MODERN GLOBALIZATION OF CULTURE

Vigel Narine Liparitovna
Rostov State Medical University
Professor of the Department of History and Philosophy

MODERN GLOBALIZATION OF CULTURE

Wiegel Narine Liparitovna
Rostov State Medical University Doctor of Philosophy
professor of department of history and philosophy

Although the process of globalization is becoming more widespread and influential, however, it has not yet been sufficiently studied from the point of view of "sociocultural transformations". Globalization is not a completely new "phenomenon of modernity", but, it should be noted that in modernity it has some "specific characteristics" in the increase in the flow of information, trade, finance, ideas, peoples and cultures, which is caused by high-tech means of communication, travel, etc. d.

Globalization is a "process of adaptation of local and regional cultures" to the developing global system, which in the current situation leads to a restructuring in economic life, as well as the transformation of traditional culture and identity. From a theoretical point of view, "the philosophy of globalism generates a global outlook", which is based on global integration.

In a globalized world, revolutionary changes in technology, transportation, communication, ideas and human behavior have changed the way people and cultures live in every corner of the globe and are transforming a segmented world into a global village. Marshall McLuhan's term global village describes the current form of global connectivity that establishes closer contact between different groups of people in a more collaborative environment and thereby "initiates the emergence of a global community" and global citizens who contribute to the development of a global culture and global civilization.

Of the various aspects of globalization, cultural globalization has attracted enormous attention from anthropologists and sociologists. Cultural globalization is a process that "creates a global culture based on the ideas of multiculturalism", democracy and common values, tastes and lifestyles.

Today, in almost every society, there is a double process of globalization from the outside and localization from the inside. Contemporary global culture consists of "a number of distinct non-integrated traits"—a series of mixed cultural elements or habits derived from various separate and divergent cultures. The global culture appears to be "not an extended version of local cultures"; rather, it is a cultural interaction on a global and local level. Local culture interacts with members of the local society, while global culture is the product of interaction between people of different societies living at great distances from each other. With regard to local and global cultural interaction, it is still necessary to explore how global cultural flows become local and hybridized. R. Robertson (1990, 1992, 1995) introduced the term glocalization , describing the process by which local culture is integrated into the global one.

On the one hand, cultural globalization contributes to the maintenance of cultural traditions, since the expansion of communications and the impact of the media contribute to greater awareness of cultural differences and unique identity, on the other hand, “cultural integration implies a certain unification and standardization”, crystallization of the same stereotypes of global culture. As a result, an inter-civilizational and intercultural crisis is on the face, and only evolutionistic and relativistic approaches are considered as the most suitable for explaining the anthropological aspects in studying the process of modern cultural globalization.

Today, culture is neither a closed system nor a single whole, it is internally heterogeneous and consists of traditional cultures and local culture with "blotches" of glocalization, which has the potential for further globalization.

Bibliographic list

1. Aloyan N.L. Category of tragedy // Humanitarian and socio-economic sciences. 2008. No. 2. S.80-82.
2. Vigel N.L. The process of language modeling in monolinguals and bilinguals // In the world of science and art: issues of philology, art criticism and cultural studies. 2014. No. 38. S. 12-15.
3. Vigel N.L. Postmodernist paradigm of a literary text // Humanitarian and socio-economic sciences. 2015. No. 1. S. 72-79.
4. Aloyan N.L. Freedom and Necessity in Ancient Greek Tragedy // Philosophy of Law. 2008. No. 3. S. 77-80.
5. Vigel N.L. On the issue of psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics of bilingualism and the features of bilingual psychology // In the world of science and art: questions of philology, art criticism and cultural studies. 2014. No. 37. S. 11-15.
6. Vigel N.L. Utilitarian-pragmatic phenomenon of modernity and its reflection in metamodernism // Historical, philosophical, political and legal sciences, cultural studies and art criticism. Questions of theory and practice. 2015. No. 7-2 (57). pp. 41-43.
7. Vigel N.L. The problem of the dialogue of cultures in modern times // Economic and humanitarian studies of regions. 2015. No. 4. P. 100-104.
8. Vigel N.L. Man in postmodern culture // Economic and humanitarian studies of regions. 2015. No. 2. P. 114-117.
9. Vigel N.L. The role of explanation in understanding a foreign text in educational translation // Collections of conferences of the Research Center Sociosphere. 2014. No. 49. S. 85-87.
10. Vigel N.L. Bilingualism as a factor in the development of individual creative abilities // Innovations in science. 2014. No. 37. S. 72-75.

( Meliksetyan E.V.)

