Civilization is the end of any culture. Can civilization kill culture? The term "civilization" is used in various senses.

Our civilization has risen to the heights of intellectual and technological progress. We create new super technologies every day, and the flow of information in the world is increasing exponentially. Probably, human life on planet Earth is now very comfortable and successful?! The person is satisfied and happy?!… Or do you still have some kind of “BUT”? Suddenly it turned out that our civilization had risen [...]

Our civilization has risen to the heights of intellectual and technological progress. We create new super technologies every day, and the flow of information in the world is increasing exponentially.

Probably, human life on planet Earth is now very comfortable and successful?! The person is satisfied and happy?!… Or do you still have some kind of “BUT”?

It suddenly turned out that our civilization had ascended not to the pinnacle of progress, but to a blind alley of its development! Now, when there is war and all sorts of crises in the country, there is not a single person left who has not been touched by doubts about the reasonableness of our civilization. Now all the illusions of the world are crumbling before our eyes: confidence in the financial and economic system; in political alliances and associations; international agreements, as well as in political parties and their leaders.

We are a civilization that has discarded everything that cannot be sold or bought; forgetting and ignoring everything that does not bring us profit. Civilization - put money and power at the head of its existence. We are a civilization that has ascended to the pinnacle of arrogance, vanity and self-interest, which has led us to the bottom of immorality and hopelessness. And the economic and political crisis that is happening in Ukraine is only a consequence of the general cultural and moral impasse.
Why do we associate the decline of culture with various crises?

Let's figure it out. What is CULTURE and what is CIVILIZATION? Recently, these two concepts are often confused, although the sources of Culture and Civilization are completely different.

"Where there is culture, there is peace"
N.K. RERICH

CULTURE - often using this word, we do not think about its philosophical essence.

“Culture,” wrote N.K. Roerich in one of his essays - is the deepest pillar of life, fastened with the highest silver threads with the development of the entire universe.

Culture is the spiritual essence of society, its deep and secret essence, its inner content. This is the basis on which the life of each individual in society, and the state as a whole, stands and develops. This is the incorruptible wealth of mankind. Culture - the aspiration of the whole society to the knowledge and expression of higher Ideas and Ideals. Culture is an energy phenomenon of the human spirit, which is of the highest cosmic nature. It arises together with man, and is a self-organizing system of the human spirit, in the space of which the Cosmos realizes its creativity. Such a system lives and develops according to the Great Laws of the Cosmos.

Culture is the most important basis for the evolution of the Universe! Without this foundation, the very evolution of mankind would never have been possible.

Now let's look at what is CIVILIZATION?

Civilization is the arrangement of human life, first of all, with the matter of this life, with the intellect of the person himself and the skills he has acquired. Civilization arises in a specific time and space, comes by its nature and is subject to dying and oblivion.

How are culture and civilization related? Can civilization exist separately from culture, and culture apart from civilization? Let's turn to history, to science, designed to be a teaching aid for all mankind.

There were such Civilizations that saw the development of culture as their basis, and thus reached amazing spiritual and moral heights. We still admire and marvel at their beauty and virtues, and their accomplishments seem unattainable for us even today. Such civilizations were stable and indestructible under any gusts of external attacks and internal difficulties. As history shows, only those civilizations based on culture were able to withstand external aggression and internal turmoil. Why? Because the strength of the human spirit, capable of performing feats of creation, is nourished not by physical food, but by striving for the highest Ideals.

“The ideal is a celestial model that appeals to its earthly shadow” Jorge Livraga (philosopher, writer, public figure).

Let's look at examples of such strong and beautiful civilizations.

N. Roerich "Guru - Guri - Dhar"

Ancient Egypt - existed for several millennia! At one time, he was captured by the Hittites and Persians, and for 300 years he was under their yoke, but he was able to achieve liberation, and again rise in his greatness, in a very short time. What allowed Egypt to resurrect? Why was he not assimilated by the invaders? What made the civilization of Egypt capable of such a long existence and such a revival? We, unfortunately, without discovering the depth and height of this civilization, continue to wander in the dead ends of our proud unreason, and teach our children that Egypt was a slave state. Realize that the slaves could not return to their country the Freedom and Greatness of Creation!

