Material culture and its types.
Culture is an integral system object with a complex structure. At the same time, the very existence of culture acts as a single process that can be divided into two spheres: material and spiritual. Material culture is divided into: - production and technological culture, which represents the material results of material production and methods of technological activity public person; - reproduction human race, which includes the entire sphere of intimate relationships between a man and a woman. It should be noted that material culture is usually understood not so much as the creation of the objective world of people, but rather the activity of creating “conditions” human existenceʼʼ. The essence of material culture is the embodiment of various human needs, allowing people to adapt to biological and social conditions of life.
Material culture is the human environment. Material culture is created by all types of human labor. It creates the standard of living of society, the nature of its material needs and the possibility of satisfying them. The material culture of society falls into eight categories:
1) animal breeds;
2) plant varieties;
3) soil culture;
4) buildings and structures;
5) tools and equipment;
6) communication routes and means of transport;
7) communications and means of communication;
8) technology.
1. Breeds of animals constitute a special category of material culture, because this category does not include the number of animals of a given breed, but precisely the carriers of the breed.
This category of material culture includes not only animals for economic use, but also decorative breeds of dogs, pigeons, etc. The process of transferring wild animals into domestic ones through directed selection and crossing is accompanied by a change in their appearance, gene pool and behavior. But not all tame animals, for example, cheetahs used for hunting, belong to material culture, because did not undergo directed crossing processes.
Wild and domestic animals of the same species can coexist in time (as, for example, pigs and wild boars) or be only domestic.
2. Plant varieties are developed through selection and targeted education. The number of varieties is constantly increasing in each plant species. Unlike animal breeds, plants can be stored in seeds, which contain all the qualities of an adult plant. Seed storage allows you to collect collections of seeds and save them, systematize, classify, etc. conduct all types of activities characteristic of cultural work. Since different types plants different relationships between seeds and an adult plant, since many plants are propagated by layering and cuttings, crop-forming functions are combined with the distribution of varieties in a given area. This is done by nurseries and seed farms.
3. Soil culture is the most complex and vulnerable component of material culture. Soil is the upper productive layer of the earth, in which saprophytic viruses, bacteria, worms, fungi and other living elements of nature are concentrated between inorganic elements. The productive power of the soil depends on how much and in what combinations these living elements are found with inorganic elements and among themselves. It is important to note that to create a soil culture, it is processed to increase its fertility. Soil treatment includes: mechanical tillage (turning over the top layer, loosening and transferring the soil), fertilizing with humus of organic plant residues and animal waste, chemical fertilizers and microelements, the correct sequence of cultivation of different plants in the same area, water and air regime of the soil (reclamation, irrigation, etc.).
Thanks to cultivation, the soil layer increases in volume, life in it is activated (thanks to the combination of saprophytic living beings), and fertility increases. The soil, being in the same place thanks to human activity, improves. This is soil culture.
Soils are classified according to their quality, location and their productive capacity. Soil maps are being compiled. Soils are rated by their productive power through comparison. A land cadastre is compiled that determines the quality and comparative value of the soil. Inventories have agricultural and economic uses.
4. Buildings and structures are the most visual elements of material culture (the German verb “bauen” means “to build” and “to cultivate the soil”, as well as “to engage in any culture-forming activity”; it well expresses the meaning of the combination of basic forms of material and cultural development of places - ness).
Buildings are the places where people live with all the variety of their activities and life, and structures are the results of construction that change the conditions of economic activity. Buildings usually include housing, premises for monetary, administrative activities, entertainment, information, educational activities, and the structures of the reclamation system and water management, dams, bridges, premises for production. The boundary between buildings and structures is mobile. Thus, the theater room is a building, and the stage mechanism is a structure. A warehouse can be called both a building and a structure. What they have in common is that they are the result of construction activities.
The culture of buildings and structures, as well as soil, is real estate that should not be destroyed in its functional qualities. This means that the culture of buildings and structures consists of maintaining and constantly improving their useful functions.