The most characteristic features of the modern world include globalization as the highest phase of the internationalization of the economy and politics, and in its infancy - and culture, the study of which has become relevant for all mankind. Globalization is characterized by such an indicator as the integration of the spiritual and intellectual sphere, i.e. the formation of a relatively unified cultural space. This process is also observed in the field of advertising, which is a multifaceted sociocultural phenomenon that affects all spheres of human life. Global trends in the development of advertising are based on the standardization of advertising ideas, and, therefore, lead to the loss of the identity of peoples. Therefore, it is necessary to change the creative strategy, differentiate approaches in advertising communications, taking into account the motivations, purchasing abilities and habits of the consumer. On the contrary, the localization of advertising by taking into account the specifics of value orientations, mentality, customs and behavior of consumers representing different cultures reduces the likelihood of "cultural blunders", helping to preserve the continuity and traditions of peoples.

Advertising is one of the forms of public consciousness, reflecting public life, since it is in society that the prerequisites for the emergence of advertising are laid in view of the need to obtain comprehensive information in the process of socio-economic activity. The functionality of advertising in modern society is determined in several ways. In addition to the actual marketing functions of transmitting commercial information, advertising also performs sociocultural ones. A manifestation of the social in advertising is the function of innovation, which contributes to the formation of a certain lifestyle in the modern world. Advertising stimulates the efforts of the individual and his higher productivity. Advertising promotes certain values ​​and attitudes in life, for example, success or hedonism, enjoyment of life, or environmental protection and a healthy lifestyle, etc. Advertising contributes to the formation of public opinion both about the advertised goods and services. Thanks to the educational function, we learn about the purpose of a new product, about new models of consumer behavior, about various aspects of life.

Modern advertising has become an important factor in the cultural life of society, and its aesthetic function contributes to the understanding of the objective world. Art has always been included in advertising as a system of values, cultural patterns and ways of transforming objective reality. Advertising to a certain extent uses the laws of cinematography, graphics, painting and other forms of art, creating its own small forms and genres. Often, advertising works develop into symbolic images that affect the spiritual and emotional world of a person and influence the formation of his beliefs, value orientations, and aesthetic ideals.

The determining factor of advertising communications is the phenomenon of cultural genome. Culturogenome can be represented as an integrator of socio-cultural elements, a way of preserving and transmitting, including at the biogenetic level, information focused on the reproduction of past patterns of social life. In the cultural genome, the sociality of a person as a sociobiological organism is manifested. To be accepted, advertising must appeal to normative orientations shared by as many members of the social community as possible.

The formation of a single world economic space has a dual nature. On the one hand, there is an increase in global trends leading to the unification of various spheres of life and activity, functioning on the basis of common principles, rules, equally perceived values, and some common goals. On the other hand, there are tendencies of regionalization and localization that contribute to the differentiation of cultures, norms of behavior, as well as the growth of differences in the level and way of life. The ratio of global and local (regional) in advertising, their interpenetration and the dialectic of their interaction is a controversial topic of modern world advertising. Therefore, one of the debatable issues of the functioning of international advertising communications is the choice of a policy that takes into account the dialectical relationship of creating advertising: common for all countries or special developed taking into account the characteristics of a particular country. The contradiction that has arisen in this situation is a necessary moment of comprehending the essence of things.

Cultural heritage, economic environment form the basis for existing differences in advertising styles. Advertising creativity is increasingly using the traditions of national mass culture, the results of advertising research of the national market, consumers, the perception of the creative embodiment of the advertising idea of ​​a transnational brand at the national level. Advertising, in order to be successful, must be part and parcel of the national culture. While consumers, firms, brands, technologies, and agencies are becoming global, advertising, in order to be effective at the current stage of human development, must remain local. This is where the dialectic of the process of globalization manifests itself – towards the global through the local. Advertising communications can become, on the one hand, a tool for preserving the tradition and continuity of culture within the country, and on the other hand, it can effectively function in a transcultural space. For this, the categories of philosophy and culture were analyzed, which made it possible to determine the determinants of advertising communications.

Values ​​are the basis and foundation of cultural communication, sometimes acting as the main barrier to mutual understanding. Value orientations develop in a person in early childhood, therefore it is so important to fill advertising communications with national and cultural motives, precisely at the stage of socialization of the individual, at the stage of formation of the objective environment. Value orientations, having established themselves in the minds of people, become their guiding motive for behavior in everyday life. The more the value of the advertised product or service matches the values ​​of different population groups, the more likely the return on advertising. The mechanical transfer of advertising messages without taking into account national characteristics and types of societies leads to rejection or inadequate decoding of advertising information.

