The branches of cultural studies are. Morphology of professional culture


Culturology as a science began to take shape 300 years ago in the 18th century. It was mainly formed at the end of the 19th century. and then the word culturology appeared for the first time. The name of the science was finally established by the American scientist White in 1947.

Culturology studies culture in all its forms and manifestations, the relationship and interaction of various forms of culture, the functions and laws of its development, the interaction of man, culture and society.

Main sections:

Philosophy of culture
Cultural history
Sociology of culture
Psychology of culture
Interdisciplinary connections of cultural studies: philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, ethnography, ethnology, archeology, linguistics, art, economics, medicine, etc.

Sources for studying culture: myths, legends, traditions, rituals, customs, archaeological finds, monuments of art and architecture, tools and household items, written sources and literary monuments, languages, etc.

Cultural studies as an integrative scientific discipline

As for cultural studies, then it represents integrative a scientific discipline that studies culture both from the point of view of a behavioral approach to it" and from the point of view of identifying the specific place of various forms of art in a single cultural system, and from the point of view of its social conditionality, the dynamics of its structure and function, its role in human development and society. Consequently, it absorbs and rethinks from the standpoint of its own subject area the knowledge, concepts, methods inherent in sociology, psychology, philosophy of culture, anthropology, ethnology, art history and other humanities, but adds to all this something else that is unique to it, that distinguishes it from all other areas of social sciences and humanities. It's there integrative knowledge about the holistic phenomenon of culture as a specific method of human activity, as a system of ideals, values ​​and norms that regulate the behavior of an individual, a social group, a people in certain socio-historical conditions.

The foregoing provides the basis for defining the object and subject of cultural studies. An object culturology is a holistic phenomenon of culture as a creative, specifically human way of activity and its results in the form of material and spiritual objects necessary for truly human existence and personal development.

Having found out the uniqueness of the object of cultural studies, we get the opportunity to determine what its item. The identification of the subject of science is carried out by isolating certain properties and features of the object that interest the researcher, synthesizing them into a more or less clearly defined subject area of ​​the given science. Although culture as an object of study occupied the minds of thinkers from the period of antiquity until modern times, the identification of the subject area of ​​culturology as a science began relatively recently, only in the 20th century. The term “culturology” was first introduced into use by the outstanding German chemist, Nobel laureate Wilhelm Ostwald in 1913. 16 years later American sociologist Reed Bain correlated this term with the concepts of “sociology” and “human ecology”. However, in a meaning close to the above, this term was first used in 1939 by the outstanding American anthropologist and cultural scientist Leslie White. He interpreted cultural studies as “a branch of anthropology that considers culture as a specific order of phenomena, organized according to its own principles and developing according to its own laws.”

In the more than sixty years that have passed since the use of precisely this word usage this term, ideas about the subject area of ​​cultural studies have expanded significantly. It now includes ideas about culture as a specific activity for the creation of symbolic forms, as a regulatory and normative system, as a collection cultural functions, ideals, norms, standards of behavior, as dynamic social process, taking place in historically specific socio-economic and spiritual conditions of a certain era.

All of the above allows us to clarify the definition of the subject of the science under consideration. The subject of cultural studies is the study of the patterns of formation and development of the integral phenomenon of culture as a specifically human way of activity, a system of symbolic forms, ideals, values ​​and norms that regulate the behavior of people and develop according to their own principles, in the context of the historical characteristics of the socio-economic, political and spiritual development of a certain people and a certain era.

Clarification of the object and subject of the scientific discipline being studied makes it possible to formulate a definition of cultural studies as a science. Culturology is a system of scientific knowledge about the features, trends and patterns of the formation and development of culture as a specifically human way of activity and a system of symbolic forms, ideals, values ​​and norms that regulate the interactions of individuals and social communities (family, ethnic, territorial, etc.) in historically unique socio-economic, political, spiritual conditions of a certain era.

Lecture 1. Structure and composition of modern cultural knowledge

1. general characteristics modern culture

Signs of modern culture: dynamism, eclecticism, ambiguity, mosaic, diversity big picture, polycentricity, a break in its structure and the integral hierarchy of the organization of its space.

The development of information technologies and the approval of the media shape public opinion and public mood. The media reflect external, consumer, spiritual life, create certain ideas about the world, shape the destruction of traditionally valued qualities, and provide the effect of suggestion.

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980), in his work The Gutenberg Galaxy, divides history into three stages:

1) pre-written stage of communication;

2) codified written communication;

3) cudivisual.

Modern society is called information society, because information provides the connection between different levels and plans of its existence and activity. Information processes underlie the functioning of all its systems. The development of mass media has strengthened the quality of mass character and given it certain features of a sociocultural phenomenon. Profit is ensured not through production, but through the circulation of capital, power is exercised through special information operations, information itself acquires the status of a commodity, becoming a valuable business object.

Post-industrial civilization is a civilization of new technologies. The means of communication begin not only to influence the masses, but also to produce them.

Recent decades of development modern society led to the emergence of the phenomenon of mass man. The phenomenon of mass man is characterized by:

1) a person of mass represents in number large group, which influences sociocultural processes;

2) the factor of combining into a mass is due to the presence information field, media influence;

3) modern mass people do not feel any cultural deficiency in terms of their level of development, etc.;

4) the mass person today is in demand by the modern way of life and is adapted to it.

A mass person is a person with a mass consciousness and at the same time an individualist.

A person perceives real reality through the system of creating media myths. Mythologizedcharacteristic modern popular culture, staying in the realm of myths is a characteristic feature of the life of modern man.

2. Composition and structure of cultural knowledge

Culturology as a science arose in the middle of the 20th century. One of the main tasks of this science is to identify patterns of cultural development that differ from the laws of nature and from the laws of human material life and determine the specifics of culture as an intrinsically valuable sphere of existence.

Modern cultural studies represent a large complex of scientific disciplines in various directions scientific work, variety of approaches to cultural problems, methodology, scientific schools, etc. There is no need to talk about a clear or intelligible structure of cultural knowledge. Very often it is preliminary. And yet, now we can identify the most significant components of the structure of cultural knowledge.

Firstly, this is a theory of culture, which shows us all the variety of attempts at a general understanding of culture, versions of “pictures” of culture, variants of systems of concepts, categories, theoretical schemes with the help of which one can try to describe culture and its development.

In this area, a special place is occupied by the philosophy of culture, which solves the problem of creating a theory of culture using methods and concepts characteristic of philosophy.

Secondly, this is the sociology of culture, which is a union of sociology (studying the social system) and cultural science.

Research in the field of sociology of culture has both theoretical and practical orientation. In the latter case, one can point to the concepts of cultural policy and the activity of cultural instincts (structures of society associated with culture), sociocultural forecasting, design and regulation, the study of cultural education in Russia and other countries, problems of socialization and inculturation of the individual (a person’s adaptation to the socio-cultural system ), protection of cultural heritage.

Thirdly, these are historical and cultural studies, which are not only based on the achievements of the humanities (history, philology, literary criticism, art history, history of religion, etc.), but also use new cultural approaches. Here we can highlight:

1) historical and cultural studies of a general profile, studies of the culture of mentalities (i.e., the ways people perceive the world that were formed in various cultures);

2) research into the religious aspect of culture;

3) cultural aspects of linguistics, semiotics (theory of sign systems), art history and aesthetics. Fourthly, this is cultural anthropology - a field of cultural knowledge that is in many ways close to the sociology of culture, but pays more attention to the ethnic elements of culture, the processes of interaction between cultures of different peoples, and studies the characteristics of linguistic and other means of communication (communication, exchange of information) in different cultures.

The interests of cultural anthropology are not limited to the above issues.

In accordance with its name (translated from Greek, anthropology means “science of man”), it aims to main task creating the most full picture human life in a cultural environment, that is, in an environment created by man himself. To solve this problem, cultural anthropology widely uses data from the natural sciences dealing with human life, as well as archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, sociology, history of religion and mythology, folklore, and philosophy.

All these areas of cultural sciences can be called basic, or basic. However, in addition to them, other special and non-traditional areas of research are emerging. Many of them are of particular importance.

For example, within the framework of the theory of culture, detailed theories of the dynamics (change, development) of culture, morphology (formation of a system of types and forms) of culture, typology (study of types) of cultures, hermeneutics (the science of interpretation) of culture, cultural patterns and people (archetypes) appeared. , paradigms, cinversalia). Methods of cultural studies are also studied separately here.

Synthesis on the basis of cultural studies, historical-cultural, sociological, psychological knowledge allows us to develop problems of mentalities, psychological characteristics individual cultures, “somatic” (bodily) culture among different peoples, etc. Comparative cultural (comparative) studies are of great importance for the development of cultural studies. IN last decades The ecological-cultural direction (“cultural ecology”) is developing dynamically, studying the relationship of various cultures to the natural environment. The system of cultural knowledge is in constant development.