Authorities, especially local ones, monitor the maintenance and development of this culture. The role of chambers of commerce and industry is especially great, which, being public organizations directly engaged in this work (of course, where they are, and where they function correctly). Banks can play a significant role in this cultural creative work, which, however, do not always act correctly, forgetting that their future well-being is connected, first of all, with the correct exploitation of real estate.
5. Tools, devices and equipment - a category of material culture that provides all types of physical and mental labor. Οʜᴎ represent movable property and differ based on the type of activity they serve. Most full list a variety of tools, devices and equipment are trade nomenclatures.
The peculiarity of correctly compiled trade nomenclatures is that they reflect the entire history of improvement of tools, devices and equipment. The principle of culture formation in the development and differentiation of functions and the preservation of early functional analogues.
The difference between tools, fixtures and equipment is that the tool directly affects the material being processed; fixtures serve as an addition to the tool, allowing them to operate with greater accuracy and productivity. Equipment - complexes of tools and devices located in one place of work and everyday life.
Material culture and its types. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Material culture and its types." 2017, 2018.
The embodiment of materialized humans. needs. Includes all material artifacts and technologies created by man. inform you. In K.m. humanity's desire to adapt to biol is being realized. and social living conditions. Diversity of people. needs are reflected in the complex structure of K.m. from main tools of labor and means of subsistence, tools for warfare and protection from aggression, to works of art, music. instruments, religious objects. cult, housing, clothing, etc. Each object within the K.m. represents the implementation of an idea or system of ideas.
Lit.: Harris M. Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. N.Y., 1979.
Great definition
MATERIAL CULTURE
material products, results and processes of human activity; that in which spiritual culture is embodied. Even Democritus, calling the world of the results of human creativity “second nature,” prompted us to understand K. m. as the same predetermined and objective for each individual person, like nature. At the same time, K. m. is the result of a person going beyond the boundaries of nature, instinct, the result of the creation of something that was not created by nature itself. K. m. exists in the form of artifacts - objects, phenomena and processes of artificial origin. The circle of artifacts includes: material things created or processed by people (household items, clothing, homes, tools, weapons, means of transport and communications, etc.); artificially transformed territories (cities, cultivated lands); material carriers of ideas and images (graphic, visual, sound, electronic recordings); domesticated animals and selected plants. C. m. also includes practical actions of people that bear the imprint of spiritual culture, that is, reproducing stable patterns of behavior, traditions, and meanings of a given culture: production activities, technologies, organizational and regulatory activities, etc. in a broad sense K. m. is the material side of any cultural process or activity. In the narrow sense, physical culture is the culture of labor and material production, the culture of everyday life, the culture of attitude towards one’s own body, and physical culture. L. A. Shtempel
— its production, distribution and preservation. In this sense, culture is often understood as the artistic creativity of musicians, writers, actors, painters; organizing exhibitions and directing performances; museum and library activities, etc. There are even narrower meanings of culture: the degree of development of something (work or food culture), characteristics of a certain era or people (Scythian or Old Russian culture), level of education (culture of behavior or speech), etc.
In all these interpretations of culture, we are talking about both material objects (paintings, films, buildings, books, cars) and intangible products (ideas, values, images, theories, traditions). Material and spiritual values created by man are called material and spiritual culture, respectively.
Material culture
Under material culture usually refers to artificially created objects that allow people to adapt in an optimal way to natural and social conditions of life.
Objects of material culture are created to satisfy diversity and are therefore considered as values. When speaking about the material culture of a particular people, they traditionally mean such specific items as clothing, weapons, utensils, food, jewelry, housing, architectural structures. Modern science, by examining such artifacts, is able to reconstruct the lifestyle of even long-vanished peoples, of which there is no mention in written sources.
With a broader understanding of material culture, three main elements are seen in it.
