Mass and elite culture. Features of elite culture. abstract

Classmates

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

Popular culture

Definition of the concept

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

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

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

The emergence of mass culture

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

1. Mass culture arose at the dawn of Christian civilization. As an example, simplified versions of the Bible (for children, for the poor) designed for a mass audience are cited.
2. IN XVII-XVIII centuries V Western Europe The genre of adventure, adventurous novel appears, which significantly expanded the readership due to huge circulations. (Example: Daniel Defoe - the novel “Robinson Crusoe” and 481 other biographies of people in risky professions: investigators, military men, thieves, prostitutes, etc.).
3. In 1870, Great Britain passed a law on universal literacy, which allowed many to master main view artistic creativity of the 19th century - a novel. But this is only the prehistory of mass culture. In the proper sense, mass culture first manifested itself in the United States at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

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

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

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

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

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

Features and significance of mass culture

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

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

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

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

Besides, mass culture is capable:

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

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

In the sphere of artistic culture, it calls on a person not to rebel against the social system, but to fit into it, to find and take his place in an industrial society of a market type.

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

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

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

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

In the practice of mass culture, mass consciousness has specific means of expression. Mass culture is more focused not on realistic images, but on artificially created images - images and stereotypes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elite culture

Definition of the concept

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The emergence of an elite culture

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

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

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

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

Features and significance of elite culture

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

The characteristic features of an elite culture are:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Used literature:

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

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

Features of the production and consumption of cultural values ​​have allowed culturologists to identify two social forms of cultural existence : mass culture and elite culture.

Mass culture is a type of cultural product that is produced in large volumes every day. It is assumed that mass culture is consumed by all people, regardless of place and country of residence. Popular culture - it is the culture of everyday life, presented to the widest audience through various channels, including the media and communications.

Mass culture (from Latin massa – lump, piece) - a cultural phenomenon of the 20th century, generated by scientific and technological revolution, urbanization, the destruction of local communities, and the blurring of territorial and social boundaries. The time of its appearance is the middle of the 20th century, when the media (radio, print, television, recording and tape recorder) penetrated into most countries of the world and became available to representatives of all social strata. In the proper sense, mass culture first manifested itself in the United States at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The famous American political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski liked to repeat a phrase that became commonplace over time: “If Rome gave the world rights, England parliamentary activity, France culture and republican nationalism, then modern USA gave the world a scientific and technological revolution and mass culture.”

The origins of the widespread dissemination of mass culture in the modern world lie in the commercialization of all social relations, while the mass production of culture is understood by analogy with the conveyor belt industry. Many creative organizations (cinema, design, TV) are closely associated with banking and industrial capital and are focused on producing commercial, box office, and entertainment works. In turn, the consumption of these products is mass consumption, because the audience that perceives this culture is mass audience large halls, stadiums, millions of viewers on television and movie screens.

A striking example Pop culture is pop music, which is understandable and accessible to all ages and all segments of the population. It satisfies the immediate needs of people, reacts to and reflects any new event. Therefore, examples of mass culture, in particular hits, quickly lose relevance, become obsolete and go out of fashion. As a rule, mass culture has less artistic value than elite culture.

The purpose of mass culture is to stimulate consumer consciousness among the viewer, listener, and reader. Mass culture forms a special type of passive, uncritical perception of this culture in a person. It creates a personality that is quite easy to manipulate.

Consequently, mass culture is designed for mass consumption and for the average person; it is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population, regardless of level of education. Socially, it forms a new social stratum, called the “middle class”.

Mass culture in artistic creativity performs specific social functions. Among them, the main one is illusory-compensatory: introducing a person to the world of illusory experience and unrealistic dreams. For this purpose, popular culture uses such entertaining types and art genres such as circus, radio, television; pop, hit, kitsch, slang, fantasy, action, detective, comic, thriller, western, melodrama, musical.

It is within these genres that simplified “versions of life” are created that reduce social evil to psychological and moral factors. And all this is combined with open or hidden propaganda of the dominant way of life. Mass culture is more focused not on realistic images, but on artificially created images (image) and stereotypes. Today, the newfangled “stars of artificial Olympus” have no less fanatical fans than the old gods and goddesses. Modern mass culture can be international and national.

Features of mass culture: accessibility (understandable to everyone) of cultural values; ease of perception; stereotyped social stereotypes, replicability, entertainment and fun, sentimentality, simplicity and primitiveness, propaganda of the cult of success, a strong personality, the cult of the thirst for owning things, the cult of mediocrity, the conventions of primitive symbols.

Popular culture does not express exquisite tastes aristocracy or the spiritual quest of the people, the mechanism of its spread is directly related to the market, and it is predominantly a priority for metropolitan forms of existence. The basis for the success of mass culture is people’s unconscious interest in violence and eroticism.

At the same time, if we consider mass culture as a spontaneously emerging culture of everyday life, which is created by ordinary people, then its positive aspects are its orientation towards the average norm, simple pragmatics, and appeal to a huge reading, viewing and listening audience.

Many cultural scientists consider elite culture as the antipode of mass culture.