Conclusions: to enter the international market, it is necessary to study its socio-cultural environment, the determinants of advertising communications, as well as a number of other important criteria: the degree to which cultures are oriented towards individuality, interdependence or kinship; the degree of trust in literal information versus implied and non-verbal information; degree of adherence to tradition as opposed to innovation.

Modern Russian society can be classified as transitive, i.e. transitional. The split in the core of Russian culture, the strengthening of the social, ethnic and cultural differentiation of society is a clear proof of transitivity. The departure from the previous model of development, the removal of ideological taboos in the sphere of culture led to the loss of sense-forming orientations by part of the population, the historical perspective of their existence. Borrowing foreign cultural ideals leads to the loss of original principles, complicates the process of self-identification of society. Any society exists only in the ability to reproduce itself in the contradictory unity of culture and relations between people, part and whole, individual and society as a whole, etc. Thus, any (com)society is a subject capable of reproducing itself, its reproductive potential. Currently, it can be observed that a change in the public consciousness of the value system does not lead to the assimilation of new values, but provokes destructive, destructive processes in public morality and ethics. This process began with the denial, along with the negative, of everything positive that both Soviet and Russian culture contained. Advertising is able to promote the integration of the Russian population, the formation of its self-consciousness. The processes of globalization and integration often come down to copying Western models, ignoring the originality of culture.

The role of advertising in the process of self-identification of Russian society can be manifested in the use of the sacred background of symbols and myths, traditionally including universal motifs (“good old times”, “Russia is a generous soul”, “Russian character”, “Mother Russia”, etc. ), in vocabulary (“national revival”, “great people - great country”, “national pride”).

The use of historical personalities in advertising communications (Peter 1, M.V. Lomonosov, P.A. Stolypin, etc.), personifying the greatness of the country for Russians, will contribute to the self-identification of society. It is necessary to take into account national traditions and peculiarities of the perception of advertising messages by Russian consumers and form them in such a way that they become more understandable than the advertising messages of foreign competitors.

Being an integrative component of culture and one of the components of general cultural progress, advertising largely forms the image and lifestyle. The way of life, as a valuable social phenomenon of people, is formed under the influence of the totality of the conditions of human life, characteristic of a given, historically specific type of society. Advertising makes it clear that a person who is at a certain step of the social ladder must reinforce this position with consumption characteristics and use things that confirm the social position achieved. The lifestyle characterizes a person (his style of behavior, tastes, preferences, etc.) in terms of his belonging to a particular society and social group, in terms of those properties and traits of his personality that are given to him by the very fact of his existence in society. It is no coincidence that M. Weber considered the style of life as the most important determinant of stratification differences and the division of society.

Advertising shapes consumer behavior. Through the needs, interests and value orientations, the objective contradictions of being penetrate into the inner world of individuals and social groups, and through them into the public consciousness. The external is reflected in the internal, but it is reflected not only in the form of complete logically consistent structures, but also in the form of a complex set of contradictory motives and incentives for action.

In modern cultural studies, there are two main approaches to understanding cultural and historical development and diversity. First called linear progressive. It is closely connected with the philosophical concepts of history, as well as with the availability of historical and empirical material.

An essential problem for any historically large-scale research is the establishment of certain discrete time intervals - periods. Periodization is the basis for further typological studies of culture, a necessary tool in working with continuously flowing real time.

The division of time, its representation linearly directed from the past through the present to the future. (Herodotus, I.G. Herder, G.W.F. Hegel, K. Marx).

The "linear" scheme in understanding the historical development of culture was established in the second half of the 19th century in historical science, ethnography and archeology. Ancient World - Middle Ages - New Time (Recent). Archaeologists distinguish the Stone Age (Paleolithic - Mesolithic - Neolithic) and the Age of Metals (Copper Age - Bronze Age - Iron Age).

Another approach is to isolate local cultures . The formation of this typology is connected, on the one hand, with the ideas about the cultural identity of different peoples, rooted in science, and, on the other hand, with a clear influence from the biological sciences, which led to the idea of ​​representing social processes in cultural studies and history as biological ones. It was assumed that society can be thought of as an organism with the processes of birth - development - death. (N.Ya. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, F. Nietzsche, A. Toynbee, P. A. Sorokin)

Neo-Kantianism- direction in German philosophy of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries.

The central slogan of the neo-Kantians ("Back to Kant!") was formulated by Otto Liebmann in his work "Kant and the Epigones" (1865) in the context of the crisis of philosophy and the fashion for materialism.

