Culturology as a science that studies culture. Communication of cultural studies with other sciences. Folk, mass, elite culture

CONTENT.







8. References………………………………………………………22

CONTENT.
1. The concept of cultural studies……………………………………………………2
2. Modern cultural studies……………………………………………..5
3. Functions of culturologists…………………………………………………… 10
4. Historical dimension of the concept of "Culture" in different periods of European civilization………………………………………………… 14
5. Principles of studying culture…………………………………………….17
6. Categories of culturologists…………………………………………………………………18
7. Conclusion………………………………………………………………….20
8. References………………………………………………………22

Culturology is the science of culture. The subject of cultural studies is the objective regularities of universal and national cultural processes, monuments, phenomena and events of the material and spiritual life of people.
Culturology studies the prerequisites and factors under the influence of which the cultural interests and needs of people are formed and developed, explores their participation in the creation, enhancement, preservation and transmission of cultural values.
Culturology studies the cultural life in various societies, seeking to highlight the features and achievements of the main cultural and historical types.
Acquaintance with world culture is an integral part of the intellectual potential of those who will have to make decisions in the near future that could affect the socio-economic development of our country, including the economy, politics, and culture. The most important task of culturologists is to analyze the processes and trends of the socio-cultural environment of our time. One of the main problems of cultural science is the theory and history of world culture.
The course of cultural studies gives an understanding that any material, practical, scientific and other human activity outside of culture is impossible, just as human life itself is impossible without culture.
Culturology is one of the young scientific disciplines that forms at the intersection of philosophy, sociology, psychology and many other sciences.
This humanitarian discipline studies the general aspects of the emergence and development of culture, as well as the emergence of cultures among themselves.
It synthesizes the knowledge of various sciences about culture into an integral system, forms ideas about the essence, functions, structure and dynamics of culture as such.
The foundations of cultural studies as an independent scientific discipline, the subject of which is culture, which cannot be reduced to the objects of philosophical and other approaches to this phenomenon, were laid down in the works of the American scientist Leslie White. Attempts to discover behind this understandable nature, fixed by the concept of "culture", the real, to adequately express it by scientific means, is one of the main tasks of cultural studies. At present, there is no complete solution to this problem. Culturology is still in its infancy, refining its subject and methods; its appearance as a scientific discipline has not yet acquired theoretical maturity.
But this search testifies to the fact that cultology is a kind of knowledge that has already outgrown the “parental” care of philosophy, although it is interconnected with it.
Cultural studies has deep philosophical traditions (philosophy of history, philosophy of culture) and attracts the attention of representatives of other sciences, primarily archeology, ethnography, psychology, history, and sociology. However, only in the 20th century there are attempts to implement an increasingly recognized need and the possibility of a special interdisciplinary study of culture.
The difficulties of the formation of cultural studies are primarily caused by the complexity, diversity, “gaseousness of the concept of culture as an“ ontological ”phenomenon.
Currently, there are quite a lot of ideas about cultural studies. However, among this diversity, three main approaches can be distinguished.

I - considers cultural studies as a complex of disciplines that study culture. The forming moment here is the goal of studying culture and its historical development and social functioning, and the result is a system of knowledge about culture.

I I - represents cultural studies as consisting of sections of disciplines, one way or another studying culture. For example, culturology as a philosophy of culture claims to understand it as a whole, in general. There is an opposite position, according to which culturology is a branch of the philosophy of culture that studies the problem of the diversity of cultures (typology, systematization of knowledge about culture without taking into account the factor of cultural self-consciousness). In this case, identification with cultural anthropology, the sociology of culture is possible, as well as the allocation of philosophical cultural studies as a science of meanings, meanings taken in their entirety in relation to a certain region or period of time.

I I I - approach reveals the desire to consider cultural studies as an independent scientific discipline. This suggests the definition of the subject and method of research, the place of cultural studies in the system of social and humanitarian knowledge…………

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1. Culture as a subject of study. The essence of cultural studies as a science

Culturology - a young science (date of birth 1931) When the American professor Leslie White first read a course in cultural studies at the University of Michigan. However, cultural studies became the subject of research long before that.

Since ancient times, philosophers have raised and discussed issues related to the study of culture, namely, about the features of the human way of life in comparison with the way of life of animals, about the development of knowledge and arts, about the differences between the customs and behavior of people in a civilized society and in "barbarian" tribes. ancient Greek thinkers did not use the term "culture", but attached a meaning close to it to the Greek word enlightenment. In the Middle Ages, culture was considered mainly under the name of religion.

The era of renaissance was marked by the cultivation of culture into religious and secular. Comprehension of the humanistic content of culture, and especially art. But only in the 18th century. - Enlightenment of the concept of culture entered the language of science and attracted the attention of the heirs as a designation of one of the most important spheres of human existence. One of the terms "culture" was introduced by Herder (1744 - 1803). In his understanding, culture contains as its parts: language, science, craft, art, religion, family and state. In the 19th century Gradually, the need to develop a science of culture as a special scientific discipline began to be realized. And in the first half of the 20th century. The German scientist and philosopher Wilhelm Oswald in his book "The System of Sciences" suggests the word "culturology" to designate the doctrine of culture.

Currently cultural studies is a fundamental science and academic discipline, which has become one of the basic subjects of gumm. education.

Cultural studies in a broad sense is now interpreted as a complex gumm.science, which covers the entire body of knowledge about culture and includes:

· -philosophy of culture

· -theory of culture

· - cultural history

· - cultural anthropology

· - sociology of culture

· - applied cultural studies

· - the history of cultural students.

In a narrow sense, under cultural studies the general theory of culture is understood, on the basis of which cultural disciplines are developed that study certain forms of culture, such as art, science, morality, law, etc. Particular cultural sciences correlate with it as well as separate physical sciences, for example, thermodynamics with general physics.

Every science has philosophical problems. They concern its philosophical foundations and the methodological principles of scientific knowledge. The philosophy of culture is the sphere of philosophical problems of cultural studies, which includes questions about the essence of culture, prospects, goals and fate of its development, its role in the general. Life and historical progress of mankind, etc. The history of culture studies under the cultural-historical process in different countries and regions of the world. It describes the cultural achievements of the peoples, finds out the originality of their cultures, collects and analyzes and generalizes the factual material on which researchers rely when developing the history of culture.

Cultural anthropology examines the life of a person in a particular cultural environment and explores its impact on the formation and development of personality. The focus is on the dependence of the psyche and the spirit. faces of people from the characteristics of the culture in which they live.

Sociology of culture issues related to the analysis of the relationship between culture and the social, economic, political life of society are brought to the fore. Culture is practiced as a system of means by which the joint life and activities of people are organized and regulated. As one of the most important factors in the organization and integration of social groups in society and society as a whole.

Applied Cultural Studies has a practical focus. She deals with the work of cultural institutions (museum, libraries, clubs) and organizational cultural events (festivals, holidays), management problems in the field of culture and cultural policy of the state.

History of cultural studies. exercises important as a source of knowledge about the process of development of knowledge about culture. Know the code of their history. A revolution is necessary in order to assess the current state of cultural development. Summarizing what has been said, it is worth noting that cultural studies are:

1.Science, which sees culture as the subject of scientific analysis, is a unique complex object, a global phenomenon that has no localization in time and space.

2.Integrative science or meta-science, which systematizes and integrates the knowledge about culture that has been accumulated by various private sciences about culture: art history, literary criticism, etc., and comprehends the position of knowledge about culture at a higher level compared to private sciences.

2. The concept of culture. Basic cultural concepts

Disputes about what "culture" is have been emerging since antiquity. The term culture itself is of Latin origin and was originally used in the sense of "cultivating the soil." In relation to man, it was first used by the ancient Roman thinker and orator Cicero (45 BC). and meant "cultivation, cultivation of the human spirit." Cicero perceived culture as a charitable force that elevates man above nature.

The word culture began to be used as a scientific term during the Enlightenment. One of the most important topics that worried the European Society. thought in that period was the essence or nature of man. Their need for special concepts arose. Latin was chosen. the word "culture" is apparently because it opposed the word "nature" (nature), but this idea allows for ambiguous interpretation: on the one hand, culture was interpreted as a means of elevating a person, improving the spiritual life and morality of people, correcting the vices of society, and on the other hand, culture was considered as a real and historically changing way of life of people, which is due to the achieved level of development of the human mind, but also includes negative manifestations of human activity (crime, wars). So in the 19th century.

2 main directions of understanding of culture are gaining ground, which coexist and are often mixed up to the present time: anthropological and axiological (the science of value).

According to sociologists Karmin and Guseva, the theory that reveals the essence of culture is an information-systematic concept. Culture is presented in it as an information system that exists in society and in which members of this community are immersed. The word "semiotics" from the Greek. - "sign", meaning the science of signs and sign systems. In it, culture is presented in 3 main aspects: the world of artifacts, meanings and signs. In turn, culture as a world of signs appears before us in the unity of mat. And spirit. Signs act in a mat. A shell of human thoughts, feelings, desires. The definition of culture within the framework of this concept: culture is social information that is stored and accumulated in society with the help of symbolic means created by people.

3. Structure, functions and laws of existence of culture

Since culture is a complex formation that affects various areas of human employment, it is necessary to highlight a certain basis for its structuring. For the most general disorientation of cultural space, three main types of meaning contained in the social. information:

values

regulatory meanings.

