, best) can be defined as a subculture of privileged groups of society(while sometimes their only privilege may be the right to cultural creativity or to preserve cultural heritage), which is characterized by value-semantic isolation, closedness; elite culture asserts itself as the creativity of a narrow circle of “highest professionals”, the understanding of which is accessible to an equally narrow circle of highly educated connoisseurs. Elite culture claims to stand high above the “ordinariness” of everyday life and to occupy the position of the “highest court” in relation to the socio-political problems of society.

Elite culture is considered by many culturologists as the antithesis of mass culture. From this point of view, the producer and consumer of elite cultural goods is the highest, privileged layer of society - elite . In modern cultural studies, the understanding of the elite as a special layer of society endowed with specific spiritual abilities has been established.

The elite is not just the highest stratum of society, the ruling elite. There is an elite in every social class.

Elite- this is the part of society most capable ofspiritual activity, gifted with high moral and aesthetic inclinations. It is she who ensures social progress, so art should be focused on meeting her demands and needs. The main elements of the elite concept of culture are contained in philosophical works A. Schopenhauer (“The World as Will and Idea”) and F. Nietzsche (“Human, All Too Human,” “The Gay Science,” “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”).

A. Schopenhauer divides humanity into two parts: “people of geniuses” and “people of benefit.” The former are capable of aesthetic contemplation and artistic activity, the latter are focused only on purely practical, utilitarian activity.

The demarcation between elite and mass culture is associated with the development of cities, book printing, and the emergence of a customer and performer in the sphere. Elite - for sophisticated connoisseurs, mass - for the ordinary, ordinary reader, viewer, listener. Works that serve as standards of mass art, as a rule, reveal a connection with folklore, mythological, and popular popular constructions that existed before. In the 20th century, the elitist concept of culture was summarized by Ortega y Gaset. The work of this Spanish philosopher, “The Dehumanization of Art,” argues that the new art is addressed to the elite of society, and not to its masses. Therefore, art does not necessarily have to be popular, generally understandable, universal. New art should alienate people from real life. "Dehumanization" - and is the basis of the new art of the twentieth century. There are polar classes in society - majority (mass) and minority (elite) . New art, according to Ortega, divides the public into two classes - those who understand it and those who do not understand it, that is, artists and those who are not artists.

Elite , according to Ortega, this is not the tribal aristocracy and not the privileged layers of society, but that part of it that has a “special organ of perception” . It is this part that contributes to social progress. And it is precisely this that artists should address with their works. The new art should help ensure that “...the best get to know themselves, learn to understand their purpose: to be in the minority and fight with the majority.”

A typical manifestation of elite culture is theory and practice of “pure art” or “art for art’s sake” , which found its embodiment in Western European and Russian culture at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. For example, in Russia the ideas of elite culture were actively developed by artistic association“World of Art” (artist A. Benois, magazine editor S. Diaghilev, etc.).

The emergence of an elite culture

Elite culture, as a rule, arises in eras of cultural crisis, the breakdown of old and the birth of new cultural traditions, methods of production and reproduction of spiritual values, and a change in cultural and historical paradigms. Therefore, representatives of elite culture perceive themselves either as “creators of the new”, towering above their time, and therefore not understood by their contemporaries (these are mostly the romantics and modernists - figures of the artistic avant-garde, making a cultural revolution), or “guardians of the fundamental foundations”, who should be protected from destruction and the significance of which is not understood by the “masses”.

In such a situation, the elite culture acquires features of esotericism- closed, hidden knowledge, which is not intended for wide, universal use. In history, the carriers of various forms of elite culture were priests, religious sects, monastic and spiritual knightly orders, Masonic lodges, craft guilds, literary, artistic and intellectual circles, and underground organizations. Such a narrowing of the potential recipients of cultural creativity gives rise to awareness of one's creativity as exceptional: “true religion”, “pure science”, “pure art” or “art for art’s sake”.