Neo-Kantianism paved the way for phenomenology. Neo-Kantianism focused on the epistemological side of Kant's teachings, and also influenced the formation of the concept of ethical socialism. The Kantians did especially much in the matter of separating the natural and human sciences. The former use the nomothetic method (generalizing - based on the derivation of laws), and the latter - idiographic (individualizing - based on the description of reference states). Accordingly, the world is divided into nature (the world of existence or the object of the natural sciences) and culture (the world of the proper or the object of the humanities), and culture is organized by values. Hence, it was the neo-Kantians who singled out such a philosophical science as axiology.

Marxism is a philosophical, political and economic doctrine and movement founded by Karl Marx in the middle of the 19th century. The philosophy of Marxism finds man in a state of alienation and puts the main emphasis on his liberation. However, a person is treated not as an independent individual, but as a “set of social relations”, therefore the philosophy of Marxism is, first of all, the philosophy of society, considered in its historical development.

Marx considers “material production” (“basis”) to be the driving force of history. His associate Engels argues that it was "labor that created man." The most important fact of anthropogenesis was the transition from an appropriating economy to a producing one. Production leaves a certain imprint on society, as a result of which a number of successively replacing each other formations or methods of production are distinguished.

All known formations contain contradictions in the form of antagonism, since, depending on their relationship to the means of production, members of society are divided into classes: slave owners and slaves, feudal lords and peasants, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. In the course of the class struggle, the most powerful class creates the state, as well as various forms of ideology (including religion, law and art) so that this class can dominate other classes of society. The change of formations is determined by the level of development of productive forces, which gradually "outgrow" production relations, come into conflict with them, which leads to revolutions (social and political).

The communist revolution, according to the representatives of Marxism, must finally free a person from alienation and lead society to a classless communist formation.

Communism, according to Marx source unspecified 934 days], is a necessary stage in the natural development of society. The degree of development of the productive forces determines the stage to which social relations can develop. As the productive forces develop, society receives more and more resources, can “allow” itself and its individual members more and more freedom, and thus move to a higher level of social relations.

Communism Marx understood [ source unspecified 934 days] as the highest stage of human development in terms of class relations. Mankind develops dialectically in a spiral, and it must come to where it started: to the absence of private ownership of the means of production, as in primitive society, but at a new level, due to the high degree of development of the productive forces.

Philosophy of life- a philosophical trend that received its main development in the late XIX - early XX centuries. Within the framework of this direction, instead of such traditional concepts of philosophical ontology as “being”, “mind”, “matter”, “life” is put forward as the initial one as an intuitively comprehended integral reality. It became a reaction to the emerging crisis of scientistic values ​​and an attempt to overcome the associated nihilism, to build and substantiate new spiritual and practical guidelines.

Current in philosophy con. 19 - beg. 20th century, which put forward as the initial concept of "life" as the fundamental basis of the world. This trend includes thinkers of different types of philosophizing: F. Nietzsche, W. Dilthey, A. Bergson, O. Spengler, G. Simmel, L. Klages, T. Lessing, X. Ortega y Gaset, etc. F. well. arose as a reaction to neo-Kantianism and positivism and tried instead of abstract and indefinite concepts of "matter", "being", "spirit", etc. find the fundamental, primary basis of all things. There are biological and historicist variants of F.zh. The first is most vividly represented by Nietzsche and Bergson, the second by Dilthey and Spengler.
Life in Nietzsche's philosophy is an organic process, constantly improving, overcoming itself, expanding its dominance, never freezing in finite and limited forms. Consciousness, spirit are only means and tools in the service of life. A genuine person is a person who has a powerful vital force, vital instincts, in whom the Dionysian (ecstatically passionate, chaotic, orgiastic-irrational) principle has not been extinguished or suppressed. Where the intellect begins to predominate, life fades away, a person becomes a tame animal, living according to the laws of slave morality and the artificial laws of science.
Life, according to Bergson, is like a rocket taking off, the burnt remains of which fall down, forming matter. Life is a cosmic force, a “life impulse” that leads evolution, encourages creativity, an impulse that never finally embodied in any deeds and accomplishments, pure duration, constant variability. The expression of pure duration in man is consciousness as a stream of experiences, an inner life where there is no immovable numb substratum, there are no different states that would pass through it like actors on a stage, but there is simply a continuous, indivisible melody that stretches from beginning to end. of our conscious existence, never repeating itself and constantly changing from each new impression, like music from each new added note. Since we live more in space than in time, more in external reality than in internal experience, the whole world is for us divided into frozen objects, objects and external relations, and we do not notice that they last, pass into each other. that they are fluid and dynamic.