On this basis, it is possible to single out such structural layers that occupy various forms of culture. The most important is the spirit. culture - this area includes ideology, craft, art and philosophy as its main forms. In general, these are forms that are focused on the development of knowledge, values ​​and ideals. At the same time, being less than others, they are aimed at directly serving the practical needs of a person. They have a combination of knowledge and values ​​in the foreground. Similarly, a set of forms of culture is singled out, which determines the interaction of people in society, forming the area of ​​social culture. This includes moral, legal and political culture. The main content here is regulatives, values ​​and ideals.

The area of ​​technological culture in the broadest sense is understood as the culture of development and processing of any material: the execution, manufacture and receipt of something. Knowledge and rules are its most important and necessary elements.

The development of culture is a necessary condition for the very existence of human society, in which culture performs various functions:

) humanistic (human-creative) is the upbringing, cultivation, cultivation of the spirit (according to Cicero, culture-animi);

) the function of historical continuity (information) - these are the functions of the translation of social experience;

) epistemological (cognitive) - culture is a kind of database that collects and stores the knowledge gained;

) communicative - lies in the fact that it acts as the main means of communication between people;

) semiotic (sign) - one of the most important functions;

) regulatory - associated with the regulation of various types of personal and social activities of people, it is supported by morality and law;

) adaptation - is manifested in the effective adaptation of the individual to the requirements of society, which forms in him a sense of psychological security and comfort.

The specific laws of the functioning of culture allow it to develop even in the most socially unfavorable epochs and periods. The main laws of the development of culture are:

) The law of unity and originality of culture. Culture is the cumulative collective heritage of mankind. All cultures of all peoples are internally united and at the same time original and unique.

) The law of continuity in the development of culture. Culture is the inherited experience of generations. Where there is no continuity, there is no culture!

) The law of discontinuity and continuity in the development of culture. In connection with the change of eras, formations and civilization, there is a change in the types of culture. This is how discontinuity occurs. However, discontinuity is relative, many civilizations perished, but their achievements (sail, wheel) became the property of world culture.

) The law of interaction and cooperation. Each culture has its own specifics, sometimes it comes to contradictions (from trade and migration to wars and the seizure of territories).

4. Culture and civilization. Ideas of progress in culture

culturology science regularity

World history knows different types of culture, because which of them dominates in society is characterized by the societies themselves, using the term "civilization" (from Latin "civilism" - civil, state).

Since the 17th century, the concept of "civilization" has undergone a number of transformations: from the concept of "civilization" as the opposite of "savagery" to the definition of civilization as a cultural community of the highest rank. It is worth noting in particular the tendency of opposing culture and civilization that emerged towards the end of the 19th century, considering them as opposites (Sammel, Spengler, Marcuse). Culture here is the spiritual content of civilization, while civilization is only the material shell of culture. Cultures are spiritual values, i.e. education, achievements of science, philosophy, art, and civilization is the degree of technological, economic, socio-political development of society. However, an unambiguous interpretation of the word civilization has not been fixed. This concept can mean:

) the historical process of improving the life of society (Holbach, French philosopher of the 17th century);

) the way of life of society after its exit from the primitive, barbaric state (Morgan, Engels);

) the material-utilitarian-technological side of society, opposing culture as a sphere of spirituality, creativity and freedom (Zimmeldi and Marcuse);

) the last, final phase of the evolution of a certain type of culture, the era of the death of this culture (Spengler);

) any separate socio-cultural world (Toynbee is an English historian of the 20th century);

) the broadest socio-cultural community, which is the highest level of cultural identity of people (Kanghtinton).

In the Russian language, "civilization" does not have a definite meaning, according to tradition, this is the name of a society characterized by a specific, sufficiently developed culture, that is, it has reached writing. At the same time, civilization is a non-ethnic concept. In turn, the idea of ​​progress is a product of a certain cultural development; it goes back to the Enlightenment, when the foundations of the culture of the New Age in the form of classical humanism, rationalism and historicism were finally established.

5. Folk, mass, elite culture

Folk culture.

Folk culture is unwritten, so it great importance belongs to traditions as a way of broadcasting vital information. Folk culture is conservative, it is practically not influenced by other cultural traditions, it is poorly adapted to dialogue due to its desire for the dominance of traditional meanings. The individual beginning is not expressed in it. Hence the anonymity, impersonality and lack of nominal authorship. Traditional culture regulates all aspects of the life of the community, determining the way of life and the specifics of relationships: the form of economic activity, customs, rituals, knowledge, folklore (as a sign-symbolic expression of tradition).

Mass culture.

During the 20th century, the traditional archaic forms of cultural creativity were replaced by the "industry of culture" (the production of cultural values ​​for mass consumption, based on modern, practically unlimited possibilities for their replication). So since the second half of the 19th century mass culture has been formed. Partly the successor of folk culture, i.e. post-industrial folklore arises, but most researchers tend to think that these two phenomena are, in fact, very far from each other, opposing tradition to changeable fashion. And the national character is cosmopolitanism.

The characteristic features of mass culture are accessibility, ease of perception, entertainment and simplicity. Mass culture is the birth of technological progress. He not only created the technique of its industrial production, but also formed the "mass" whose needs it satisfies. An important place here belongs to mass art. Designed to meet the simplest aesthetic needs, the products of this art are standardized. It is not difficult to create it creatively. A mass person can be a representative of all social strata, regardless of their position in the economic, political and even intellectual hierarchy.

Elite culture.

The formation of an elite culture is associated with the formation of a circle of "chosen ones" - those to whom it is available and who act as its bearer (the cultural elite). At the heart of these processes lies an incredible increase in the volume of information. By the 20th century, the time of encyclopedically educated generalists oriented in all areas of culture had passed.

Modern science, including philosophy, has become little understood by the “uninitiated”. The profound works of art of our time are not easy to perceive and require mental effort and sufficient education to understand. High culture became specialized. In each cultural sphere there is now a relatively small elite belonging to it - the creators, connoisseurs and consumers of the highest achievements in their field of culture (at best, also adjacent to it). For those who do not fall into their circle, it is simply impossible to understand the relevant subject of reasoning. Thus, elite culture is the culture of privileged groups of society, characterized by fundamental closeness, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. Elite culture appeals to a select minority, which, as a rule, is both its creators and addressees. It is conscious and consistently opposed to the culture of the majority. Philosophers consider it as the only one capable of preserving and reproducing the basic meanings of culture.

In modern mass culture, two trends collide, one is associated with the most primitive feelings and impulses and gives rise to a militantly ignorant, hostile to society: counterculture (drugs, etc.) and anti-culture. Another tendency is connected with the carriers of mass culture - to raise their social status and educational level. By the end of the 20th century, culturologists began to talk about the growth of mid-culture (culture of the middle level). However, the gap between mass and elite culture remains an acute problem.

6. The problem of typologies of culture

World culture including many local cultures. In ancient times, when societies existed in the form of tribes and communities, ethnic culture acted as a local culture. With the consolidation of the ethnic community in the nation and the formation of states, national culture became its main type. The specific features of local cultures are explained by the differences in geographical and socio-historical conditions for the existence of countries and peoples and their relative isolation from each other. It is hardly possible to divide the entire set of local cultures into classes that are strictly delimited from each other, therefore there is no strict classification, but only a typology of culture - the identification of the main types, each of which includes local cultures that are similar in some way.

7. History of the culture of primitive society

The first people - homogabilis (skillful man) appeared more than 2 million years ago, according to scientists. Their ancestors were not great apes, but an independent branch that developed in parallel with this one. These people differed from the great apes in their upright walking, relatively developed brains, and the presence of a well-formed hand with an opposing thumb. But only with the advent of homo sapiens, i.e. Homo sapiens, the culture of primitive society itself arose (approximately 40-35 years BC). At this time, the variety of stone and other tools of labor increases abruptly, complex ones appear: liners, tips, sewn clothes. The peculiarities of the spiritual culture of this period are the complication of social relations: the emergence of marriage, which prohibits incest, as well as the emergence of clan and family. At this time, an early form of religion was formed, artistic creativity appeared, and a system of scientific knowledge was formed. The first long period of development of the material culture of primitive society is the appropriating material culture. The main periods of the Stone Age are:

Paleolithic (Greek "Paleos" - ancient, "lithos" - stone) 35-33 thousand years ago. The appearance of characteristic cultures of the Upper Paleolithic, the first tools, the use of fire, the construction of dwellings (natural and hut-shaped).

Mesolithic ("Mezas" - middle). From about the 15th millennium BC. At this time, both primary tools (microlith, bow with arrows, stick, stone, spear) and secondary ones (flint, stone processing used impact, sawing, drilling, grinding, heating and incandescence, as well as polishing) appeared.

Neolithic ("neos" - new). Around 6-4 millennium BC Different types of dwellings are being formed: semi-dugouts, piled buildings, log decks. At this stage of development, society moves from an appropriating economy to a producing one. Agriculture, animal husbandry, and later handicrafts appear, pushing back fishing, hunting and gathering. The first megalithic structures belong to this period. This turning point in the development of material culture is called the Neolithic or agrarian revolution. The first producing farms are formed in Asia Minor.

Eneolith ("eneos" - copper). From the 4th millennium BC The transition from stone tools to copper and bronze.

Bronze Age (from the end of the 4th millennium BC). This is the time of the appearance of the first civilizations in the territories of Northeast Africa, Western and Central Asia, Iran, the Chinese Plain and the Hindustan Peninsula. At this time, a class society was also formed. External signs of its formation:

) the appearance of monumental stone and brick buildings,

) the emergence of writing,

) the design of culture (material and spiritual of the ruling class - the elite),

) the transformation of a single culture of primitive society into the culture of the social lower classes.