The concept of “elite” as opposed to “mass” was introduced at the end of the 18th century. The division of artistic creativity into elite and mass manifested itself in the concepts of the romantics. Initially, among the romantics, the elitist carries within itself the semantic meaning of being chosen and exemplary. The concept of exemplary, in turn, was understood as identical to the classical. The concept of the classical was especially actively developed in. Then the normative core was the art of antiquity. In this understanding, the classical was personified with the elitist and exemplary.

Romantics sought to focus on innovation in the field of artistic creativity. Thus, they separated their art from the usual adapted artistic forms. The triad: “elite - exemplary - classic” began to crumble - the elitist was no longer identical to the classical.

Features and significance of elite culture

A feature of elite culture is the interest of its representatives in creating new forms, demonstrative opposition to the harmonious forms of classical art, as well as an emphasis on the subjectivity of the worldview.

The characteristic features of an elite culture are:

1. the desire for the cultural development of objects (phenomena of the natural and social world, spiritual realities), which stand out sharply from the totality of what is included in the field of subject development of the “ordinary”, “profane” culture of a given time;
2. inclusion of one’s subject in unexpected value-semantic contexts, creating it new interpretation, unique or exclusive meaning;
3. the creation of a new cultural language (language of symbols, images), accessible to a narrow circle of connoisseurs, the decoding of which requires special efforts and a broad cultural outlook from the uninitiated.

Elite culture is dual and contradictory in nature. On the one hand, elite culture acts as an innovative enzyme of the sociocultural process. Works of elite culture contribute to the renewal of the culture of society, introducing new issues, language, and methods of cultural creativity into it. Initially, within the boundaries of elite culture, new genres and types of art are born, a cultural, literary language of society is developed, extraordinary scientific theories, philosophical concepts and religious teachings are created, which seem to “break out” beyond the established boundaries of culture, but then can become part of the cultural heritage of the entire society . That is why, for example, they say that truth is born as heresy and dies as banality.

On the other hand, the position of an elite culture, opposing itself to the culture of society, may mean a conservative departure from social reality and its pressing problems into the idealized world of “art for art’s sake,” religious, philosophical and socio-political utopias. This demonstrative form of rejection existing world can be both a form of passive protest against it, and a form of reconciliation with it, recognition of one’s own powerlessness of elite culture, its inability to influence cultural life society.

This duality of elite culture also determines the presence of opposing - critical and apologetic - theories of elite culture. Democratic thinkers (Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Pisarev, Plekhanov, Morris, etc.) were critical of elitist culture, emphasizing its separation from the life of the people, its incomprehensibility to the people, its serving the needs of rich, jaded people. Moreover, such criticism sometimes went beyond the bounds of reason, turning, for example, from criticism of elite art into criticism of all art. Pisarev, for example, declared that “boots are higher than art.” L. Tolstoy, who created high examples of the novel of the New Age (“War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, “Sunday”), in late period of his work, when he switched to the position of peasant democracy, he considered all these works unnecessary for the people and began to compose popular stories from peasant life.

Another direction of theories of elite culture (Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Berdyaev, Ortega y Gasset, Heidegger and Ellul) defended it, emphasizing its meaningfulness, formal perfection, creative search and novelty, the desire to resist the stereotypedness and lack of spirituality of everyday culture, and considered it as a haven of creative personal freedom.

A variety of elite art in our time is modernism and postmodernism.

References:

1. Afonin V. A., Afonin Yu. V. Theory and history of culture. Tutorial for independent work of students. – Lugansk: Elton-2, 2008. – 296 p.