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Morphology of culture is a branch of cultural studies that studies internal organization cultures that make up its blocks. According to the classification of M. S. Kagan, there are three forms of the objective existence of culture: the human word, a technical thing and social organization, and three forms of spiritual objectivity: knowledge (value), project and artistic objectivity, which carries artistic images. According to the classification of A. Ya. Flier, culture includes clear blocks of human activity: culture social organization and regulation, culture of knowledge of the world, man and interhuman relations, culture social communication, accumulation, storage and transmission of information; culture of physical and mental reproduction, rehabilitation and recreation of humans. Morphology of culture is the study of variations in cultural forms depending on their social, historical, and geographical distribution. The main methods of cognition are structural-functional, semantic, genetic, general systems theory, organizational and dynamic analysis. The morphological study of culture assumes the following directions studies of cultural forms: genetic (generation and formation of cultural forms); microdynamic (dynamics of cultural forms within the life of three generations: direct transmission of cultural information); historical (dynamics of cultural forms on historical time scales); structural-functional (principles and forms of organization cultural sites and processes in accordance with the objectives of meeting the needs, interests and requests of members of society).

Within the framework of cultural studies, the morphological approach is of key importance, since it allows us to identify the relationship between universal and ethnospecific characteristics in the structure of a particular culture. The general morphological model of culture - the structure of culture - in accordance with today's level of knowledge can be presented as follows:

  • o three levels of connection between the subject of sociocultural life and the environment: specialized, broadcast, ordinary;
  • o three functional blocks of specialized activities: cultural modes of social organization (economic, political, legal culture); cultural modes of socially significant knowledge (art, religion, philosophy, law); cultural modes of socially significant experience (education, enlightenment, mass culture);
  • o everyday analogues of specialized modalities of culture: social organization - household, manners and customs, morality; socially significant knowledge - everyday aesthetics, superstitions, folklore, practical knowledge and skills; transmission of cultural experience - games, rumors, conversations, advice, etc.

Thus, in a single field of culture, two levels are distinguished: specialized and ordinary. Ordinary culture is a set of ideas, norms of behavior, cultural phenomena associated with the everyday life of people. Specialized The level of culture is divided into cumulative (where professional sociocultural experience is concentrated, accumulated, and the values ​​of society are accumulated) and translational. At the cumulative level, culture acts as an interconnection of elements, each of which is a consequence of a person’s predisposition to a certain activity. These include economic, political, legal, philosophical, religious, scientific, technical and artistic cultures. Each of these elements at the cumulative level corresponds to an element of culture at the everyday level. They are closely interconnected and influence each other. Economic culture corresponds to housekeeping, maintaining a family budget; political - morals and customs; legal culture - morality; philosophy - everyday worldview; religions - superstitions and prejudices, folk beliefs; scientific and technical culture - practical technologies; artistic culture- everyday aesthetics (folk architecture, the art of home decoration). At the translational level, interaction takes place between the cumulative and ordinary levels, and cultural information is exchanged.

There are communication channels between the cumulative and ordinary levels:

  • o the sphere of education, where traditions and values ​​of each element of culture are transmitted (transmitted) to subsequent generations;
  • o mass media (MSC) - television, radio, print, where interaction takes place between “high scientific” values ​​and values Everyday life, works of art and popular culture;
  • o social institutions, cultural institutions where knowledge about culture and cultural values ​​become available to the general public (libraries, museums, theaters, etc.).

The levels of culture, their components and the interaction between them are shown in Fig. 1.

The structure of culture includes: substantial elements, which are objectified in its values ​​and norms, and functional elements, which characterize the process itself cultural activities, its various sides and aspects.

Thus, the structure of culture is a complex, multifaceted formation. Moreover, all its elements interact with each other, forming a single system of such unique phenomenon how culture appears to us.

The structure of culture is a system, the unity of its constituent elements.

The dominant features of each element form the so-called core of culture, serving as its fundamental principle, which is expressed in science, art, philosophy, ethics, religion, law, basic forms of economic, political and social organization, mentality and way of life. Specialist

Rice. 1.

The nature of the “core” of a particular culture depends on the hierarchy of its constituent values. Thus, the structure of culture can be represented as a division into a central core and the so-called periphery (outer layers). If the core provides stability and stability, then the periphery is more prone to innovation and is characterized by relatively less stability. For example, modern Western culture is often called a consumer society, since it is precisely these value bases that are brought to the fore.

In the structure of culture one can distinguish material and spiritual cultures. IN material culture includes: culture of labor and material production; culture of life; topos culture, i.e. place of residence (home, house, village, city); culture of attitude towards own body; Physical Culture. Spiritual culture is a multi-layered formation and includes: cognitive (intellectual) culture; moral, artistic; legal; pedagogical; religious.

According to L.N. Kogan and other culturologists, there are several types of culture that cannot be classified only as material or spiritual. They represent a “vertical” cross-section of culture, “permeating” its entire system. These are economic, political, environmental, aesthetic cultures.


Question 1. Culturology: subject, tasks, methods, main sections.
Culturology ( lat. cultura - cultivation, husbandry, education, veneration; other Greek ????? - knowledge, thought, reason) is a science that studies culture, the most general patterns of its development. IN tasks cultural studies includedunderstanding culture as an integral phenomenon, determining the most general laws of its functioning, as well as analyzing the phenomenon of culture as a system.Cultural studies became an independent discipline in the 20th century. The term “cultural studies” was proposed in 1949 by the famous American anthropologist Leslie White (1900-1975) to designate a new scientific discipline as an independent science in the complex of social sciences.Various aspects of cultural development have always been studied by such social and human sciences as philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, aesthetics, art history, ethics, religious studies, ethnography, archeology, linguistics and many others. Culturology arose at the intersection of these areas of scientific knowledge and is a complex social and humanitarian science. The emergence of cultural studies reflects the general tendency of scientific knowledge to move towards interdisciplinary synthesis to obtain holistic ideas about the world, society, and man.
In foreign scientific classifications, cultural studies is not distinguished as a separate science. The phenomenon of culture in Europe and America is understood primarily in a socio-ethnographic sense, therefore cultural anthropology is considered the main science.
Item studies cultural studies:the essence and structure of culture; the process of historical development of the world economy; national-ethnic and religious characteristics of the cultures of the peoples of the world; values ​​and achievements of humanity in various fields economic, political, scientific, artistic, religious and moral activities; interaction of cultures and civilizations.
Those. it creates an idea of ​​the development of various spheres of cultural life, the process of continuity and the uniqueness of cultures and civilizations.
Methods cultural studies:
    Empirical methods in cultural studies are used at the initial level of research, based on the collection and description of factual material within the framework of humanitarian cultural studies.
    Historical method– aims to study how this culture arose, what stages of development it went through and what it became in its mature form.
    Structural-functional method - consists in decomposing the object under study into its component parts and identifying the internal connection, conditionality, relationship between them, as well as determining their functions.
    Semiotic method – considers culture as a sign system, i.e. use semiotics.
    Biographical method - involves analyzing the life path of a cultural figure for a better understanding of his inner world, which reflects the system of cultural values ​​of his time.
    Modeling model - associated with the creation of a model of a certain period in the development of culture.
    Psychologicalmethod - involves the ability to find out, through the analysis of memoirs, chronicles, myths, chronicles, epistolary heritage, treatises, the most typical reactions of people of a particular culture to the most significant phenomena for them: famine, wars, epidemics. Such reactions manifest themselves both in the form of social feelings and mentality in general. The use of the psychological method allows, through understanding the nature of a particular culture, to perceive the motivation and logic of cultural actions.
    The diachronic method involves elucidating the chronological, that is, time sequence of change, appearance and course of a particular cultural phenomenon.
    The synchronic method consists of analyzing changes in the same phenomenon at different stages of a single cultural process. In addition to the above, the synchronic method can also be understood as a cumulative analysis of two or more cultures over a certain period of their development, taking into account existing connections and possible contradictions.
Main sections cultural studies:
    History of world and public culture(this is the foundation, the basis of science) is knowledge about achievements in science, art, about the development of religious thought; cultural history explores the real process of continuity of cultures of different eras and peoples.
    History of cultural theoriesis a story about the process of formation and development of cultural thought, i.e. history of cultural studies.
    The theory of culture is the main complex of scientific concepts in the field of culture, the study of the main theoretical problems of cultural studies.
    Sociology of culture - studies the process of functioning of culture in society, the characteristics and values ​​of various social groups, the specifics of lifestyle and spiritual interests, explores various forms of deviant behavior common in society.
    Cultural anthropology– represents a section related to the peculiarities of interaction between culture and man, culture and personality.
    Applied cultural studies– cultural studies, focused on practical actions in the field of culture. It's about O social work, about activities to preserve cultural values ​​and assist in the transfer of spiritual experience to other generations.

Question 2. The concept of culture, its essence, structure and functions.
Culture, understood in a broad sense, covers the entire set of social values ​​that create a collective portrait of the identity of each particular society.
In a broad sense, the concept "culture"(Latin "cultura") is used asopposition to “nature”, “nature”(Latin “natura”). “Culture is everything that is not nature,” i.e. the entire set of material and ideal objects, social achievements, thanks to which a person stands out from nature.
In a narrow sense, cultureit's synonymous with art, i.e. a special sphere of human activity associated with the artistic and imaginative understanding of the world in the form of literature, architecture, sculpture, painting, graphics, music, dance, theater, cinema, etc.
Culture is the link between society and nature. The basis of this connection is a person as a subject of activity, cognition, communication, experience, etc.
Talking about structure culture should be defined as two spheres of its existence -material and spiritual. Such manifestations of culture are associated with two spheres of human activity: material and spiritual. In them, on the one hand, there is an expression of human powers, on the other hand, their formation and improvement.
Culturologists highlight the following functions crops:

    Basic (human)- Man lives not in nature, but in culture. In it he recognizes himself. There are also moments of worldview, formation, education and sociologization of a person. Otherwise, it is also called the transformative function, since mastering and transforming the surrounding reality is a fundamental human need.
    Informative – ensures historical continuity and transmission of social experience.
    Cognitive (epistemological) – aimed at ensuring human knowledge of the world around us. It is expressed in science, in scientific research, aimed at systematizing knowledge and discovering the laws of development of nature and society, and at man’s knowledge of himself.
    Communicative– ensures the process of information exchange using signs and sign systems.
    Regulatory (regulatory or protective function) - is a consequence of the need to maintain a certain balanced relationship between man and the environment, both natural and social.
    Value (axiological) – culture shows the significance or value of what is valuable in one culture is not so in another.
    Spiritual and moral– educational roles of culture.