Ancient Greece was never a state, i.e. never had a single common state system, which is now defined by us as state self-determination. What allowed this incredible community of people to be together for 600 years and give birth to such a wonderful height of art and philosophy? To this day, "all modern philosophy is but an interpretation of Socrates." On what did this community of peoples, which we now call Ancient Greece, rest? Proved: on a common high culture, morality and philosophy!!!

Another striking example of a state that emerged from a severe crisis thanks to cultural enlightenment is the Czech Republic of the 14th century, during the reign of King Charles 4. The first thing he did when he ascended the throne was to establish a center of educational activities in his country - Prague University. The purpose of creating this educational institution was to educate a new color of the nation, thanks to which later Culture and Morality spread throughout the empire. And today we go to Prague, admiring its fabulous beauty at the same time, without plunging into its cultural, deep heritage, we grab only external attributes. And making our little wishes on the mystical bridge of the Renaissance, we are completely unaware of its true meaning.

Analyzing all this, let's remember: was humanity before in such a total impasse of reason as it is today? Yes it was! In dark medieval Europe, the peoples vegetated in complete ignorance and in desperate suffering of soul and body. In those days, any common sense, any spark of hope, sometimes given by geniuses and heroes to the people, was immediately destroyed by the Inquisition with inhuman cruelty. How did Europe get out of this impasse?

In Florence, in the very center of Europe at that time, the torch of Culture and Humanism, Morality and Freedom of the Spirit flared up. History called this torch - the Renaissance! And now, we enjoy the great works of art of that time. We admire the beauty and sophistication of the style of their Creators, and, unfortunately, we do not again open the essence of the process that took place inside each of the Titans of that era. We do not ask ourselves: how could they create that Ideal of Art and Life, which today we cannot approach, regardless of the entire “height” of our technologies? How, in such a difficult situation, they were reborn and were able to carry Europe on their shoulders to the Light, to high creativity, to the ideas of philanthropy and freethinking, and to the enlightenment of the mind? Thanks to what they dared to bring to people the idea of ​​reviving the ability of man to Create a Wonderful World! To create as a Miracle of the Universe, created in the image and likeness of the Creator himself. What happened to these great people? What did they revive?

N. Roerich "Madonna Protector"

Culture!!! There was a revival of the philosophy of humanism, and as a result - the revival of the Human Spirit!

And the relay race of culture began throughout Europe: from Genius to Genius, from Hero to Hero. In every country, from time to time, they began to flare up and burn brightly, lighting the way for other people, Human Heroic Lives, in the name of Truth, in the name of Freedom, in the name of Beauty. And all of Europe blossomed with the Age of Enlightenment.

So it turns out that the entire world history of mankind testifies that those civilizations and countries that remember and revive the memory of CULTURE will be able to find the strength in themselves to get out of various crises and dead ends.

How does this ancient story relate to us - a civilization so technically advanced that the inhabitants of medieval Europe, each of us would be considered a great sage or magician?

In his reflections “On the pact of culture of N.V. Roerich”, this is also confirmed by the famous academician L.V. SHAPOSHNIKOVA: “Where Culture was born, it can no longer be killed there. You can kill civilization. But Culture as a true spiritual value is immortal. /N.K. Roerich /". Since ancient times, Culture and civilization have been one whole. However, we must remember that Culture is the basis of civilization. Culture is primary, civilization is secondary, but their interaction is extremely important for the person himself. If there is no such foundation as Culture, then a soulless civilization arises, which we are witnessing in our
XXI Century. People forget that no matter how sophisticated and materially secure a civilization may be, it is not able to create that inner, spiritual person, on which the Cosmic evolution rests. Consigning Culture to oblivion as such, assigning it a secondary place in the system of social values, and often reducing it to pseudo-values ​​of mass culture, many do not understand one circumstance - any crisis in the country - economic, social, political, scientific, etc. there is, first of all, the crisis of the Culture itself and its bearer – the spirit, the man”.

When civilizations abandoned culture and based their existence on luxury, power, voluptuousness and greed, they disappeared!!! Civilizations that are not able to create and develop culture are degrading, and therefore not necessary for the general evolutionary wave in the Universe. Always the end of civilizations is the end of the morality and nobility of Man.

What is our culture today? Where are our Ideals? What is the aspiration of our civilization, our country?