Iron age. From about the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. This is the final period of the early class history of mankind.

Speaking about the spiritual culture of primitive society, it is worth noting that the culture of primitive man had a syncretic character. It is also called the primitive syncretic complex. This means that scientific knowledge, religion, mythology, art did not exist in isolation from each other. And in inseparable unity, and each member of the tribe was the bearer of all the components of culture (syncretism - the indivisibility of different types of human activity). The first scientific knowledge was of an applied nature and was numerous; in order to ensure the survival of the genus, a person had to store information about the characteristics of plants, about the habits of animals, about cyclic changes in nature, etc. Naturally, the main form of memory at that time was becoming a collective memory, focused on the reproduction of the known, the past in practice. This form of memory did not require writing. She relied on great amount symbols, rituals, rituals, the main function of which was the harmonization of man in society. The first stage in the development of writing was pictography (pictorial writing). At the same time or a little earlier, the first counting systems appeared: at first it was the counting of the set, i.e. the ability to distinguish between large and small, then counting according to the adequacy of some objects by others. Subsequently, the calculation began to be made by means of connecting ancillary material, i.e. nicks, knots, or fingers. The appearance of abstract numbers occurred quite late, along with the advent of writing and, apparently, civilization. Many monuments of the spiritual and material life of a person contain astronomical motifs: primitive rock carvings of the constellations and special huge stone structures (cromlechs (Stonehenge in England)), which served both as observatories and performed ritual functions, as well as myths containing ideas about the device universe. People were forced to conduct astronomical observations both by the needs of everyday life and by the belief in the influence of celestial bodies and phenomena on the fate of people. It is characteristic that the first calendars (lunar and solar calendar) appear earlier than the work of art.

The first elements of artistic creation, i.e. art, belongs to the Aurignacian and Solutrean cultures in the ancient Stone Age (Neopaleolithic age - 35-29 thousand years ago). The first: handprints, a zigzag from the fingers - a meander, the second - a round sculpture made of clay, bone and wood, the third: Paleolithic venuses with emphasized signs of sex. This is one of the first in the history of the family, the fourth: a contour image of animals that serve as an object of hunting, often pierced by painted arrows, made with a chisel, as well as ocher with marl and soot. Painting in primitive society reaches its heyday in the Madeleine era (20 or more precisely 15 or 10 millennia BC). Severe climate in conditions of a new advance of the glacier. There are multi-color paintings with figures of bison, deer, mammoths and other animals. They have been preserved in the caves of France, Italy, Spain and Russia. The most famous of them are the drawings from the caves of Altomira, Lascaux, Mentespan, where powerful monolithic bison figures are conveyed by economical bright color spots and strokes. The art of the primitive era is not only visual, but also applied (decoration, utensils, weapons, as well as music, pantomime, dance, CNT, folklore and mythology).

The main forms of social consciousness were mythology and early forms of religion. The starting point for the evolution of religion was magic (from Latin sorcery, sorcery), both ritual and divinatory - mantica. Certain objects (fetishes) began to be endowed with supernatural influence, marking the beginning of the development of fetishism. The personification of supernatural power led to the emergence of special independent creatures - demons and spirits, brownies, goblin, water, mermaids, elves, dryads, and became the basis of demonism and animism (personification of the souls of the dead). Subsequently, during the transition to a class society, especially powerful ones stand out from the environment of demons of equal importance - the gods (the era of polytheism). Polytheistic religions become the basis for the formation of monotheistic religions, including world religions. Another form of social consciousness of primitive man was mythology, as a way of understanding nature and social reality. The most fundamental myths are cosmological, cosmogonic and ethnological (the origin of people and animals), as well as myths about cultural heroes.

8. Antique culture

The main dominant of ancient culture was humanism, a focus on man, which was expressed both in architecture (recreating the proportions of the human body), and religious ideas (the gods were likened to mortals), and in the system of social values ​​(the unity of the public and the individual). The last apposition also entailed the development of rational thinking, i.e. rationalism became another characteristic of ancient culture. The era of ancient culture begins with the formation of Greek policies. Begins at the beginning of the first millennium BC. and ends with the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD. Ancient culture became the foundation of all European civilization, to which literary genres and philosophical systems, the principles of architecture and sculpture, the foundations of mathematics, astronomy and natural science go back. And even the European canons of beauty are defined by such categories of ancient aesthetics as measure and regularity, symmetry, proportionality, rhythm and harmony. The category of measure becomes the most important for antiquity: evil is perceived as immensity, and good as moderation.

The Crete-Mycenaean or Aegean civilization became the foundation of ancient culture. The first European civilization was Cretan (late 3rd - early 2nd millennium BC), which served as a link between European culture and the ancient cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The coast and islands of the Aegean Sea became the zone of distribution of the Aegean culture, and the center was first about. Crete, then the city of Mycenae. At the beginning of the second millennium BC. Huge palaces, unique in architecture, appear on it, the most famous and mysterious of them is the Palace of Knossos. The Aegean civilization died as a result of a devastating earthquake and the eruption of an underwater volcano near about. Fera (Santorini) in the middle of the 15th century BC After the death of Crete, the center of the Aegean civilization moved to the Balkan Greece in the "gold-rich" city of Mycenae. The Mycenaean culture was initially forced to defend itself from warlike neighbors and bears the stamp of greater severity and power. The palaces-citadels were surrounded by thick fortified walls, built of huge irregularly shaped stone blocks without any binding material. At the head of the state was the king-priest Wanaka. Royal burials, along with highly artistic utensils, also contain rich weapons, and, according to Egyptian tradition, the faces of the dead kings are covered with masks of gold with portrait features of the rulers. Mycenae and Troy, also destroyed by the Achaeans, were discovered by the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann. The state, exhausted by a long war, became an easy prey for the Dorian Greeks who moved to the north of the Balkans. After the fall of the Crete-Mycenaean civilization, many of its achievements were integrated into the culture of ancient Greece.

Prerequisites for the emergence and main features of ancient culture:

1)Influence of the preceding thousand-year-old Crete-Mycenaean civilization.

)The transition at the beginning of the first millennium BC. to the use of iron, which increased the individual capabilities of a person.

)A unique state structure (Polis-city-state, formed in the 8th-6th centuries BC, the highest heyday of the 5th-4th centuries BC, it is a democratic republic, where every free Greek acted as a landowner, the bearer of the highest the legislature, that is, he participated in the national assembly, was a warrior.

)A dual ancient form of property that combined private property, which gave a person initiative, and state property, which ensured social stability and protection, laying the foundation for harmony between the individual and society.

)Lack of bureaucracy.

)The predominance of politics over economics, i.e. the spending of income by the state on the organization of leisure and the development of culture is focused on the ordinary free citizen, and the glorification of such qualities as heroism, self-sacrifice, spiritual and physical beauty.

)Democracy of the Greek religion, i.e. there was no closed caste of priests. At the same time, religion and mythology were distinguished by a humanistic content, where the gods were close to people in their manifestations.

So the esoteric religious doctrine was already penetrated by a monotheistic worldview, so the essence of the ancient system of values ​​was humanistic, where it was believed that a person finds happiness only in serving the family and the polis, receiving glory and respect in return.

In development, the following periods are distinguished:

1)Homeric (11-9 centuries BC).

)Archaic (8-6 centuries BC).

)Classical (5th-4th centuries BC).

)Hellenistic (late 4th-1st centuries BC).

In the Homeric period, the first iron products appeared in Greece, which became a powerful impetus for moving forward and the basis of its future prosperity. Then it was inhabited by the Aeolians, Dorians and Ionians. This is the heyday of the epic tradition (Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey", Hesiod "Works and Days" and "Theogony").

The archaic period is the time of the most intensive development of ancient society. A characteristic feature of this civilization was the combination of a sense of collectivism and an agonistic (competitive) beginning. Agon appears both in all areas of material spiritual life, as well as in economics and politics. Agonal spirit: in sports - the device of the all-Greek games in Olympus (8th century BC), in art - the Pythian games, where pyfareds and harpers competed. Then the main types and forms of Greek art were formed:

)In architecture: a) the type of temple of Peripter surrounded by a colonnade; b) the system of orders (Doric, Ionic, Carymphian;

)In sculpture: painted statues built of naked boys and girls.

)In relief: scenes of battles and competitions.

)In the painting of vessels: black-figure and red-figure vase painting.

)In literature: a new trend - lyrics, which replaced the classical epic (Archilochus, Anacreon, Sappho (woman poet).

)In philosophy: the first guesses about the infinity of the universe and the multiplicity of worlds (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes). The doctrine of number, harmony of spheres, as well as consonance and dissonance of music (Pythagoras).

9. Culture of the European Middle Ages (from the 5th-15th centuries). Renaissance culture

The culture of the European Middle Ages arose on the ruins of the Roman Empire. Its future depended on the collision of three trends:

1)Traditions fading Greco-Roman culture. They were preserved in a few cultural centers, but they could no longer give new ideas.

)The spirit of barbarism, the carriers were various peoples who inhabited the provinces of the Roman Empire and invaded it.

)Christianity was the third and most powerful of the forces that determined the path of European cultural development. It relied on traditions that had developed outside the ancient world. And introduced fundamentally new humanistic attitudes into the minds of people.