Freudianism(English) Freudianism, also called " orthodox psychoanalysis" and " Freudian-Lacanianism”) is the first and one of the most influential trends in psychoanalysis. For a long time, Freudianism, in its modern sense (for the period described, this term did not exist in principle), de facto and was psychoanalysis; exclusively in the early 1910s, when in the ranks of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (English) Russian. there was a split and Otto Rank, Wilhelm Reich, Alfred Adler, Carl Gustav Jung and their followers left him, for the first time the process of separation of Freudianism from other psychoanalytic concepts such as Adler's "individual psychology", Jung's "analytical psychology" and a number of others began.

Freudianism is considered to be "orthodox (or" classical ") psychoanalysis" due to the fact that it is with the name of Z. Freud (first of all) that the history of the emergence and development of psychoanalysis is associated, while the scientist himself considered this "merit" to be attributed not himself, but to his colleague, the Viennese physician Josef Breuer. Freudianism-Lacanism "Freudianism" is called, respectively, by the names of the founding father of psychoanalysis and the French psychologist and philosopher Jacques Lacan, one of the most famous and authoritative psychoanalysts who shared the views of the orthodox - for example, Lacan's famous slogan, which accurately characterizes him, is widely known scientific activity in general and seminars in particular: "Back to Freud".

At the present stage of development of psychoanalytic thought, according to S. Yu. Golovin, “Freudianism” is most often understood as the whole complex of ideas and works of Freud - the so-called “Freudian metapsychology”. The "core" of Freudianism, according to Zinchenko-Meshcheryakov, is the idea that the main driving force of personality development is represented by instinctive drives - sexual and aggressive. Since the antipode to the satisfaction of these drives are the prohibitions and restrictions imposed by the outside world, the former undergo a process of repression, thus forming the unconscious of a person. According to Freudian metapsychology, the access of repressed content from the unconscious to consciousness is possible only in symbolic form - for example, in the form of slips of the tongue, works of art, neurotic symptoms. The basic understanding of the mental apparatus for orthodox psychoanalysis considers the latter as consisting of three instances - It, I and Super-I; Thus, it contains the desires that require satisfaction, while the Super-I (formed through the socialization of a person) acts as a "censor" of the personality. The conflict between the two instances is resolved by the structure of the Self, the main task of which is to “reconcile” between the desired and the permissible, which is carried out by developing certain defense mechanisms. In the event that the defenses fail, neurosis may occur - which occurs at the stage of early personality development, when the male individual experiences the Oedipus complex, and the female - the Electra complex. In Freudianism, these two complexes are the core of any neurosis.

The key ideas of the metapsychology of Z. Freud, according to B. D. Karvasarsky, were expressed in the works “Obsessive actions and religious rites” (1907, the idea of ​​neurosis as “individual religiosity, religion as a general neurosis of obsessive-compulsive states”), “Totem and taboo" (1913, interpretation of the problem of the emergence of prohibitions or taboos and totemic religion), "The Future of One Illusion" and "Moses and Monotheism" (1927 and 1937, the relationship between the development of an individual's neurosis and the stages of development of the whole society in in general).

During the period of division of psychoanalysis into various schools (including Freudianism), in the ranks of prominent supporters of the latter, in addition to Sigmund Freud himself, during various time periods such well-known analysts as, for example, Sandor Ferenczi, Karl Abraham, Edward Glover and some other . After the death of the orthodox in 1939, notes N. O. Brown, Freudianism became a relatively "closed", almost formal system, which practically does not accept encroachments on the basic ideas and principles developed by the founding father, and does not particularly perceive any criticism in its the address . Freudianism received a “second wind” only at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, when Jacques Lacan took up the reassessment of the scientific heritage of the orthodox (within the framework of seminars), without exaggeration characterizing Freud’s teachings as a “Copernican revolution”.

Existentialism(fr. existentialism from lat. exsistentia- existence), also philosophy of existence- a direction in the philosophy of the 20th century, focusing its attention on the uniqueness of the irrational human being. Existentialism developed in parallel with related areas of personalism and philosophical anthropology, from which it differs primarily in the idea of ​​overcoming (rather than revealing) a person's own essence and a greater emphasis on the depth of emotional nature.

In its pure form, existentialism as a philosophical trend has never existed. The inconsistency of this term comes from the very content of "existence", since by definition it is individual and unique, it means the experiences of a single individual who is not like anyone else.