The destruction of Culture and the neglect of Culture in the 20th century turned into a process on a planetary scale. Few countries manage to avoid it. Our country is even less fortunate. The totalitarian regime, which dominated its territory for more than seventy years, destroyed and distorted the foundations of the spiritual Culture of our people. And in the conditions of a wild market and the utter immorality of people who have power and means; with the indifference of the people to culture, Ukraine suffers great disasters. Now we see in full measure the result of our upbringing and our general culture. Our children, who did not find themselves in creation, found themselves in destruction. Having lost cultural and spiritual values ​​in oneself, it is impossible to raise one's child on the highest ideals of sacrificing one's selfish interests and selfish aspirations for the sake of achieving the common highest good. We have not raised a new philosopher leader like Marcus Aurelius or the great renaissance patron Lorenzo the Magnificent. They did not bring up poets and philosophers like Homer, Socrates and Plato. They did not create a feat of the human spirit worthy of Giordano Bruno. We have only one way out: to start the era of the Renaissance of culture; start educating a new person; start with yourself.

Make 2015 the year of cultural revival in your own life, in your family, in your city, in your country!

And then the Dream and Hope of each of us for unity and peace in our country will come true. And each of us will be able to see the truth of the words of the great guardian of culture, Nicholas Roerich, “Where there is culture, there is peace…”

Sincerely, Elena KOLTUNOVICH

[email protected] website

More articles in this section

The concepts of culture and civilization are closely related, which allows researchers in some cases to use them as synonyms.

Both culture and civilization are value concepts. Any civilization (as well as culture) is a set of values ​​inherent in it.

However, these concepts also have semantic differences laid down in antiquity. Thus, the term "culture", which is of Greek origin, originally meant cultivation, cultivation (soil, plants), and later was extended to the field of upbringing and education. The term "civilization" is of Latin origin and indicates civil, state characteristics ("civilis" means "civil", "state").

The concept of civilization is one of the most key concepts of modern social science and the humanities. This concept is very multifaceted and today its understanding is incomplete. In everyday life, the term civilization is used as an equivalent of the word cultural and is more often used as an adjective (civilized country, civilized people). The scientific understanding of civilization is associated with the specifics of the subject of study, that is, it directly depends on the field of science that reveals this concept: aesthetics, philosophy, history, political science, cultural studies. Depending on the specifics of research in civilization, they see:

Cultural-historical type (Danilevsky, Toynbee),

Change of cultural paradigm, manifested through form and style (Spengler),

Interdependence of mentality and economic structure (Weber),

The logic of aesthetic development (Braudel).

Stages of formation of the relationship between civilization and culture:

1. Primitive communal society - the Middle Ages. Culture and civilization are not divorced, culture is seen as a person following the cosmic orderliness of the world, and not as a result of his creation.

2. Revival. For the first time, culture was associated with the individual-personal creativity of a person, and civilization - with the historical process of civil society, but no discrepancies have yet arisen.

3. Enlightenment - new time. Culture is an individual-personal, at the same time a social-civil structure of society, the concepts overlapped each other. European enlighteners used the term "civilization" to refer to a civil society in which freedom, equality, education, enlightenment reign, that is, civilization was used to denote the cultural quality of societyÞ Morgan and Engels' understanding of civilization as a stage in the development of society following savagery and barbarism, that is the beginning of the divergence of concepts.

4. Modern times. Culture and civilization are divorced, it is no coincidence that already in Spengler's concept, culture and civilization act as antipodes.

The term "civilization" means a certain level of development of material and spiritual culture. This means that chronologically, culture and civilization do not always coincide. So, we can talk about primitive culture, but there is no primitive civilization. Only when mental labor begins to separate from physical labor do handicrafts arise, commodity production and exchange appear, and the transition from primitive culture to civilization occurs.

O. Spengler considered the stage of civilization to be the end of the development of any culture. This stage is characterized by a high level of development of science and technology, a decline in the field of literature and art, and the emergence of megacities. At this time, according to Spengler, the people are losing the “soul of culture”, there is a “massification” of all spheres of life and their necrosis, a desire for world domination is formed - the internal source of the death of culture.

In addition, there are a number of phenomena that stand outside of culture and are its antipodes. It is, first of all, wars. Violence and destruction are opposed to the content of culture, creative and humanistic. If civilization suppresses the individual, then culture creates the conditions for its flourishing. Anti-culture can nullify all the efforts of culture and sometimes leads to irreversible consequences. Civilization combines culture and lack of culture, values ​​and anti-values, gains and losses of the people.