Christianity led the peoples of Europe out of their barbaric state, but at the same time its representatives showed severity towards their opponents. It overthrew the ancient ideals of beauty, preaching the insignificance of the mind of man and the sinfulness of his flesh. Theologians have consistently emphasized the priority of faith over reason. The flowering of irrationalism and mysticism was facilitated by the low level of knowledge even among educated people. Equally decisive was the departure from the pagan attitude towards physicality, health, and sensual pleasure. Demanding to take care of the soul, Christianity proclaimed the cult of asceticism. Reverence for Greek learning and hostility to ancient sensuality, Christian mercy and cruel persecution of heretics and pagans, theological disputes about the intricacies of Christian teaching and the ignorance of the people, disregard for the human person and Christian concern for the salvation of the soul - this set of contradictions distinguished religious consciousness in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that Christianity developed a new ethic, where the basis was to be love for God - pure and free from the desire to gain: "God is love." Observance of such covenants as do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, was within the power of every person, regardless of his place in the social hierarchy. Christianity opened up the opportunity to join the new morality to representatives of any ethnic group, all peoples were equal. However, having discarded the ancient system of civic values, Christianity ignored the social essence of human life, suppressing in him an active civic position and connection with the team. Gradually, the church extended its influence to all aspects of the life of the community, setting the initial positions of the medieval worldview. Philosophy and science were both under guardianship and under control. In accordance with their content, the Christian doctrine was a demand that was supported by the authority of the church and the power of state power. Medieval art was mainly of a religious and ecclesiastical nature, the skill of icon painting developed. Biblical scenes dominated painting and sculpture. Sacred music has reached a high level of perfection. The rise of architecture was especially significant. Literacy was a rare phenomenon and distinguished mainly people of the sacred rank. The entire education system had a religious character, teaching was in Latin, the knowledge of which was synonymous with literacy. In medieval society, all people were divided into three categories: the first two - "prayers" (i.e. priests) and "warriors" (i.e. knights, noble nobility) made up the elite, while the majority belonged to the third category - "workers". An essential feature of medieval culture was the significant gap between the elite and the common people. Their way of life, customs, language, and even xp of faith were different for them.

End of the 17th century. New time.

In the Renaissance, philosophy was freed from scholasticism, reason became the main thing, social thought was increasingly separated from religion, European religion became secular. Religion and its unconditional significance nevertheless began to be equated with one of the cultural areas. In the countries of Europe, original art schools and literary movements are emerging, in which two great styles find expression: baroque and classicism. From the 17th century, medieval Latin gave way to national languages, and the rise of national cultures began. Their contacts and interactions play a crucial role in the development of culture and the rapid socio-economic progress of culture.

century - the age of Enlightenment. This century determined the main trends that shaped the image of the European culture of the New Age. The industrialization of social production begins. The feudal-class society is being replaced by a capitalist one. There is a search for and substantiation of economic, political, legal and moral principles of social life, more perfect forms of its organization (ideas of English political economy, utopian socialism). Sentimentalism and romanticism appear in art. These are styles expressing people's reactions to new social conditions. European culture is imbued with the spirit of efficiency, utilitarianism, practicality. The Protestant ideals of a person's personal responsibility for his deeds before God and people form a conscientious attitude to work, family and property, without which the development of capitalism is unthinkable. The authority of scientific and philosophical knowledge is rising, which is considered as the driving force of the social process. European culture is becoming rationalistic.

In the 19th century, the European culture of modern times enters a period of maturity, large-scale machine production grows, which requires qualified engineers. The network of schools is developing, the contingent of students at universities is expanding, the general educational and cultural level is increasing, society is rising, and the pace of technical progress is accelerating. Science of the 19th century acts as a classical system of knowledge, the main ideas and principles of which are considered not to be unsteady truths (mathematics and mechanics). Thinkers such as Hegel, Comte, Spencer are trying to build philosophical systems that bring together the entire amount of knowledge of mankind. In society, there are convictions that the picture of the world in general terms has already been established by science and that further development of knowledge is only intended to clarify its contours. In fiction, realism becomes the leading direction. However, in the middle of the century, signs of an impending crisis of European culture appeared, works imbued with the spirit of irrationalism, a pessimistic mood (Schopenhauer, Kjegaard) appeared. Criticism of bourgeois society unfolds. Thinkers as diverse as Marx and Nietzsche speak of the approaching end of bourgeois culture. Disappointment in ideals also affects European art in the last third of the 19th century. There are new trends in painting: primitivism and impressionism (impression), associated with the search. In art - symbolism. Since the 1880s, the term “decadence” has come into fashion, by which they began to understand the mood of fatigue, pessimism, despair, the feeling of the impending collapse and decline of culture spreading in society.

In the 20th century, the European type of culture spread beyond the borders of Europe, covering other continents and receiving the name of Western culture. Despite the various national characteristics, it can be stated that there are common features typical of Western culture as a whole.

)Progmatism. Modern Western culture is based on business, entrepreneurship and business activity. Its appearance is formed by the economy, determined by the development of technological culture.

)Dynamism. In modern Western culture, living conditions, technology, and fashion are changing extremely quickly. Things wear out mentally faster than physically. As Topffler remarked, this is the world of "disposable" culture. In art, Modernism becomes the leading teaching, with its kaleidoscopic flickering of ideas, schools, trends, quickly entering fashion and rapidly leaving it. The dynamism of culture changes the very psychology of people, affecting the sphere of human contacts, which acquire a fleeting character.

)Pluralism. Never before has there been such an abundance and diversity of cultural systems and subsystems, views and trends. Pluralism is accompanied by tolerance. Tolerant attitude towards different ideas and opinions. As a result, many judgments are expressed on any issue. Expanding the search for solutions. But also generating the "redundancy" of the information field of endless discussions. The negative consequence of tolerance is that any views can be recognized as equally acceptable. As a result, value orientations are lost and delusion can "on an equal footing" coexist with truth.

)Democracy. The ideas of humanism, autonomy and self-worth of the human person have penetrated into the European consciousness since the Renaissance. But attention to them increased dramatically in the 20th century, as a reaction to German and Soviet toletarianism. After the 2nd World War individualism. Democracy and liberalism have become universally recognized values, but also practically implemented in life. Organizational principles of Western society.

)Internal conflict. Western culture is manifested in the fact that all the noted and its other features are criticized. And they are opposed by alternatives, which are also included in its content. Protest movements are an indispensable addition to any trend that claims to dominate.

)Expansionism. Throughout the 20th century, philosophers, writers, artists talk about the decay of Western culture and predict its death. But despite the deep problems, it is actively spreading around the world, playing a crucial role in globalization and the formation of the cultural unity of mankind. Expansionism is a characteristic feature of Western culture, which largely determines the appearance of the modern stage of human history.

In the history of culture of the XX century. three periods can be distinguished:

) the beginning of the 20th century - 1917 (acute dynamics of socio-political processes, a variety of artistic forms, styles, philosophical concepts);

) 20-30 years. (radical restructuring, some stabilization of cultural dynamics, the formation of a new form of culture - socialist),

) post-war 40s. throughout the second half of the 20th century. (the time of the formation of regional cultures, the rise of national consciousness, the emergence of international movements, the rapid development of technology, the emergence of new advanced technologies, the active development of territories, the merging of science with production, the change of scientific paradigms, the formation of a new worldview). Culture is a system, everything in it is interconnected and mutually determined.

10. Western culture of the 20th century.

In the 20th century The European type of culture spreads beyond the borders of Europe, covering other continents and receiving the name of Western culture. Despite the various national characteristics, it is logical to state the presence of common features typical of Western culture as a whole.

.Pragmatism. Modern Western culture is based on business, entrepreneurship and business activity. Its appearance is formed by the economy, determined by the development of technological culture. The goal of people is the achievement of life's blessings. The desire for financial well-being, comfort and pleasure, which can be obtained for money, becomes the dominant feature of the personality type of a person in Western culture. A mass cult of extermination is being planted. The current Western world is called a consumer society.

.Dynamism. In modern Western culture, living conditions, technology, and fashion are changing extremely quickly. Things wear out morally. In art, modernism becomes the leading trend with its kaleidoscopic flickering of ideas, trends, quickly entering fashion and rapidly leaving it. The dynamism of culture changes the very psychology of people, affecting the sphere of human contacts, which acquire a fleeting character.

.Pluralism. Never before has there been such an abundance and diversity of cultural systems and subsystems. Pluralism is accompanied by tolerance - a tolerant attitude towards different ideas and opinions. As a result, many judgments are expressed on any issue, expanding the scope of the search for a solution, but also generating a “redundancy” of the information field of endless discussions. The negative consequence of tolerance is that any views can be recognized as equally acceptable. As a result, value orientations and delusions are lost on an equal footing with the truth.

.Democracy. The ideas of humanism, autonomy and self-worth of the human person penetrated into the European consciousness from the Renaissance, but attention to them increased dramatically in the 20th century. As a reaction to German and Soviet totalitarianism. After the Second World War, individualism, democracy and liberalism became not only the universally recognized values ​​of Western culture, but also practically implemented in Western Europe, which largely determined its multilayeredness, inconsistency and heterogeneity.