Elite (high) culture - culture of the elite, intended for the highest strata of society, those with the greatest capacity for spiritual activity, special artistic sensitivity and gifted with high moral and aesthetic inclinations.

The producer and consumer of elite culture is the highest privileged layer of society - the elite (from the French elite - the best, selected, chosen). The elite is not only the clan aristocracy, but that educated part of society that has a special “organ of perception” - the ability for aesthetic contemplation and artistic and creative activity.

By different estimates Consumers of elite culture in Europe for several centuries have remained approximately the same proportion of the population - about one percent. Elite culture is, first of all, the culture of the educated and wealthy part of the population. Elite culture usually means particular sophistication, complexity and high quality of cultural products.

The main function of elite culture is the production of social order in the form of law, power, structures of social organization of society, as well as the ideology that justifies this order in the forms of religion, social philosophy and political thought. Elite culture presupposes a professional approach to creation, and the people who create it receive special education. The circle of consumers of elite culture is its professional creators: scientists, philosophers, writers, artists, composers, as well as representatives of highly educated strata of society, namely: regulars of museums and exhibitions, theatergoers, artists, literary scholars, writers, musicians and many others.

Elite culture is distinguished by a very high level of specialization and the highest level of social aspirations of the individual: love of power, wealth, and fame is considered the normal psychology of any elite.

In high culture, those artistic techniques are tested that will be perceived and correctly understood by wide layers of non-professionals many years later (up to 50 years, and sometimes more). For a certain period of time, high culture not only cannot, but must remain alien to the people; it must be sustained, and the viewer must mature creatively during this time. For example, the paintings of Picasso, Dali or the music of Schoenberg are difficult for an unprepared person to understand even today.

Therefore, elite culture is experimental or avant-garde in nature and, as a rule, it is ahead of the level of perception of it by an averagely educated person.

As the level of education of the population increases, the circle of consumers of elite culture also expands. It is this part of society that contributes to social progress, therefore “pure” art should be focused on meeting the demands and needs of the elite, and it is precisely this part of society that artists, poets, and composers should address with their works. The formula of elitist culture: “Art for art’s sake.”

The same types of art can belong to both high and mass culture: classical music is high and popular music is mass, Fellini’s films are high and action films are mass. The organ mass of S. Bach belongs to high culture, but if it is used as a musical ringtone on a mobile phone, it is automatically included in the category of mass culture, without losing its belonging to high culture. Numerous orchestrations have been produced

Bach performances in the style of light music, jazz or rock do not at all compromise high culture. The same applies to the Mona Lisa on the packaging of toilet soap or its computer reproduction.

Features of elite culture: focuses on “people of genius”, capable of aesthetic contemplation and artistic and creative activity, no social stereotypes, deep philosophical essence and non-standard content, specialization, sophistication, experimentalism, avant-garde, complexity of cultural values ​​for understanding an unprepared person, sophistication, high quality, intellectuality .

Instructions

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

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

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

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

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

Related article

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are several types of literature, each of which has its own characteristics. Yes, under classical literature understand works that are considered exemplary for a particular era.

History of the term

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

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

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

Modern meaning of the concept

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

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

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

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

What is included in the concept

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

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

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

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

Artistic culture in the narrow sense

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

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

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

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

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

Modern geisha

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

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

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

Sources:

• Geisha world

Concept elite denotes the best. There is a political elite (a part of society that has legitimate power), an economic elite, and a scientific elite. German sociologist G.A. Lansberger defines the elite as a group that significantly influences decisions on key issues of a national nature. Secretary General UN Dag Hammarskjöld believed that the elite is that part of society that is able to bear responsibility for the majority of people. Ortega y Gasset believed that elite- This is the most creative and productive part of society, possessing high intellectual and moral qualities. In the context of cultural studies, we can say that it is in the elite sphere that the foundations of culture and the principles of its functioning are formed. Elite- this is a narrow stratum of society capable of generating in its consciousness values, principles, attitudes around which society can consolidate and on the basis of which culture can function. Elite culture belongs to a special social stratum with rich spiritual experience and developed moral and aesthetic consciousness. One of the variants of elite culture is esoteric culture. The concepts themselves esotericism And exoterics came from Greek words esoterikos – interior And exoterikos – external. Esoteric culture is accessible only to initiates and absorbs knowledge intended for a select circle of people. Exotericism presupposes popularity and accessibility.

Society's attitude towards elite culture is ambiguous. Culturologist Dr. Richard Steitz (USA) identifies 3 types of people’s attitudes towards elite culture: 1) Estatism- a group of people who are not the creators of elite culture, but they enjoy it and appreciate it. 2) Elitism– consider themselves to be an elite culture, but treat mass culture with disdain. 3) Eclecticism– accept both types of crops.

One of the factors that aggravated the need of 19th-century society to separate elite culture from mass culture was associated with the rethinking of the Christian religion, which proposed those norms and principles that were accepted by all members of society. Refusal of the norms of Christianity meant the loss of a meaningful single ideal of absolute perfection, an absolute criterion of holiness. There was a need for new ideals that could stimulate and guide social development. As a matter of fact, a split in people’s minds about the value of the common Christian culture meant the splitting of society into social groups, cultures, subcultures, each of which adopted its own ideals, stereotypes and norms of behavior. Elite culture, as a rule, is opposed to mass culture. Let us highlight the main features that characterize both types of culture.