Culture, therefore, is the basis, the “code” of civilization, but does not completely coincide with it. According to the well-known expression of M.M. Prishvin, culture is the connection of people, and civilization is the connection of things.

The term "civilization" is used in various senses:

as a historical stage in the development of mankind, following barbarism and characterized by the formation of classes and the state. This definition was used by Morgan and Engels;

as a characteristic of the integrity of all cultures, their universal unity ("world civilization", "to introduce things in a civilized way", etc.). We are talking about the most rational and humane way to reproduce the life and existence of man;

as a synonym for the term "material culture": that which gives convenience and comfort;

as a characteristic of the unity of the historical process. This concept serves as a criterion for comparing certain stages of history (“civilization”, “high level of civilization development”, “lowest stage of civilization development”).

To explain the diversity of civilizations, it is necessary to turn to the analysis of the system of norms regulating social relations, behavior and activities of people. Thus, civilizations differ in the degree of their technical and economic development, in the speed of economic and social processes, in the features of the dominant religious and worldview attitudes and the degree of their influence, as well as in the ways of encoding, storing and transmitting information,

“The reason for the genesis of civilization lies not in a single factor, but in a combination of several: it is not a single entity, but a relationship,” A. Toynbee emphasized.

Culture creates the conditions for the development of civilization, civilization creates the prerequisites for the cultural process, directs it. Many cultures are formed on the basis of the same civilization. Thus, European civilization includes English, French, German, Polish and other cultures.

Civilizations are the most important backbone of social life, creating universal forms of culture and social relations. They are considered by researchers as an external world in relation to a person, influencing him and opposing him, while culture is always an internal property of a person, a free spiritual and material activity in accordance with the norms of civilization.

A comparative analysis of the concepts of civilizations and cultures led to an important conclusion that not all phenomena of social life can be attributed to culture. If in the last century these concepts were used as synonyms and many philosophers were inclined to blame culture for all the misfortunes of mankind, then the breeding of the concepts of culture and civilization in the twentieth century helped to preserve the idea of ​​culture as a field of creation and free creativity of people. Not culture, but civilization with its wars, exploitation, environmental pollution and other anti-cultural phenomena destroys the spiritual world of man and threatens life on our planet.

The main cultural task of the end of the second millennium is to prohibit the attitude to a person as a thing, a "cog in production." The emphasis is on the development of human creative powers. Not the satisfaction of material needs, but human development is the main goal.

One of the founders of modern cultural studies is the Russian philosopher N.Ya. Danilevsky, whose original concept of culture is set forth in the book "Russia and Europe".

A Slavophile and a soil student, Danilevsky was the first to substantiate a civilized approach to history, creating the concept of cultural-historical types. In his work, Danilevsky expresses the idea that in the general flow of world culture, some formations stand out, which are closed species.

Danilevsky's ideas were formed under the influence of the natural sciences, including biology. The existence of individual cultures is similar to the existence of living organisms. Thus, cultural-historical types are in constant struggle with each other and the external environment.

Danilevsky questions the possibility of the existence of a universal culture and a common line of development. Cultural types are closed and therefore unable to create a common system of values ​​on the basis of which they could unite in the future. Later Danilevsky's views were developed in the works of O. Spengler and A. Toynbee.

In addition, Danilevsky put forward and developed the thesis of Slavic exclusivity. Danilevsky considers the Slavic cultural and historical type to be qualitatively new and historically promising. It manifests itself especially clearly, according to the philosopher, in the Russian people, who are the embodiment of the messianic idea of ​​the revival of culture.

The weakness of Danilevsky's theory lies in the mechanical transfer of the laws of biology to society and in the underestimation of world culture, based on the generic essence of mankind.

F. Nietzsche In his work “On the benefits and harms of history for life”, he defined culture as determination, emphasizing that the creative pathos of Western European culture is fading. The lofty ideas and impulses of the bourgeois are replaced by a career, money and entertainment. This is leading Western culture to disaster.

Nietzsche identifies two types of culture: Apollonian (critical and rational) and Dionysian (creative-sensual culture of spontaneous impulse). Where Dionysus submits to Apollo, the tragedy of man and culture is born.

The meaning and purpose of history, according to Nietzsche, are not at the end of it, but are contained in its most perfect representatives - outstanding people, giants, supermen. Zarathustra, having freed himself from the fetters of culture and society, preaches, calling for the liberation of other people. Nietzsche's philosophy is a call for the destruction of the creature in man in order to create a creator in him. It is no coincidence that Nietzsche was so popular among the pre-revolutionary Russian intelligentsia, which was distinguished by its love of freedom.