11. Russian medieval culture

The fate of Russia is dramatic, full of global upheavals and catastrophic events. Its history is non-linear, hence instability and inconsistency as a typological feature of Russian culture. Significant moments of the cultural-historical paradigm were:

Baptism of Russia

the beginning of the Mongol-Tatar yoke (1237-1241)

creation of the Moscow state and the establishment of autocracy.

religious schism, the beginning of Peter's reforms (1650-1660)

peasant reform (1861)

October Revolution

the beginning of liberal reforms in the era of perestroika (Aug. 1991)

The sociocentricity of the Russian society had a negative impact on the development of the personal potential of the Russian person. Orthodoxy and autocracy are also original phenomena of Russian culture.

Possible periodization of the development of Russian civilization:

Ancient Russia (9-13c)

Moscow kingdom (14-17th century)

Imperial Russia (18-present)

The era of the early Middle Ages in other Russia is characterized by pagan formations and cults. The adoption of Christianity was of great importance for Russia. 1. Strengthened state power and territorial unity of the state. 2 equalized Kievan Rus with other Christian states.

From 1228 to 1426, 302 military companies and 85 major battles were held in Russia.

The accomplishment of the Mongol-Tatars. The yoke, as well as the formation of Muscovite Rus, falls on the period of the 15th - 17th centuries. Second half of the 15th century Marked by the rise of self-consciousness and the revival of Russian culture of the 17th century. Becomes original. Transition from the Middle Ages to the new time. Sustainability is oriented to the east and the desire for cultural rationalism is being replaced by the interest of the west. Western influences permeate all levels of common life, penetrating into literature, art and lead to a change in thinking, but Russian culture continues to develop.

Russian culture of modern times.

This period is characterized by:

Further secularization of culture and faster development of rationalism

Approval of a new look at human personality and democratization trends.

Relatively fast pace of transition from the Middle Ages to modern times.

The stress of the cultural process.

The era of Peter 1 is the period of transition to a new time, characterized by aggravated contradictions within the medieval way of culture, which ceased to correspond to the new economic and social life of Russia. At this time, new cities appear, the first manufactories appear, the all-Russian market is gradually formed and international trade begins.

The structure of Russia is also being transformed, where, after 1653, the functioning of Zemstvo sobors comes to naught, the activities of the boyar duma lose their relevance.

d - the abolition of metsniki - these are the features of the distribution of administrative and military posts in the boyar duma according to nobility and family, which leads to the strengthening of the nobility and the activation of the principle of promotion according to abilities. This transitional crisis situation in Russia at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries was perceived by contemporaries primarily as the collapse of Russian Orthodox culture. Peter's reforms were carried out without a comprehensive understanding of the cultural characteristics of Western civilization, which is due to objective circumstances, despite the fact that the transformations were prepared by the entire course of history and are organically connected with the life of the people, but the implementation in record time was more traumatic, because familiarization with the social ideals of the West was superficial and largely formal.

The social elite was divided into Westerners, oriented towards the value of Western culture, and nomads, who defended their own path of development. This opposition of cultural orientations remains a stable paradigm of Russian public consciousness right up to the era of modernity. In the second half of the 18th century. The formation of Russian national culture takes place in the 40-60s. ideas of enlightenment penetrate into Russia.

Enlightenment was distinguished by its originality and answered the questions of the uprising before the Russian society of that time, along with a rationalistic perception of the phenomena of nature and society, criticism of the feudal foundations of class inequality and superstitions in Russian education, the question of the position of Christianity in conditions of serfdom was particularly acute. The problem of serfdom also attracted the attention of Catherine II. Familiar with the philosophy of enlightenment and in correspondence with the will ..? but this acute question of that time was not resolved.

Enlightenment as a trend in Russian society. thought was discovered by Lomonosov. Mastering the aesthetics of the artist. culture of the new time and its nat is approved. peculiarities.

12. Russian culture of the 19th century.

In the history of the thousand-year culture of Russia in the 19th century. This is the time of the heyday of artistic culture, which is of worldwide importance. Its formation was influenced by:

Patriotic War of 1812

Reforms of Alexander 2.

Abolition of serfdom.

"going" to the people.

Western European revolutions and their reflection in the Russian mind.

Spread of Marxism.

The "golden age" of this culture began with the birth of Pushkin, and ended with the death of the great metaphysician V. Solovyov. Enlightenment was distinguished by its originality and answered the questions of the uprising before the Russian society of that time.

Golden Age - in a broad sense, the entire 19th century. In the narrow - Pushkin's work between the "golden and silver" ages. During this period, all the main types of art received an unprecedented development in a universal form from public self-awareness becomes a lit-ra, it is she who creates a system of values, behaviors, life priorities.

The culture of pre-reform Russia is considered the culture of the period from 1812. At that time, the question of national identity and the path of development of Russia was the center of ideas and became the basis for the formalization of the ideological confrontation between Westerners (Turgenev) and Slavophiles (Aksakov). The Slavophiles saw the Russian people as a world leader who should save humanity, and believed that Russia should develop independently of the West.

They considered autocracy to be the optimal state structure for Russia. Hopes for the revival of Russia were associated with the Orthodox faith as a form of unity of people on the basis of spiritual community as a condition for achieving catholicity. At the beginning of the century, there were three artistic trends in the art and literature of Russia: classicism, syntementalism and romanticism. Russian culture developed in close connection with Western European culture, so the flowering of romanticism in it was natural. However, it had a national basis, which determined its specific features, including folklore.

There was a speech not so much against the old political system as against the basic spiritual values ​​of the old culture, so the purposeful destruction of the culture of tsarist Russia and the old statehood was at the same time the spread of this culture in the new circumstances to the classes of the peasantry and workers. The process of nationalization of culture was legislated at the Eighth Congress of the RCP(b) in 1919. And educational institutions, museums, theaters, all objects of culture and art passed into the ownership of the people. The structure of pre-revolutionary culture has fundamentally changed - none of the former bearers of culture has retained its functions, and none of the subcultures has remained in its former quality, including noble, raznochinny, peasant and urban cultures. Soviet culture was born in the conditions of a severe class war. Economic devastation, famine, intensive industrialization, collectivization. Fundamental changes have taken place not only in the field of the political structure of society, but also in the worldview and attitude of people, as well as in the field of art. culture. These transformations became part of the cultural revolution (introduced by Lenin in 1923 in his work “on cooperation”), which has the task of forming a new person and a new culture.

The movements in art, according to Kazimir Malevich, which prevented the revolution, in the economic and political life of 1917 were Cubism and Futurism. Adequate state policy in art was the activity of the Avant-gardists, who understood the problem of the proletarian art. Creativity as a problem agitation. art, that is, propaganda, and methods of material design. What did the use of innovative thin. A language opposed to tradition and addressed to the masses. At the same time, the avant-garde put forward the fundamental concept of creating a New Man who merged with the mass and consciously subordinates his psychology and individuality to it, which caused the flourishing of constructivism and the birth of such genres of art as mass actions. The embodiment of the poster-pointed idea requires an appeal to forms - monumental, the ultimate functionality of all elements and the absence of side metaphors and symbolism. Such an interpretation of the The funds were taken by the avant-garde as early as 1910. The main dominant of which was the premonition and enthusiastic expectation of the revolution. Here, Matyushin's opera "Victory over the Sun" is indicative. 1913 A mystery directed not to the people, but to humanity, with costumes and scenery by Malevich. It is characteristic that the opera was created at the moment of Malevich’s turn “from cubism to suprematism” (from lat. Supremus - the highest), this was also the name of his theoretical work, the symbol of which was the black square - the embryo of all possibilities, Depicted on the curtain, in scenery and costumes, meaning in the context of the work the beginning of victory over the three-dimensionality and objectivity of the earthly space. The easel (not utilitarian) canvases of the 1920s by Kustodiego, Malevich, Petrov-Vodkin, whose past and future socialist works are also filled with a sense of the cosmic scale of what is happening. changes are interpreted as phenomena of the universal order. To a certain extent, it is connected with the philosophical tradition of "Russian cosmism", to which Filonov's artistic conception "Flowers of the World Bloom" is also close. The struggle between spirit and matter, according to his thought, proceeds at all levels of the universe with varying success. The victory of the spirit leads to "global flourishing". Thus, the art of the 1920s, aimed at the widest consumer, aims to awaken and educate a personality “beautiful and valiant”, chic and active, alive in a newly urbanized landscape.

13. Features of the cultural development of the 30s

The features of the cultural development of the 30s were largely due to a change in the economic and political situation, where both the undoubted achievements of Soviet Russia and negative aspects, such as the famine of 1932-33, the consequences of collectivization and industrialization, the growing cult of the leader, and the foreboding of the Second World War, become significant. . In such circumstances, culture turns out to be the most powerful and effective means of adapting the individual to the rapidly changing conditions of his existence, which predetermines both the restructuring of the hierarchy and its functions. Now culture (especially art) is beginning to actively help the state to implement an adaptive information strategy aimed at forming in the minds of citizens an informational picture that corresponds to the leading ideological guidelines and provides its moral legitimation. The leading functions of culture are suggestive (suggestion) and compensatory. Naturally, the art of that time appeared in mass accessible forms.