Features of elite culture:

1. Constancy, that is, the products of elite culture do not depend on historical time and space. Thus, Mozart’s works from the moment of their creation are examples of classics at all times and in any state.

2. The need for spiritual work. A person living in an environment of elite culture is called to intense spiritual work.

3. High requirements for human competence. IN in this case What this means is that not only the creator, but also the consumer of the products of elite culture must be capable of intensive spiritual work and be sufficiently well prepared in the art historical sense.

4. The desire to create absolute ideals of perfection. In an elite culture, the rules of honor and the state of spiritual purity acquire central, pronounced significance.

5. Formation of that system of values, those attitudes that serve as the foundation for the development of culture and the center of consolidation of society.

Features of popular culture:

1. Possibility of conveyor production of crop-related products.

2. Satisfying the spiritual needs of the majority of the population.

3. The opportunity to attract many people to the social and cultural life.

4. Reflection of those patterns of behavior, stereotypes and principles that prevail in the public consciousness for a given period of time.

5. Fulfillment of political and social orders.

6. Incorporation into the mental world of people of certain patterns and patterns of behavior; creation of social ideals.

It is important to take into account that in a number of cultural systems the concept of elite culture is conditional, because in some communities the boundary between the elite and the masses is minimal. In such cultures it is difficult to distinguish mass culture from elite culture. For example, many fragments of everyday life receive the academic status of a “source” only if they are remote from us in time or have an ethnographic-folklore character.

In the modern world, the blurring of the boundaries between mass and elite culture is so destructive that it often leads to the devaluation of cultural property for subsequent generations. Thus, pop culture has affected all spheres of life, creating such phenomena as pop ideology, pop art, pop religion, pop science, etc., involving everything from Che Guevara to Jesus Christ in its space. Pop cultures are often perceived as a product of the culture of economically developed countries that are able to provide themselves with a good information industry and export their values ​​and stereotypes to other cultures. When it comes to developing countries, pop culture is often considered an alien phenomenon, certainly of Western origin, with very destructive consequences. Meanwhile, the “third world” has long had its own pop culture, which affirms, albeit in a somewhat simplified form, the cultural identity of non-European peoples. This is the Indian cinema industry and kung fu films, Latin American songs in the “nueva trova” style, various schools of popular art and pop music. In the 70s, a passion for reggae music arose in Africa, and at the same time the associated “Rastafari movement” or “Rastafari culture” arose. In the African environment itself, a passion for pop culture products sometimes blocks the rooting and spread of the norms of elite culture. As a rule, its fruits are better known in European countries than in those where they were produced. For example, the production of original colorful masks in Africa is focused mainly on selling them to tourists, and some of the buyers are more familiar with the cultural meaning of these exotic masks than those who profit from their sale.

Difficulties in distinguishing the line between elite and mass cultures sometimes lead to the development of a sectarian movement, when a person asserts dubious ideals as meaning-forming ones in the life of society. This is clearly illustrated by the example of the “Rastafari movement”. It is difficult to determine what it is: a messianic sect, or a folk religious movement, or a cult, or a movement for cultural identity, or a surrogate of Pan-African ideology, or a political anti-racist movement, or Negritude “for the poor,” maybe a slum subculture lumpenism or youth fashion? Over the past 60 years, Rastafari (Rastafarianism, more often simply “Rasta”) has gone through amazing, even incredible metamorphoses.

Rastafarism arose as a sect that deified the Ras (local ruler) Tafari Makonnen (hence the name of the sect), who was crowned on November 2, 1930 under the name of Haile Selassie (“the power of the Trinity”). The sect arose in Jamaica in the early 30s, but in the 60s its adherents appeared among young people of color in the USA, Canada and Great Britain. In the 70s, it turned into a pop religion, and then simply into youth fashion, thereby causing a boom among the urban youth of the African continent. Despite the fact that “Rasta” came to Africa from the outside, it turned out to be long-awaited, filling a certain spiritual vacuum.

The first scholar to conduct field research on Rastafarian sects was sociologist of religion George Eaton Simpson, author of many works on cults of African origin in the Caribbean. Based on the materials of his observations in 1953-1954. he tried to describe the cult from the point of view of functionalism in sociology. Simpson considers the sect to be a tool for relieving frustration and adapting the minority to the dominant culture indirectly - through the renunciation of benefits inaccessible to the lower classes. The description of the cult itself is given in passing, generally boiling down to five main points: Haile Selassie is a living god; Haile Selassie is omnipotent, even nuclear energy is subject to him; blacks are Ethiopians, a new incarnation of the ancient Jews; the gods of the Romans were wooden idols, the British consider God to be a spirit, incorporeal and invisible, but in fact God is alive and in the world - this is Haile Selassie; heaven and paradise are a lie, the black man's paradise is on Earth, in Ethiopia. Noting the “militantly anti-white rhetoric” of the cult, Simpson considers it completely peaceful, and the verbal belligerence is designed to relieve socio-psychological tension. In general, Simpson defines Rastafari as a counterculture, which, however, turns into a subculture.