- Actually objective world, created by man - buildings, roads, communications, devices, objects of art and everyday life. The development of culture is manifested in the constant expansion and complexity of the world, “domestication”. Life modern man it is difficult to imagine without the most complex artificial devices - computers, television, mobile phones etc., which lie at the basis of modern information culture.
- Technologies - means and technical algorithms for creating and using objects of the objective world. Technologies are material because they are embodied in specific practical methods of activity.
- Technical culture - These are specific skills, abilities, . Culture preserves these skills and abilities along with knowledge, transmitting both theoretical and practical experience from generation to generation. However, unlike knowledge, skills and abilities are formed in practical activities, usually a present example. At each stage of cultural development, along with the complexity of technology, skills also become more complex.
Spiritual culture
Spiritual culture unlike material, it is not embodied in objects. The sphere of her existence is not things, but ideal activity associated with intellect, emotions, etc.
- Ideal forms the existence of culture does not depend on individual human opinions. This is scientific knowledge, language, established moral standards, etc. Sometimes this category includes the activities of education and mass communication.
- Integrating forms of spirituality cultures connect disparate elements of public and personal consciousness into a whole. At the first stages of human development, myths acted as such a regulating and unifying form. In modern times, its place has been taken, and to some extent -.
- Subjective spirituality represents the refraction of objective forms in the individual consciousness of each individual person. In this regard, we can talk about the culture of an individual person (his knowledge base, ability to make moral choices, religious feelings, culture of behavior, etc.).
The combination of spiritual and material forms common cultural space as a complex interconnected system of elements constantly transforming into each other. Thus, spiritual culture - the ideas, plans of the artist - can be embodied in material things - books or sculptures, and reading books or observing objects of art is accompanied by a reverse transition - from material things to knowledge, emotions, feelings.
The quality of each of these elements, as well as the close connection between them, determines level moral, aesthetic, intellectual, and ultimately - cultural development of any society.
The relationship between material and spiritual culture
Material culture- this is the entire area of human material and production activity and its results - the artificial environment surrounding humans.
Things- the result of human material and creative activity - are the most important form of its existence. Like the human body, a thing simultaneously belongs to two worlds - natural and cultural. As a rule, things are made from natural materials, and become part of culture after human processing. This is exactly how our distant ancestors once acted, turning a stone into a chop, a stick into a spear, the skin of a killed animal into clothing. At the same time, the thing acquires a very important quality - the ability to satisfy certain human needs, to be useful to a person. We can say that a useful thing is the initial form of existence of a thing in culture.
But things from the very beginning were also carriers of socially significant information, signs and symbols that connected the human world with the world of spirits, texts that stored information necessary for the survival of the collective. This was especially true for primitive culture with its syncretism - integrity, indivisibility of all elements. Therefore, along with practical utility, there was symbolic utility, which made it possible to use things in magical rites and rituals, as well as to give them additional aesthetic properties. In ancient times, another form of thing appeared - a toy intended for children, with the help of which they mastered the necessary cultural experience and prepared for adult life. Most often these were miniature models of real things, sometimes having additional aesthetic value.
Gradually, over thousands of years, the utilitarian and valuable properties of things began to separate, which led to the formation of two classes of things - prosaic, purely material, and things-signs used for ritual purposes, for example, flags and emblems of states, orders, etc. There has never been an insurmountable barrier between these classes. So, in the church, a special font is used for the baptismal ceremony, but if necessary, it can be replaced with any basin of suitable size. Thus, any thing retains its sign function, being a cultural text. With the passage of time, the aesthetic value of things began to acquire more and more importance, so beauty has long been considered one of their most important characteristics. But in industrial society, beauty and utility began to be separated. Therefore, many useful, but ugly things and at the same time beautiful expensive trinkets appear, emphasizing the wealth of their owner.
We can say that a material thing becomes a carrier spiritual meaning, since it fixes the image of a person of a particular era, culture, social status etc. Thus, a knight's sword can serve as an image and symbol of a medieval feudal lord, and in modern complex household appliances It’s easy to see a person from the beginning of the 21st century. The toys are also portraits of the era. For example, modern technically sophisticated toys, including many models of weapons, quite accurately reflect the face of our time.
