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 - this is culture everyday life, presented to the widest audience through various channels, including mass 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 law, England parliamentary activity, France culture and republican nationalism, then the modern United States gave the world a scientific and technological revolution and mass culture.”
Origins of widespread use popular culture in the modern world lie in the commercialization of all public relations, while mass production of culture is understood by analogy with the conveyor belt industry. Many creative organizations(cinema, design, TV) are closely connected with banking and industrial capital and are focused on the production of commercial, box office, and entertainment works. In turn, the consumption of these products is mass consumption, because the audience that perceives this culture is the mass audience of large halls, stadiums, millions of viewers of television and movie screens.
A striking example of mass 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; variety, 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. Popular culture in to a greater extent does not focus 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.
Producer and consumer 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.
According to various estimates, approximately the same proportion of the population – about one percent – has remained consumers of elite culture in Europe for several centuries. 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 are 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 characterized by a very high level of specialization and highest level social aspirations of the individual: love of power, wealth, 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 .
Elite culture has rather blurred boundaries, especially nowadays with the tendencies of mass elements to strive for the expression of individuality. Its peculiarity is that it is doomed to be misunderstood by most people, and this is one of its main characteristics. In this article we will find out elite culture, what its main characteristics are and compare it with mass culture.
What is it
Elite culture is the same as “high culture”. It is contrasted with mass culture, which is one of the methods of its detection in the general cultural process. This concept was first identified by K. Mannheim and J. Ortega y Gasset in their works, where they derived it precisely as the antithesis of the concept of mass culture. They meant by high culture one that contains a core of meaning capable of developing human individuality, and from which the continuation of the creation of its other elements can follow. Another area that they highlighted is the presence of special verbal elements accessible to narrow social groups: for example, Latin and Sanskrit for clergy.
Elite and mass culture: contrast
They are contrasted with each other by the type of impact on consciousness, as well as by the quality of the meanings that their elements contain. Thus, the mass one is aimed at a more superficial perception, which does not require specific knowledge and special intellectual efforts to understand the cultural product. Currently, there is an increased spread of popular culture due to the process of globalization, which, in turn, is distributed through the media and stimulated by the capitalist structure of society. unlike elitist, it is intended for wide range persons Now we see its elements everywhere, and it is especially pronounced in television programs and cinema.
Thus, Hollywood cinema can be contrasted with arthouse cinema. Moreover, the first type of film focuses the viewer’s attention not on the meaning and idea of the story, but on the special effects of the video sequence. Here, high-quality cinema implies an interesting design, an unexpected but easy-to-understand plot.
Elite culture is represented by arthouse films, which are assessed by different criteria than Hollywood products of this kind, the main one of which is meaning. Thus, the quality of the footage in such films is often underestimated. At first glance, the reason for the low quality of filming is either the lack of good funding or the amateurism of the director. However, this is not so: in arthouse cinema, the function of video is to convey the meaning of an idea. Special effects can distract from this, so they are not typical for products of this format. Arthouse ideas are original and deep. Very often, in the presentation of a simple story, a deep meaning is hidden from a superficial understanding; the real tragedy of the individual is revealed. While watching these films, you can often notice that the director himself is trying to find the answer to the question posed and studying the characters as he shoots. Predicting the plot of an arthouse movie is almost impossible.
Characteristics of high culture
Elite culture has a number of characteristics that distinguish it from mass culture:
- Its elements are aimed at displaying and studying the deep processes of human psychology.
- It has a closed structure, understandable only to extraordinary individuals.
- It is distinguished by original artistic solutions.
- Contains a minimum of visual aids.
- Has the ability to express something new.
- It tests what may later become a classic or trivial art.
Introduction
Culture is a sphere of human activity associated with human self-expression, manifestations of his subjectivity (character, skills, abilities, knowledge). That is why every culture has additional characteristics, because it is associated with human creativity and everyday practice, communication, reflection, generalization and his everyday life.
Culture is a specific way of organizing and developing human life, represented in the products of material and spiritual labor, in the system of social norms and institutions, in spiritual values, in the totality of people’s relationships to nature, among themselves and to themselves.
Within the society we can distinguish:
Elite - high culture
Mass - popular culture
Folk culture
The purpose of the work is to analyze the content of mass and elite culture
Job objectives:
Expand the concept of “culture” in a broad sense
Identify the main types of culture
Characterize the features and functions of mass and elite culture.