The essence of the Rastafari ideas is as follows: Haile Selassie I, Lion of Judah, King of Kings, etc. - a descendant of the house of Solomon, the next incarnation of God, the deliverer of the chosen race - the black Jews. This is how Rastafarians interpret the history of the Jewish people as set out in the Old Testament: this is the history of Africans; Jews with light skin are impostors, posing as God's chosen people. For their sins, the black Jews were punished with slavery in Babylon. Pirates under Elizabeth I brought blacks to America, that is, to Babylon. Meanwhile, God has long forgiven his chosen people; they will soon return to Zion, which means Addis Ababa. Ethiopia is seen as the black man's paradise, America is hell, and the church is a tool of Babylon to deceive black people. Deliverance awaits them not in heaven, but in Ethiopia. Weakness or lack of elite culture can lead to such sectarian movements.

Middle culture

Concept middle culture was introduced by N.A. Berdyaev. The essence of this culture is the search for the form and meaning of human existence between extreme oppositional life attitudes, for example, God exists And There is no God. This concept of a middle-ground culture is essentially an attempt to find a place for a person between extreme beliefs. It is common for an individual to always choose one of these extremes, and the choice itself is inevitable for a person. The Spanish thinker José Ortega y Gasset writes in his work “The Revolt of the Masses”: “To live means to be forever condemned to freedom, to forever decide what you will become in this world. And decide tirelessly and without respite. Even when we abandon ourselves to chance, we make a decision – not to decide.” The main choice a person makes is when deciding about his essence, who he will be. An active understanding of this peculiarity of people became an important feature of the culture of the Renaissance, when society tried to build the world not according to divine laws, but also not according to demonic ones, but exclusively on the basis of human ones. In Europe in the 15th century, this idea was expressed by Mirandola in the treatise “Speech on the Dignity of Man.” The Thinker writes: “We do not give you, O Adam, either your place, or a certain image, or a special duty, so that you have a place, a person, and a duty of your own free will, according to your will and your decision. The image of other creations is determined within the limits of the laws we have established. You are not constrained by any limits, you will determine your image according to your decision, into the power of which I will leave you.” The last part of this quote emphasizes not only the possibility of a person’s free choice, but also the fact that the image that he takes will become decisive for his essence, his train of thought. In other words, the individual himself will choose what will have power over him. If a person establishes himself in a reasonable spiritual form, then he will follow reasonable requirements, but accepting a demonic quality will make the individual dependent on the dark principle. Meanwhile, the choice is inevitable, because a person, having two natures: potency (potenzia) and activity (atto) - cannot help but strive to take on some form. In Russia, the dilemma of oppositional concepts, as a rule, was designated by the concept divine And demonic and was repeatedly reflected in the works of many Russian philosophers. So, F.M. Dostoevsky in his novel “The Brothers Karamazov” writes: “A man who is even superior in heart and has a lofty mind, begins with the ideal of the Madonna, and ends with the ideal of Sodom. It’s even more terrible for those who, with the ideal of Sodom in their souls, do not deny the ideal of the Madonna...” This kind of attitude is largely explained by the dogma of Orthodox doctrine, according to which man is called to become like God through the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. However, if we admit deification, then, therefore, likening to a demon is also possible.

Following Russian philosophical thought and Russian culture as a whole, it is appropriate to note that an average culture is impossible for a human society that has achieved statehood. As noted by A.P. Chekhov, “...between “there is a God” and “there is no God” there lies a whole enormous field, which a true sage traverses with great difficulty. A Russian person knows one of these extremes, but the middle between them is not interesting to him, and it usually means nothing or very little.”

Elite culture

Elite or high culture is created by a privileged part of society, or at its request by professional creators. It includes fine art, classical music and literature. High culture, for example, the painting of Picasso or the music of Schnittke, is difficult for an unprepared person to understand. As a rule, it is decades ahead of the level of perception of an averagely educated person. The circle of its consumers is a highly educated part of society: critics, literary scholars, regulars of museums and exhibitions, theatergoers, artists, writers, musicians. When the level of education of the population increases, the circle of consumers of high culture expands. Its varieties include secular art and salon music. The formula of elite culture is “art for art’s sake.”

Elite culture is intended for a narrow circle of highly educated public and is opposed to both folk and mass culture. It is usually incomprehensible to the general public and requires good preparation for correct perception.

Elite culture includes avant-garde movements in music, painting, cinema, and complex literature of a philosophical nature. Often the creators of such a culture are perceived as inhabitants of an “ivory tower”, fenced off with their art from real everyday life. As a rule, elite culture is non-commercial, although sometimes it can be financially successful and move into the category of mass culture.

Modern trends are such that mass culture penetrates into all areas of “high culture”, mixing with it. At the same time, mass culture reduces the general cultural level of its consumers, but at the same time it itself gradually rises to a higher cultural level. Unfortunately, the first process is still much more intense than the second.