O. Spengler developed the concept of culture, largely based on the opposition of culture and civilization. In his work The Decline of Europe, Spengler criticizes the idea of ​​the unity of world culture. All cultures in their development, like living organisms, go through the same stages of development: childhood, adolescence, maturity and decay. This is followed by the inevitable extinction of culture. On average, the existence of each culture is given a thousand years, and then in its place there is a new, no less beautiful culture.

Spengler emphasizes the uniqueness and incomprehensibility of each culture. He introduces the expression "soul of culture" - this is a certain underlying principle of every culture, indescribable in words and cannot be understood by other people. Therefore, according to Spengler, the interaction of cultures has a detrimental effect on their development - the people's own culture is eroded, while the values ​​of a foreign culture cannot be adequately perceived.

By civilization, Spengler understands the last, inevitable phase of the development of culture. Civilization has the same characteristics in all cultures and is an expression of the dying of a culture. The victory of technology and big cities, plebeian morality, overorganization - this marks the decline of culture.

The souls of cultures are not immortal. Having exhausted its creative forces, the soul dies, and culture dies with it - the world of its external manifestations. There are no immortal creations of culture - people of another culture will not be able to understand them. There is no single humanity, no single history, no development, no progress. There are only completely dissimilar, alien souls and the various cultures they create, each of which, having survived its heyday, fades and eventually enters the last stage of its existence - civilization. Thus, according to Spengler, civilization is nothing but a dying culture. This is its end, "the end without the right to appeal."

“Culture and civilization are the living body of the soul and its mummy”1. Culture is becoming, and civilization is becoming. Culture creates diversity, it presupposes inequality, individual uniqueness of personalities; civilization strives for equality, for unification and standard. The culture is elitist and aristocratic; civilization is democratic. Culture is focused on spiritual ideals; Civilization is utilitarian, it orients people towards the achievement of practically useful results. In a cultured person, the energy is turned inward, into the development of his spirit, in a civilized person - outward, to the conquest of the environment. Culture is tied to the land, to the landscape; the realm of civilization is the city. Culture is an expression of the soul of a “people fused with the earth”; civilization is a way of life of the urban population, cut off from the earth, pampered by comfort, which has become a crowd of slaves of the soulless technology created by them. Culture is national, civilization is international. Culture is connected with cult, myth, religion, civilization is atheistic.

Civilization seeks to spread to all mankind, to turn the world into one huge city, inevitably giving rise to imperialism. Civilization in general is distinguished by expansion: it is characterized by gigantic empires, gigantic cities, gigantic enterprises, gigantic machines. Dying art degenerates into mass spectacles, into an arena of sensations and scandals. Philosophy becomes useless. Science is turning into a servant of technology, economics, and politics. People's interests are focused on the problems of power, violence, money, satisfaction of material needs.

Spengler O. Decline of Europe. - M., 1993. - S. 264.

Pointing out that the noted features of civilization characterize the current state of the Western world, Spengler predicts its imminent and inevitable death. Nothing can save the Western world, and its inhabitants can only accept it as it is.

The system of ideas set forth in The Decline of Europe provides many grounds for criticism. It passes by many questions of the history of culture. Remain insufficiently substantiated and unclear are its initial concepts, such as "the soul of culture" and "the pra-symbol of culture". The criteria for compiling a list of eight great cultures are not clear. Spengler has errors and exaggerations in the description of facts, in their interpretation and explanation.

One cannot agree with Spengler's thesis about the "impenetrability" of cultures, which states that it is impossible, being in one culture, to understand other cultures. In many cases, on the contrary, looking at some culture "from the outside", you can see in it something that remains invisible to those who perceive it "from the inside". Contrary to Spengler, cultures are not isolated. They interact and learn a lot from each other. This is especially clear in the field of science. The very fact that Spengler, a representative of Western culture, vividly describes other cultural worlds, contradicts his assertion that they are impenetrable.

But the most significant flaw in Spengler's conception lies in the failure of his main idea about the approaching fatal end of Western culture. He predicted that her final demise should be completed by the year 2000. This prediction turned out to be wrong. European civilization is by no means the end of European culture. Neither architecture, nor painting, nor music, nor poetry, nor science died. Contrary to Spengler's prediction, they were not struck by senility.

