It must be emphasized that historically, elite culture arises precisely as the antithesis of mass culture and its meaning manifests its main meaning in comparison with the latter. The essence of elite culture was first analyzed by J. Ortega y Gasset ("Dehumanization of Art", "Revolt of the Masses") and K. Mannheim ("Ideology and Utopia", "Man and Society in the Age of Transformation", "Essays in the Sociology of Culture") , who considered this culture as the only one capable of preserving and reproducing the basic meanings of culture and possessing a number of fundamentally important features, including a method of verbal communication - a language developed by its speakers, where special social groups - clergy, politicians, artists - use special , languages closed to the uninitiated, including Latin and Sanskrit.
The subject of elitist, high culture is the individual - free, creative person capable of carrying out conscious activity. 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.
At the same time, objects of high culture that retain their form - plot, composition, musical structure, but change the mode of presentation and appear in the form of replicated products, adapted, adapted to an unusual type of functioning, as a rule, move into the category of mass culture. In this sense, we can talk about the ability of form to be a carrier of content.
If we keep in mind the art of mass culture, then we can state the different sensitivity of its types to this ratio. In the field of music, form is fully meaningful; even its minor transformations (for example, the widespread practice of translating classical music into an electronic version of its instrumentation) lead to the destruction of the integrity of the work. In the field of fine arts, a similar result is achieved by translating an authentic image into another format - reproduction or digital version (even while trying to preserve the context - in virtual museum). As for literary work, then changing the presentation mode - including from traditional book to digital - does not affect its character, since the form of the work, the structure, are the laws of its dramatic construction, and not the medium - printing or electronic - of this information. Defining such works of high culture that have changed the nature of their functioning as mass works is made possible by a violation of their integrity, when their secondary, or at least non-primary, components are emphasized and act as leading ones. A change in the authentic format of mass culture phenomena leads to a change in the essence of the work, where ideas are presented in a simplified, adapted version, and creative functions are replaced by socializing ones. This is due to the fact that, unlike high culture, the essence of mass culture is not creative activity, not in the production of cultural values, but in the formation of “value orientations” corresponding to the nature of the dominant public relations, and the development of stereotypes of mass consciousness of members of the “consumer society”. Nevertheless, elite culture is a unique model for mass culture, acting as a source of plots, images, ideas, hypotheses, which are adapted by the latter to the level of mass consciousness.
Thus, elite culture is the culture of privileged groups of society, characterized by fundamental closedness, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. According to I.V. Kondakov, elite culture appeals 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). Elite culture consciously and consistently opposes the culture of the majority in all its historical and typological varieties - folklore, folk culture, official culture of one or another estate or class, the state as a whole, the cultural industry of the technocratic society of the 20th century. etc. Philosophers consider elite culture as the only one capable of preserving and reproducing the basic meanings of culture and having a number of fundamentally important features:
- 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, 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 elite culture.
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Elite (high) and folk (low) culture. Authorship and anonymity, innovation and tradition. Mass culture as a phenomenon of the twentieth century. Prerequisites for the emergence of mass culture. Modern forms of mass culture, its mechanisms and principles. Cultural concepts mass society: apologetic (T. Parsons, L. White) and social-critical (F. Nietzsche, H. Ortega y Gasset, T. Adorno, M. McLuhan. E. Fromm). Mass culture as a parody of high culture (D. Macdonald). Forms of mass culture: mass art, mass media, mass social mythology, mass political movements, “childhood industry.” The need for mass spectacle as an anthropological given. Mass and crowd, mass and elite.
Elite culture. Elite culture: depth, sophistication, refinement, narrow specialization, creativity, uniqueness, originality, disunity, individualism, misunderstanding and unwillingness to listen to others. Image problem. The ideology of "art for art's sake". Elite culture and classical art. Kitsch as a loss of taste and as mass art for the elite.
Elite , or high culture, is created by a privileged part of society or at its request by professional creators. As a rule, elite culture is ahead of the level of perception of it by an average educated person. The motto of elite culture is “Art for art’s sake.” A typical manifestation of aesthetic isolationism, the concept of " pure art» is an activity artistic association"World of Art".
Elite culture.
A subculture of privileged groups of the 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 in a 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 a technocratic society of the 20th century, etc.). Moreover, E.k. needs a constant context of mass culture, since it is based on the mechanism of repulsion from the values and norms accepted in mass culture, on the destruction of existing stereotypes and templates of mass culture (including their parody, ridicule, irony, grotesque, polemics, criticism, refutation), on demonstrative self-isolation in general national culture. In this regard, E.k. - a characteristically marginal phenomenon within any history. or national type of culture and is always secondary, derivative in relation to the culture of the majority.