Social organizations They are also the fruit of human activity, another form of material objectivity, material culture. The formation of human society took place in close connection with the development of social structures, without which the existence of culture is impossible. IN primitive society Due to the syncretism and homogeneity of primitive culture, there was only one social structure - the clan organization, which ensured the entire existence of man, his material and spiritual needs, as well as the transfer of information to subsequent generations. With the development of society, various social structures began to form, responsible for the everyday practical life of people (labor, public administration, war) and for satisfying their spiritual needs, primarily religious. Already in the Ancient East, the state and cult were clearly distinguished, and at the same time schools appeared as part of pedagogical organizations.
The development of civilization, associated with the improvement of technology and technology, the construction of cities, and the formation of classes, required a more effective organization of social life. As a result, social organizations emerged in which economic, political, legal, moral relations, technical, scientific, artistic, sports activities. In the economic sphere, the first social structure was the medieval guild, which in modern times was replaced by manufactory, which today has developed into industrial and trading firms, corporations and banks. IN political sphere in addition to the state there were political parties And public associations. The legal sphere created the court, the prosecutor's office, and legislative bodies. The religion has formed an extensive church organization. Later, organizations of scientists, artists, and philosophers appeared. All cultural spheres existing today have a network of social organizations and structures created by them. The role of these structures increases over time, as the importance of organizational factor in the life of humanity. Through these structures, a person exercises control and self-government and creates the basis for life together people, to preserve and pass on the accumulated experience to the next generations.
Things and social organizations together create a complex structure of material culture, in which several important areas are distinguished: agriculture, buildings, tools, transport, communications, technology, etc.
Agriculture includes plant varieties and animal breeds developed as a result of selection, as well as cultivated soils. Human survival is directly related to this area of material culture, since it provides food and raw materials for industrial production. Therefore, people are constantly concerned about breeding new, more productive species of plants and animals. But proper tillage of the soil is especially important to maintain its fertility. high level, - mechanical processing, fertilization with organic and chemical fertilizers, land reclamation and crop rotation - the sequence of cultivating different plants on one piece of land.
building- places where people live with all the diversity of their activities and life (housing, premises for management activities, entertainment, educational activities), and construction- results of construction that change the conditions of economy and life (premises for production, bridges, dams, etc.). Both buildings and structures are the result of construction. A person must constantly take care to maintain them in order so that they can successfully perform their functions.
Tools, fixtures And equipment are intended to provide all types of physical and mental labor of a person. Thus, tools directly affect the material being processed, devices serve as an addition to the tools, equipment is a set of tools and devices located in one place and used for one purpose. They differ depending on what type of activity they serve - agriculture, industry, communications, transport, etc. The history of mankind testifies to the constant improvement of this area of material culture - from a stone ax and a digging stick to modern complex machines and mechanisms that ensure the production of everything necessary for human life.
Transport And communication routes ensure the exchange of people and goods between different regions and settlements, contributing to their development. This area of material culture includes: specially equipped means of communication (roads, bridges, embankments, airport runways), buildings and structures necessary for the normal operation of transport ( railway stations, airports, ports, harbors, gas stations, etc.), all types of transport (horse-drawn, road, rail, air, water, pipeline).
Connection closely related to transport and includes postal services, telegraph, telephone, radio and computer networks. It, like transport, connects people, allowing them to exchange information.
Technologies - knowledge and skills in all listed areas of activity. The most important task is not only the further improvement of technology, but also the transfer to next generations, which is possible only through a developed education system, and this indicates a close connection between material and spiritual culture.