However, the development of Western culture is by no means a smooth process, it is full of difficulties and contradictions, Spengler aptly reveals the negative tendencies in it, showing at the same time that they manifest themselves the stronger, the higher the level of civilization reaches. The danger of them becoming a devastating and possibly fatal disease remains a real threat. And in order for Western culture not to perish, it is necessary to fight against this threat, to support creativity in human activity, to create favorable conditions for the development of the spiritual culture of people. "The Decline of Europe" - a warning addressed to the Western world

about the catastrophe that hangs over him like the sword of Damocles and which cannot be avoided if he does not look for ways to overcome his internal conflicts and impulses to self-destruction.

§5" A. Toynbee: comprehension of history

Civilizations

We are all used to subdividing world history into the histories of individual countries: the history of Russia, the history of England, etc. However, the English historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) wondered whether it is permissible to consider individual countries as independent units - a kind of "social atoms", which are similar to physical atoms exist independently of each other? With this question begins his fundamental theoretical research, the results of which he outlined in his 12-volume work entitled "Comprehension of History."

The answer Toynbee arrives at is this. As a rule, it is impossible to understand the history of a particular country without taking into account its connections and interactions with other countries. To explain the events of its history, one has to compare them with what is happening in other countries. Only within the framework of a certain field of historical research can the course of processes of interest to the historian be explained. The field of historical research covers a fairly vast spatio-temporal region in which a society is located, which can consist of a certain set of states. This society is a holistic historical formation, which is the "social atom" - the basic unit of history. Toynbee calls this type of society a civilization (note that this understanding of civilization has a different meaning than that of Spengler). Each civilization is a closed and independent world.

The geographical boundaries of the area occupied by a civilization may change over time. But there is not a single civilization that would embrace all of humanity and spread to the entire inhabited earth (this is a stone in the garden of Eurocentrism). World history is the history of various civilizations coexisting side by side with each other.

The duration of the existence of a particular civilization is “more than the life span of any individual nation, but at the same time less than the time allotted to humanity as a whole”1. This forces Toynbee to address the question of the continuity of history. He distinguishes, on the one hand, the stages of the history of one and the same civilization (similar to the periods of life of an individual), and on the other hand, a continuous connection in time between different civilizations (similar to the relationship between parents and their children). In the second case - with "son-father" continuity - the historical continuity of culture, like genetic heredity, determines the similarity of cultures, and therefore there is no Spenglerian "impenetrability".

As a historian, Toynbee is concerned with describing all historically existing civilizations. At the beginning of his work, Toynbee indicates 21 civilizations, and by the time he finishes, he increases their number to 37. Most of the listed civilizations are currently already dead. There are seven Toynbee civilizations that exist today: 1) Western, 2) Orthodox, 3) Hindu, 4) Chinese, 5) Far Eastern (in Korea and Japan), 6) Iranian, 7) Arabic.

The main elements in the life of civilization are, according to Toynbee, politics, economics and culture.

“The cultural element is the soul, blood, lymph, the essence of civilization ... As soon as a civilization loses the internal power of cultural development, it immediately begins to absorb elements of a foreign social structure,” with which it has contacts. For a civilization that is in the field of influence of an alien culture, cultural influence is much more beneficial and beneficial than borrowing in economic or political terms.

At the heart of the separation of culture from civilization, at the heart of the very understanding of the essence of this problem lies the difference between material and spiritual culture.

With all the conventionality of such a division, nevertheless, we can say that the material culture is represented by objects and systems that characterize the level of development of the productive forces of society, production methods, methods of its organization and management.

This includes: everything related to the production of consumer goods and the market for their sale, as well as financial support for the functioning of this market; all items that satisfy the initial biological needs of a person and increase the level of comfort of his life; communications of all kinds and building structures of all types.

Thus, a building of a factory or a conservatory, a new model of an airplane or ski boots, agriculture or computer support for production, we, of course, will classify as material culture, while a musical symphony or a theatrical performance, a religious service or a book (regardless of how we we refer to it) is a spiritual culture. However, the estate in Abramtsevo, the building of the historical museum in Moscow or the mausoleum of the Taj Mahal in India - is it a material or spiritual culture? And what about a painting by a well-known artist, if, as a material object, it belongs to a museum and has a certain price in various banknotes?