Today, an increasingly important place in the system intercultural communication occupy mechanisms for the dissemination of cultural products. Modern society lives in a technical civilization, which is fundamentally distinguished by methods, means, technologies and channels for transmitting cultural information. Therefore, in the new information and cultural space, only what is in mass demand survives, and only standardized products of mass culture in general and elite culture in particular have this property.

Elite culture is a set of creative achievements of human society, the creation and adequate perception of which requires special training. The essence of this culture is associated with the concept of the elite as the producer and consumer of elite culture. In relation to society, this type of culture is the highest, privileged to special layers, groups, classes of the population that carry out the functions of production, management and development of culture. Thus, the structure of culture is divided into public and elite.

Elite culture was created to preserve pathos and creativity in the culture. The most consistent and holistic concept of elite culture is reflected in the works of J. Ortega y Gasset, according to whom the elite is a part of society gifted with aesthetic and moral inclinations and most capable of producing spiritual activity. Thus, very talented and skillful scientists, artists, writers, and philosophers are considered the elite. Elite groups can be relatively autonomous from economic and political strata, or they can interpenetrate each other in certain situations.

Elite culture is quite diverse in its methods of manifestation and content. The essence and features of elite culture can be examined using the example of elite art, which develops mainly in two forms: panaestheticism and aesthetic isolationism.

The form of panaestheticism elevates art above science, morality, and politics. Such artistic and intuitive forms of knowledge carry the messianic goal of “saving the world.” The concepts of panaesthetic ideas are expressed in the studies of A. Bergson, F. Nietzsche, F. Schlegel.

A form of aesthetic isolationism strives to express “art for art’s sake” or “pure art.” The concept of this idea is based on upholding the freedom of individual self-display and self-expression in art. According to the founders of aesthetic isolationism, the modern world lacks beauty, which is the only pure source of artistic creativity. This concept was realized in the activities of artists S. Diaghilev, A. Benois, M. Vrubel, V. Serov, K. Korovin. A. Pavlova, F. Chaliapin, M. Fokin achieved high vocation in the musical and ballet arts.

In a narrow sense, elite culture is understood as a subculture that not only differs from the national one, but also opposes it, acquiring closedness, semantic self-sufficiency, and isolation. It is based on the formation of one’s own specific features: norms, ideals, values, systems of signs and symbols. Thus, the subculture is designed to unite certain spiritual values ​​of like-minded people, directed against the dominant culture. The essence of a subculture lies in the formation and development of its sociocultural characteristics, their isolation from another cultural layer.

Elite culture is high culture, contrasted with mass culture by the type of influence on the perceiving consciousness, preserving its subjective characteristics and providing a meaning-forming function.

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

Elite culture has a number of important features.

Features of elite culture:

complexity, specialization, creativity, innovation;

the ability to form a consciousness ready for active transformative activity and creativity in accordance with the objective laws of reality;

the ability to concentrate the spiritual, intellectual and artistic experience of generations;

the presence of a limited range of values ​​recognized as true and “high”;

a rigid system of norms accepted by a given stratum as mandatory and strict in the community of “initiates”;

individualization of norms, values, evaluative criteria of activity, often principles and forms of behavior of members of the elite community, thereby becoming unique;

the creation of a new, deliberately complicated cultural semantics, requiring special training and an immense cultural horizon from the addressee;

using a deliberately subjective, individually creative, “defamiliarizing” interpretation of the ordinary and familiar, which brings closer cultural development reality by the subject to a mental (sometimes artistic) experiment on it and, to the limit, replaces the reflection of reality in elite culture with its transformation, imitation with deformation, penetration into meaning with conjecture and rethinking of the given;

semantic and functional “closedness”, “narrowness”, isolation from the whole national culture, which turns elite culture into a kind of secret, sacred, esoteric knowledge, and its bearers turn into a kind of “priests” of this knowledge, chosen ones of the gods, “servants of the muses,” “keepers of secrets and faith,” which is often played out and poeticized in elite culture .

Elite culture (from the French elite - selected, chosen, best) is a subculture of privileged groups in society, characterized by fundamental closedness, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. Appealing to a select minority of its subjects, who, as a rule, are both its creators and addressees (in any case, the circle of both almost coincides), E.K. consciously and consistently opposes the culture of the majority, or mass culture in the broad sense (in all its historical and typological varieties - folklore, folk culture, official the culture of a particular estate or class, the state as a whole, the technocratic cultural industry. society of the 20th century. etc.). Moreover, E.k. needs a constant context of mass culture, since it is based on the mechanism of repulsion from the values ​​and norms accepted in mass culture, on the destruction of existing stereotypes and templates of mass culture (including their parody, ridicule, irony, grotesque, polemics, criticism, refutation), on demonstrative self-isolation in general national culture. In this regard, E.k. - a characteristically marginal phenomenon within any history. or national type of culture and is always secondary, derivative in relation to the culture of the majority. The problem of E.K. is especially acute. in communities where the antinomy of mass culture and E.K. practically exhausts all the variety of manifestations of nationalism. culture as a whole and where the mediative (“middle”) area of ​​the national culture, a constituent part of it. body and equally opposed to polarized mass and E. cultures as value-semantic extremes. This is typical, in particular, for cultures that have a binary structure and are prone to inversion forms of history. development (Russian and typologically similar cultures).