Knowledge, values and projects as forms of spiritual culture.Knowledge are a product of human cognitive activity, recording information received by a person about the world around him and the person himself, his views on life and behavior. We can say that the level of culture of both an individual and society as a whole is determined by the volume and depth of knowledge. Today, knowledge is acquired by a person in all spheres of culture. But gaining knowledge in religion, art, everyday life, etc. is not a priority. Here knowledge is always associated with a certain value system, which it justifies and defends: in addition, it is figurative in nature. Only science, as a special sphere of spiritual production, has as its goal the acquisition of objective knowledge about the world around us. It arose in antiquity, when there was a need for generalized knowledge about the world around us.
Values - ideals that a person and society strive to achieve, as well as objects and their properties that satisfy certain human needs. They are associated with a constant assessment of all objects and phenomena surrounding a person, which he makes according to the principle of good-bad, good-evil, and arose within the framework of primitive culture. Myths played a special role in the preservation and transmission of values to subsequent generations, thanks to which values became an integral part of rites and rituals, and through them a person became a part of society. Due to the collapse of myth with the development of civilization value orientations began to be consolidated in religion, philosophy, art, morality and law.
Projects - plans for future human actions. Their creation is connected with the essence of man, his ability to carry out conscious, purposeful actions to transform the world around him, which is impossible without a previously drawn up plan. In this, a person’s creative ability is realized, his ability to freely transform reality: first - in his own consciousness, then - in practice. In this way, man differs from animals, who are capable of acting only with those objects and phenomena that exist in the present and are important for them at a given time. Only man has freedom; for him there is nothing inaccessible or impossible (at least in fantasy).
In primitive times, this ability was fixed at the level of myth. Today, projective activity exists as a specialized activity and is divided in accordance with what projects of objects should be created - natural, social or human. In this regard, design is distinguished:
- technical (engineering), inextricably linked with scientific and technological progress, which occupies an increasingly important place in culture. Its result is the world of material things that create the body of modern civilization;
- social for creating models social phenomena- new forms of government, political and legal systems, production management methods, school education etc.;
- pedagogical to create human models, ideal images of children and students, which are formed by parents and teachers.
- Knowledge, values and projects form the foundation of spiritual culture, which includes, in addition to the mentioned results of spiritual activity, the spiritual activity itself in the production of spiritual products. They, like the products of material culture, satisfy certain human needs and, above all, the need to ensure the life of people in society. For this, a person acquires the necessary knowledge about the world, society and himself, and for this, value systems are created that allow a person to realize, choose or create forms of behavior approved by society. This is how the varieties of spiritual culture that exist today were formed - morality, politics, law, art, religion, science, philosophy. Consequently, spiritual culture is a multi-layered formation.
At the same time, spiritual culture is inextricably linked with material culture. Any objects or phenomena of material culture are based on a project, embody certain knowledge and become values, satisfying human needs. In other words, material culture is always the embodiment of a certain part of spiritual culture. But spiritual culture can only exist if it is materialized, objectified, and has received one or another material embodiment. Any book, painting, musical composition, like other works of art that are part of spiritual culture, need a material carrier - paper, canvas, paints, musical instruments, etc.
Moreover, it is often difficult to understand what type of culture - material or spiritual - a particular object or phenomenon belongs to. Thus, we will most likely classify any piece of furniture as material culture. But if we are talking about a 300-year-old chest of drawers exhibited in a museum, we should talk about it as an object of spiritual culture. A book, an indisputable object of spiritual culture, can be used to light a stove. But if cultural objects can change their purpose, then criteria must be introduced to distinguish between objects of material and spiritual culture. In this capacity, one can use an assessment of the meaning and purpose of an object: an object or phenomenon that satisfies the primary (biological) needs of a person belongs to material culture; if it satisfies secondary needs associated with the development of human abilities, it is considered an object of spiritual culture.
Between material and spiritual culture there are transitional forms - signs that represent something different from what they themselves are, although this content does not relate to spiritual culture. The most famous form of sign is money, as well as various coupons, tokens, receipts, etc., used by people to indicate payment for all kinds of services. Thus, money - the general market equivalent - can be spent on buying food or clothing (material culture) or purchasing a ticket to a theater or museum (spiritual culture). In other words, money acts as a universal intermediary between objects of material and spiritual culture in modern society. But this conceals a serious danger, since money equalizes these objects among themselves, depersonalizing objects of spiritual culture. At the same time, many people have the illusion that everything has its price, that everything can be bought. In this case, money divides people and degrades the spiritual side of life.