2.Cultural studies in questions and answers. Toolkit to prepare for tests and exams in the course “Ukrainian and foreign culture” for students of all specialties and forms of study. / Rep. Editor Ragozin N.P. - Donetsk, 2008, - 170 p.

from French elite - selected, selected, best high culture, the consumers of which are educated people, is very different high degree specialization, designed, so to speak, for “internal use” and often seeking to complicate its language, that is, to make it inaccessible to most people. ? A subculture of privileged groups of the society, characterized by fundamental closedness, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. Appealing to a select minority of its subjects, who, as a rule, are both its creators and addressees (in any case, the circle of both almost coincides), E.K. consciously and consistently opposes the culture of the majority, or mass culture in the broad sense (in all its historical and typological varieties - folklore, folk culture, official culture of a particular estate or class, the state as a whole, the cultural industry of technocratic society -va 20th century, etc.) (see Mass culture). Moreover, E.k. needs a constant context of mass culture, since it is based on the mechanism of repulsion from the values ​​and norms accepted in mass culture, on the destruction of existing stereotypes and templates of mass culture (including their parody, ridicule, irony, grotesque, polemic, criticism, refutation), on demonstrative self-isolation in general national culture. In this regard, E.k. - a characteristically marginal phenomenon within any history. or national type of culture and is always secondary, derivative in relation to the culture of the majority. The problem of E.K. is especially acute. in communities where the antinomy of mass culture and E.K. practically exhausts all the variety of manifestations of nationalism. culture as a whole and where the mediative (“middle”) area of ​​the national culture, a constituent part of it. body and equally opposed to polarized mass and E. cultures as value-semantic extremes. This is typical, in particular, for cultures that have a binary structure and are prone to inversion forms of history. development (Russian and typologically similar cultures). Watering varies. and cultural elites; the first, also called “ruling”, “powerful”, today, thanks to the works of V. Pareto, G. Mosca, R. Michels, C.R. Mills, R. Miliband, J. Scott, J. Perry, D. Bell and other sociologists and political scientists, have been studied in sufficient detail and deeply. Much less studied are the cultural elites - strata united by non-economic, social, political. and actual power interests and goals, but also ideological principles, spiritual values, sociocultural norms and so on. Connected in principle by similar (isomorphic) mechanisms of selection, status consumption, prestige, political elite. and cultural ones, however, do not coincide with each other and only sometimes enter into temporary alliances, which turn out to be extremely unstable and fragile. Suffice it to recall the spiritual dramas of Socrates, who was condemned to death by his fellow citizens, and Plato, who was disillusioned with the Syracuse tyrant Dionysius (the Elder), who undertook to put into practice Plato’s utopia of the “State”, Pushkin, who refused to “serve the king, serve the people” and thereby who recognized the inevitability of his creativity. loneliness, although royal in its own way (“You are a king: live alone”), and L. Tolstoy, who, despite his origin and position, sought to express the “folk idea” through the means of his high and unique art of speech, European. education, sophisticated author's philosophy and religion. It is worth mentioning here the short flowering of the sciences and arts at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent; the experience of the highest patronage of Louis XIV to the muses, which gave the world examples of Western European. classicism; a short period of cooperation between the enlightened nobility and the noble bureaucracy during the reign of Catherine II; short-lived pre-revolutionary union. rus. intelligentsia with Bolshevik power in the 20s. and so on. , in order to affirm the multidirectional and largely mutually exclusive nature of the interacting political and cultural elites, which enclose the social-semantic and cultural-semantic structures of the society, respectively, and coexist in time and