Concept of culture
Culture was originally defined as the cultivation and care of the earth in order to make it suitable for satisfying human needs. In a figurative sense, culture is the improvement, ennoblement of a person’s bodily and spiritual inclinations and abilities; Accordingly, there is a culture of the body, a culture of the soul and a spiritual culture. In a broad sense, culture is the totality of manifestations, achievements and creativity of a people or group of peoples.
Culture, considered from the point of view of content, is divided into various areas, spheres: mores and customs, language and writing, the nature of clothing, settlements, work, economics, socio-political structure, science, technology, art, religion, all forms of manifestation of the objective spirit of this people. The level and state of culture can only be understood based on the development of cultural history; in this sense they speak of primitive and high culture; the degeneration of culture creates either lack of culture and “refined culture.” In old cultures there is sometimes fatigue, pessimism, stagnation and decline. These phenomena allow us to judge how much the carriers of culture remained true to the essence of their culture. The difference between culture and civilization is that culture is the expression and result of self-determination of the will of a people or an individual (“cultured person”), while civilization is the totality of technological achievements and associated comfort.
Culture characterizes the characteristics of consciousness, behavior and activity of people in specific areas public life(culture of politics, culture of spiritual life).
The word culture itself (in its figurative sense) came into use in social thought in the second half of the 18th century.
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the established evolutionary concept of culture was criticized. Culture began to be seen, first of all, as a specific system of values, arranged according to their role in the life and organization of society.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the concept of “local” civilizations - closed and self-sufficient cultural organisms - became widely known. This concept is characterized by the opposition of culture and civilization, which was considered as last stage development of this society.
In some other concepts, the criticism of culture, begun by Rousseau, was carried to the point of its complete denial, the idea of “natural anti-culture” of man was put forward, and any culture is a means of suppressing and enslaving man (Nietzsche).
The diversity of types of culture can be considered in two aspects: external diversity - culture on a human scale, the emphasis of which lies in the progress of culture on the world stage; internal diversity is the culture of a particular society, city; subcultures can also be taken into account here.
But the main task of this work is a specific consideration of mass and elite culture.
Popular culture
Culture has gone through many crises throughout its history. The transitions from antiquity to the Middle Ages and from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance were marked by deep crises. But what is happening to culture in our era cannot be called one of the crises along with others. We are present at a crisis of culture in general, at the deepest upheavals in its thousand-year-old foundations. The old ideal of classically beautiful art has finally faded. Art frantically strives to go beyond its limits. The boundaries that separate one art from another and art in general from what is no longer art, what is higher or lower than it, are being violated. Man wants to create something that has never happened before, and in his creative frenzy he transcends all limits and boundaries. He no longer creates such perfect and beautiful works, which were created by a more modest man of bygone eras. This is the whole essence of mass culture.
Mass culture, the culture of the majority, is also called pop culture. The main characteristics are that it is the most popular and predominant among a wide section of the population in the society. It may include such phenomena as everyday life, entertainment (sports, concerts, etc.), as well as the media.
Mass culture. Prerequisites for the formation
Prerequisites for the formation of mass culture in the 18th century. inherent in the very existence of the structure of society. José Ortega y Gasset formulated a well-known approach to structuring based on creative potential. Then the idea of a “creative elite” arises, which, naturally, constitutes a smaller part of society, and of the “mass” - quantitatively the main part of the population. Accordingly, it becomes possible to talk about the culture of the “elite” - “elite culture” and about the culture of the “mass” - “mass culture”. During this period, a division of culture occurs, with the formation of new significant social layers. Having the opportunity for a conscious aesthetic perception of cultural phenomena, newly emerging social groups, constantly communicating with the masses, make “elite” phenomena significant on a social scale and at the same time show interest in “mass” culture, in some cases their mixing occurs.