→ The structure of culture and its main elements
Considering culture in a broad sense, it is possible to highlight the material and spiritual means of human life. In other words, culture consists of elements that form a certain unity: material and spiritual culture . Both are created by man himself. Spiritual culture plays a decisive role in this unity. At the same time, we are not talking about excluding or belittling the role of the material side of society. Culture is the unity of the spiritual and material, but the harmony of this unity is ensured by the spiritual activity of man.
Material culture
Material culture (material values)
exists in objective form. These are houses, machines, clothes - everything that an object turns into a thing, i.e. an object whose properties are determined by human creative abilities have a purposeful purpose.
Material culture is the spirituality of a person, transformed into the form of a thing; it is, first of all, the means of material production. These are energy and raw materials resources, tools (from simple to complex), as well as various types of practical human activities. The concept of material culture also includes material-objective human relations in the sphere of exchange, i.e. industrial relations. Types of material assets: buildings and structures, means of communication and transport, parks and human-equipped landscapes are also included in material culture.
It should be borne in mind that the volume of material assets is wider than the volume of material production, therefore they also include monuments, archaeological sites, architectural values, equipped natural monuments, etc.
Material culture is created to improve human life and to develop his creative abilities. In the history of mankind, various conditions have arisen for the realization of a person’s material and technical capabilities, for the development of his “I”. The lack of harmony between creative ideas and their implementation led to the instability of culture, to its conservatism or utopianism.
Spiritual culture
Spiritual culture , closely related to the material and technical development of society, includes the entire totality of the results of spiritual activity and the spiritual activity itself. The earliest, established types of spiritual culture are religious beliefs, customs, norms and patterns of human behavior that have developed in specific historical social conditions. The elements of spiritual culture also include art, morality, scientific knowledge, political ideals and values, different ideas. This is always the result of a person’s intellectual and spiritual activity. Spiritual culture, like material culture, is also created by man to satisfy his specific needs. Of course, the division of culture into material and spiritual is to a certain extent arbitrary. After all culture is the self-generation of man as a species. On the one hand, a person generates culture, on the other hand, he himself acts as its result. But in the interests of analyzing such a multidimensional concept as culture, we will accept the starting points: there is material production - the production of things, and there is spiritual production - the production of ideas. This leads to the structural division of culture.
The difference between material and spiritual culture can be seen in various directions. So, for example, the values of spiritual culture (art) do not know obsolescence, unlike tools, machines, etc. In addition, spiritual values can exist not only in objective form (books, paintings, etc.), but also as acts of activity. For example, the performance of a violinist, an actor on stage, etc.
Finally, spiritual values carry imprint of the personality of their creator: poet, singer, artist, composer. The unique individuality of the author allows us to comprehend not only the content, but also the emotional and sensual essence of works of art, philosophical ideas, religious systems etc.
It is obvious that a person’s need for spiritual values is unlimited, in contrast to the level of material well-being, which has limits. Manifestations of spiritual culture are customs, traditions, and norms.
Custom represents one of the most ancient phenomena of spiritual culture. In primitive society, the first customs were formed as regulators of human behavior.
Customs are formed mainly in the everyday environment, and therefore are distinguished by their stability, longevity, and “survivability.” They are present in any developed culture as habitual patterns of behavior that are little exposed to awareness. ( “Let us sit down, friends, before a long journey, let the path seem easy”). A custom is a stereotype in human behavior. Customs are closely related to traditions, which are maintained through ceremonial and ritual actions. Concepts such as custom, rite, and ritual should be considered as links in one chain. They are often defined as a moment of tradition.