Political and cultural elites differ; the first, also called “ruling”, “powerful”, today, thanks to the works of V. Pareto, G. Mosca, R. Michels, C.R. Mills, R. Miliband, J. Scott, J. Perry, D. Bell and other sociologists and political scientists, have been studied in sufficient detail and deeply. Much less studied are cultural elites - strata united not by economic, social, political, and actual power interests and goals, but by ideological principles, spiritual values, sociocultural norms, etc. Connected in principle by similar (isomorphic) mechanisms of selection, status consumption, prestige, political and cultural elites, nevertheless, do not coincide with each other and only sometimes enter into temporary alliances, which turn out to be extremely unstable and fragile. Suffice it to recall the spiritual dramas of Socrates, condemned to death by his fellow citizens, and Plato, who was disillusioned with the Syracuse tyrant Dionysius (the Elder), who undertook to put into practice Plato’s utopia of the “State”, Pushkin, who refused to “serve the king, serve the people” and thereby who recognized the inevitability of his creativity. loneliness, although regal in its own way (“You are a king: live alone”), and L. Tolstoy, who, despite his origin and position, sought to express the “folk idea” through the means of his high and unique art of speech, European. education, sophisticated author's philosophy and religion. It is worth mentioning here the short flowering of the sciences and arts at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent; the experience of the highest patronage of Louis XIV to the muses, which gave the world examples of Western European. classicism; a short period of cooperation between the enlightened nobility and the noble bureaucracy during the reign of Catherine II; short-lived pre-revolutionary union. rus. intelligentsia with Bolshevik power in the 20s. etc. , in order to affirm the multidirectional and largely mutually exclusive nature of the interacting political and cultural elites, which enclose the social-semantic and cultural-semantic structures of the society, respectively, and coexist in time and space. This means that E.k. is not a creation and product of political elites (as was often stated in Marxist studies) and is not of a class-party nature, but in many cases develops in the struggle against politics. elites for their independence and freedom. On the contrary, it is logical to assume that it is the cultural elites that contribute to the formation of politics. elites (structurally isomorphic to cultural elites) in a narrower sphere of socio-political. , state and power relations as its own special case, isolated and alienated from the whole E.K.

In contrast to the political elites, the spiritual and creative elites develop their own, fundamentally new mechanisms of self-regulation and value-semantic criteria for active chosenness, going beyond the framework of the actual social and political requirements, and often accompanied by a demonstrative departure from politics and social institutions and semantic opposition to these phenomena as extracultural (unaesthetic, immoral, unspiritual, intellectually poor and vulgar). In E.k. The range of values ​​recognized as true and “high” is deliberately limited, and the system of norms accepted by a given stratum as obligations is tightened. and strict in the communication of the “initiates”. Quantities, narrowing of the elite and its spiritual unity are inevitably accompanied by its qualities, growth (intellectual, aesthetic, religious, ethical and other respects), and therefore, individualization of norms, values, evaluative criteria of activity, often principles and forms of behavior of members of the elite messages, thereby becoming unique.

Actually, for the sake of this, the circle of norms and values ​​of E.K. becomes emphatically high, innovative, what can be achieved in a variety of ways. means:

1) mastering new social and mental realities as cultural phenomena or, on the contrary, rejection of anything new and “protection” of a narrow circle conservative values and norms;

2) inclusion of one’s subject in an unexpected value-semantic context, which gives its interpretation a unique and even exclusive meaning;

3) the creation of a new, deliberately complicated cultural semantics (metaphorical, associative, allusive, symbolic and metasymbolic), requiring special knowledge from the addressee. preparation and vast cultural horizons;

4) the development of a special cultural language (code), accessible only to a narrow circle of connoisseurs and designed to complicate communication, to erect insurmountable (or the most difficult to overcome) semantic barriers to profane thinking, which turns out to be, in principle, unable to adequately comprehend the innovations of E.K., to “decipher” it meanings; 5) the use of a deliberately subjective, individually creative, “defamiliarizing” interpretation of the ordinary and familiar, which brings the subject’s cultural assimilation of reality closer to a mental (sometimes artistic) experiment on it and, in the extreme, replaces the reflection of reality in E.K. its transformation, imitation - deformation, penetration into meaning - conjecture and rethinking of the given. Due to its semantic and functional “closedness”, “narrowness”, isolation from the whole national. culture, E.k. often turns into a type (or similarity) of secret, sacred, esoteric. knowledge that is taboo for the rest of the masses, and its bearers turn into a kind of “priests” of this knowledge, chosen ones of the gods, “servants of the muses,” “keepers of secrets and faith,” which is often played out and poeticized in E.K.