Most often, it is difficult for us to clearly separate in a cultural object its material existence and its spiritual value. If suddenly there was no man, then all galleries and museums would turn out to be only a repository of material things - canvases with a layer of paint on them; marble, bronze, gypsum, one way or another processed by one or another tool; buildings from any material (granite, brick, wood), built using certain tools.

The value of a thing is determined not only by the fact that it is able to satisfy this or that need of a person, but also by the fact that it objectifies his work, his creativity, his spirit. Value arises behind the objective existence of a thing and is related to what meaning we attach to this thing, what content we put into it. Thus, the difference between material and spiritual culture is not as straightforward and obvious as it might seem at first glance. However, this difference exists, and it is connected with what kind of need - material or spiritual - a thing satisfies, to which being - body or spirit - it is related.

For the first time, the question of distinguishing between culture and civilization was raised at the beginning of the 20th century. in England. At that time, it was believed that culture was the property of the elite as the bearer of the intellectual potential and scientific and artistic values ​​of society. Civilization, on the other hand, has to do with society as such as a whole, with broad social strata that increasingly took on the form of an anonymous and amorphous mass of people engaged in material production. The cultural elite was assigned the role of a judge and mentor of the masses, and the very idea of ​​culture was understood as a reaction of the elite to the mediocrity of the rest of the population. However, such a view had significant shortcomings due not only to the unequivocal statement in it of the elitist concept of culture, but also to ignoring the closest connection between social consciousness and the material existence of society.

From this characteristic of the XIX century. opposition of culture and civilization, a well-known elitist concept of culture arises.

In the XX century. the idea of ​​distinguishing between culture and civilization acquires particular relevance and urgency. In this regard, there are two main directions in the consideration of this problem.

A number of researchers place the difference between culture and civilization not in the sphere of their qualitative comparison or the possibility of a comparative assessment of their cultural content, but in the area of ​​anthropological breeding of these concepts and interpreting them from ethnological positions. In this sense, civilization is seen as a set of cultures at the regional level. So, for example, the Mayan civilization covers the sequence of not just several stages of cultural development, but several cultures, different in content, but united in ethnicity. Thus, civilization is determined by the unity of the bearer of cultures, which can be different in time and even in content. Such an approach to understanding civilization reflects a view of it as a process of evolution of cultures towards more complex states.

Another number of researchers believe that the difference between culture and civilization is of a qualitative nature. Under this approach, civilization is understood mainly as the creation of a material and technical base that ensures the further development of culture itself, increasing the comfort of life. Such an understanding of civilization is due to the fact that here priority is given to scientific and technological progress, but not to moral development, technology, but not to spiritual improvement. Thus, in distinguishing between culture and civilization, the direction of the expansion of human efforts is taken into account: if they are oriented towards the transformation of the surrounding world, then this is associated with civilization; if efforts are directed inward, at the person himself, the development of his nature, his abilities, his human qualities, then this is culture. In the latter case, efforts, even if they are directed outward, eventually become culture, turn out to be the realization of the possibilities of a cultured, developed person who is able to culturally objectify his strengths and abilities.

Understanding what is leading and what is subordinate in the relationship between culture and civilization determines the paradigm of society's values. If culture is subordinated to civilization and serves its needs, in society, as a rule, there is a roll in its direction of material values ​​and material success, preference is given to science rather than art, a certain spiritual impoverishment is observed, pragmatism and utilitarianism prevail. If civilization serves culture and contributes to its further development, then sufficient harmonization between material and spiritual values ​​is possible in society, which ensures real, not imaginary progress. The prevalence of cultural values ​​over civilizational ones creates the basis for the correct determination of the nature of the needs of man and society, the separation of real and original human needs from fictitious and imaginary ones. The goal of cultural development makes a person reconsider his orientations in relation to nature, to himself, contributes to the implementation of humanistic ideas and values, turning to human problems, and not to the problems of self-sustaining development of production, economics, management, etc.

The distinction between civilization and culture thus has both theoretical and practical implications, for it is generally accepted that the former is mainly aimed at satisfying material needs, while the latter in one way or another means striving for the ideals of beauty, goodness, truth, justice. .