Mass culture in the modern sense
At the beginning of the 20th century. mass society and the mass culture associated with it became the subject of research by the most prominent scientists in various scientific fields: philosophers Jose Ortega y Gasset (“Revolt of the Masses”), sociologists Jean Baudrillard (“Phantoms of Modernity”), and other scientists in various fields of science. Analyzing popular culture, they highlight the main point of this culture, it is entertaining, so that it has commercial success, so that it is bought, and the money spent on it produces a profit. Entertaining is determined by the strict structural conditions of the text. The plot and stylistic texture of mass culture products may be primitive from the point of view of elitist fundamental culture, but it should not be poorly made, but on the contrary, in its primitiveness it should be perfect - only in this case will it be guaranteed readership and, therefore, commercial success . Mass culture requires a clear plot with intrigue and, most importantly, a clear division into genres. We see this clearly in the example of mass cinema. The genres are clearly demarcated and there are not many of them. The main ones: detective, thriller, comedy, melodrama, horror film, etc. Each genre is a self-contained world with its own linguistic laws, which should never be crossed, especially in cinema, where production involves the greatest amount of financial investment.
We can say that mass culture must have a rigid syntax - an internal structure, but at the same time it may be semantically poor, it may lack deep meaning.
Mass culture is characterized by anti-modernism and anti-avant-gardeism. If modernism and the avant-garde strive for a sophisticated writing technique, then mass culture operates with an extremely simple technique, worked out by the previous culture. If modernism and the avant-garde are dominated by an attitude towards the new as the main condition of their existence, then mass culture is traditional and conservative. It is focused on the average linguistic semiotic norm, on simple pragmatics, since it is addressed to a huge readership and viewing audience.
It can therefore be said that mass culture arises not only due to the development of technology, which has led to such a huge number of sources of information, but also due to the development and strengthening of political democracies. An example of this can be given that the most developed mass culture is in the most developed democratic society - in America with its Hollywood.
Speaking about art in general, a roughly similar trend was noted by Pitirim Sorokin in the mid-20th century: “As a commercial product for entertainment, art is increasingly controlled by merchants, commercial interests and fashion trends. This situation creates the highest connoisseurs of beauty out of commercial businessmen and forces artists to submit to their demands, which are also imposed through advertising and other media.” At the beginning of the 21st century, modern researchers state the same cultural phenomena: “Modern trends are disjointed and have already led to the creation of a critical mass of changes that have affected the very foundations of the content and activities of cultural institutions. The most significant of them, in our opinion, include: the commercialization of culture, democratization, the blurring of boundaries - both in the field of knowledge and in the field of technology - as well as a predominant attention to the process rather than to the content."
The relationship between science and popular culture is changing. Mass culture is “the decline of the essence of art.”
Table 1. The influence of mass culture on the spiritual life of society
PositiveNegativeHer works do not act as a means of authorial self-expression, but are directly addressed to the reader, listener, viewer, and take into account their needs. It is democratic (its “products” are used by representatives of different social groups), which corresponds to the time. It meets the needs and needs of many people, including the needs of in intensive rest, psychological times row. It has its peaks - literary, musical, cinematic works that can be classified as “high” art. It lowers the general level of spiritual culture of society, since it indulges undemanding tastes “ mass man"Leads to standardization and unification of not only the way of life, but also the way of thinking of millions of people. Designed for passive consumption, since it does not stimulate any creative impulses in the spiritual sphere. Plants myths in the minds of people (“the myth of Cinderella”, “the myth of the simple guy”, etc. . d.) Forms artificial needs in people through massive advertising. Using modern media, it replaces real life for many people, imposing certain ideas and preferences.
Elite culture
Elite culture (from the French elite - selected, selected, best) is a subculture of privileged groups of society, characterized by fundamental closedness, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. A select minority, as a rule, are also its creators. Elite culture consciously and consistently opposes mass culture.
Political and cultural elites differ; the former, also called “ruling”, “powerful”, today, thanks to the works of many learned 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, and sociocultural norms.
Unlike political elites, spiritual and creative elites form their own, fundamentally new mechanisms of self-regulation and value-semantic criteria for activity choice. In the Elite culture, the range of values recognized as true and “high” is limited, and the system of norms accepted by a given stratum as mandatory and strict in the community of “initiates” is tightened. The narrowing of the elite and its spiritual unity is inevitably accompanied by its quality and growth (intellectual, aesthetic, religious, and other respects).
Actually, for the sake of this, the circle of norms and values of Elite culture becomes emphatically high, innovative, which can be achieved by various means:
) 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;
) inclusion of one’s subject in an unexpected value-semantic context, which gives its interpretation a unique and even exclusive meaning.