Many cultural scientists consider elite culture as the antipode of mass culture. The producer and consumer of elite culture is the highest privileged layer of society - the elite (from the French elite - the best, selected, chosen). However, in philosophy and cultural studies the understanding elite as a special layer of society endowed with specific spiritual abilities. There is an elite in everyone public class. The elite is the part of society most capable of spiritual activity, gifted with high moral and aesthetic inclinations. It is she who ensures social progress, so art should be focused on meeting her demands and needs. The main elements of the elitist concept of culture are already contained in philosophical works A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche.
In his seminal work“The World as Will and Representation” by A. Schopenhauer sociologically divides humanity into two parts: "people of genius"(i.e. capable of aesthetic contemplation and artistic and creative activity) and "people of benefit"(i.e., focused only on purely practical, utilitarian activities).
In cultural concepts F. Nietzsche, formulated by him in his famous works, the elitist concept manifests itself in the idea of the “superman”. This “superman”, who has a privileged position in society, is endowed, according to F. Nietzsche, with a unique aesthetic sensibility.
It is not at all necessary that art should be popular, that is, it should not be generally understandable, universal to mankind. New art, on the contrary, should alienate people from real life.
Culturological theories that contrast mass and elite cultures with each other are a reaction to the processes that have developed in art. A typical manifestation of elite culture is the theory and practice of “pure art” or “art for art’s sake,” which is embodied in a number of trends in Russian and Western European artistic culture. So, for example, in Russia on turn of XIX-XX centuries, the ideas of elite culture were actively developed and implemented by the artistic association"World of Art". The leaders of the “miriskusniks” were the editor of the magazine of the same name S. P. Diaghilev and talented artist A. N. Benois. Diaghilev directly and openly declared the “self-purpose” and “self-usefulness” of art, while at the same time considering “truth in art.” Focusing on the human personality, the leaders of the “World of Art” movement, in the spirit of the elitist cultural concepts of K. Leontiev and F. Nietzsche, came to the absolutization of the personality of the creator. It was considered strictly obligatory to have in any picturesque and piece of music special author's vision of reality.
This culture fundamentally appeals only to the elite. She does not strive to be understood by everyone: she is closed, hermetic, accessible only to extraordinary people. The favorite art of the masses is the one in which the focus is on man and his passions.
For a long time, the features of elite culture were considered “by contradiction”; the starting point was mass culture. The elitist culture contrasts the uniformity and triviality of the latter with originality and individuality in search of new artistic solutions; simplicity and accessibility - closed and encrypted cultural codes; minimum visual arts- the widest range of means of expression, etc.
But the main difference between elite culture and mass culture is that elite culture is truly creative: it is here that new cultural forms are created and paths are determined further development. The famous "Ulysses" by J. Joyce, works by G. Hesse and H. L. Borges, French " new novel"; paintings by P. Picasso, K. Malevich, V. Kandinsky; films by A. Tarkovsky, A. Sokurov, J. Jarmusch, P. Greenway; music by J. Cage and E. Denisov are examples of this.
In the elite component of culture, there is an approbation of what, years later, will become a publicly available classic, and perhaps even move into the category of trivial art (to which researchers include the so-called “pop classics” - “The Dance of the Little Swans” by P. Tchaikovsky, “The Seasons”) "A. Vivaldi, for example, or some other overly replicated work of art). Time blurs the boundaries between mass and elite cultures. What is new in art, which today is the lot of a few, in a century will be understood significantly more recipients, and even later can become a commonplace in culture.
Unlike the elitist folk culture created by anonymous creators who have no professional training. Folk culture is also called amateur (but not by level, but by origin), or collective. According to their performance, elements of folk culture can be individual (statement of a legend), group (performing a song, dance), mass (carnival processions). Another name for folk culture is folklore. It is always localized, since it is connected with the traditions of a given area, and democratic, since everyone participates in its creation.
Popular culture does not express the refined tastes of the aristocracy or the spiritual quest of the people. Its greatest scope begins in the middle of the 20th century, when the media penetrated into most countries. The mechanism for the spread of mass culture is directly related to the market. Its products are intended for consumption by the masses. This is art for everyone, and it must take into account his tastes and needs. Everyone who pays can order their own “music”.
Mass culture can be international and national. As a rule, it has less artistic value than elite or folk art. But unlike elitist, mass culture has a larger audience, and in comparison with folk culture, it is always original. It is designed to satisfy the immediate needs of people, reacts to any new event and strives to reflect it.