space. This means that E.k. is not a creation or product of water. elites (as was often stated in Marxist studies) and is not of a class-party nature, but in many cases develops in the fight against politics. elites for their independence and freedom. On the contrary, it is logical to assume that it is the cultural elites that contribute to the formation of politics. elites (structurally isomorphic to cultural elites) in a narrower sphere of socio-political, state. and power relations as its own special case, isolated and alienated from the whole E.K. Unlike polit. elites, spiritual and creative elites develop their own, fundamentally new mechanisms of self-regulation and value-semantic criteria for active chosenness that go beyond the framework of the strictly social and political. demands, and often accompanied by a demonstrative departure from politics and social institutions and semantic opposition to these phenomena as extracultural (unaesthetic, immoral, unspiritual, intellectually poor and vulgar). In E.k. The range of values ​​recognized as true and “high” is deliberately limited, and the system of norms accepted by a given stratum as obligations is tightened. and strict in the communication of the “initiates”. Quantity The narrowing of the elite and its spiritual unity is inevitably accompanied by its qualities. growth (in intellectual, aesthetic, religious, ethical and other respects), and therefore, individualization of norms, values, evaluative criteria of activity, often principles and forms of behavior of members of the elite community, thereby becoming unique. Actually, for the sake of this, the circle of norms and values ​​of E.K. becomes emphatically high, innovative, what can be achieved in a variety of ways. means: 1) mastering new social and mental realities as cultural phenomena or, on the contrary, rejection of anything new and “protection” of a narrow circle of conservative values ​​and norms; 2) inclusion of one’s subject in an unexpected value-semantic context, which makes its interpretation unique and even exclusive. meaning; 3) the creation of a new, deliberately complicated cultural semantics (metaphorical, associative, allusive, symbolic and metasymbolic), requiring special knowledge from the addressee. preparation and vast cultural horizons; 4) the development of a special cultural language (code), accessible only to a narrow circle of connoisseurs and designed to complicate communication, to erect insurmountable (or most difficult to overcome) semantic barriers to profane thinking, which turns out to be, in principle, unable to adequately comprehend the innovations of E.K., to “decipher” it meanings; 5) the use of a deliberately subjective, individually creative, “defamiliarizing” interpretation of the ordinary and familiar, which brings the subject’s cultural assimilation of reality closer to a mental (sometimes artistic) experiment on it and, in the extreme, replaces the reflection of reality in E.K. its transformation, imitation - deformation, penetration into meaning - conjecture and rethinking of the given. Due to its semantic and functional “closedness”, “narrowness”, isolation from the whole national. culture, E.k. often turns into a type (or similarity) of secret, sacred, esoteric. knowledge that is taboo for the rest of the masses, and its bearers turn into a kind of “priests” of this knowledge, chosen ones of the gods, “servants of the muses,” “keepers of secrets and faith,” which is often played out and poeticized in E.K. Historical origin of E.c. exactly this: already in primitive society, priests, magi, sorcerers, tribal leaders become privileged holders of special knowledge, which cannot and should not be intended for general, mass use. Subsequently, this kind of relationship between E.k. and mass culture in one form or another, in particular secular, were repeatedly reproduced (in various religious confessions and especially sects, in monastic and spiritual knightly orders, Masonic lodges , in the craft workshops that cultivated prof. mastery, in religious and philosophical. meetings, literary and artistic and intellectual circles that develop around charismatic people. leader, scientific associations and scientific schools, in politics. associations and parties, including especially those that worked secretly, conspiratorially, underground, etc.). Ultimately, the elitism of knowledge, skills, values, norms, principles, and traditions that was formed in