Tradition call the transmission and preservation of social and cultural experience from generation to generation. Traditions are certain values, norms of behavior, customs, rituals, and ideas. Sometimes they are perceived as relics, they can disappear and then be reborn. The selection of traditions is carried out by time, but there is also eternal traditions: honoring parents, respectful attitude towards women, etc.
In addition to customs, the way of existence of a tradition is also rites or rituals. A ritual is a sequential order of actions that ends a custom. Rituals are usually tied to certain dates or events (initiation rites, initiation into students, wedding rites, rites associated with the end of the harvest - “dozhinki”) and others.
In a spiritual culture, norms may apply. Norm is a generally accepted rule of behavior or action. They (norms) stand out from customs and acquire independent existence. A person’s actions are largely determined by the norms accepted in society. Distinguish norms-prescriptions, norms-prohibitions, norms-models. The latter reflect the level of culture achieved in society.
A more complex and developed product of spiritual culture are values. Value implies choice, allows for different, even opposing decisions and preferences. Value includes such elements as interest and need of the individual, duty and ideal, motivation and motive. There are different types of values: moral, religious, artistic-aesthetic, political, vital(related to a healthy lifestyle). We can also talk about family and kinship values, labor, ideological. Often values in certain cultures are personified in the form of saints, heroes, leaders, classics, etc. A rich set of values of a particular culture indicates the level of spiritual culture of a society and its ability to communicate with other cultures.
If we classify the elements of spiritual culture, considering it as one of the forms of social consciousness, then on this basis we can distinguish:
Political culture;
moral culture(morality);
aesthetic culture(art);
religious culture;
philosophical culture etc.
But this is not the only attempt to classify the elements of spiritual culture. With a social approach, culturologists distinguish two forms of cultural existence: mass and elite . Mass culture is the type of cultural production that is produced every day in large volumes(detective, western, melodrama, musical, comic book, etc.). Producer and consumer elite culture is the highest, privileged layer of society - the elite. The content of culture is all human activity.
Having examined the structure of culture, it should be noted that in the culture of each people class and universal, national and international values. In traditional societies with a rigid organization, the authority of social norms, and strong power, non-class forms of culture such as science, technology, and language slowly developed. The same forms of culture on which the power of the ruling classes was based were quite developed. This is art. So, for example, in our society, where the working class was declared the “hegemon,” culture was built according to the standards of proletarian culture, which led to an aggravation of the problem of universal human values.
Universal, i.e. supraclass values , exists in every national culture. The national character of culture is manifested not only in self-awareness, in the mentality of the nation, but also in the fact that each nation considers its culture both native and universal at the same time. The word “people” means “real people” in the names of many tribes and peoples, i.e. Every people quite naturally considers itself a real person first of all. Japan is usually cited as an example of a harmonious combination of national and international principles in culture. On the one hand, Japan - traditional society with special traditions, customs, values, on the other hand, in last decades this country has managed to successfully combine international technologies, innovations in the field of technology and production with national characteristics its culture and pulled ahead in a harmonious combination of one and the other.
Needs play a major role in the development of culture. Need - this is a need for something, this is a certain state of a person associated with a feeling of necessity, satisfaction. Need forces a person to act. Eat primary human needs - natural, and secondary - social or cultural. People value cultural needs higher than natural ones, although the vital value of the latter is often underestimated (clean air, clean water, natural nature). The role of needs is that when they arise, a person’s interest in something awakens. This leads to creative activity, to some discoveries, inventions, ideas, etc. As a result, certain values are created, the production of which constitutes culture.
Physical culture
- this is a transformation of the natural principle in man himself; formation of socially necessary skills and abilities of the human body. An analysis of the composition of the Russian language shows that words denoting innate bodily actions make up no more than 0.9% of the total number of verbs reflecting actions acquired by a person through training.