The serial nature of its products has a number of specific signs:
primitivization of relationships between people;
entertainment, fun, sentimentality;
a naturalistic relish for violence and sex;
the cult of success, a strong personality, the desire to own things;
the cult of mediocrity, the conventions of primitive symbolism.
The specific features presented are due to the fact that mass culture is based on archetypes. (From the Greek Arche - beginning and typos - image; in the analytical psychology of C. Jung, an unconscious form of perception of the fundamental structures of everyday life: love, violence, happiness, work, etc.). Such archetypes include the unconscious interest of all people in eroticism and violence. And this interest is the basis for the success of mass culture and its works. Nevertheless, examples of mass culture quickly lose their relevance and go out of fashion. This does not happen with works of folk and elite culture.
Forms and varieties of culture: folk, mass and elite cultures; youth subculture
Today there are a number of classifications of types and forms of culture, which are worth briefly dwelling on.
The broadest understanding of culture implies that everything created by the hands and intellect of mankind (as opposed to the creations of nature) can be classified as culture. From here comes the division into material and spiritual culture, although it is rather conditional. The first includes technical equipment economic activity person, household items, clothing, any items that do not carry additional semantic or value load, but perform a specific function. At the same time, today a person’s clothing is not only designed to protect from the cold, but has many additional semantic loads - style, compliance with fashion trends, colors allow you to get a lot additional information about passions and lifestyle.
Thus, material culture is what is preserved in things, and spiritual culture is what accumulates, accumulates, stores and transmits the experience developed by previous generations. Spiritual production is the production of consciousness in a special social form, carried out by specialized groups of people professionally engaged in qualified mental labor. The main difference from material production is the universal nature of consumption - spiritual values do not decrease in proportion to the number of people, but are the property of all humanity.
Sometimes scientists identify the following elements of spiritual culture: works of monumental art (sculpture, architecture) performing arts, fine arts(painting, graphics), music, various shapes social consciousness (ideological theories, philosophical, aesthetic, moral and other knowledge, scientific concepts and hypotheses), socio-psychological phenomena (public opinion, ideals, values, customs). Learn more about spirituality and spiritual world person will be discussed below.
Another classification identifies areas in which non-material human activity is realized: art, science, religion, morality. Here it is also difficult to talk about a strict separation of one from the other. Thus, an icon is at the same time a shrine for believers and a work of art for many others, including non-religious people. There is an ethics scientific work, which is based on activities for the benefit of people and based on humane principles. Therefore, medical experiments on humans are prohibited, and fascist experiments on concentration camp prisoners still remain one of the shameful pages in the history of mankind and science.
In human society, researchers identify several forms of culture. At all times, society has clearly distinguished elitist, high culture, accessible to a select few - fine art, classical music and literature, and folk culture including fairy tales, folklore, songs and myths. The products of each of these cultures were intended for a specific audience, and this tradition was rarely violated.
Today, both elite and popular cultures have retained their admirers. We go to chamber concerts of classical music, attend screenings of low-budget films, and sometimes together with friends we go to small theaters for original performances. These are works of elite culture, the special quality of which is the complexity of visual means, language, the need for special preparation of the listener, viewer for their perception. Folk culture is preserved and developed in the modern world. Many artists use folk motifs in their work. For example, musicians popular rock band"U-Tu" base their creativity on ancient Irish folklore. Russian musicians and artists also take care of folk traditions, folklore With the advent of the media (radio, press, television, recordings, tape recorders), the distinctions between high and popular culture became blurred.
Let us consider the main forms of culture in more detail.
Elite(in translation from the French “best, chosen”) or high culture is aimed at a narrow group of people versed in art, includes classical works, as well as the latest trends, known to a narrow circle of knowledgeable people. In a certain sense, this is the culture of the so-called elite, people with high education, spiritual aristocracy, and self-sufficiency in values. Critics of this trend say that here art exists only for art’s sake, although it should be oriented towards people; it is isolated in its own small world and actually does not benefit humanity. At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the circles of the capital's Russian intelligentsia, decadence gained great popularity as a trend that proclaimed a complete break with surrounding reality, contrasting art with real life. At the same time, there is a constant search for something new, a creative understanding of ideals, values and meanings, aesthetic freedom and commercial independence of creativity are assumed, and the complexity and diversity of forms of artistic exploration of the world is reflected.