this way was the key to sophisticated professionalism and deep subject specialization, without which history would be impossible in culture. progress, progress value-semantic growth, contain. enrichment and accumulation of formal perfection - any value-semantic hierarchy. E.k. acts as an initiative and productive principle in any culture, performing mainly creative work. function in it; while mass culture stereotypes, routinizes, and profanes the achievements of E.K., adapting them to the perception and consumption of the sociocultural majority of the society. In turn, E.k. constantly ridicules or denounces mass culture, parodies it or grotesquely deforms it, presenting the world of mass society and its culture as scary and ugly, aggressive and cruel; in this context, the fate of representatives of E.K. depicted as tragic, disadvantaged, broken (romantic and post-romantic concepts of “genius and the crowd”; “creative madness”, or “sacred disease”, and ordinary “common sense”; inspired “intoxication”, including narcotic , and vulgar “sobriety”; “celebration of life” and boring everyday life). Theory and practice of E.k. blossoms especially productively and fruitfully at the “breakdown” of cultural eras, with the change of cultural and historical. paradigms, uniquely expressing the crisis conditions of culture, the unstable balance between “old” and “new”, the representatives of E.K. realized their mission in culture as “initiators of the new,” as ahead of their time, as creators not understood by their contemporaries (such, for example, were the majority of romantics and modernists - symbolists, cultural figures of the Avant-garde and professional revolutionaries who carried out the cultural revolution) . This also includes the “beginners” of large-scale traditions and the creators of the “grand style” paradigms (Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Gorky, Kafka, etc.). This view, although fair in many respects, was not, however, the only possible one. So, on Russian grounds. culture (where the public attitude towards E.K. was in most cases wary or even hostile, which did not even contribute to the attitude. distribution of E.K., compared to Western. Europe) concepts were born that interpret E.c. as a conservative departure from social reality and its pressing problems into the world of idealized aesthetics (“pure art”, or “art for art’s sake”), religion. and mythol. fantasies, socio-political. utopian, philosopher idealism, etc. (late Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, M. Antonovich, N. Mikhailovsky, V. Stasov, P. Tkachev and other radical democratic thinkers). In the same tradition, Pisarev and Plekhanov, as well as Ap. Grigoriev interpreted E.k. (including “art for art’s sake”) as a demonstrative form of social and political rejection. reality, as an expression of hidden, passive protest against it, as a refusal to participate in society. struggle of his time, seeing in this a characteristic history. symptom (deepening crisis), and pronounced inferiority of the E.K. itself. (lack of breadth and historical foresight, social weakness and powerlessness to influence the course of history and the life of the masses). E.k. theorists - Plato and Augustine, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Vl. Soloviev and Leontiev, Berdyaev and A. Bely, Ortega y Gasset and Benjamin, Husserl and Heidegger, Mannheim and Ellul - variously varied the thesis about the hostility of democratization and the massification of culture and its qualities. level, its content and formal perfection, creative. search and intellectual, aesthetic, religious. and other novelty, about the stereotype and triviality that inevitably accompanies mass culture (ideas, images, theories, plots), lack of spirituality, and the infringement of creativity. personality and the suppression of its freedom in conditions of mass society and mechanics. replication of spiritual values, expansion of industrial production of culture. This tendency is to deepen the contradictions between E.K. and mass - increased unprecedentedly in the 20th century. and inspired many poignant and dramatic stories. collisions (cf., for example, the novels: “Ulysses” by Joyce, “In Search of Lost Time” by Proust, “Steppenwolf” and “The Glass Bead Game” by Hesse, “The Magic Mountain” and “Doctor Faustus” by T. Mann, “We ” Zamyatin, “The Life of Klim Samgin” by Gorky, “The Master and Margarita” by Bulgakov, “The Pit” and “Chevengur” by