Question 3. The evolution of the understanding of the term “culture”: from antiquity to modernity.
Initially, the concept of culture (cultura) came into use as a word of Latin origin. It was used inThe Roman Empire in the understanding of cultivating, cultivating, cultivating; to inhabit, to inhabit the earth.
Those. culture meant the settlement of a person in a certain territory, cultivation, cultivation of the land. This is where the term comes from agriculture - agriculture, land cultivation. Thus, the concept of culture is directly associated with such an important concept for the life of society as agriculture (as purposeful activities person). In Latin, the harbinger of culture is the term cultus - “care, care for the deity, cult (veneration).”
Thus, the ancient complex of the concept “Culture” reflects three facets of a single meaning and represents a holistic formula: arrangement of the place where a person lives, cultivation of the land, veneration of the gods.
For the first time in figuratively the concept of culture was used in his work by the outstanding Roman politician, orator and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), calling philosophy “the culture of the soul.”
The term culture began to be perceived somewhat differently during the heyday of the Christian worldview in Europe. If we talk about the main difference in the worldview and science of that period, then from the cosmocentrism inherent in antiquity, European thought comes to the complete worship of God, worship of God. Man, his desires, his body, his needs become insignificant, only the spirit remains, which is eternal, the salvation of which must be taken care of, and in the Christian world another meaning of culture comes first -reverence, boundless and undivided veneration of God.It was the veneration of the triune God that became the basis of human spiritual development in Christianity. Thus, in the Middle Ages, the religious cult became the main thing in the formation of a person.
As for secular culture, some Christian theologians interpret it as a preparation for religious insight, while others interpret it as a path of error that leads away from the truth in the face of God.
Renaissance became the second stage on the path to the justification and definition of the concept of culture. The very attitude towards a person as a separate creative unit, an individual, is changing. An anthropocentric picture of the world is being formed. In the Renaissance there is a constant Delight human creative abilities, new breakthroughs in art, literature, painting, architecture. The study of the culture of ideology continued in the direction of identifying the boundary between the innate and acquired in a person.
In the Age of Enlightenment, it was believed that culture was not just an inherent desire for freedom or mercy, but an activity illuminated by the light of reason. And in this new model of the Enlightenment project, reason, rationalism dominates, and it is on this foundation that the edifice of European culture is erected. Before this period, the word "culture" was used only in phrases, denoting the function of something, but in contrast to thisGerman educators began to talk about culture in general or about culture as such.
So, in the Age of Enlightenment, the concept of “culture” meansactive transformation of the world by man. Unlike Cicero, educators consider culture not only the spiritual, but also the material activities of people. This is improving people's lives through agriculture, crafts, and various techniques. But first of allculture is the spiritual improvement of the human race and individuals, the instrument of which is the mind.
Over the centuries, the understanding of culture has varied, evolved, and certain thinkers have given their meaning to a given word in a certain era.
Today, culture is a special spiritual experience of human communities, accumulated and transmitted from generation to generation, the content of which is the value meanings of things, forms, norms, and ideals, relationships and actions, feelings, intentions, expressed in specific signs and sign systems – cultural languages.

Question 4. Enlightenment theories of culture of the 18th century (I.-G. Herder, J.-J. Rousseau, G. Vico)
In the Age of Enlightenment treatises and essays appear devoted to the study of culture as an integral world created by man. Among those who laid the foundations for the study of culture as an integral phenomenon are calledJ. Vico (1668-1744) and German thinker I. Herdera (1744-1803). The fact is that before them the word “culture” was used only in phrases, denoting the function of something. In contrast to this, German enlighteners, in particular I. Herder, leadtalking about culture in generalor about culture as such. According to Herder's views, highThe purpose of man is in the development of two universal principles - Reason and Humanity.For this purpose, education and upbringing, overcoming ignorance, serve. To explore the root cause, the spirit of humanity, is the true task of the historian.The highest humanity is manifested in religion. Therefore, reason, humanity and religion are the three most important values ​​of culture.
J. Vico- historian and philosopher, doctor of law and rhetoric from the University of Naples in his main work"Foundations of the New Science of the General Nature of Nations"» puts forward ideas about the cultural unity and diversity of the world, the dynamics of the cyclical development of culture and the change of eras.In his statements, he relies on the ancient ideas of the Egyptians, according to which they divided the time that passed before them into three main periods: the age of the gods, the age of heroes and the age of people, and he accepts these views as the basis of the universal history that he intends to create. Historical evolution, according to Vico, is formed and replaced by different eras or “centuries”.Each era differs only in its inherent characteristics of art and morality, law and power, myths and religion, but the cycle of cycles reflects the infinity of human development. Throughout the entire work, Vico consistently illustrates the coincidence of phenomena and causes, and finds analogies in the development of human history and culture.
Over the course of time, eras succeed each other, and Vico talks only about the endless evolution of history. Speaking about the change of cycles in history and culture, Vico draws attention to the emergingat the end of the cycle, barbarism into which all nations fall.From his point of view, barbarism is considered as an integral period in the progressive development of mankind. He divides this phenomenon into two types -natural barbarism, the story begins with him; the second – more refined and aggressive is inherent in historical development in subsequent cycles, people are more high level culture, the cruelty of this barbarism is distinguished by more skillful and secret means. (We can draw parallels with fascism).
Such ideas of Vico formed the basis of future cultural studies, cultural anthropology.
J.J. Rousseau created his own “concept of anticulture.” In his treatise "Discourse. Has the revival of science and the arts contributed to the improvement of morals?" he says that everything beautiful in a person comes out of the bosom of nature and spoils in him when he gets into society.

Question 5. The formation of cultural studies as a science. L. White's theory.
Beginning with the European Enlightenment, interest in culture as an integral social and anthropological reality is gradually but steadily emerging. Subsequently, historical researchers and cultural scientists will call this a culture-centric picture of the world.
Culture in all its diversity and richness is the focus of attention of philosophers, anthropologists, as well as writers, artists, and politicians.
If we look at different cultures and traditions, including in the temporal plane, we will see that every nation has an economic way of life, creates tools, all social life is regulated by legal norms, all cultures develop, are at different stages of development and progress. He begins to move away from the positions of Eurocentrism and realize the significance and uniqueness of each culture, whichall cultures are equal, have equal rights, there are no worthy or despised cultures, they are all original, this diversity is the main wealth of the cultural life of the world. Such areas of science as cultural anthropology, ethnography and sociology are emerging. The term cultural studies appears in the work of the English anthropologist E. Tylor (1832-1917), “Primitive Culture”, he substantiates the concept of culture, determines the natural connections between cultural phenomena, develops methods for classifying the stages of cultural development, compiles an ethnographic and anthropological description of the cultures of more than 400 peoples and ethnic groups different countries.
Anthropologist Leslie White (1900-1975) devoted his works to the substantiation of cultural studies as a science; in 1949 he published treatise“The science of culture”, in which he proposes to call the branch of humanities cultural studies. It was he who brought worthy arguments in favor of this science being separated from the complex of humanities knowledge about culture into a separate discipline. This allows us to consider him the founder of cultural studies. L. White viewed culture as a symbolic reality. Man has a unique ability to attach a certain meaning to objects and phenomena surrounding him, to endow them with meaning, and to create symbols. It is this ability to symbolize, according to White, that creates the world of culture.These are values, ideas, faith, customs, works of art, etc., which are created by man and endowed with a certain meaning; outside this circle, objects lose value and turn into material - matter, clay, wood, nothing more.A symbol is the starting point for understanding human behavior and culture.
White identifies 3 types of symbols: ideas, relationships, external actions, material objects.All these types relate to culture and express a person’s ability to symbolize. Culture is not just objects, without the human thought process, without its ability to evaluate and symbolize, it is emptiness, but endowed with symbols and meanings, this environment turns into a person’s habitat, and in turn contributes to the value understanding of human existence, helps a person adapt to the world around him . Thus,White views the drug as whole system, divided into three interconnected areas:

    technological- equipment, protective equipment, transport, materials for housing construction, this ensures human interaction with nature
    social – relationships between people in all spheres of society, it determines a person’s mastery of the social environment
    spiritual sphere. Knowledge, faith, customs, myths, folklore, on this basis religion, mythology, philosophy, art, morality, etc. develop. This creates the spiritual world of man.
C-logy is not just a science that describes all these three spheres, but also reveals the meanings and symbols that make up the subject field of culture as a phenomenon in public life.