) development of a special cultural language, accessible only to a narrow circle, insurmountable (or difficult to overcome) semantic barriers to complex thinking;
Historical origin elite culture
In primitive society, priests, magi, sorcerers, and 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 elite culture and mass culture in one form or another, in particular secular, has repeatedly caused disagreements.
Ultimately, the elitism of knowledge, skills, values, norms, principles, traditions formed in this way was the key to refined professionalism and deep subject specialization, without which historical progress, postulate, value-semantic growth, contain, enrichment and accumulation of formal perfection are impossible in culture, - any value-semantic hierarchy. Elite culture acts as an initiative and productive principle in any culture, performing a predominantly creative function in it; while mass culture stereotypes.
Elite culture flourishes especially productively and fruitfully at the “breakdown” of cultural eras, with a change in cultural and historical paradigms, uniquely expressing the crisis states of culture, the unstable balance between “old” and “new.” Representatives of elite culture were aware of 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 cultural revolution).
Thus, the directions, creative quests of various representatives of modern culture (symbolists and impressionists, expressionists and futurists, surrealists and Dadaists, etc.) - artists, theorists of movements, philosophers, and publicists - were aimed at creating unique samples and whole systems of elite culture.
Conclusion
Based on the foregoing, we can conclude that mass and elite culture has its own individual traits and characteristics.
Culture is an important aspect in human activity. Culture is a state of mind; it is the totality of manifestations, achievements and creativity of a people or a group of peoples.
But one feature can be identified that can be attributed to an elite culture - the greater the percentage of residents who adhere to its ideology, the higher the level of the highly educated population.
The work fully characterized mass and elite culture, highlighted their main properties, and weighed all the pros and cons.
mass elite culture
References
Berdyaev, N. “Philosophy of creativity, culture and art” T1. T2. 1994
Ortega - and - Gasset X. Revolt of the masses. Dehumanization of art. 1991
Suvorov, N. “Elite and mass consciousness in the culture of postmodernism”
Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary. M., 1997
Flier, A.Ya. "Mass culture and its social functions"
Tutoring
Need help studying a topic?
Our specialists will advise or provide tutoring services on topics that interest you.
Submit your application indicating the topic right now to find out about the possibility of obtaining a consultation.
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 various definitions of mass 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 This is a type of product that is produced in large quantities every day. This is a set of cultural phenomena of the 20th century and the peculiarities of the production of cultural values in modern industrial society, designed for mass consumption. In other words, this is a conveyor belt production through various channels, including the media and communications.
It is assumed that mass culture is consumed by all people, regardless of place and country of residence. This is the culture of everyday life, presented on the widest possible channels, including TV.
The emergence of mass culture
Relatively prerequisites for the emergence of mass culture There are several points of view:
- Mass culture arose at the dawn of Christian civilization. As an example, simplified versions of the Bible are cited (for children, for the poor), designed for a mass audience.
- In the 17th-18th centuries, the genre of adventure novel appeared in Western Europe, 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.).
- In 1870, a law on universal literacy was passed in Great Britain, which allowed many to master the main form of art. creativity XIX century - novel. But this is only the prehistory of mass culture. In the proper sense, mass culture first manifested itself in the United States at the turn of the 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. Weight - average person. Society has always been a moving unity of the minority and the masses. A minority is a set of persons who are specially singled out; the mass is a group of people who are not singled out in any way. Ortega sees the reason for the promotion of the masses to the forefront of history in the low quality of culture, when a person of a given culture “does not differ from the rest and repeats the general type.”
The prerequisites for mass culture also include the emergence of a system of mass communications during the formation of bourgeois society(press, mass book publishing, then radio, television, cinema) and the development of transport, which made it possible to reduce the space and time necessary for the transmission and dissemination of cultural values in society. Culture emerges from local existence and begins to function on 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:
- The emergence of public educational institutions ( secondary schools, vocational school, higher education institutions);
- Creation of institutions producing scientific knowledge;
- Appearance professional art(academies of fine arts, theater, opera, ballet, conservatory, literary magazines, publishing houses and associations, exhibitions, public museums, exhibition galleries, libraries), which also included the emergence of the institute art criticism as a means of popularizing and developing his works.