Platonov, “The Pyramid” by L. Leonov, etc.). At the same time, in the cultural history of the 20th century. There are many examples that clearly illustrate the paradoxical dialectics of E.K. and mass: their mutual transition and mutual transformation, mutual influence and self-negation of each of them. So, for example, creative. quest for various representatives of modern culture (symbolists and impressionists, expressionists and futurists, surrealists and dadaists, etc. ) - and artists, and theorists of movements, and philosophers, and publicists - were aimed at creating unique samples and entire systems of E.K. Many of the formal refinements were experimental; theory manifestos and declarations substantiated the right of the artist and thinker to be creative. incomprehensibility, separation from the masses, their tastes and needs, to the intrinsic existence of “culture for culture.” However, as the expanding field of activity of the modernists included everyday objects, everyday situations, forms of everyday thinking, structures of generally accepted behavior, current history. events, etc. (albeit with a “minus” sign, as a “minus technique”), modernism began - involuntarily, and then consciously - to appeal to the masses and mass consciousness. Shocking and mockery, grotesque and denunciation of the average person, slapstick and farce - these are the same legitimate genres, stylistic devices and expressions. media of mass culture, as well as playing on cliches and stereotypes of mass consciousness, posters and propaganda, farce and ditties, recitation and rhetoric. Stylization or parody of banality is almost indistinguishable from what is being stylized and parodied (with the exception of the ironic author's distance and the general semantic context, which remain almost elusive for mass perception); but the recognition and familiarity of vulgarity makes its criticism - highly intellectual, subtle, aestheticized - little understandable and effective for the majority of recipients (who are not able to distinguish ridicule of low-grade taste from indulging it). As a result, one and the same work of culture acquires a double life with different semantic content and opposite ideological pathos: on one side it turns out to be addressed to E.K., on the other - to mass culture. These are many works by Chekhov and Gorky, Mahler and Stravinsky, Modigliani and Picasso, L. Andreev and Verhaeren, Mayakovsky and Eluard, Meyerhold and Shostakovich, Yesenin and Kharms, Brecht and Fellini, Brodsky and Voinovich. E.c. contamination is especially controversial. and mass culture in postmodern culture; for example, in such an early phenomenon of Postmodernism as Pop Art, there is an elitization of mass culture and at the same time a massification of elitism, which gave rise to the modern classics. postmodernist W. Eco characterize pop art as “lowbrow highbrow”, or, conversely, as “highbrow lowbrow” (in English: Lowbrow Highbrow, or Highbrow Lowbrow). No fewer paradoxes arise when comprehending the genesis of totalitarian culture (see Totalitarian culture), which, by definition, is a mass culture and a culture of the masses. However, in its origin, totalitarian culture is rooted precisely in E.K.: for example, Nietzsche, Spengler, Weininger, Sombart, Jünger, K. Schmitt and other philosophers and socio-political. thinkers who anticipated and brought the Germans closer to real power. Nazism, definitely belonged to E.K. and were in a number of cases misunderstood and distorted by their practical. interpreters, primitivized, simplified to a rigid scheme and uncomplicated demagoguery. The situation is similar with communists. totalitarianism: the founders of Marxism - Marx and Engels, and Plekhanov, and Lenin himself, and Trotsky, and Bukharin - they were all, in their own way, “highbrow” intellectuals and represented a very narrow circle of radically minded intelligentsia. Moreover, the ideal. The atmosphere of social-democratic, socialist, and Marxist circles, then strictly conspiratorial party cells, was built in full accordance with the principles of E.K. (only extended to political and educational culture), and the principle of party membership implied not just selectivity, but also a rather strict selection of values, norms, principles, concepts, types of behavior, etc. Actually, the mechanism itself selection(by race and nationality or by class and political), which lies at the basis of totalitarianism as