Question 6. Typology of culture: ethnic, national, world, regional cultures.
Typology means a certain classification of phenomena according to the commonality of some characteristics. The type of culture can be understood as a community of traits, characteristics, manifestations that distinguishes a given culture (culture) from others, or the fixation of certain, qualitatively homogeneous stages of cultural development.Typology of culture is knowledge, understanding, description, classification of manifestations of culture according to some principle.
Any typological scheme is based on the general idea that human history includes two main periods:archaic (primitive) and civilizational.
It is worth distinguishing between the concepts of typologization of cultures - this is a method of cultural-historical analysis, and typology of cultures is a system of identified typical models of cultures, the result of applying the method.
The typology distinguishes the following types of culture:

    Ethnic culture– the culture of a certain ethnic group (social community of people), the creative form of its life activity for the reproduction and renewal of existence. The basis for identifying ethnic culture isethnic community: she initially has a biological nature, the oldest go back to prehistoric times. They are based oncommon hereditary psychophysiological characteristics of people, connected by unity of origin, and on early stages and a specific habitat.Ethnic culture – totality cultural traits relating primarily to everyday life and everyday culture.It has a core and periphery. Ethnic cultureincludes tools, morals, customs, values, buildings, clothing, food, means of transportation, housing, knowledge, beliefs, and types of folk art. Formationethnic culture occurs in progress :
    synthesis of primary factors: language, development of territory, location, climatic conditions, features of farming and life;
    synthesis of secondary generative factors: systems of interpersonal communication, the evolution of cities, the predominance of a particular religion; the formation of a certain economic and cultural type in the economy; creation of an education system, ideology, propaganda; influence of political factors;
    psychological characteristics, behavioral stereotypes, habits, mental attitudes; external interactions with other ethnic groups within the national state and beyond.
    National culture unites people living over large areas and not necessarily related by blood. Compulsory condition experts believe that the emergence of national culture new type social communication,associated with the invention of writing, with the birth of the literary language and national literature.It is thanks to writing that the ideas necessary for national unification gain popularity among the literate part of the population. The concept of national culture cannot be defined without the existence of state structures in this culture. So nations can bemonoethnic and multiethnic. It is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of “nation” and “people”.A nation is a territorial, economic and linguistic association of people with a social structure and political organization. National culture includes, along with traditional everyday, professional and everyday culture, also specialized areas of culture. Ethnic cultures are part of the national culture.
    World – this is a synthesis of the best achievements of all national cultures of the peoples inhabiting our planet.
    Regional culture - Regional culture is a variant of national culture and at the same time an independent phenomenon with its own patterns of development and logic of historical existence.It is distinguished by the presence of its own set of functions, the production of a specific system of social connections and its own type of personality, and the ability to influence the national culture as a whole.Behind the differentiation of concepts lies the understanding that there are forms and mechanisms that transform the culture of a region into a regional culture. On the other hand, this allows us to include the concept of regional culture in the typological series of historical and cultural phenomena.

Question 7. Elite and mass culture. Concepts of mass culture in cultural studies.
Elite (high) culture created and consumed by the privileged part of society - the elite(from fr. Elite- best selected, chosen),or commissioned by professional creators.The elite represents the part of society most capable of spiritual activity.High culture includes fine art, classical music and literature. It is difficult for an unprepared person to understand. The circle of consumers of high culture is a highly educated part of society (critics, literary critics, theatergoers, artists, writers, musicians). This circle expands when the level of education in the population increases.Secular art and salon music are considered varieties of elite culture. The formula of elite culture is"art for art's sake"and the practice of "pure art".The meaning of elite culture is in the search for beauty, truth, and the cultivation of moral qualities of the individual..
Mass culture(from Lat. massa- lump, piece and cultural- cultivation, education)does not express the refined tastes or spiritual quest of the people. It appeared in the middle of the twentieth century, whenMedia (radio print, television)penetrated into most countries of the world and became available to representatives of all social strata. The term "mass culture" was first introduced by the German philosopher M. Horkheimer in 1941 And by the American scientist D. MacDonald in 1944
Mass culture May beinternational and national. She has less artistic valuethan elitist. She has the mostwide audienceand it is the author's. Pop music is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population, regardless of education level, because Mass culturesatisfies the immediate needs of people.
Therefore, its samples (hits) quickly lose relevance, become obsolete and go out of fashion. This does not happen with works of elite and popular culture.
Mass culture is a state, or more precisely, a cultural situation corresponding to a certain form of social structure, in other words, culture “in the presence of the masses.”In order to be able to talk about the presence of mass culture, it is necessary that its representative appear on the historical arena - historical community, called mass, and also so that the corresponding type of consciousness - mass consciousness - acquires a dominant meaning.Mass and mass consciousness are connected and do not exist in isolation from each other. They act as both an “object” and a “subject” of mass culture. It is around the masses and mass consciousness that his “intrigue” revolves.
Accordingly, only where we find the beginnings of these social and mental attitudes do we have the right to talk about the presence of mass culture. Therefore, both the history and prehistory of mass culture do not go beyond the framework of the modern European past. The people, the crowd, the peasants, the ethnic group, the proletarians, the broad urban “lower classes”, any other pre-modern European historical community and, accordingly, speak, think, feel, react in specific cases.She models situations and assigns roles.
The purpose of mass culture is not so much to fill leisure time and relieve stress for a person in an industrial and post-industrial society, butstimulating consumer consciousness in the recipient(viewer, listener, reader) thatforms a special type of passive, uncritical perception of this culture in a person. This creates a personality that is easily manipulated.
The mass consciousness formed by mass culture is diverse in its manifestations. It is characterized by conservatism, inertia, limitations, and has specific means of expression. Mass culture focuses not on realistic images, but on artificially created images (image) and stereotypes, where the main thing is the formula. This situation encourages idolatry.
Mass culture has given rise to the phenomenon of a consumer society in which there are no spiritual values.

Question 8. Mainstream, subculture and counterculture: typology, main features.
Mainstream(main current) - the predominant direction in any field (scientific, cultural, etc.) for a certain period of time.It is often used to designate any “official”, mass trends in culture and art to contrast with the alternative, underground, non-mass, elitist direction.I highlight meistirim in cinematography and music.
Mainstream cinema , is usually used in relation toNorth Americancinema - blockbusters, and films by famous European directors. In the Russian Federation the term mainstream in relation to cinema began to be especially actively usedafter the reform of the system of state financing of domestic cinema with priority allocation of budget money to “major” film studios, whose high-budget films form the basis of the “mainstream” of Russian cinema.
Musical mainstream is used to denote the most radio-friendly and commercially profitable movement in popular music, which may mix elements of the most popular in this moment styles. The concept originated in the USA in the 40s of the 20th century. The most powerful influences on the musical mainstream are the USA (Billboard), Great Britain, Germany and Scandinavia.
You can also highlightmainstream in literature is, for example, great popularity detective genre among modern readers.
Subculture(Latin sub - under + cultura - culture; = subculture) -part of the culture of a society that differs from the prevailing one, as well as social groups carriers of this culture.The concept was introduced in 1950 by the American sociologist David Reisman . A subculture may differ from the dominant culture in its own value system, language, behavior, clothing and other aspects. There are subcultures,formed on national, demographic, professional, geographical and other bases. In particular, subcultures are formed by ethnic communities that differ in their dialect from the linguistic norm. Another well-known example is youth subcultures. A subculture can arise from fandom or hobby. Most often, subcultures are closed in nature and strive for isolation from mass culture. This is caused both by the origin of subcultures (closed communities of interests) and by the desire to separate from the main culture.
Subcultures:

    They highlight the musical a subculture that is associated with certain genres of music (hippies, rastafarians, punks, metalheads, goths, emo, hip-hop, etc.). Image musical subcultures formed largely in imitation of the stage image of popular performers in a given subculture.
    Art subculture arose from a passion for a certain type of art or hobby, an example is anemo.
    Interactive subcultures appeared in the mid-90s with the spread of Internet technologies: fido communities, hackers.
    Industrial (urban) subcultures appeared in the 20s and are associated with the inability of young people to live outside the city. Some industrial subcultures emerged from fans of industrial music, but computer games had the greatest influence on them.
    To sports subcultures include Parkour and football fans.
Coming into conflict with the main culture, subcultures can be aggressive and sometimes even extremist. Such movements that come into conflict with the values ​​of traditional culture are called counterculture. Counterculture is a movement that denies the values ​​of traditional culture; it opposes and is in conflict with dominant values.The emergence of a counterculture is in fact a quite common and widespread phenomenon. The dominant culture, which is opposed by the counterculture, organizes only part of the symbolic space of a given society. It is not capable of covering all the diversity of phenomena. The rest is divided between sub- and counter-cultures. Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to make clear distinctions between subculture and counterculture. In such cases, both names are applied to one phenomenon on equal terms.The countercultures were early Christianity at the beginning of the modern era, then religious sects, later medieval utopian communes, and then the ideology of the Bolsheviks.A classic example of counterculture is also the criminal environment, in the closed and isolated environment of which ideological doctrines are constantly being formed and modified, literally “turning upside down” generally accepted values ​​- honesty, hard work, family life etc.