Features and significance of mass culture
Mass culture in its most concentrated form is manifested in artistic culture, as well as in the spheres of leisure, communication, management and economics. The term "mass culture" was first introduced by the German professor M. Horkheimer in 1941 and the American scientist D. MacDonald in 1944. The content of this term is quite contradictory. On the one hand, mass culture - "culture for all", on the other hand, this is "not quite culture". The definition of mass culture emphasizes spreadthe vulnerability and general accessibility of spiritual values, as well as the ease of their assimilation, which does not require special developed taste and perception.
The existence of mass culture is based on the activities of the media, the so-called technical arts (cinema, television, video). Mass culture exists not only in democratic social systems, but also in totalitarian regimes, where everyone is a “cog” and everyone is equal.
Currently, some researchers abandon the view of “mass culture” as an area of “bad taste” and do not consider it anti-cultural. Many people realize that mass culture has not only negative traits. It influences:
- the ability of people to adapt to the conditions of a market economy;
- respond adequately to sudden situational social changes.
Besides, mass culture is capable:
- compensate for the lack of personal communication and dissatisfaction with life;
- increase the population's involvement in political events;
- increase the psychological stability of the population in difficult social situations;
- make the achievements of science and technology accessible to many.
It should be recognized that mass culture is an objective indicator of the state of society, its misconceptions, typical forms of behavior, cultural stereotypes and the real value system.
In the field 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 a market-type industrial society.
TO negative consequences popular culture refers to its ability to mythologize human consciousness, to mystify real processes occurring in nature and society. There is a rejection of the rational principle in consciousness.
There were once beautiful poetic images. They talked about the wealth of imagination of people who could not yet correctly understand and explain the action of the forces of nature. Nowadays myths serve the poverty of thinking.
On the one hand, one might think that the purpose of mass culture is to relieve tension and stress in a person in an industrial society - after all, it is entertaining. But in fact, this culture does not so much fill leisure time as stimulate the consumer consciousness of the viewer, listener, and reader. A type of passive, uncritical perception of this culture arises in a person. And if so, a personality is created, whose consciousness easy mamanipulate, whose emotions are easy to direct to the rightside.
In other words, mass culture exploits the instincts of the subconscious sphere of human feelings and, above all, feelings of loneliness, guilt, hostility, fear, and 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 invite her listener, viewer, reader to build such a world - her task is to offer a person refuge from reality.
The origins of the widespread dissemination of mass culture in the modern world lie in the commercial nature of all social relations. The concept of “product” defines the entire diversity of social relations in society.
Spiritual activity: cinema, books, music, etc., in connection with the development of mass media, 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:
- 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.
- Second distinguishing feature"middle class" person 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.
- 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 culture is the highest, privileged stratum 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.
Elite is not easy upper layer society, ruling elite. There is an elite in every social class.
Elite- this is the part of society most capable ofspiritual activity, gifted with high moral and aesthetic inclinations. It is she who ensures social progress, so art should be focused on meeting her demands and needs. The main elements of the elite concept of culture are contained in philosophical works A. Schopenhauer (“The World as Will and Idea”) and F. Nietzsche (“Human, All Too Human,” “The Gay Science,” “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”).
A. Schopenhauer divides humanity into two parts: “people of geniuses” and “people of benefit.” The former are capable of aesthetic contemplation and artistic activity, the latter are focused only on purely practical, utilitarian 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 sphere. Elite - for sophisticated connoisseurs, mass - for the ordinary, ordinary reader, viewer, listener. Works that serve as standards of mass art, as a rule, reveal a connection with folklore, mythological, and popular popular constructions that existed before. In the 20th century, the elitist concept of culture was summarized by Ortega y Gaset. The work of this Spanish philosopher, “The Dehumanization of Art,” argues that the new art is addressed to the elite of society, and not to its masses. Therefore, art does not necessarily have to be popular, generally understandable, universal. New art should alienate people from real life. "Dehumanization" - and is the basis of the new art of the twentieth century. There are polar classes in society - majority (mass) and minority (elite) . New art, according to Ortega, divides the public into two classes - those who understand it and those who do not understand it, that is, artists and those who are not artists.