This inconsistency is the reason why practically none of the thinkers who are classified as existentialists was in reality an existentialist philosopher. The only one who clearly expressed his belonging to this direction was Jean-Paul Sartre. His position was outlined in the report "Existentialism is humanism", where he made an attempt to generalize the existentialist aspirations of individual thinkers of the early 20th century.

According to the existential psychologist and psychotherapist R. May, existentialism is not just a philosophical movement, but rather a cultural movement that captures the deep emotional and spiritual dimension of modern Western man, depicting the psychological situation in which he finds himself, an expression of the unique psychological difficulties that he faces.

GAME THEORY OF CULTURE

study of the role of myths, fantasy in world civilization, games as a general principle of the formation of human culture. Historiography includes three areas of analysis: historiography proper; development of the theory of origin and development of world culture; era criticism. Of particular importance in the emergence and development of world culture is given to the game as the basis of human coexistence in any era. Its civilizational role is in following voluntarily established rules, in curbing the element of passions. I. t. k. emphasizes the anti-authoritarianism of the game, the assumption of the possibility of choosing game means, the absence of the oppression of the “seriousness” of fetishistic ideas. The founder of I. t. k. Huizinga I. places in the “playing space” not only art, but also science, life, jurisprudence and military art of the cultural eras of the past.

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, in a broad sense, is a science that studies the culturally determined functioning of society among various peoples. Cultural anthropology differs, on the one hand, from the physical description of races, which deals with physical anthropology; on the other hand, from philosophical anthropology, which studies the features of human life, determined by the very nature of man. Close to cultural anthropology is social anthropology, which studies the social institutions of various peoples.

Cultural anthropology uses the methods of such sciences as ethnography, archeology, history, structural linguistics, folklore, sociology, philosophy of culture, psychology, and for statistical data processing - modern mathematical apparatus; in addition, special techniques were developed (filming, special interview techniques, etc.).

The tasks facing this science are the description of existing cultures (their language, customs, social norms, behavior and psychology, etc.), cultural interaction, cultural dynamics, the origin of cultures, deepening understanding of the West's own culture; in combination with sociology - the study of social institutions and their cultural functions from the point of view of the dynamics of the whole and parts, its self-organization and adaptation (functionalism); attempts to isolate a certain structure underlying a wide range of social phenomena (structuralism), as well as the solution of such philosophical issues as the influence of language on thinking, culture on the individual's value system. The origins of this scientific direction were laid by Fr. Boas. The most famous representatives of cultural anthropology: E. Sapir, A. Kroeber, R. Benedict, M. Mead, M. Herskovitz.

Structuralism- direction and intellectual movement in modern (mostly continental) philosophical thought. Structuralism was most influential in France in the 1960s. Influenced the development of semiotics. Structuralism grew out of structural linguistics, the foundations of which were laid by Ferdinand de Saussure.

One of the main provisions of structuralism is the assertion that social and cultural phenomena do not have an independent substantial nature, but are determined by their internal structure (that is, the system of relations between internal structural elements), and the system of relations with other phenomena in the corresponding social and cultural systems. These systems of relations are considered as sign systems and thus are treated as objects endowed with meaning. Structuralism aims to explain how given social institutions, which can be identified through structural analysis, make human experience possible.

Structuralism in psychology aims to study the structure of the mind by analyzing the components of the perceptual process. When analyzing the structure of the mind, the method of individual sensory experience is used - introspection or self-observation. One of the founders of structuralism is the German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, who developed the method of introspection in psychology. A prominent representative of structuralism in psychology was Wundt's student Edward Titchener, who believed that consciousness can be reduced to three elementary states: sensations, representation, affection.

In the 19th century, European historians, having received the first information about Eastern societies, came to the conclusion that there could be qualitative differences between societies at the stage of civilization, which allowed them to talk about more than one civilization, but about several civilizations. However, ideas about cultural differences between European and non-European cultures appeared even earlier: for example, the Russian researcher I.N. the germ of ideas about the existence of a special Chinese civilization, and hence the probable plurality of civilizations. However, neither in his works, nor in the writings of Voltaire and Johann Gottfried Herder, who expressed ideas related to those of Vico, the concept civilization was not dominant, and the concept local civilization not used at all.

First time word civilization was used with two meanings in a book by the French writer and historian Pierre Simon Ballanche ( en) "The Old Man and the Young Man" (1820). Later, the same use of it is found in the book of Orientalists by Eugene Burnouf ( en) and Christian Lassen ( en) "Essay on Pali" (1826), in the works of the famous traveler and explorer Alexander von Humboldt and a number of other thinkers. Using the second meaning of the word civilization contributed to the French historian Francois Guizot, who repeatedly used the term in the plural, but nevertheless remained faithful to the linear-stage scheme of historical development.