Question 9. The problem of “East-West”, “North-South” in cultural studies.
East-West. When getting acquainted with the eastern countries, even an uninitiated person is struck by theiroriginality and dissimilaritysimilar to what we are used to seeing in Europe or America. Everything is different here: architecture, clothing, food, lifestyle, art, the structure of language, writing, folklore, in a word, the most obvious components of any culture. Is it true,To the European eye, the East appears as something uniformly "oriental", although in reality the differences between the countries of this region are sometimes very large.In fiction of the 20th century. The most prominent exponent of the idea of ​​​​the incompatibility of Western and Eastern cultures was the famous English writer Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), whose work was largely intended to show thatEast is East and West is West and that they will never understand each other. True, this last statement is now refuted by life itself.
Differences between East and West, although they are being smoothed out under the pressure of modern technotronic civilization, they are stillremain very significant.
This is not least explained by a certain “Eastern” type of thinking, closely associated with Eastern religions, which, with the exception of Islam, seem to be more tolerant, more prone to pantheism, i.e. deification of nature, and more “inscribed” in the very matter of culture.
In the East, particularly in India, religion and culture practically coincided for thousands of years.An Eastern person, unlike a European, is characterized by: greater introversion, i.e. focus on oneself and one’s own inner life; less tendency to perceive opposites, which are often denied; great faith in the perfection and harmony of the surrounding Universe, and hence the orientation not towards its transformation, but towards adaptation to a certain “cosmic rhythm”.
In general, to put it somewhat schematically,the eastern type of thinking in relation to the surrounding world is more passive, more balanced, more independent of external environment and is focused on unity with nature.
One might suspect that it was precisely these “compensatory” qualities of the Eastern worldview in our turbulent times that became the reason for what is now observed in Europe, America, and in Lately and in our country, passion for Eastern religions, yoga and other similar beliefs, aimed not at “conquering” nature, but at mastering the secrets of man himself.
North South. Along with the East-West problem, the North-South problem has recently become increasingly important. The “South” refers to the social and cultural world of the peoples of the subtropical zone - the African continent, Oceania, Melanesia. The peoples living to the north form the sociocultural world of the “North”, in which dance plays a leading role. Thus, improvisational jazz has become widespread in our time (starting with the “hot five” of L. Armstrong, who introduced traditions born in Negro music into the culture of the North).
The art of the South left its mark on the work of such outstanding European artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as Gauguin, Vlaminck, Matisse, Picasso, Dali, etc. African culture was one of the sources of expressionism and cubism in painting. Many European and American poets and writers (Apollinaire, Cocteau, etc.) reflected its motifs in their works. An echo of African culture is present in philosophy (for example, in the concept of “respect for life” by the 20th century European thinker A. Schweitzer, who spent a long time in the wilds of Africa). Thanks to black athletes, with their passion, refined technique and rhythm of movements, many sports spectacles became livelier, sharper and more dynamic: football, basketball, boxing, athletics, etc.
Thus, the culture of the South is already having a noticeable impact on the North. At the same time, the southern peoples are also intensively mastering the cultural achievements of the northern countries. Further strengthening of contacts between the North and South will undoubtedly contribute to the mutual enrichment of these social and cultural worlds.

Question 10. Religion as a cultural phenomenon, main features and characteristics.
Religion is a multifaceted, branched, complex social phenomenon, represented by various types and forms, the most common of which are world religions, including numerous directions, schools and organizations.
In cultural history special meaning There were three world religions:Buddhism in the 6th century. BC e., Christianity in the 1st century. AD and Islam in the 7th century. n. e.These religions made significant changes to culture, entering into complex interaction with its various elements and aspects. The term “religion” is of Latin origin and means “piety, sacredness.”Religion is a special attitude, appropriate behavior and specific actions based on belief in the supernatural, something higher and sacred.In interaction with art, religion turns to the spiritual life of a person and interprets in its own way the meaning and goals of human existence. Art and religion reflect the world in the form of artistic images, comprehend the truth intuitively, through insight. They are unthinkable without an emotional attitude to the world, without developed imagery and fantasy. But art has broader possibilities for figuratively reflecting the world, going beyond religious consciousness. Primitive culture is characterized by the lack of differentiation of social consciousness, thereforein ancient times, religion, which was a complex synthesis of totemism, animism, fetishism and magic, was merged with primitive art and morality.All together they were an artistic reflection of the nature surrounding man, his work activity - hunting, farming, gathering. First, obviously, dance appeared, which was magical body movements aimed at appeasing or intimidating spirits, then music and the art of mimicry were born. Religion had a huge influence on ancient culture, one of the elements of which was ancient Greek mythology.Ancient Greek mythology had a great influence on the culture of many modern European peoples. Religion has had a great influence on literature. The three main world religions - Buddhism, Christianity and Islam - have given the world three great books - the Vedas, the Bible and the Koran.The role of religion in the history of world culture was not only that it gave humanity these sacred books - sources of wisdom, kindness and creative inspiration. Religion has had a significant influence on the fiction of different countries and peoples.
Thus, Christianity influenced Russian literature.

Question 11. The theory of cultural-historical types N.Ya. Danilevsky.
Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky (November 28 (December 10) 1822 - November 7 (19), 1885) - Russian sociologist, cultural scientist, publicist and naturalist; geopolitician,one of the founders of the civilizational approach to history, the ideologist of Pan-Slavism.
In my work "Russia and Europe" Danilevsky criticized Eurocentrism, which dominated the historiography of the 19th century, and, in particular, the generally accepted scheme of dividing world history intoAntiquity, Middle Ages and Modern Times. The Russian thinker considered such a division to have only a conditional meaning and completely unjustifiably “link” phenomena of a completely different kind to the stages of European history.
The concept of “cultural-historical types”– central to Danilevsky’s teaching. According to his own definition,a unique cultural-historical type is formed by any tribe or family of peoples characterized by a separate language or group of languages ​​that are quite close to each other, if it is generally capable of historical development and has already left the state of infancy.
Danilevsky identified Egyptian, Chinese, Assyrian-Babylonian-Phoenician, Chaldean or Ancient Semitic, Indian, Iranian, Jewish, Greek, Roman, New Semitic or Arabian and Germanic-Roman as the main cultural and historical types that have already realized themselves in history or European, as well as Mexican and Peruvian, which did not have time to complete their development.
Main attention Danilevsky paidGerman-Roman and Slavic types: considering the Slavic type more promising,he predicted that in the future the Slavs, led by Russia, would take the place of the declining German-Roman type on the historical stage. Europe, according to Danilevsky’s forecasts, should be replaced by Russia with its mission of uniting all Slavic peoples and high religious potential.The triumph of the Slavs would mean the “decline” of Europe, which is hostile towards its “young” rival – Russia.
Like the Slavophiles, Danilevsky believed that European and Slavic statehood arose from different roots. Considering the characteristics that determine the identification of types, namely large ethnographic differences,Danilevsky points out the differences between the Slavic peoples and the Germanic ones in three categories: ethnographic features (mental structure), religiosity, differences in historical education. This analysis represents a continuation and expansion of the cultural comparative analysis of the early Slavophiles.
Danilevsky’s book contains many thoughts, the value of which increased significantly at the end of the 20th century. One of them is the warning of the author of "Russia and Europe" aboutdangers of denationalization of culture.The establishment of worldwide dominance of one cultural-historical type, according to Danilevsky, would be disastrous for humanity, since the dominance of one civilization, one culture would deprive the human race of a necessary condition for improvement - the element of diversity. Believing that the greatestevil is the loss of “moral national identity”, Danilevsky decisivelycondemned the West for imposing its culture on the rest of the world.Earlier than most of his contemporaries, the Russian thinker realized that in order for the “cultural power” not to dry up in humanity in general, it is necessary to resist the power of one cultural-historical type, it is necessary to “change the direction” of cultural development.
He insisted that“the state and the people are transitory phenomena and exist only in time, and therefore, the laws of their activity can only be based on the requirement of this temporary existence of theirs”. Considering the concept of universal human progress as too abstract, Danilevsky practically excluded the possibility of direct continuity in cultural and historical development.
“The beginnings of civilization are not transmitted from one cultural-historical type to another.”Various forms of influence of one cultural type on another are not only possible, but actually inevitable.
Actually, the key point in Danilevsky’s concept, which to this day is included in courses on the history of sociology around the world, iscyclicality of the civilization process.Unlike Toynbee and Spengler, Danilevsky does not focus his attention on signs of decline or progress, but collects extensive factual material that makes it possible to see the repeatability of social orders behind many historical features.

Question 12. The doctrine of the “ideal types” of culture by M. Weber.
Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian and economist.
The most important place in Weber's social philosophy is occupied by the concept of ideal types.By ideal type he meant a certain ideal model of what is most useful to a person, objectively meets his interests at the moment and in general in the modern era.In this regard, moral, political, religious and other types can act as ideal types. values , as well as the resulting attitudes of behavior and activity of people, rules and norms of behavior, traditions.
Weber's ideal typescharacterize, as it were, the essence of optimal social states - states of power, interpersonal communication, individual and group consciousness.Because of this, they act as unique guidelines and criteria, based on which it is necessary to make changes in the spiritual, political and material lives of people. Since the ideal type does not completely coincide with what exists in society, and oftencontradicts the actual state of affairs(or the latter contradicts him), he, according to Weber, carries inyourself the features of a utopia.
And yet, ideal types, expressing in their interconnection a system of spiritual and other values, act as socially significant phenomena. They contribute to introducing expediency into people’s thinking and behavior and organization into public life. Weber's teaching on ideal types serves for his followers as a unique methodological approach to understanding social life and solving practical problems related, in particular, to the ordering and organization of elements of spiritual, material and political life.
Weber identifies twoideal typical organizations of economic behavior: traditional and purposeful. The first has existed since ancient times, the second develops in modern times. Overcoming traditionalism is associated with the development of a modern rational capitalist economy, which presupposes the existence of certain types of social relations and certain forms of social order. Analyzing these forms, Weber comes to two conclusions: idealhe describes the type of capitalism as the triumph of rationality in all spheres of economic life, and such development cannot be explained solely by economic reasons.