Physical education is based on home physical training, which includes the development of coordination of movements of the child’s whole body (formation of macro-actions) and the articulatory apparatus (micro-movements of the maxillofacial muscles, respiratory organs, digestion). In other words, this is a solution to such an important task as teaching speech, upright walking, moving objects, hygiene rules, and cultivating differences in behavior based on gender or age.
All subsequent, more complex or specialized physical skills and coordinated movements such as ballet dance, movements of the hands of a turner, surgeon or magician. To learn all this, you need not so much suitable physical data as rich cultural traditions and the ability cultivated in a person to improve body movements in relation to certain professional tasks.
Types of culture
In addition to the main forms of culture, there are also various types culture. Among the large number of classifications, we can focus on the one that relies on the concept of a subject-bearer of culture, as the most generalized and universal. Applying everything we already know about this concept, we get the following distribution of types of culture: culture of society, culture of the team (organization), culture of the individual .
None of the types of culture can be reduced to the other two, either in total or separately. So, culture of society - this is the objective integrity of cultural creativity, the structure and patterns of which do not depend on the activities of individual groups or individuals, but are primary in relation to it. Team culture develops as a result of the accumulation of experience, traditions joint activities stable group of people. Personality culture is determined not only by the degree of assimilation of public and collective culture, but also by subjectivity, the unique character of each specific “I”.
It should be noted that any classification of forms and types of culture is, to some extent, relative, and in reality they are intertwined and interconnected with each other. The complexity of sociocultural reality is also determined by the historical variability (variability) of all its essential characteristics. Therefore, the introduced theoretical concepts the subject, types and forms of culture need further interpretation with the help of specific historical material.
The expression “uncultured person”, which we often encounter in everyday life, from a philosophical point of view, it is absolutely wrong. As a rule, when we say this, we mean poor upbringing or lack of education. A person is always cultured, because he is a social being, and any society has its own culture. Another thing is that the degree of its development is not always at a high level, but this already depends on many related factors: specific historical period, development conditions and opportunities available to society. Culture is an integral part of the life of all humanity and each individual. There cannot be a society without culture, just as there can be no culture - without society, it creates a person, and a person creates it. Any new generation begins its existence in the world of spiritual and material values already established by their ancestors.
Interrelation of cultures
Any human activity and all his achievements are
are part of culture, either material or spiritual. Moreover, it is impossible to draw a clear boundary between them. Material and spiritual culture, one way or another, are inextricably linked with each other. For example, the wardrobe that appeared in our house is a completely physical object, but in its creation the intellectual abilities of people were involved, imagination and logical thinking. At the same time, the greatest works of art, which are of undeniable spiritual value, would hardly have been born if the artist had not had a brush, and the philosopher had not had paper and pen. Even in ancient Rome, the most talented orator Cicero noted that along with cultivation, which in those days meant the cultivation and cultivation of the land, there is another culture - “cultivation of the soul.”
Basic Concepts
Material culture includes all the variety of objects produced by humanity: clothing, housing, mechanisms, weapons, cars, household items, musical instruments, etc. The basis of spiritual culture is the products of human intellectual activity, everything that has been achieved by the power of thought and talent. For example, these are new ideas and discoveries, religion, philosophy, works of art and psychology. If spiritual culture is the totality of the results of human intellectual activity, then material culture is the objective world created by human hands.
Which culture is more important?
Material culture, like spiritual culture, lives according to its own laws; there is no direct connection between the levels of their development. Improvement material well-being people were not always accompanied by an increase in their spiritual development, and many of the greatest works of art were created in complete poverty. However, it is also undeniable that a person in need of housing, food and clothing will not think about high matters. Only “well-fed” people who have satisfied their physical needs can be drawn to philosophy and art. Material culture will clearly show how well a person has adapted to life, whether he is in harmony with nature, while spiritual culture sets the basic standards of behavior, forms a sense of the high and beautiful, and creates ideals. Spiritual and material culture include everything that is not given to us by nature, that is created by human labor, that significantly distinguishes us from animals. Only the harmony of these two cultures will help achieve a high level of existence for both one person and an entire state.