Elite , according to Ortega, this is not the tribal aristocracy and not the privileged layers of society, but that part of it that has a “special organ of perception” . It is this part that contributes to social progress. And it is precisely this that artists should address with their works. 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 ones and the birth of new ones. cultural traditions, methods of production and reproduction of spiritual values, changes 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 artistic forms. The triad: “elite - exemplary - classic” began to crumble - the elitist was no longer identical to the classical.
Features and significance of elite culture
A feature of elite culture is the interest of its representatives in creating new forms, demonstrative opposition to the harmonious forms of classical art, as well as an emphasis on the subjectivity of the worldview.
The characteristic features of an elite culture are:
- 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;
- inclusion of one’s subject in unexpected value-semantic contexts, creation of its new interpretation, unique or exclusive meaning;
- the creation of a new cultural language (language of symbols, images), accessible to a narrow circle of connoisseurs, the decoding of which requires special efforts and a broad cultural outlook from the uninitiated.
Elite culture is dual and contradictory in nature. On the one hand, elite culture acts as an innovative enzyme of the sociocultural process. Works of elite culture contribute to the renewal of the culture of society, introducing new issues, language, and methods of cultural creativity into it. Initially, within the boundaries of elite culture, new genres and types of art are born, a cultural, literary language of society is developed, extraordinary scientific theories, philosophical concepts and religious teachings are created, which seem to “break out” beyond the established boundaries of culture, but then can become part of the cultural heritage of the entire society . That is why, for example, they say that truth is born as heresy and dies as banality.
On the other hand, the position of an elite culture, opposing itself to the culture of society, may mean a conservative departure from social reality and its pressing problems into the idealized world of “art for art’s sake,” religious, philosophical and socio-political utopias. 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 late period of his work, when he switched to the position of peasant democracy, he considered all these works unnecessary for the people and began to compose popular stories from peasant life.
Another direction of theories of elite culture (Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Berdyaev, Ortega y Gasset, Heidegger and Ellul) defended it, emphasizing its content, 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. A textbook for independent work of students. – Lugansk: Elton-2, 2008. – 296 p.
2.Cultural studies in questions and answers. Methodical manual to prepare for tests and exams in the course “Ukrainian and foreign culture» for students of all specialties and forms of study. / Rep. Editor Ragozin N.P. - Donetsk, 2008, - 170 p.
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, complex literature 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 calling 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 its own specific features: norms, ideals, values, a system 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 of 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 recipients (in any case, the circle of both almost coincides), E.K. consciously and consistently opposes the culture of the majority, or mass culture in the broad sense (in all its historical and typological varieties - folklore, folk culture, official culture of a particular estate or class, the state as a whole, the cultural industry of technocratic society -va 20th century, etc.). Moreover, E.k. needs a constant context of mass culture, since it is based on the mechanism of repulsion from the values and norms accepted in mass culture, on the destruction of existing stereotypes and templates of mass culture (including their parody, ridicule, irony, grotesque, polemic, criticism, refutation), on demonstrative self-isolation in general national culture. In this regard, E.k. - a characteristically marginal phenomenon within any history. or national type of culture and is always secondary, derivative in relation to the culture of the majority. The problem of E.K. is especially acute. in communities where the antinomy of mass culture and E.K. practically exhausts all the variety of manifestations of nationalism. culture as a whole and where the mediative (“middle”) area of the national culture, a constituent part of it. body and equally opposed to polarized mass and E. cultures as value-semantic extremes. This is typical, in particular, for cultures that have a binary structure and are prone to inversion forms of history. development (Russian and typologically similar cultures).
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”. The number, narrowing of the elite and its spiritual unity is inevitably accompanied by its qualities, growth (in intellectual, aesthetic, religious, ethical and other respects), and therefore, the individualization of norms, values, evaluative criteria for activities, 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 of 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 confessions and especially sects, in monastic and spiritual knightly orders, Masonic lodges, in the craft workshops that cultivated prof. mastery, in religious and philosophical. meetings, in literary and artistic and intellectual circles that develop around charismatic people. leader, scientific associations and scientific schools, in politics, associations and parties, including especially those that worked conspiratorially, conspiratorially, underground, 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, means 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 base 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. Such 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. Popular culture - part 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 the bright creative individuality. More details: http://thedb.ru/items/Otlichie_elitarnoj_kultury_ot_massovoj/
Classic literature