Question 13. Psychoanalytic concepts of culture (3. Freud, K. Jung, E. Fromm).
Of particular interest in the cultural studies of psychoanalysis is psychoanalysis and the concept of culture of the Austrian psychiatrist S. Freud.
Z. Freud replaced the problem of death,identical to it in essence, but not leading to transcendencebirth problem. The concepts of “death” and “birth” really merge together, and the task of cultural studies within the framework of classical psychoanalysis can be designated asstudy of the three most important stages, birth-death of the substantial system “man-culture”:
1. The culture of birth together with the first proto-man as a system of his phobic (phobia-fear) projections,functionally breaking down into a set of provoking prohibitions and a set of obsessive rituals of their symbolic violation.
2 . Culture turns to its productive side, acting as a program of humanization worked out over centuries, a symbolic series of “ancient temptations”, lures of individuation. It awakens in the child’s memory field ancestral, archetypal experiences with the help of their symbolic real or fantasy repetition during the period early childhood- in fairy tales, games, dreams.
3. Culture manifests itself exclusively repressively;its purpose is to protect society from the free individual,rejected both biological and mass regulators, and means - total frustration, distillation of freedom into guilt and expectation of punishment,pushing the individual either towards the depersonalization of mass identifications, or towards auto-aggressive neuroticism, or towards outward-directed aggression, which increases cultural pressure and aggravates the situation. Culture is consolidated as the enemy of any manifestation of human individuality.S. Freud developed a universal methodology for monitoring the degree of repressiveness of culture, which he called “metapsychology”.
Carl Gustave Jung- a Swiss psychologist, philosopher and psychiatrist developed his own version of the doctrine of the unconscious, calling it “analytical psychology” and thereby wanting to emphasize both his dependence and independence in relation to Freud.Jung considered the “psychic” to be the primary substance, and the individual soul appeared to him as a luminous point in the space of the collective unconscious.If Freud saw the essence of the personal and general cultural evolutionary process in rationalization (according to the principle: where there was “it”, there will be “I”), then C. G. Jung associatedthe formation of personality with harmonious and equal “cooperation” of consciousness and the unconscious, with the interpenetration and balancing of “male” and “female” in a person, rational and emotional principles, “eastern” and “western” elements of culture, introverted and extroverted orientations, archetypal and phenomenal material of mental life.
The next step towards complicating the model of personality structure and behavior in culture was the theory E. Fromm. Erich Frommdevelops an original version of the anthropology of culture, tries to build a new humanistic religion. He places the emphasis not on revolution or medical measures, but on the tasks of cultural policy. Psychoanalysis , according to Fromm, combined with Marx's theory of alienation, class struggleallows us to reveal the true motives of human actions.
From the position of modern existential-personalist ethics, Fromm rebels against any authoritarianism, insisting that inIn each historical and individual situation, a person must make a choice himself, without shifting responsibility to anyone and without boasting about his past achievements.
Fromm sees the meaning of the cultural-historical process in progressive “individuation,” i.e. in the liberation of the individual from the power of the herd, instinct, tradition, but history is not a smoothly ascending, but a reciprocating process, in which periods of liberation and enlightenment alternate with periods of enslavement and darkening of the mind, i.e. "escape from freedom". Fromm derives the specificity of culture not only from human nature, determined by existential needs, but from the characteristics of the “human situation.”Reason is man's pride and his curse. The desire for spiritual synthesis is a strong side of E. Fromm’s work, but it also turns into eclecticism. But the spirit of optimism, humanism and courage in posing the most painful and confusing questions of civilization, faith in the possibility of their reasonable solution make Fromm’s cultural studies fascinating and inspiring.

Question 14. The concept of local civilizations by A. Toynbee.
Among the most representative theories of civilizations is, first of all, the theory of A. Toynbee (1889-1975), who continues the line of N.Ya. Danilevsky and O. Spengler. HisThe theory can be considered the culminating point in the development of theories of “local civilizations.”A monumental study by A. Toynbee"Comprehension of History"Many scientists recognize it as a masterpiece of historical and macrosociological science. The English cultural scientist begins his research with the statement thattrue area historical analysis there must be societies that extend both in time and space beyond national states. They are called "local civilizations".
Toynbee has more than twenty such developed “local civilizations”.These are Western, two Orthodox (Russian and Byzantine), Iranian, Arab, Indian, two Far Eastern, ancient, Syrian, Indus civilization, Chinese, Minoan, Sumerian, Hittite, Babylonian, Andean, Mexican, Yucatan, Mayan, Egyptian and others. He also points tofour civilizations that had stopped in their development - Eskimo, Momadic, Ottoman and Spartan and five “stillborn”».
The formation of civilizations cannot be explained either by a racial factor, or by a geographical environment, or by a specific combination of such two conditions as the presence in a given society of a creative minority and an environment that is neither too unfavorable nor too favorable.
Toynbee believes thatthe growth of civilization consists in progressive and accumulative internal self-determinationor the self-expression of civilization, in the transition from grosser to more subtle religion and culture. Growth is a continuous “retreat and return” of the charismatic (God-chosen, destined from above to power) minority of society in the process of an always new successful response to always new challenges of the external environment.
No less than 16 of the 26 civilizations are now “dead and buried.” Of the ten surviving civilizations, “the Polynesian and the nomadic... are now on their last legs; and seven of the eight others are, to a greater or lesser extent, under threat of destruction or assimilation by our Western civilization.” Moreover, no less than six of these seven civilizations show signs of breakdown and incipient decay. What leads to decline is that the creative minority, intoxicated by victory, begins to “rest on their laurels” and worship relative values ​​as absolute. It loses its charismatic appeal and most do not imitate or follow it. Therefore, it is necessary to use force more and more to control the internal and external proletariat. During this process, the minority organizes a "universal (universal) state", similar to the Roman Empire, created by the Hellenistic dominant minority to preserve themselves and their civilization; enters into wars; becomes a slave to the inert establishment; and itself leads itself and its civilization to destruction.
According to Tylor civilizations are divided into three generations.First generation - primitive, small, unliterate cultures. There are many of them, and their age is small. They are distinguished by one-sided specialization, adapted to life in a specific geographic environment; superstructural elements - statehood, education, church, and even more so science and art - are absent from them.
In second-generation civilizations, social communication is aimed at creative individuals who lead the pioneers of a new social order.Second-generation civilizations are dynamic, they create large cities, like Rome and Babylon, and the division of labor, commodity exchange, and market develop in them. Layers of artisans, scientists, traders, and people of mental labor emerge. A complex system of ranks and statuses is being approved. Here the attributes of democracy can develop: elected bodies, legal system, self-government, separation of powers.
Civilizations of the third generation are formed on the basis of churches: from the primary Minoan the secondary Hellenic is born, and from it - on the basis of Christianity that arose in its depths - the tertiary, Western European is formed. In total, according to Toynbee, by the middle of the 20th century. Of the three dozen existing civilizations, seven or eight have survived: Christian, Islamic, Hindu, etc.

Question 15. The concept of sociocultural styles by P.A. Sorokina.
The Russian scientist Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1968) created an original concept of the sociology of culture, believing that the true cause and condition for the natural development of society or the “world of society” is the existence of a world of values, meanings of pure cultural systems.A person is a carrier of a value system, and therefore represents a certain type of culture. According to Sorokin, each type of culture is determined social system, cultural systems of society and the person himself, the bearer cultural meanings. The type of culture is revealed in people's ideas about the nature of the existing real world, about the nature and essence of their needs, and about possible methods of satisfying them. These ideas characterizethree main types of culture - sensual, ideational and idealistic.The first of them, the sensory type of culture, is based on a person’s sensory perception of the world, which is the main determinant of sociocultural processes. From Sorokin’s point of view, modern sensual culture is under the sign of inevitable collapse and crisis. The ideational type of culture, according to the scientist, represents the dominance of rational thinking, and it characterizes different peoples in certain periods of their development. This type of culture, Sorokin believes, is especially characteristic of countries Western Europe. And finally, the third type of culture is the idealistic type, which is characterized by the dominance of intuitive forms of knowledge of the world.
If the world of modern culture is characterized by a passion for science and the dominance of materialism, then in the future humanity must move away from these values ​​and create a new type of sociocultural processes based on the values ​​of religion and creative altruism.
Sorokin's work had a significant influence on the work of other cultural scientists, drawing their special attention to the study of the origins of the ancient cultures of Asia and Africa. By studying the systems of value orientations of a particular society, cultural scientists obtain data on the impact of values ​​on various aspects of sociocultural life - law and legislation, science and art, religion and church, social structure subordinate to a certain value system.
According to P. A. Sorokin, a certain type of culture must have the following characteristics: a) purely spatial or temporal proximity; b) indirect causal connections; c) direct causal connections; d) semantic unity; d) causal-semantic connection.
The typology itself should have the following characteristics: firstly, the enumeration of connections in this type usually exhausts itself; secondly, typology always has a single basis, that is, all characteristics have a single basis. However, the creation of a typology can be hampered, firstly, by the instability of the cultural characteristics themselves, and secondly, in the course of development, differences between certain cultures can be erased; thirdly, the ideological and semantic core inherent in any culture can cause unequal social consequences; fourthly, with the rapprochement of cultures within the dominant culture, certain, initially imperceptible, phenomena contrary to its spirit arise, which in the future can significantly transform the very appearance of this culture.