Historical origin of E.c. exactly this: already in primitive society, priests, magi, sorcerers, tribal leaders become privileged holders of special knowledge, which cannot and should not be intended for general, mass use. Subsequently, this kind of relationship between E.k. and mass culture in one form or another, in particular secular, were repeatedly reproduced (in various religious denominations and especially sects, in monastic and spiritual knightly orders, Masonic lodges, in craft workshops that cultivated professional skills, in religious and philosophical . meetings, in literary, artistic and intellectual circles that formed around charismatic leaders, scientific communities and scientific schools, in political groups, associations and parties, including especially those that worked conspiratorially, underground and etc.). Ultimately, the elitism of knowledge, skills, values, norms, principles, traditions that was formed in this way was the key to sophisticated professionalism and deep substantive specialized knowledge, without which history would be impossible in culture. progress, postulate, value-semantic growth, contain, enrichment and accumulation of formal perfection - any value-semantic hierarchy. E.k. acts as an initiative and productive principle in any culture, performing mainly creative work. function in it; while mass culture stereotypes, routinizes, and profanes the achievements of E.K., adapting them to the perception and consumption of the sociocultural majority of the society. In turn, E.k. constantly ridicules or denounces mass culture, parodies it or grotesquely deforms it, presenting the world of mass society and its culture as scary and ugly, aggressive and cruel; in this context, the fate of representatives of E.K. depicted as tragic, disadvantaged, broken (romantic and post-romantic concepts of “genius and the crowd”; “creative madness”, or “sacred disease”, and ordinary “common sense”; inspired “intoxication”, including narcotic , and vulgar “sobriety”; “celebration of life” and boring everyday life).

Theory and practice of E.k. blossoms especially productively and fruitfully at the “breakdown” of cultural eras, with the change of cultural and historical. paradigms, uniquely expressing the crisis conditions of culture, the unstable balance between “old” and “new”, the representatives of E.K. themselves. realized their mission in culture as “initiators of the new,” as ahead of their time, as creators not understood by their contemporaries (such, for example, were the majority of romantics and modernists - symbolists, cultural figures of the avant-garde and professional revolutionaries who carried out the cultural revolution) . This also includes the “beginners” of large-scale traditions and the creators of the “grand style” paradigms (Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Gorky, Kafka, etc.). This view, although fair in many respects, was not, however, the only possible one. So, on Russian grounds. culture (where societies, the attitude towards E.K. was in most cases wary or even hostile, which did not even contribute to the spread of E.K., in comparison with Western Europe), concepts were born that interpret E.K. as a conservative departure from social reality and its pressing problems into the world of idealized aesthetics (“pure art”, or “art for art’s sake”), religion. and mythol. fantasies, socio-political. utopian, philosopher idealism, etc. (late Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, M. Antonovich, N. Mikhailovsky, V. Stasov, P. Tkachev and others, radical democratic thinkers). In the same tradition, Pisarev and Plekhanov, as well as Ap. Grigoriev interpreted E.k. (including “art for art’s sake”) as a demonstrative form of rejection of socio-political reality, as an expression of hidden, passive protest against it, as a refusal to participate in society. struggle of his time, seeing in this a characteristic history. symptom (deepening crisis), and pronounced inferiority of the E.K. itself. (lack of breadth and historical foresight, societies, weakness and powerlessness to influence the course of history and the life of the masses).

E.k. theorists - Plato and Augustine, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Vl. Soloviev and Leontiev, Berdyaev and A. Bely, Ortega y Gasset and Benjamin, Husserl and Heidegger, Mannheim and Ellul - variously varied the thesis about the hostility of democratization and the massification of culture and its qualities. level, its content and formal perfection, creative. search and intellectual, aesthetic, religious. and other novelty, about the stereotype and triviality that inevitably accompanies mass culture (ideas, images, theories, plots), lack of spirituality, and the infringement of creativity. personality and the suppression of its freedom in conditions of mass society and mechanics. replication of spiritual values, expansion of industrial production of culture. This tendency is to deepen the contradictions between E.K. and mass - increased unprecedentedly in the 20th century. and inspired many poignant and dramatic stories. collisions (cf., for example, the novels: “Ulysses” by Joyce, “In Search of Lost Time” by Proust, “Steppenwolf” and “The Glass Bead Game” by Hesse, “The Magic Mountain” and “Doctor Faustus” by T. Mann, “We "Zamiatin, "The Life of Klim Samgin" by Gorky, "The Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov, "The Pit" and "Chevengur" by Platonov, "The Pyramid" by L. Leonov, etc.). At the same time, in the cultural history of the 20th century. There are many examples that clearly illustrate the paradoxical dialectics of E.K. and mass: their mutual transition and mutual transformation, mutual influence and self-negation of each of them.