First time term local civilization appeared in the French philosopher Charles Renouvier's Guide to Ancient Philosophy (1844). A few years later, the book of the French writer and historian Joseph Gobineau "Experience on the inequality of human races" (1853-1855) saw the light, in which the author singled out 10 civilizations, each of which goes its own way of development. Having arisen, each of them dies sooner or later, and Western civilization is no exception. However, the thinker was not at all interested in cultural, social, economic differences between civilizations: he was only concerned with the common thing that was in the history of civilizations - the rise and fall of the aristocracy. Therefore, his historiosophical concept is indirectly related to the theory of local civilizations and directly related to the ideology of conservatism.

Ideas consonant with the works of Gobineau were also expressed by the German historian Heinrich Rückert, who came to the conclusion that the history of mankind is not a single process, but the sum of parallel processes of cultural and historical organisms that cannot be placed on the same line. The German researcher first drew attention to the problem of the boundaries of civilizations, their mutual influence, structural relations within them. At the same time, Ruckert continued to consider the whole world as an object of European influence, which led to the presence in his concept of relics of a hierarchical approach to civilizations, the denial of their equivalence and self-sufficiency.

The first to look at civilizational relations through the prism of non-Eurocentric self-consciousness was the Russian sociologist Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky, who in his book Russia and Europe (1869) contrasted the aging European civilization with the young Slavic one. The Russian ideologist of pan-Slavism pointed out that not a single cultural-historical type [approx. 3] cannot claim to be considered more developed, higher than the rest. Western Europe is no exception in this respect. Although the philosopher does not endure this thought to the end, sometimes pointing to the superiority of the Slavic peoples over their Western neighbors.

The next significant event in the formation of the theory of local civilizations was the work of the German philosopher and culturologist Oswald Spengler "The Decline of Europe" (1918). It is not known for certain whether Spengler was familiar with the work of the Russian thinker, but nevertheless, the main conceptual provisions of these scientists are similar in all important points. Like Danilevsky, resolutely rejecting the generally accepted conditional periodization of history into “Ancient World - Middle Ages - Modern Times”, Spengler advocated a different view of world history - as a series of cultures independent of each other [approx. 4], living, like living organisms, the periods of origin, formation and death. Like Danilevsky, he criticizes Eurocentrism and proceeds not from the needs of historical research, but from the need to find answers to the questions posed by modern society: in the theory of local cultures, the German thinker finds an explanation for the crisis of Western society, which is experiencing the same decline that befell the Egyptian , antique and other ancient cultures. Spengler's book contained not so many theoretical innovations in comparison with the previously published works of Rückert and Danilevsky, but it was a resounding success, because it was written in bright language, replete with facts and reasoning, and was published after the end of the First World War, which caused complete disappointment in Western civilization. and exacerbated the crisis of Eurocentrism.

A much more significant contribution to the study of local civilizations was made by the English historian Arnold Toynbee. In his 12-volume work "Comprehension of History" (1934-1961), the British scientist divided the history of mankind into a number of local civilizations that have the same internal development scheme. The rise, rise and fall of civilizations has been characterized by such factors as external Divine impulse and energy, challenge and response, and departure and return. There are many common features in the views of Spengler and Toynbee. The main difference is that Spengler's cultures are completely isolated from each other. For Toynbee, these relations, although they have an external character, are part of the life of civilizations themselves. It is extremely important for him that some societies, joining others, thus ensure the continuity of the historical process.

Russian researcher Yu. V. Yakovets, based on the work of Daniel Bell and Alvin Toffler, formulated the concept world civilizations as a certain stage "in the historical rhythm of the dynamics and genetics of society as an integral system in which mutually intertwined, complementing each other, material and spiritual reproduction, economics and politics, social relations and culture" . The history of mankind in his interpretation is presented as a rhythmic change of civilizational cycles, the duration of which is inexorably reduced.

The concepts of Danilevsky, Spengler and Toynbee were ambiguously received by the scientific community. Although their works are considered fundamental works in the field of studying the history of civilizations, their theoretical developments have met with serious criticism. One of the most consistent critics of civilizational theory was the Russian-American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, who pointed out that “the most serious mistake of these theories is the confusion of cultural systems with social systems (groups), that the name “civilization” is given to significantly different social groups. and their common cultures - either ethnic, then religious, then state, then territorial, then various multifactorial groups, or even a conglomerate of various societies with their inherent aggregate cultures, ”as a result of which neither Toynbee nor his predecessors could name the main criteria for isolating civilizations, just like their exact number.