Question 16. O. Spengler about the relationship and fate of culture and civilization.
Book by Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) " Decline of Europe "has become one of the most significant and controversial masterpieces in the field of sociology of culture, philosophy of history and philosophy of culture. World history represents the alternation and coexistence of different cultures, each of which has a unique soul. The title of Spengler's work "The Decline of Europe" expresses its pathos. He claims , WhatThe heyday of Western European culture was over. It has entered the phase of civilization and cannot give anything original either in the field of spirit or in the field of art.. History breaks up into a number of independent, unique closed cyclical cultures that have a purely individual fate and are condemned to survivebirth, formation and decline. Philosophers usually classify as culture everything that rises above nature. Vast ethnographic material collected by researchers after Spengler testifies:Culture is actually a unique creative impulse.This is truly a realm of the spirit, which is not always inspired by the needs of practical benefit. Primitive man, if you look at him with modern eyes, did not understand his own benefit. However, following Spengler, we can say that anyculture inevitably turns into civilization. Civilization is destiny, the rock of culture. The transition from culture to civilization is a leap from creativity to sterility, from formation to ossification, from heroic “deeds” to “mechanical work.” Civilization, according to Spengler, usually ends in death, for it is the beginning of death, the exhaustion of the creative forces of culture.Culture comes from cult, it is connected with the cult of ancestors, it is impossible without sacred traditions. Civilization, as Spengler believes, is the will to world power.Culture is national, but civilization is international.Civilization is a world city. Imperialism and socialism are equally a civilization, not a culture. Philosophy and art exist only in culture; in civilization they are impossible and unnecessary. Culture is organic, but civilization is mechanical.Culture is based on inequality, on qualities. Civilization is imbued with a desire for equality; it wants to settle in numbers. Culture is aristocratic, civilization is democratic. Each cultural organism, according to Spengler, is pre-measured for a certain period (about a millennium), depending on the internal life cycle. Dying, culture is reborn into civilization. The decline of Europe, above all the decline of the old European culture, the depletion of creative forces in it, the end of art, philosophies, and religions. European civilization does not end yet. She will celebrate her victories for a long time. But after civilization there will come death for the Western European cultural race. After this, culture can only blossom in other races, in other souls.

Question 17. E. Tylor and D. Fraser about primitive culture.
The main work was published in 1871 Tylor, which made his name famous - “Primitive Culture”.Culture here is only spiritual culture: knowledge, art, beliefs, legal and moral normsetc. In both earlier and later works, Tylor interpreted culture more broadly, including at least technology.Tylor understood that the evolution of culture is also the result of historical influences and borrowings. Although Tylor was aware thatCultural development does not occur in such a straightforward manner.Yet for Tylor, as an evolutionist, the most important thing was to show the cultural unity and uniform development of mankind, and in pursuing this main goal, he did not often look around. Much attention is paid in "Primitive Culture" to the theoretical justification of progress in the cultural history of mankind. Tylor resolved the question of the relationship between progress and regression in human history quite unambiguously.“Judging by the data of history, the initial phenomenon is progress, while degeneration can only follow it: after all, it is necessary to first achieve a certain level of culture in order to be able to lose it.”
Taylor introduced the concept into ethnography"primitive animism"Tylor illustrated his animistic theory of the origin of religion with impressive comparative ethnographic and historical material designed to show the spread of animism to globe and its evolution over time.In our time, the prevailing opinion is that the original layer of religious beliefs was most likely totemism,in which people, in the only form possible for them at that time, realized their inextricable, as if family connection with their immediate natural environment.
Fraser was the first to suggest the presenceconnections between myths and rituals. His research was based onthree principles are laid down: evolutionary development, the mental unity of humanity and the fundamental opposition of reason to prejudice. First job " Totemism "was published in 1887. Frazer’s most famous work, which brought him worldwide fame, is “ golden branch "("The Golden Bough") - was first published in 1890. This book collects and systematizes a huge amount of factual material on primitive magic, mythology, totemism, animism, taboos, religious beliefs, folklore and customs of different peoples. This book draws parallels between ancient cults and early Christianity. The work was expanded to 12 volumes in the next 25 years.
D. D. Fraser deduced three stages of spiritual development of humanity: magic, religion and science.According to Frazer, magic precedes religion and almost completely disappears with its appearance. At the “magical” stage of development, people believed in their ability to change the world in a magical way. Later, people lost faith in this and the dominant idea became that the world obeys the gods and supernatural forces. At the third stage, a person abandons this idea. The prevailing belief is that the world is not governed by God, but by the “laws of nature,” which, once known, can be controlled.

Question 18. Culturogenesis, the origins of culture and its early forms.
Culturogenesis is the process of the emergence and formation of the culture of any people and nationality in general and the emergence of culture as such in primitive society.
The culture of primitive society covers the longest and perhaps least studied period of world culture. Primitive or archaic culture dates back more than 30 thousand years.Primitive culture is usually understood as an archaic culture that characterizes the beliefs, traditions and art of peoples who lived more than 30 thousand years ago and died long ago, or those peoples (for example, tribes lost in the jungle) that exist today, preserving the primitive image intact life. Thus, primitive culture covers mainly the art of the Stone Age.
The first material evidence of human existence is tools. Thus, the production of tools, the emergence of burials, the emergence of articulate speech, the transition to a tribal community, and the creation of objects of art were the main milestones on the path to the formation of human culture.
Based on data from archaeology, ethnography and linguistics, we can identify basic features of primitive culture.
Syncretism primitive culturemeans the indistinction of various spheres and cultural phenomena in this era.The following manifestations of syncretism can be distinguished:
Syncretism of society and nature . The clan and community were perceived as identical to the cosmos and repeated the structure of the universe.Primitive man perceived himself as an organic part of nature, feeling his kinship with all living beings.This feature, for example, manifests itself in such a form of primitive beliefs as totemism.
Syncretism of personal and public. Individual sensation in primitive man existed at the level of instinct, biological feeling. But on a spiritual level, he identified himself not with himself, but with the community to which he belonged; found himself in the feeling of belonging to something non-individual. Man initially became precisely man, displacing his individuality. Actuallyhis human essence was expressed in the collective “we” of the family. This means that primitive man always explained and assessed himself through the eyes of the community. Unity with the life of society led to the fact thatthe worst punishment, after the death penalty, was exile.For example, in many archaic tribes, people are convinced that the hunt will not be successful if the wife, who remains in the village, cheats on her husband, who has gone hunting.
Syncretism of various spheres of culture . Art, religion, medicine, productive activities, and obtaining food were not isolated from each other.Objects of art (masks, drawings, figurines, musical instruments, etc.) have long been used mainly as magical means. Treatment was carried out using magical rituals. For example, hunting. Modern man needs only objective conditions for hunting success. For the ancients, the art of throwing a spear and silently making their way through the forest, the desired wind direction and other objective conditions were also of great importance. But all this is clearly not enough to achieve success, because the main conditions were magical actions.The hunt began with magical actions over the hunter. At the very moment of the hunt, certain rituals and prohibitions were also observed, which were aimed at establishing a mystical connection between man and animal
etc.................

Cultural studies has become one of the most significant and rapidly developing humanities, which undoubtedly has its reasons. Let's try to characterize some of them.

1. Modern civilization is rapidly transforming the environment, social institutions, and everyday life. In this regard, culture attracts attention as an inexhaustible source of social innovation. Hence the desire to identify the potential of culture, its internal reserves. Considering culture as a means of human self-realization, it is possible to identify new inexhaustible impulses that can have an impact on the historical process, on the person himself.

2. The need to study the phenomenon of culture is partly due to the professional environmental crisis. At the present stage of its development, culture causes increasing harm to the environment. Questions inevitably arise: is culture hostile to nature? Is it possible to harmonize their relationship?

3. The question of the relationship between the concepts of culture and society, culture and history is also relevant. In the past, the social cycle was much shorter than the cultural one. When a person was born, he found a certain structure of cultural values. It has not changed for centuries. In the 20th century the situation changed dramatically. Now for one human life undergo several cultural cycles, which puts a person in an extremely difficult position. Everything changes so quickly that a person does not have time to comprehend and appreciate certain innovations and finds himself in a state of loss and uncertainty. In this regard, identifying the most significant features of the cultural practice of past eras in order to avoid moments of primitivization of modern culture acquires special significance.

Cultural studies is a comprehensive science that studies all aspects of the functioning of culture, from the reasons for its emergence to various forms of historical self-expression.

The main components of cultural studies are the philosophy of culture and the history of culture, areas of humanitarian knowledge that have existed for a long time. Having merged together, they form the basis of cultural studies as a complex science. Philosophy of culture is a branch of cultural studies that studies the concepts of the origin and functioning of culture. Cultural history- section studying specific features cultures of different historical stages. In cultural studies, historical facts are subjected to philosophical analysis and generalization. Depending on the aspect on which the main attention is focused, various cultural theories and schools are created.

New branches of cultural studies, the main parameters of which are still being formed, are the morphology of culture and the theory of culture. The morphology of culture is understood as a branch of cultural studies that studies the structure and development of culture. Some aspects of morphology and cultural theory were discussed in Chapter 1.