So, for example, creative. quest for various representatives of modern culture (symbolists and impressionists, expressionists and futurists, surrealists and dadaists, etc.) - artists, movement theorists, philosophers, and publicists - were aimed at creating unique samples and entire systems of E.C. Many of the formal refinements were experimental; theory manifestos and declarations substantiated the right of the artist and thinker to be creative. incomprehensibility, separation from the masses, their tastes and needs, to the intrinsic existence of “culture for culture.” However, as the expanding field of activity of modernists included everyday objects, everyday situations, forms of everyday thinking, structures of generally accepted behavior, current history. events, etc. (albeit with a “minus” sign, as a “minus technique”), modernism began - involuntarily, and then consciously - to appeal to the masses and mass consciousness. Shocking and mockery, grotesque and denunciation of the average person, slapstick and farce are the same legitimate genres, stylistic devices and expressions, media of mass culture, as well as playing on cliches and stereotypes of mass consciousness, posters and propaganda, farce and ditties, recitation and rhetoric. Stylization or parody of banality is almost indistinguishable from the stylized and parodied (with the exception of the ironic author's distance and the general semantic context, which remain almost elusive for mass perception); but the recognition and familiarity of vulgarity makes its criticism - highly intellectual, subtle, aestheticized - little understandable and effective for the majority of recipients (who are not able to distinguish ridicule of low-grade taste from indulging it). As a result, one and the same work of culture acquires double life with different semantic content and opposite ideological pathos: on one side it turns out to be addressed to E.K., on the other - to mass culture. These are many works by Chekhov and Gorky, Mahler and Stravinsky, Modigliani and Picasso, L. Andreev and Verhaeren, Mayakovsky and Eluard, Meyerhold and Shostakovich, Yesenin and Kharms, Brecht and Fellini, Brodsky and Voinovich. E.c. contamination is especially controversial. and mass culture in postmodern culture; for example, in such an early phenomenon of postmodernism as pop art, there is an elitization of mass culture and at the same time a massification of elitism, which gave rise to the classics of modern times. postmodernist W. Eco characterize pop art as “lowbrow highbrow”, or, conversely, as “highbrow lowbrow” (in English: Lowbrow Highbrow, or Highbrow Lowbrow).

No fewer paradoxes arise when comprehending the genesis of totalitarian culture, which, by definition, is a mass culture and a culture of the masses. However, in its origin, totalitarian culture is rooted precisely in E.K.: for example, Nietzsche, Spengler, Weininger, Sombart, Jünger, K. Schmitt and other philosophers and socio-political thinkers who anticipated and brought the Germans closer to real power. Nazism, definitely belonged to E.K. and were in a number of cases misunderstood and distorted by their practical. interpreters, primitivized, simplified to a rigid scheme and uncomplicated demagoguery. The situation is similar with communists. totalitarianism: the founders of Marxism - Marx and Engels, and Plekhanov, and Lenin himself, and Trotsky, and Bukharin - they were all, in their own way, “highbrow” intellectuals and represented a very narrow circle of radically minded intelligentsia. Moreover, the ideal. The atmosphere of social-democratic, socialist, and Marxist circles, then strictly conspiratorial party cells, was built in full accordance with the principles of E.K. (only extended to political and cognitive culture), and the principle of party membership implied not just selectivity, but also a rather strict selection of values, norms, principles, concepts, types of behavior, etc. In fact, the selection mechanism itself (based on race and nationality) or according to class-political), which lies at the basis of totalitarianism as a socio-cultural system, was created by E.K., in its depths, by its representatives, and later only extrapolated to a mass society, in which everything recognized as expedient is reproduced and is intensified, and what is dangerous for its self-preservation and development is prohibited and seized (including by means of violence). Thus, totalitarian culture initially arises from the atmosphere and style, from the norms and values ​​of an elite circle, is universalized as a kind of panacea, and then forcibly imposed on society as a whole as an ideal model and is practically introduced into the mass consciousness and society, the activities of any , including non-cultural means.

In conditions of post-totalitarian development, as well as in the context of Western democracy, the phenomena of totalitarian culture (emblems and symbols, ideas and images, concepts and style of socialist realism), being presented in a culturally pluralistic way. context and distanced from modern times. reflection - purely intellectual or aesthetic - begin to function as exotic. E.c. components and are perceived by a generation familiar with totalitarianism only from photographs and anecdotes, “strangely,” grotesquely, associatively. The components of mass culture included in the context of E.K. act as elements of E.K.; while the components of E.K., inscribed in the context of mass culture, become components of mass culture. In the postmodern cultural paradigm, the components of E.k. and mass culture are used equally as ambivalent game material, and the semantic boundary between mass and E.K. turns out to be fundamentally blurred or removed; in this case, the distinction between E.k. and mass culture practically loses its meaning (retaining for the potential recipient only the allusive meaning of the cultural-genetic context).

The product of elite culture is created by professionals and is part of the privileged society that formed it. Mass culture is part of general culture, an indicator of the development of the entire society, and not of its individual class.

Elite culture stands apart; mass culture has a huge number of consumers.

Understanding the value of a product of elite culture requires certain professional skills and abilities. Mass culture is utilitarian in nature, understandable to a wide range of consumers.

The creators of products of elite culture do not pursue material gain; they dream only of creative self-realization. Products of mass culture bring great profits to their creators.

Mass culture simplifies everything and makes it accessible to wide sections of society. Elite culture is focused on a narrow circle of consumers.

Mass culture depersonalizes society; elitist culture, on the contrary, glorifies bright creative individuality. More details: http://thedb.ru/items/Otlichie_elitarnoj_kultury_ot_massovoj/

Classic literature