The beginning of the 1930s was marked by a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Belarus dated April 23, 1932 "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations", which ended the period of relative autonomy of art from ideology. In 1932, at the first congress of writers, an aesthetic doctrine was adopted, a new artistic method, called "Socialist Realism". Now the requirements for art are legally reduced to such qualities as ideology, activity, realism, nationality. The main concept of art becomes positive, an optimistic attitude, orientation towards creation, affirmation of the values ​​of the Soviet system, where the optimism of the work is explained by the supremacy of a super-personal goal, due to the historical inevitability of the triumph of state ideology and morality in the bright future. The period from the 1950s to the 1980s is considered by researchers as the established culture of a totalitarian society. In the post-war period, the main task was to restore and build up the cultural potential. The system, Soviet science, is developing. 1961 - Gagarin's flight into space. Meanwhile, the successes of the Soviet state were due to totalitarianism. (totus - whole, aggregate). The main force on which lumpenism (rag, rags) relies is cities and villages, which are characterized by amorphousness, disorientation and xenophobia due to the presence of other social values.

Period from 50-80 years. Domestic culture is considered by researchers as the established culture of a totalitarian society in the post-war period, the main task of Soviet Russia was the restoration, and building up the cultural potential of the developing system, Soviet science. 1961 Gagarin flew into space.

Meanwhile, the significant successes of the Soviet state were partly due to totalitarianism (from Lat. Totus - the whole aggregate). The main social the force on which he relies is the lumpenism (rag, rags) of cities and villages, characterized by social amorphism, disorientation and xenophobia (intolerance to everything alien) to other social strata due to the presence of certain values ​​and goals. In the field of cultural politics in the post-war period, as before, there was Lenin's idea of ​​the functioning of culture as a servant of politics. And marked by such a feature as the thrust of uncritical consciousness, hedonism. (teaching based on the enjoyment of the world).

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"Culturology" literally means "the study of culture". In its most general form, cultural studies as an independent science is designed to answer three main questions: what is culture? How is culture organized? How does culture develop?

So, cultural studies is a branch of socio-humanitarian knowledge, the subject of which is culture as a special and integral system of human life and activity, the laws of its occurrence, development and comprehension.

The place of cultural studies in the system of other sciences

If we define culture as everything that is created by man and humanity, then it will immediately become clear why determining the status of cultural studies causes such difficulties. After all, then it turns out that in the world in which we live, there is only the world of culture, which exists by the will of man, and the world of nature, which arose objectively, without the participation of people. Accordingly, all modern sciences are divided into two groups - natural sciences(natural science) and sciences about the world of culture- social and human sciences. In addition, there is a philosophy that formulates general approaches to the study of the world, and also analyzes the place of man in it and his relationship with nature, other people and himself.

In other words, all the social and human sciences are ultimately the sciences of culture - knowledge about the types, forms and results of human activity. And then questions arise, where is the place of cultural studies among these sciences and what should it study.

Culturology arose at the intersection of history, philosophy, sociology, ethnology, anthropology, social psychology, art history, etc. Thus, culturology is a complex socio-humanitarian science. The emergence of cultural studies reflects the general trend of the movement of modern scientific knowledge towards interdisciplinary synthesis in order to obtain holistic ideas about a person and his culture. The development of scientific knowledge has also led to the synthesis of cultural sciences within the framework of cultural studies, the formation of an interconnected set of scientific ideas about culture as an integral system. At the same time, each of the sciences with which cultural studies is in contact deepens the understanding of culture, supplementing it with its own research and knowledge.

Cultural studies and philosophy. Culturology is inextricably linked with the philosophy of culture. Philosophy performs a methodological role in relation to cultural studies, it determines the general cognitive guidelines for cultural studies. It poses a number of problems for cultural studies that are significant for human life, for example: about the meaning of culture, about the conditions for its existence, about the structure of culture, the reasons for its changes. Culturology, in turn, considers culture in its specific forms. Here the emphasis is on explaining the various forms of culture with the help of theories of the middle level, based on anthropological and historical materials. With this approach, culturology allows you to see a holistic picture of the human world in all the diversity and diversity of the processes taking place in it.

Cultural studies and history are closely interconnected. History studies human society in its specific forms and conditions of existence. These forms and conditions do not remain unchanged once and for all; uniform and universal for all mankind. They are constantly changing, and history studies society in terms of these changes. Therefore, it singles out the historical types of cultures, compares them with each other, and reveals the general cultural patterns of the historical process. Historical data make it possible to describe and explain the specific historical features of the change and development of culture.

A generalized view of the history of mankind made it possible to formulate the principle of historicism, according to which culture is viewed not as a frozen and unchanging entity, but as a dynamic system of cultures that are in motion and replace each other. Hence, the historical process appears as a set of specific forms of culture. Each of them is determined by ethnic, religious and historical factors and therefore represents a relatively independent whole. Each culture has its own original history, due to a complex of peculiar conditions for its existence.

Culturology, in turn, studies the general laws of culture and reveals its typological features, develops a system of its own categories. In this context, historical data help to build a theory of the emergence of culture, to reveal the laws of its historical formation, movement and development. To do this, cultural studies studies the historical diversity of the facts of the culture of the past and present, which allows it to understand and explain modern culture.

Cultural studies and sociology. Among scientists of various directions, there is no objection to the assertion that culture is a product of human social life and outside of society it is impossible. Thus, culture is a social phenomenon that develops according to its own laws. And in this sense, culture is the subject of study of sociology. Sociology studies, for example, the peculiarities of attitudes towards culture of various strata of society, various models of human behavior in society, various types of interpersonal relationships, or, in other words, culture in the context of social processes, the latter being considered as a significant factor in cultural changes that affect not only the quantitative parameters of culture but also its content.

Culturology and cultural anthropology. Cultural anthropology deals with the study of man as a subject of culture. It gives a description of the life of various societies at different stages of development, their way of life, mores, customs, and so on. Anthropologists study specific cultural values, forms of cultural interrelations, mechanisms for the transmission of cultural skills from person to person. We can say that cultural anthropology is engaged in the study of ethnic cultures, carefully describing their cultural phenomena, systematizing and comparing them. In fact, it explores a person in terms of expressing his inner world in the facts of cultural activity. This is important for cultural studies, because it allows us to understand what is behind the facts of culture, what needs are expressed by its specific historical, social or personal forms.

Thus, the relationship of cultural studies with other sciences is of a dual nature. On the one hand, each science studies its subject and generalizes the knowledge gained at three levels. The highest level is traditionally considered the philosophy of a given field of knowledge or field of activity - the philosophy of history, the philosophy of economics, the philosophy of art ... At this level, as a rule, the tasks of the most general understanding of the subject of knowledge are solved, its essence, place in the system of the universe and in the worldview of man are revealed . The lowest (first, or empirical) level of knowledge is associated with finding facts and their primary systematization and classification. The empirical level of knowledge allows us to see the facts of interest to us in their specific historical uniqueness. Between these two levels of study lie the theories of the middle level, which make it possible to analyze stably repetitive, ordered sequences of phenomena of human existence that have a systemic character.

That's what it is cultural aspect of the study, existing in any field of knowledge about a person and his activities. At this level, model conceptual constructions are created that describe not how this area of ​​life functions in general and what its boundaries are, but how it adapts to changing conditions, how it reproduces itself, what are the causes and mechanisms of its orderliness. Within the framework of each science, it is possible to single out the field of research into the mechanisms and methods of organization, regulation and communication of people in the relevant areas of their life. This is what is commonly called “economic, political, religious, linguistic, etc. culture." Hence, in any area of ​​social and humanitarian knowledge, a culturological approach can take place, creating such areas of research as “culturology of economics”, “culturology of politics”, “culturology of religion”, “culturology of art”, etc.

At the same time, culturology is also an independent field of knowledge. In this aspect, it can be considered both as a separate group of sciences and as a separate, independent science, or, in other words, in a narrow and broad sense. Depending on this, the subject of cultural studies and its structure are determined.

The subject of cultural studies

We draw knowledge about culture from many sources. In everyday life, many objects and phenomena of culture seem obvious, familiar and understandable to the individual. But this does not mean that every person comprehends the full depth of any cultural phenomenon and can correctly judge their role, meaning, value. Remaining within the framework of everyday consciousness, a person most often perceives the objects and phenomena surrounding him superficially, not always clearly realizing their essence. Real knowledge, reasoned judgments are possible only when each cultural phenomenon is considered in its entirety, when the causes, sources, trends of change, and possible results of its functioning are identified. Cultural studies are called upon to study these questions.

It means that the subject of cultural studies is a set of questions of the origin, functioning and development of culture as a specifically human way of life, different from the world of wildlife. It is designed to study the most general patterns of development of culture, the forms of its manifestation in all types of civilization known to mankind.

The main tasks of cultural studies are:

Deep, complete and holistic explanation of culture, its essence, content, features and functions;

The study of the genesis (origin and development) of culture as a whole, as well as individual phenomena and processes in culture;

Determining the place and role of man in cultural processes;

Interaction with other sciences that study culture;

The study of information about culture that came from art, philosophy, religion and other areas related to non-scientific knowledge of culture;

Study of the development of individual cultures.

The purpose of cultural studies becomes such a study of culture, on the basis of which its understanding is formed. To do this, it is necessary to identify and analyze:

The facts of culture, which together constitute a system of cultural phenomena;

Links between elements of culture;

Dynamics of cultural systems;

Ways of production and assimilation of cultural phenomena;

Types of cultures and underlying norms, values ​​and symbols
(cultural codes);

Cultural codes and communications between them.

The structure of cultural studies

Culturology stood out from the philosophy of culture in the same way as physics had previously, biology from the philosophy of nature, and sociology and political science from social philosophy. The corresponding branch of scientific knowledge traditionally “spawns” from philosophy when a sufficient empirical basis appears for this. Culturological knowledge, like any scientific knowledge, occurs at two levels: empirical and theoretical. At the empirical level, they generalize and preliminarily systematize knowledge about a particular cultural phenomenon. On the theoretical level, they form theories, concepts and laws. Since the subject of cultural studies is still not completely defined, at present this science is predominantly at the empirical level.