Folk or national culture presupposes the absence of personalized authorship and is created by the entire people. This includes myths, legends, dances, tales, epics, fairy tales, songs, proverbs, sayings, symbols, rituals, rites and canons. Elements of folk culture can be individual (statement of a legend), collective (song performance) and mass (carnival processions). These works reflect the unique experience and specific character of a particular people (ethnic group), everyday ideas, stereotypes social behavior, cultural standards, moral norms, religious and aesthetic canons. Folk culture exists predominantly in oral form, is characterized by homogeneity and tradition, and is based on the people’s ideas about themselves and the world around them. It can exist in 2 main types - popular (describes modern life, morals, customs, songs, dances) and folklore (referring to the past and its key moments).
Mass culture is focused primarily on commercial success and mass demand, satisfying any requirements of the masses of the population, and its products are hits, which often have a very short lifespan creative life and are quickly forgotten, supplanted by a new stream of pop culture, and the immediate needs and demands of people become the guiding force of development. Naturally, the works are aimed at average standards and a typical consumer.
In our age of globalization with a tendency towards standardization (almost a traditional set of every large city the world is a McDonald's restaurant, identical packaging of powders, toothpastes and products in stores, street and television advertisements that are similar to each other, often differing only in the language of the accompanying picture), culture is rapidly losing its individuality and exclusivity. It is increasingly aimed at the brightness of external manifestations and entertainment, accustoming people to lighter interpretations of cultural ideals, simple solutions, actively uses media, fashion and advertising. To assimilate the products of mass culture, no special training or education is required; figuratively speaking, it satiates the stomach, is easily and quickly digested, but does not contribute to spiritual growth.
The functioning of mass culture is determined by the phenomenon of consumption, and not by the need for spiritual development and self-improvement. The mass displaces the individual, and herdism and uniformity become guidelines for development. Contemporary literature, cinema, journalism are often focused on criminal, economic, political, love stories, but do not raise the so-called “eternal questions”. The dominance of so-called mass culture products today poses one of the greatest dangers to the formation of spirituality.
Among the specific features of mass culture, the following can be identified: primitivization of relationships between people; entertainment, fun, sentimentality; naturalistic relish of scenes of violence and sex; the cult of success (mainly financial, material), a strong personality and the thirst for possession of things; the cult of mediocrity, the conventions of primitive symbolism.
Popular culture practically unrelated to religious or class differences. The media and mass culture are inseparable. A culture becomes “mass” when its products are standardized and distributed to the general public. A distinctive feature of works of mass culture is their focus on obtaining commercial profit and satisfying mass demand. Today we encounter mass culture almost every day. These include numerous series that are shown on television, talk shows, satirist concerts, and pop performances. Everything that the media literally brings down on us.
You often hear the news: at the same time, in many countries around the world, a new blockbuster is released on cinema screens, a film on the production of which huge sums were spent, measured in millions and tens of millions of dollars, a film rich in computer special effects, all starring superstars. This is a typical product of modern mass culture. Popular artists around the world, such as Madonna, often come to our country now. Her performance - the show - is also a product of popular culture. The epithet “massive” is by no means synonymous with “bad.” It can be a very high-quality product of mass culture, good, or it can be mediocre. Just like the product of any other culture.
It is important to understand that in the modern world it is increasingly rare to find pure form the product of any one form of culture. Most often, this is a mixture of cultural styles and genres. Folk works can be performed on modern musical instruments, purchase modern arrangements. Works of high classical art are also transformed. It is only important that every work of culture serves the purposes of spiritual enrichment of people and the development of the human personality.
In the modern world, scientists identify another form of culture - screen(culture created and transmitted by computer). An example of such a culture is the so popular among people today different ages computer games, virtual reality.
In addition, in all societies there are many subgroups that have their own specific cultural values and traditions. A system of norms and values that distinguishes a group from the rest of society is called subculture. One of the most widespread subcultures in the modern world is the youth subculture, distinguished by its language (slang) and way of behavior. A representative of such a subculture, seeing someone in fashionable clothes, will certainly say: “What an outfit!” He calls his parents “ancestors,” and if something goes wrong, he will say: “It’s all not worth it.” Representatives different subcultures understand each other well, but not everyone understands them. At the sight of a punk with pink or green hair or a shaved skin, a respectable middle-aged man in the street can only be indignant and note that the world is going to hell and the end of the world should soon be expected.
When talking about culture, we always turned to people. But it is impossible to limit culture to an individual. Culture is addressed to him as a member of a certain community, collective. Culture in many ways shapes the collective, connects people with their departed ancestors, imposes certain obligations on them, and sets standards of behavior. Striving for absolute freedom, people sometimes rebel against established institutions, against culture. Imbued with revolutionary pathos, some shed the veneer of culture. What then remains of “Homo sapiens”? A primitive savage, a barbarian, but not liberated, but, on the contrary, chained in the chains of his darkness. By rebelling against culture, a person thereby opposes everything that has been accumulated over centuries, against himself, against his humanity and spirituality, and loses his human appearance.