sociocultural system, born E.K., in its depths, by its representatives, and later only extrapolated to a mass society, in which everything considered expedient is reproduced and intensified, and everything dangerous for its self-preservation and development is prohibited and confiscated ( including by means of violence). Thus, totalitarian culture initially arises from the atmosphere and style, from the norms and values ​​of the elite circle, is universalized as a kind of panacea, and then is forcibly imposed on society as a whole as perfect model and is practically being introduced into mass consciousness and societies. activities by any, including non-cultural, means. In conditions of post-totalitarian development, as well as in the context of Western democracy, the phenomena of totalitarian culture (emblems and symbols, ideas and images, concepts and style of socialist realism), being presented in a culturally pluralistic way. context and distanced from modern times. reflection - purely intellectual or aesthetic - begin to function as exotic. E.c. components and are perceived by a generation familiar with totalitarianism only from photographs and anecdotes, “strangely,” grotesquely, associatively. The components of mass culture included in the context of E.K. act as elements of E.K.; while the components of E.K., inscribed in the context of mass culture, become components of mass culture. In the postmodern cultural paradigm, the components of E.k. and popular culture are used equally as ambivalent game material, and the semantic boundary between mass and E.k. turns out to be fundamentally blurred or removed; in this case, the distinction between E.k. and mass culture practically loses its meaning (retaining for the potential recipient only the allusive meaning of the cultural-genetic context). Lit.: Mills R. The ruling elite. M., 1959; Ashin G.K. The myth of the elite and “ mass society" M., 1966; Davydov Yu.N. Art and the elite. M., 1966; Davidyuk G.P., B.C. Bobrovsky. Problems of “mass culture” and “mass communications”. Minsk, 1972; Snow Ch. Two cultures. M., 1973; “Mass culture” - illusions and reality. Sat. Art. M., 1975; Ashin G.K. Criticism of modern times bourgeois leadership concepts. M., 1978; Kartseva E.N. Ideological and aesthetic foundations of bourgeois “mass culture”. M., 1976; Narta M. Theory of elites and politics. M., 1978; Raynov B. “Mass culture.” M., 1979; Shestakov V.P. “The art of trivialization”: certain problems of “mass culture” // VF. 1982. No. 10; Gershkovich Z.I. Paradoxes of “mass culture” and modern ideological struggle. M., 1983; Molchanov V.V. Mirages of mass culture. L., 1984; Mass types and forms of art. M., 1985; Ashin G.K. Modern elite theories: critical. feature article. M., 1985; Kukarkin A.V. Bourgeois mass culture. M., 1985; Smolskaya E.P. “Mass culture”: entertainment or politics? M., 1986; Shestakov V. Mythology of the 20th century. M., 1988; Isupov K. G. Russian aesthetics of history. St. Petersburg, 1992; Dmitrieva N.K., Moiseeva A.P. Philosopher of the free spirit (Nikolai Berdyaev: life and creativity). M., 1993; Ovchinnikov V.F. Creative personality in the context of Russian culture. Kaliningrad, 1994; Phenomenology of art. M., 1996; Elite and mass in Russian artistic culture. Sat.st. M., 1996; Zimovets S. Silence of Gerasim: Psychoanalytic and philosophical essays on Russian culture. M., 1996; Afanasyev M.N. Ruling elites and statehood in post-totalitarian Russia (Lecture course). M.; Voronezh, 1996; Dobrenko E. Molding of the Soviet reader. Social and aesthetic. prerequisites for the reception of Soviet literature. St. Petersburg, 1997; Bellows R. Creative Leadership. Prentice-Hall, 1959; Packard V. The Status Seekers. N.Y., 1963; Weyl N. The Creative Elite in America. Wash., 1966; Spitz D. Patterns of Anti-Democratic Thought. Glencoe, 1965; Jodi M. Teorie elity a problem elity. Praha, 1968; Parry G. Political Elite. L, 1969; RubinJ. Do It! N.Y., 1970; Prewitt K., Stone A. The Ruling Elites. Elite Theory, Power and American Democracy. N.Y., 1973; Gans H.G. Popular Culture and High Culture. N.Y., 1974; Swingwood A. The Myth of Mass Culture. L., 1977; Toffler A. The Third Wave. N.Y., 1981; Ridless R. Ideology and Art. Theories of Mass Culture from W. Benjamin to U. Eco. N.Y., 1984; Shiah M. Discourse on Popular Culture. Stanford, 1989; Theory, Culture and Society. L., 1990. I. V. Kondakov. Cultural studies of the twentieth century. Encyclopedia. M.1996