In addition, in accordance with the tasks of cultural science, the entire body of knowledge obtained within its framework is divided into two types - fundamental and applied knowledge. Fundamental culturology is designed to identify the general patterns of development of culture and, on their basis, to study the socio-cultural processes taking place in a particular society. Applied culturology is designed to develop a methodology for purposeful forecasting and management of socio-cultural processes in line with the social and cultural policy of a state.

The study of such problems as the genesis of culture, the typology of culture, the methodology for studying culture, the relationship of culture with other social phenomena, the logic and philosophy of culture, belongs to the fundamental, and the study of the specific manifestations of culture, its forms - to applied knowledge. Knowledge about the types and forms of art, physical and spiritual culture, and other areas of culture are also of an applied nature.

Fundamental cultural studies includes several main areas:

-social cultural studies studies those processes and phenomena that are generated by people in the course of their joint life activity. At the same time, a person is considered not as a person with individual unique features, but as a conditional functional subject of cultural processes;

-psychology of culture(psychological anthropology) pays attention mainly to a person - a bearer of a particular culture. The main focus is on the study of the norms and values ​​that underlie any culture, as well as the processes in which a person learns these norms and values;

- cultural semantics studies cultural phenomena as texts - a system of information carriers with the help of which all socially significant information is encoded, stored and transmitted. At the same time, texts can be expressed not only verbally (using words), but also non-verbally, as well as using symbols, in any products of human activity. The main attention is drawn to the processes of communication between people;

- history of cultural studies examines the history and mechanism of the emergence and development of certain concepts and theories of culture. The significance of the history of cultural studies for cultural science is as great as the significance of the history of philosophy for philosophy. These areas of knowledge constitute a significant array of cultural and philosophical knowledge proper, and their modern theoretical constructs
based on the results of the thinking of predecessors. Story
cultural studies can be considered not only as an independent
branch of science, but also as part of social, psychological anthropology
and cultural semantics (we will talk about it in detail below).

The remaining parts of fundamental cultural studies are a system of objects under study that are in a hierarchy among themselves - from the study of the most general theoretical patterns of cultural processes to the study of individual phenomena and events.

The solution of applied problems is traditionally dealt with by the so-called cultural institutions: state institutions of a political, ideological and legislative profile, various public organizations (political parties, trade unions), educational, educational and educational institutions, the media, publishing houses, advertising and tourism structures, the entire system of physical culture and professional sports. All these cultural institutions set normative patterns and are called upon to regulate people's value orientations.

The most important task in this case is the development of a common cultural policy of the state and society. To do this, it is necessary to develop the value orientations of society, social norms of interaction between people, formulate specific goals for each cultural institution. The result is the adopted national and religious policy of the state, the key moments of the national-state ideology.

The purpose of cultural policy is to systematize and regulate the processes of inculturation and socialization of people. This goal is achieved through education, enlightenment, leisure, scientific, religious, creative, publishing and other state and public institutions. The number of cultural institutions is quite large, and all of them can be divided into several main groups:

1) institutions involved in direct work with the population, among them are:

Educational institutions - libraries, museums, lecture halls, etc.;

Institutes of aesthetic education - art museums and exhibitions, concerts, film distribution, organization of entertainment events;

Leisure institutions - clubs, palaces of culture, children's leisure institutions, amateur art;

2) creative institutions - theaters, studios, orchestras, ensembles, film crews, other artistic groups and creative unions;

3) cultural protection institutions - organizations and institutions for the protection of monuments, restoration workshops.

So, the structure of cultural studies is quite complex and has not yet been fully formed. However, most of the cultural knowledge fits into the above classification and will be discussed in more detail in subsequent topics and sections of this manual.

Cultural methods

Any science presupposes the presence of its organizing principle, which is usually research tools, or a method of cognition, i.e. a set of methods of theoretical development of reality. The content of knowledge largely depends on the correctly chosen research method.

It should be noted that in science there is no single universal method suitable for solving any problems. Each of the general scientific methods has both advantages and disadvantages and can only solve the scientific problems corresponding to it. Hence the choice of the correct method is one of the important tasks of any science.

Unlike private scientific disciplines, cultural studies aims to understand both the individual areas that make up culture and comprehend the essence of culture as a whole. The solution of such problems involves the use of a variety of general scientific methods of cognition - observation, experiment, analogy, modeling, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, hypotheses, text analysis.

But along with the methods used by any sciences, there are actually culturological research methods and approaches. These methods of cognition can be classified into several main types.

1. Genetic- allows us to understand the phenomenon of interest to us from the point of view of its occurrence and development. In other words, this is the principle of scientific historicism, without which an objective analysis of culture is not possible. Its use allows making a diachronic cut of the studied object or process, i.e. trace its development from
extinction or death.

2. Comparative- requires a comparative historical analysis
different cultures or any specific areas of culture in a certain time interval. In this case, similar elements of different cultures are usually compared, which makes it possible to show their specificity. Comparative and genetic approaches are closely interrelated, often acting as a single method of learning about culture.

3. Systemic- proposes to consider culture as a universal property of society. Culture as a whole, as well as any cultural phenomenon, from the point of view of a systematic approach, are holistic formations, consisting of many interconnected elements and subsystems that are in a relationship of hierarchical subordination.
A systematic approach allows us to comprehend culture, showing it at the present time in the fullness of its connections and relationships. This method is focused on studying the end result of culture - material and spiritual values. In addition, analyzing culture as a holistic phenomenon, it allows you to compare it with other social phenomena, evaluate its role in the life of society.

4. Structural-functional- considers culture as a subsystem of an integral socio-cultural system, each element of which acts as a carrier of value relations and performs a service role in the overall system of regulation of social life. This allows you to isolate all the structural elements, all spheres of culture, to understand how they are interconnected with each other and the whole culture. In addition, it becomes possible to find out what role these phenomena play in culture, how they are related to the fulfillment of the main task of culture - to provide a specifically human way of life and
meet all human needs.

5. Sociological- studies culture and its phenomena as a social institution that gives society a systemic quality and allows us to consider culture from the point of view of the specific expediency of certain social strata or social groups. With this approach, any cultural phenomenon is evaluated from the point of view of its belonging to a particular social group and its ability to express its interests.

6. activity- understands culture as a specific way of creative human activity, which is realized in the creation of various cultural objects and in the development of the person himself. Within the framework of this approach, the processes of the spiritual progress of society, the self-development of a person as a subject of the cultural and historical process, the mechanisms for the preservation and reproduction of culture are studied.

7. Axiological (value)- lies in the allocation of that sphere of human life, which can be called the world of values, understood as the ideals that this society strives to achieve. In this case, culture acts as a set
material and spiritual values, a complex hierarchy of ideals, meanings that have a corresponding value for a particular society. With this approach, all the studied phenomena are correlated with a person, his needs and interests. According to the value approach, culture is nothing but the realization of a person's goals that are important for his life.

8. Semiotic- proceeds from the understanding of culture as a non-biological sign mechanism for the transfer of experience from generation to generation, as a symbolic system that ensures social inheritance. At the same time, any phenomenon of culture, both material and spiritual, is understood as an ordered set of signs and symbols that have a certain content - a text that should be
read by the researcher.

9. hermeneutical- is characteristic of most of the humanities, since it reflects the need not so much for knowledge about a phenomenon as for understanding it, since knowledge and understanding are different from each other. Only an understanding of certain cultural phenomena allows one to penetrate into the essence of the ongoing processes. Initially, hermeneutics was associated with the skills of interpreting complex, ambiguous texts, now this method is extended to the study of any cultural phenomena.

10. biospheric- characterized by a global understanding of the problems of culture. He considers our planet as a single all-encompassing system, of which man and human society are an integral part. With this consideration, culture appears as a natural result of the development of nature, it becomes possible to analyze culture from the point of view of the role that it plays on our planet and, possibly, in the Universe.

11.Educational (humanitarian)- is based on the idea of ​​culture as an independent sphere of spiritual activity, which is of decisive importance for society. Acting as a manifestation of human essence, culture covers all aspects
human life, appears as a process of creation by a person of his human qualities. Culture is considered as the spiritual wealth of society and the inner wealth of a person, based on his constant striving for truth, goodness and beauty. Through culture, a person overcomes his natural limitations and the one-time nature of his existence, realizes his unity with nature, society, other people, with the past and future.

Similar information.

Lecture 6. Culturology as a science of culture

1. Culture as a subject of cultural studies

Word culture comes from the Latin cultura: "to inhabit, cultivate, worship" (the latter is reflected in the concept of cultus - "religious cult").

In all early usages, the word "culture" meant the cultivation or rearing of animals and plants. Over time, the original meaning, essentially agricultural, underwent decisive changes and began to be used to characterize the processes of development and improvement of both the individual and society.

V. Dahl gives the following definition concepts of culture:culture- processing and care, cultivation and cultivation, education, mental and moral.

An important turn in the interpretation of the word "culture" occurred in the 18th century. The German philosopher I. Gerber (1744–1803) in his book “Ideas for the Philosophical History of Mankind” proposed to understand culture as a kind of set of certain unique achievements in the history of civilizations, as a result of which it became possible to talk about the culture of Ancient Egypt, the Middle Ages, etc. .