Although culture has become a subject of knowledge since the emergence of philosophy, it begins to be closely studied as an independent phenomenon only in the 18th-19th centuries. Initially, this was carried out within the framework of the philosophy of history and ethics and was associated with the philosophical concepts of J. Vico (1668-1744), I. G. Herder (1744-1803), I. Kant (1724 - 1804). While paying due attention to issues of culture, these thinkers did not yet make it a direct object of study. It acted only as an accompanying link in understanding the existence of history and morality.

The great German poet Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) tried to remove the contradiction between the “natural”, “sensual”, on the one hand, and the “moral”, on the other, indicated in the works of his predecessors. According to Schiller, culture consists of harmony and reconciliation of the physical and moral nature of man: “Culture must give justice to both - not only one rational impulse of a person as opposed to the sensual, but also the latter as opposed to the first.” Among Schiller's younger contemporaries - Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, the brothers August and Friedrich Schlegel - the aesthetic principle of culture comes to the fore. Its main content is the artistic activity of people as a means of overcoming the animal, natural principle in them. Aesthetic views Schelling is most fully outlined in his book “Philosophy of Art” (1802-1803), where the desire to show the priority of artistic creativity over all other types of human creative activity, to place art over both morality and science is clearly visible. “Art is like the completion of the world spirit,” he wrote, “for in it the subjective and objective, spirit and nature, internal and external, conscious and unconscious, necessity and freedom are united in the form of the finite. As such, art is self-contemplation of the absolute ". In a somewhat simplified manner, culture was reduced by Schelling and other romantics to art, primarily to poetry. To a certain extent, they contrasted the reasonable and moral person with the power of the human artist, the human creator.

In the works of G. W. F. Hegel, the main types of culture (religion, art, philosophy, law) are represented by the stages of development of the world mind. Hegel creates a universal scheme for the development of the world mind, according to which any culture embodies a certain stage of its self-expression. The world mind also manifests itself in people. Initially in the form of language, speech. The spiritual development of an individual reproduces the stages of self-knowledge of the world mind, starting with “baby talk” and ending with “absolute knowledge,” i.e. knowledge of those forms and laws that govern from within the entire process of spiritual development of humanity. From Hegel's point of view, the development of world culture reveals such integrity and logic that cannot be explained by the sum of the efforts of individual individuals. The essence of culture, according to Hegel, is manifested not in overcoming the biological principles in man and not in the creative imagination of outstanding personalities, but in the spiritual connection of the individual to the world mind. “The absolute value of culture lies in the development of universality of thinking,” Hegel wrote.

In his works “Phenomenology of Spirit”, “Philosophy of History”, “Aesthetics”, “Philosophy of Law” Hegel analyzed the entire path of development of world culture. No thinker had done this before. Nevertheless, in Hegel's works culture does not yet appear as the main subject of study. Hegel analyzes first of all the history of the self-discovery of the world mind.

Works adequate to the modern understanding of cultural studies appear only in the 2nd half. XIX century. One of them can rightfully be considered a book by an Englishman Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917) "Primitive culture"(1871). Claiming that “the science of culture is the science of reform,” he viewed culture as a process of continuous progressive development. Tylor gives one of the first definitions of culture of a general nature, which is considered canonical to this day: “Culture or civilization in in a broad, ethnographic sense, consists in its entirety of knowledge, beliefs, art, morality, laws, customs and some other abilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."

Tylor looked at culture as a continuous chain of transformations of the products of human thought and labor from less perfect to more perfect. For him, all objects and ideas develop “one from another.” This approach is usually called evolutionary.

In 1869 and 1872 two works appear that are now invariably included among the most significant for the course of cultural studies. These are “Russia and Europe” by the Russian researcher Nikolai Danilevsky and “The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music” by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Here all the signs of a real cultural study are already evident: material on the history of culture is philosophically interpreted and accompanied by calculations of a general theoretical order. And most importantly, culture and its forms are the main object of consideration. The views of Danilevsky and Nietzsche on culture will be discussed in the next chapter. It is only necessary to note that the fact of the emergence of cultural studies did not yet mean the emergence of science itself. Neither Danilevsky nor Nietzsche called themselves culturologists, and they hardly suspected that they were becoming forefathers new science. Danilevsky perceived himself more as a historian, although he was a biologist by training, and Nietzsche quite naturally acted as a philosopher.

Georg Simmel (1858-1918) pays special attention to conflicting moments in culture turn of XIX-XX centuries, trying to give them a deeply objective explanation. At the beginning of the 20th century, from the point of view of a philosopher, there is a sharp deviation in the line of cultural development from previous paths. In his work “The Conflict of Modern Culture” (1918), Simmel explains the desire to destroy all old forms of culture characteristic of this historical period by the fact that in recent decades humanity has been living without any unifying idea, as it was until the middle of the 19th century. Many new ideas arise, but they are so fragmentary and incompletely expressed that they cannot meet with an adequate response in life itself, and cannot rally society around the idea of ​​culture. “Life in its immediacy strives to embody itself in concrete forms and phenomena, but due to their imperfection it reveals a struggle against every form,” writes Simmel, justifying his vision of the causes of crisis phenomena in culture. Perhaps the philosopher managed to discover one of the most significant indicators of the cultural crisis as such, namely the absence of a global, socially important idea capable of uniting all cultural creative processes.

Simmel’s point of view is also extremely interesting because it was expressed precisely at a time when cultural studies was finally turning into an independent science. The feeling of crisis, characteristic of the assessment of the state of culture by a variety of thinkers, to a certain extent predetermined the completion of the formation of the science of culture. This happened under the influence of certain events in European culture. They testified to a profound change in history, unparalleled in previous centuries. The First World War and revolutions in Russia, Germany, Hungary, a new type of organization of people’s lives, caused by the industrial revolution, the growth of human power over nature and the disastrous consequences of this growth for nature, the birth of the impersonal “man of the masses” - all this obliged us to take a different look at the character and the role of European culture. Many scientists, like Simmel, considered its situation extremely deplorable and no longer considered European culture as a kind of cultural standard, they talked about the crisis and the collapse of its foundations.

Here is what the Russian philosopher L. M. Lopatin wrote at the end of 1915 about the events of that time: “The modern world is going through a huge historical catastrophe - so terrible, so bloody, so fraught with the most unexpected prospects that in front of it the mind becomes numb and the head is dizzy. .. In the now raging unprecedented historical storm, not only is blood flowing in rivers, not only are states collapsing... not only are peoples dying and rising, something else is also happening... Old ideals are crumbling, former hopes and persistent expectations are fading... And The main thing is that our very faith in modern culture is irreparably and deeply wavering: because of its foundations, such a terrible animal face suddenly looked out at us that we involuntarily turned away from it with disgust and bewilderment. And the persistent question arises: what exactly is it? "In fact, this culture? What is its moral, even just life value?"

Subsequent events in Europe and in the world showed that L. M. Lopatin did not exaggerate the significance of crisis phenomena in culture. It became obvious that man and culture itself could develop in a completely different way than was once imagined by the humanists of the Renaissance and the figures of the Enlightenment, that the ideal of a self-developing creative personality in the 20th century was another utopia. A paradoxical situation arose: historical and technical development continued, but cultural development slowed down, turned back, as it were, reviving in man the ancient instincts of destruction and aggression. This situation could not be explained on the basis of traditional ideas about culture, according to which it is a process of organizing and ordering history itself.

Consequently, culturology as a worldview science has finally strengthened its position as a result of the awareness of the crisis state of culture at the beginning of the 20th century, just as the boom experienced by culturology now is explained by the crisis in the state of culture at the end of the 20th century.

The feeling of discomfort and uncertainty was so strong that the first volume of Oswald Spengler's work "The Decline of Europe", published in 1918, was greeted with unprecedented interest. The book was read and discussed not only by specialists: philosophers, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, etc., but by everyone educated people. She became integral part many university programs. And this despite significant criticism of many of the provisions expressed by Spengler. It is legitimate to question the reasons for such interest in this work. After all, Spengler literally repeated some points from what he had written half a century ago. before the work N. Danilevsky "Russia and Europe", which was noticed only by a narrow circle of professionals.

There is no doubt that it was a cultural and historical situation. The very name “Decline of Europe” sounded as relevant as possible. Most of Spengler's contemporaries truly felt that they were living in a world of collapse of old familiar cultural norms, and inevitably asked themselves whether this meant the end of European civilization in general or the beginning of the next round in its development. Reading Spengler, people tried to find an answer to the question about the fate of culture.

Many scientists involved in various aspects of humanities considered it a point of honor to take part in the creation general theory culture, reflecting the multidimensionality and complexity of this concept. The term “cultural studies” did not appear immediately. It was introduced around the 40s. on the initiative of American cultural researcher and anthropologist Leslie Alvin White. In his works “The Science of Culture” (1949), “The Evolution of Culture” (1959), “The Concept of Culture” (1973) and others, White argued that cultural studies represents a qualitatively higher level of understanding of man than other social sciences, and predicted she has a great future. It turned out that by the time White introduced the name into use, science itself was already actively functioning.

At the same time, one cannot ignore the fact that cultural studies to this day remains the most controversial and paradoxical science. Creating a science of culture equal in logic, internal unity, and fundamentality to other humanities has turned out to be extremely difficult: the object of research itself is too multifaceted. This is the reason for the diversity of philosophical approaches to explaining both the essence of culture and the laws of its functioning. This is also where the specific attractiveness of cultural studies lies.