Spiritual culture plays an important role in the life of society, serving as a means of accumulating, storing and transmitting the experience accumulated by people.
The transition taking place in Russia from totalitarian to democratic state accompanied by a deep crisis that has affected almost all areas public life. Its manifestations can also be observed in the field of spiritual culture (change of spiritual values; decrease in general cultural level population; low level of government funding for cultural and scientific centers; weakness of the legal framework that would be designed to regulate cultural processes).
National culture. The commonality of a nation and people is expressed in a special national culture. National culture is the values, norms and patterns of behavior that characterize the human community in a particular country or state. Symbols include: the national flag and coat of arms, clothing, sacred objects and places, common holidays and rituals; to beliefs: God or deities, sacred books, mythology, legendary heroes, commandments and prohibitions, special religious actions and clergy; to values: moral attitudes, ideas about good and evil, attitudes towards friendship and love; to norms: laws and traditions; to patterns of behavior: fashion, rules, stable figures of speech, games.
In most countries of the world, different national cultures interact. However, there are different models of cohabitation. In some states, visiting people abandon previous ideas and views, accepting the attitudes that prevail in a given country (assimilation); in others - ethnic groups mix with each other and create new type general culture; thirdly, each group retains its own culture, and they are adjacent to each other. One or another option is selected taking into account historical features, and it is impossible to say which one is better and which one is worse.
An important part of national culture is national identity- a set of views, assessments, opinions and attitudes that express the content, level and characteristics of the ideas of community members about their history, current state, development prospects. In addition, each nation or people has its own folklore, songs and dances, and artistic crafts. Consciously or unconsciously, they rely on folk art, express national values and ideals. We can talk about special national mentality- mindset, stereotypes and mindsets. National culture is the most important heritage of our ancestors, therefore its preservation and development is not only the duty of the state, but also the business of every member of society.
World, national and ethnic cultures
Historical types of cultures
1. Culture of the primitive era.
2. Culture Ancient World(ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, ancient Indian, ancient Chinese, etc.).
3. Culture of the Middle Ages.
4. Culture of the Renaissance.
5. Culture of the New Age.
6. Culture of modern times.
Assignment: prepare reports and abstracts on this topic.
Depending on the subject (carrier) of culture, it is divided into world, national and ethnic.
World culture is a synthesis of the best achievements of all national cultures and cultures various peoples inhabiting our planet.
National culture is the culture of certain nations, which in turn is a synthesis of cultures of different classes, social groups the relevant society (country). In other words, this is a characteristic of culture through the prism of its nationality. It is characterized by the uniqueness of values, norms, beliefs, knowledge, patterns of behavior, and mentality inherent in a particular nation.
Since ethnic communities of people, in addition to nations (as the main modern ethnic community), also include nationalities, people, and tribal communities, ethnic cultures are also distinguished.
Ethnic cultures – these are the cultures of various ethnic communities inhabiting our planet in the past and present (tribal groups, nationalities).
Ø elite,
Ø folk,
Ø massive.
Elite(or high) culture is a culture created by a privileged part of society (the elite) or at its request by professional creators. It includes fine art ( classical music, classical literature, masterpieces in the field of painting, sculpture, architecture, etc.), fashion clothing, innovative technology, etc. As a rule, elite art is ahead of the level of perception of it by a moderately educated person. It has high artistic value, expressing refined, exquisite tastes elite.
Folk culture (folklore), in contrast to elitist culture, is created by anonymous creators (people) who do not have professional training. Nowadays it is also called amateur. Folk culture includes myths, legends, fairy tales, epics, proverbs, sayings, songs, dances, carnivals, etc.
Mass, or public culture - culture intended for consumption by masses of people. This is a culture for everyone, for mass consumer, and it must take into account his tastes and needs. Mass culture gained its greatest scope starting in the middle. XX century, in connection with the development of the media, which made it publicly available.
Mass culture has less artistic value than elitist or folk culture. But unlike the elitist one, it has a larger audience. Mass culture is designed to satisfy the immediate needs of people, reacts to any new events and strives to reflect them. Therefore, examples of mass culture quickly lose their relevance and go out of fashion.
Despite the apparent democracy, mass culture is fraught with a real threat of reducing a person to the level of a programmed mannequin, a puppet, a standard, gray person. Characteristics popular culture:
· template,
· primitivism,
· entertaining character,
· cult of mediocrity and materialism
· cult of a strong personality, success.