In modern European languages, four main meanings of the word "culture" can be distinguished:

1) an abstract designation of the general process of the intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development of the individual;

2) designation of the state of society based on the rule of law and moral principles. In this sense, the word "culture" coincides with the concept of "civilization";

3) indicates the features of the mode of existence or lifestyle characteristic of any society, group of people, some historical period;

4) designation of forms and products of intellectual and, above all, artistic activity.

In domestic cultural studies, two approaches to the study of culture dominate. One of them considers culture as a set of material and spiritual values ​​created by man. it axiological interpretation culture (from the Greek axios - "value").

Here, culture appears as a certain result that precedes human activity, representing a hierarchy of semantic formations that are significant for a particular society and individual.

Another direction focuses on the activity interpretation of culture, which is also called praxeological(from the Greek praxis - “deed, action”).

Here, culture is understood as a set of extra-natural mechanisms, thanks to which the process is stimulated and the activity of people in society is realized. Both of these definitions come from the druid-mental opposition for the whole culturologist "nature - culture".

If in the public consciousness culture acts as a collective image that unites religion, science, art, etc., then culturology uses the concept of culture, which reveals the universal relationship of a person to the world, through which a person is aware of the world and himself.

The universal relation of man to the world, which characterizes culture, is determined by meaning.

Meaning serves as an intermediary between a person and the world, and the world of culture in which we live is, first of all, the world of meanings. These meanings can be rational and irrational, conscious or unconscious, but if the meaning is generally valid, then it is related to culture. It is through meaning that one can define culture as a subject of cultural studies.

culture- this is a universal way of creative self-realization of a person through the positing of meaning, the desire to reveal and approve the meaning of human life in its correlation with the meaning of everything that exists.

culture appears before a person as a semantic world, which, being passed down from generation to generation, determines the way of being and the worldview of people.

2. Formation of the concept of "culture" and its philosophical understanding

The concept of "culture" is one of the fundamental concepts in the language of Western civilization. Concepts of this kind are always difficult to define, because a particular concept, as a rule, is defined through a more general one. In addition, the definition involves the selection of a number of features that characterize this concept.

When we come across basic concepts, which in themselves are extremely general and are characterized by a huge variety of different features, they have to be defined in a different way. In such a situation, it is important to trace the history of such a concept, to identify the terms correlating with it and supplementing it, to describe the field of phenomena that it designates.

The concept of "culture" comes from the Latin language. Initially, the word "cultyra" meant "cultivation, care, cultivation of the land, agriculture." It was also close in meaning and origin to the method of "cult" (cultus). Both of them point to the worship of the gods, religion. Starting from the 1st c. BC e. the word "culture" began to mean the upbringing of a person, the development of his soul, education.

For the first time such use of the term "culture" is found in the writings of the great Roman orator and philosopher Cicero. Knowing perfectly the ancient Greek language, he brought the meaning of the Latin word "culture" closer to the meaning of the Greek concept "paydeya". The Greeks saw in "paideia" (good manners, education) their main difference from the barbarians.

Thus, culture (education) through opposition turned out to be connected with the concepts of barbarism, savagery, ignorance.

Another concept, which even in ancient philosophy was both opposed and complementary to the word "culture", was the concept of "nature", "nature" (from Latin natyra - "nature"). Nature opposed culture as a world of naturalness, and not artificiality, innate instincts, and not laws and moral norms established by the human mind.

In the III-V centuries. n. e., in the era of the late Roman Empire, the concept of "culture" came close in meaning to the word "civitas"(civitas), by which the Romans denoted a society of citizens, a state living according to just laws, an urban lifestyle that was opposed to rural savagery and ignorance.

These meanings, the main of which were “education”, “education”, were assigned to the word “culture” for a very long time.

The Middle Ages (V-XVII centuries AD) and the Renaissance (XIV-XVI centuries AD) introduced little new into the development of this concept. However, it should be noted that during the Renaissance, "culture" became more associated with signs of personal perfection, with conformity to the humanistic ideal of man, based on samples of the ancient era.

In the Age of Enlightenment (XVIII - early XIX centuries AD), the word "culture" finally came into use as a philosophical concept. During this period, it was used together with a similar term "civilization".

The Enlightenment believed that the civilization, or culture, of European nations lies in the desire to organize their lives on a reasonable basis, and civilization is manifested in the achievements of Europeans in the field of crafts, sciences and arts. This was opposed by the savagery and barbarism of the ancient and non-European peoples.

Representatives of the late Enlightenment, the German philosophers I. Herder and G. Hegel, developed the concept of the historical development of culture, its progress. They considered culture as the spiritual evolution of mankind, the gradual improvement of language, customs, government, scientific knowledge, art, religion.

The ideas of progress, evolutionary development became dominant in the worldview of the people of the 19th century, who began to see the progress of culture as an endless process of constant and ever-increasing improvement. And only in the twentieth century. the futility of these hopes became clear.

Thus, the philosophical concept of “culture” captures the general difference between a person, his life activity, the world of artificial things and phenomena created by man, and natural phenomena. Culture is what man has created, nature is what exists independently of him. Concepts "culture" and "nature" are correlative, that is, they complement each other and are defined through difference from each other.

One of the most difficult tasks is to draw the line between natural and cultural phenomena. And, perhaps, nowhere is this boundary so unclear and indefinite as in man himself.

3. The concept of "culture" in the languages ​​of various sciences and in the spoken language

In the modern sense, the origin of the concept "culture" associated with the areas of pedagogy (culture as education, upbringing) and philosophy (culture as an artificial, man-made world that differs from the natural world, nature). In addition, this concept has long been used not only in these areas, but also in colloquial speech and dictionaries of various sciences. This is most characteristic, first of all, for European languages, including Russian, since all of them, to one degree or another, were influenced by the ancient tradition. It is also important that the Latin language is the basis of international scientific and philosophical terminology, and the word "culture" (in various forms) is borrowed from Latin by languages ​​that are widespread throughout the world: French, English, Spanish, etc.

The spoken language used in everyday communication is characterized by an insufficiently clear definition of the meanings of the concept. This is the main difference between this type of language and the language of science, which seeks to most accurately and unambiguously form the meaning of its terms, while in colloquial speech and in the literary language based on it, the meaning of a word is rather associated with some signs, qualities.

The concept of "culture" in the Russian language (in its colloquial, literary and journalistic versions) is associated with such qualities as education, upbringing, morality.

Often the word "culture" refers to certain areas of human activity - art, science, education, religion, philosophy, as well as the interest in them of any person. This understanding of the word “culture” is close in meaning to the characteristic phrases “cultured person” (a well-mannered, educated and polite person, following moral standards, interested in literature, theater, cinema, music, etc.), “cultural figure” (most often a person of art, a teacher, a scientist, a philosopher, a priest), “cultural institutions” (theaters, philharmonic societies, libraries, educational institutions, etc.), “cultural events” (performances, concerts, lectures, film screenings, etc.).

In addition to colloquial speech and literary and journalistic use, the word "culture" is widely used as a scientific term.

Most often, this term is used in the humanities (philosophy, history, philology, etc.). However, in some situations the word "culture" is applied to physics, astronomy or mathematics.

One can speak, for example, of a "high culture of scientific research", "culture of experiment", meaning by "culture" a high degree of perfection of experiment, research.

In agronomy, “culture” refers to a variety of a plant grown by a person, combinations of “cultivated plants”, “cereal crops”, etc. are used. This is due to the original Latin meaning of the word cyltura - “agriculture”, “tillage”.

Let us consider as examples the use of the term "culture" in some humanities.

AT ethnography- a science that deals with the comparative study of the cultures of various peoples, for example, the tribes of Africa, America, Australia, Oceania, Siberia, etc., the concept of "culture" is used in an extremely broad sense. The culture of a tribe is a system of customs, norms of behavior, methods of communication (language, gestures, facial expressions), kinship relations, social relations, labor skills, religious beliefs and rituals that are characteristic of it. Some ethnographers believe that culture should be understood only as the results of human activity, things or phenomena created by him.

AT sociology- the science of society - the concept of "culture" is used in a variety of meanings. As a rule, "culture" for a sociologist is certain social institutions, organizations of artists, etc.

“Culture” may refer to socially significant activities such as science, art, religion, education, and sometimes sports.

In some cases, "culture" refers to the norms and ideas that help manage society and mitigate conflicts between social groups (religious precepts, moral precepts, legal norms, customs, etc.).

The specific meaning is given to the term "culture" in archeology- a science that studies the remains of the life of people of the past.

In this context, “culture” is the totality of archaeological finds made in some area and attributed to any particular historical period, attributed to some kind of people (Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons) or tribe.

All the remains of human activity form what archaeologists call the "cultural layer". Often, but not always, an archaeological culture gets its name from the modern settlement, next to which a historical burial place was discovered.

AT art history(science that studies the art of the past and present) there are different trends in the interpretation of the concept of "culture".

On the one hand, some art historians tend to equate culture and art, to understand by "culture" primarily art in all its diversity.

On the other hand, "culture" in art studies often forms a kind of environment surrounding any phenomenon of art, a direction in art, the personality of the author.

Finally, in philology, or linguistics(the science of language), there is a section called "culture of speech". He studies the norms of oral and written literary language.

Possession of these rules puts a person on a certain level of "linguistic culture".

Thus, the concept of "culture" is widely used both in colloquial and literary, and in the scientific version of the language.