Genuine culture is the humanization and humanization of a person (ie, embodiment and realization). According to O. Spengler (“The Decline of Europe”), civilization is the last stage in the development of culture, which, like any living organism, goes through the corresponding stages of life. Civilization as an exclusively technical and mathematical phenomenon is opposed to culture as the realm of organic life. The preference for civilizational development to the detriment of culture means the attenuation of society, the transition of its existence into a phase of fruitless accumulation of material achievements. Similar views were expressed by A. Toynbee, N.Ya. Danilevsky, P. Sorokin. F. Nietzsche, criticizing contemporary culture, also marks the differences between culture as a way of realizing the fullness of the human spirit and civilization as a form of its extinction.

Russian sociologist, ideologist of Slavophilism N.Ya. Danilevsky (1822-1885) in the book "Russia and Europe" (1969) formulated the theory of cultural-historical types. It said: there is no world history, there is only the history of specific civilizations that have a unique character. The cultural-historical type represents the unity of the religious, social, industrial, political, scientific and artistic directions of development. Like all living things, they are in constant struggle with each other and the external environment, they go through naturally predetermined stages of maturation, decrepitude and death. The beginnings of a civilization of one type are not transferred to the peoples of another, but are developed by each people for themselves with a certain influence from outside. The course of history is a change of types that supplant each other. Danilevsky singled out ten such types, partially or completely exhausted the possibilities of their development: Egyptian, Chinese, ancient Semitic, Indian, Iranian, Jewish, Greek, Roman, Arabian, Germanic-Romance and two who died a violent death: Mexican and Peruvian. Promising, from the point of view of history, Danilevsky considered the Slavic cultural and historical type, represented by Russian culture.

German philosopher of culture, author of the treatise Causality and Fate. The Decline of Europe” O. Spengler (1880-1936) put forward a concept that reflected the prevailing attitude of European public consciousness at the turning point at the end of the First World War. The decline of Europe marks the victory of technology over spirituality, world cities - over the provinces, plebeian morality - over aristocratic. The end is accompanied by the degradation of traditional religion, arts, morality, and contributes to the transformation of people into faceless masses. The only stronghold of culture remains the "organic man", the peasant, rooted in his native soil. However, he is also subjected to violent pressure from civilization. Civilization is the final stage in the development of any culture.

Culture Spengler considers as organisms with a lifespan of about 1000 years. In their development, they go through three common cycles: pre-cultural, cultural and civilized. The first is associated with mythology and religion, the second with philosophy, science and art, and the third is characterized by the replacement of innovations by the endless replication of once found forms and meanings.

Spengler saw the essence of culture in religion and singled out eight cultural forms: Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian, Chinese, Greco-Roman (Apollo), Byzantine-Arabic (magical), Western European (Faustian) and Mayan culture. Contemporaries criticized Spengler's concept for fatalism and formalism, expressed in the desire to understand the complex picture of world culture through the prism of speculative schemes.

The English culturologist and philosopher A.D. Toynbee (1889-1975). The leitmotif of Toynbee's research was the idea that the course of history cannot be fit into any one, even the most perfect scheme.

However, Toynbee built his theory in a similar vein to the theories of Danilevsky and Spengler, in the spirit of the concept of the circulation of local civilizations. He identified 21 types of culture in world history: Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Syrian, Arabic, Minoan, Hittite, Hellenic, Western, Iranian, Indian, Hindu, Chinese, Japanese-Korean, Far Eastern, Orthodox, Russian, Andean, Mayan, Yucatan and Mexican. Each civilization goes through five general stages of internal evolution: emergence, growth, breakdown, decay and death.

He called the “creative minority”, the bearer of the “life impulse”, acting according to the laws of “challenge and response” and dragging along the “inert majority” the driving force of civilizations. The specificity of civilization, the meaning of its life is determined by the pattern of "challenge-responses". "Challenge" is a form of impact on civilization of natural, historical, social factors, in response to which society develops. The forms of "responses" determine the nature of the adaptation of peoples, and external factors (migrations, cataclysms, wars) affect more at the dawn of civilization, and internal ones - in the era of its decline.

The ability to perceive a “challenge” before others and develop a proper response to it is the privilege of the “creative minority”. It goes through three stages: first, it functions as the power of authority, then in the form of the authority of power, and, finally, as total violence against the majority. At the final stage, the elite turns into a closed caste, loses its creative potential, and is therefore unable to respond correctly to “challenges”, which forces it to exercise domination by force of coercion. The masses are increasingly turning away from the elite, becoming the "internal proletariat" and destroying the bastion of power, unless it itself perishes from a natural disaster or military defeat.