Elite culture

Elite culture- this is “high culture”, contrasted with mass culture by the type of impact on the perceiving consciousness, preserving its subjective characteristics and providing a meaning-forming function [ style!] . Its main ideal is the formation of a consciousness ready for active transformative activity and creativity in accordance with the objective laws of reality [ style!] . This understanding of elite culture, explicated from its similar awareness as a high culture, concentrating spiritual, intellectual and artistic experience generations, seems, according to Russian culturologists, more accurate and adequate than the understanding of the elite as avant-garde [ style!] .

Origin of the term

Historically, elite culture arose as the antithesis of mass culture and its meaning manifests its main meaning in comparison with the latter. The essence of elite culture was first analyzed by X. Ortega y Gasset (“Dehumanization of Art,” “Revolt of the Masses”) and K. Mannheim (“Ideology and Utopia,” “Man and Society in an Age of Transformation,” “Essay in the Sociology of Culture”) , who considered this culture as the only one capable of preserving and reproducing the basic meanings of culture and possessing a number of fundamentally important features, including a method of verbal communication - a language developed by its speakers, where special social groups - clergy, politicians, artists - use special , languages ​​closed to the uninitiated, including Latin and Sanskrit.

Peculiarities

The subject of elitist, high culture is the individual - a free, creative person, capable of carrying out conscious activities. The creations of this culture are always personally colored and designed for personal perception, regardless of the breadth of their audience, which is why the wide distribution and millions of copies of the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Shakespeare not only do not reduce their significance, but, on the contrary, contribute to the widespread dissemination of spiritual values. In this sense, the subject of elite culture is a representative of the elite.

At the same time, objects of high culture that retain their form - plot, composition, musical structure, but changing the mode of presentation and appearing in the form of replicated products, adapted, adapted to an unusual type of functioning, as a rule, move into the category of mass cult. In this sense, we can talk about the ability of form to be a carrier of content.

If we keep in mind the art of mass culture, then we can state the different sensitivity of its types to this ratio. In the field of music, the form is fully meaningful, even its minor transformations (for example, the widespread practice of translating classical music into electronic variant its instrumentation) lead to the destruction of the integrity of the work. In the field of fine arts, a similar result is achieved by translating an authentic image into another format - reproduction or digital version (even while trying to preserve the context - in virtual museum). As for a literary work, changing the mode of presentation - including from traditional book to digital - does not affect its character, since the form of the work, the structure, are the laws of its dramatic construction, and not the medium - printing or electronic - of this information. Defining such works of high culture that have changed the nature of their functioning as mass works is made possible by a violation of their integrity, when their secondary, or at least non-primary, components are emphasized and act as leading ones. A change in the authentic format of mass culture phenomena leads to a change in the essence of the work, where ideas are presented in a simplified, adapted version, and creative functions are replaced by socializing ones. This is due to the fact that, in contrast to high culture, the essence of mass culture lies not in creative activity, not in the production of cultural values, but in the formation of “value orientations” corresponding to the nature of prevailing social relations, and the development of stereotypes of the mass consciousness of members of the “consumer society.” society." Nevertheless, elite culture is a unique model for mass culture, acting as a source of plots, images, ideas, hypotheses, which are adapted by the latter to the level of mass consciousness.

Thus, elite culture is the culture of privileged groups of society, characterized by fundamental closedness, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. According to I.V. Kondakov, elite culture appeals to a select minority of its subjects, who, as a rule, are both its creators and recipients (in any case, the circle of both almost coincides). Elite culture consciously and consistently opposes the culture of the majority in all its historical and typological varieties - folklore, folk culture, official culture of one or another estate or class, the state as a whole, the cultural industry of the technocratic society of the 20th century. etc. Philosophers consider elite culture as the only one capable of preserving and reproducing the basic meanings of culture and having a number of fundamentally important features:

• complexity, specialization, creativity, innovation;
• the ability to form a consciousness ready for active transformative activity and creativity in accordance with the objective laws of reality;
• the ability to concentrate the spiritual, intellectual and artistic experience of generations;
• the presence of a limited range of values ​​recognized as true and “high”;
• a rigid system of norms accepted by a given stratum as mandatory and strict in the community of “initiates”;
• individualization of norms, values, evaluative criteria of activity, often principles and forms of behavior of members of the elite community, thereby becoming unique;
• the creation of a new, deliberately complicated cultural semantics, requiring special training and an immense cultural horizon from the addressee;
• the use of a deliberately subjective, individually creative, “defamiliarizing” interpretation of the ordinary and familiar, which brings the subject’s cultural assimilation of reality closer to a mental (sometimes artistic) experiment on it and, in the extreme, replaces the reflection of reality in elite culture with its transformation, imitation with deformation, penetration into meaning - conjecture and rethinking of the given;
• semantic and functional “closedness”, “narrowness”, isolation from the whole national culture, which turns elite culture into a kind of secret, sacred, esoteric knowledge, taboo for the rest of the masses, and its bearers turn into a kind of “priests” of this knowledge, chosen ones of the gods, “servants of the muses,” “keepers of secrets and faith,” which is often played out and is poeticized in elite culture.

see also

Notes

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See what “Elite culture” is in other dictionaries:

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Culture that is placed above mass culture. Elite culture (high) is a creative avant-garde, a laboratory of art, where new types and forms of art are constantly being created. She is also called high culture, because it is created by the elite of society, or ... Wikipedia