The Russian historian Kradin wrote about the crisis of the theory of civilization in the West and its increased popularity in the territory of the post-Soviet countries: “If in the last quarter of the 20th century. many expected that the introduction of civilizational methodology would bring domestic theorists to the forefront of world science, but now such illusions should be parted. The civilizational theory was popular in world science half a century ago, now it is in a state of crisis. Foreign scientists prefer to turn to the study of local communities, the problems of historical anthropology, the history of everyday life. The theory of civilizations has been most actively developed in recent decades (as an alternative to Eurocentrism) in developing and post-socialist countries. During this period, the number of identified civilizations has increased dramatically - up to giving a civilizational status to almost any ethnic group. In this regard, it is difficult to disagree with the point of view of I. Wallerstein, who described the civilizational approach as an “ideology of the weak”, as a form of protest of ethnic nationalism against the developed countries of the “core” of the modern world-system.

There are two types of answers to these questions in philosophical-historical and cultural thought. The first argues that there is no single history of mankind; history is realized in the change of cultures, each of which lives its own, self-sufficient, isolated life. The scheme of history, therefore, is not a unidirectional linear process, the lines of development of cultures diverge (the concepts of N.Ya. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, L. Frobenius, A. Toynbee, E. Meyer, E. Troelch, etc.). "The false conception of the 'unity of history' on the basis of Western society has ... an incorrect premise - ideas about the straightforwardness of development,"1 wrote A. Toynbee. The second type of answers comes from the idea of ​​universality and world history. In the diversity of the sociocultural world, one can trace a single line of human development leading to the creation of a universal culture (the concepts of Voltaire, Montesquieu, G. Lessing, I. Kant, I.G. Herder, V. Solovyov, K. Jaspers, etc.).

The well-known Russian publicist, sociologist and public figure Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky (1822-1885) in the book "Russia and Europe" (1869) developed the concept of isolated, local "cultural-historical types", or civilizations, successively passing through the stages of birth, flourishing in their development , decline and death. Cultural-historical types act as "positive figures in the history of mankind." However, the history of culture is not exhausted by this: "... there are still temporarily appearing phenomena that confuse contemporaries, like the Huns, Mongols, Turks, who, like the Turks, having accomplished their destructive feat, helped to give up the spirit of civilizations fighting death and, having scattered their remnants, hide in former nonentity" 2. Danilevsky calls them "negative figures of mankind." In addition, there are tribes that have neither a positive nor a negative historical role. They constitute ethnographic material, entering into cultural-historical types, but "do not achieve historical individuality" themselves.

N.Ya. Danilevsky identifies 10 cultural-historical types (in chronological order) that have fully or partially exhausted the possibilities of their development: Egyptian culture; Chinese culture; Assyrian-Babylonian-Phoenician, Chaldean, or ancient Semitic culture; Indian culture; Iranian culture; Jewish culture; Greek culture; Roman culture; Arabian culture; Germano-Roman, or European culture. A special place in the concept of N.Ya. Danilevsky is occupied by the Mexican and Peruvian cultures, which died a violent death and did not have time to complete their development.

Among these cultures stand out "solitary" and "successive" types. The former include Chinese and Indian cultures, while the latter include Egyptian, Assyrian-Babylonian-Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Jewish and European cultures. The fruits of the activity of the latter were transferred from one cultural type to another as nourishment or "fertilizer" of the soil on which another culture subsequently developed.

Each original cultural-historical type evolves from an ethnographic state to a state one and from it to a civilization. The whole story, according to N.Ya. Danilevsky proves that civilization is not transmitted from one cultural-historical type to another. It does not follow from this that they did not mutually influence each other, however, such an impact cannot be considered as a direct transmission. According to Danilevsky, "peoples of each cultural-historical type do not work at all; the results of their labor remain the property of all other peoples who have reached the civilizational period of their development, and there is no need to repeat this labor"3.

Under the period of civilization N.Ya. Danilevsky understood "the time during which the peoples that make up the type ... show mainly their spiritual activity in all those directions for which there are guarantees in their spiritual nature ..."4.

Danilevsky singles out the following basis of cultural typology: directions of human cultural activity. He divides all sociocultural human activity into four, not reducible to one another, categories:

1. Religious activity, embracing a person's relationship to God, - "the people's worldview ... as a firm faith that forms the living basis of all human moral activity"5.

2. Cultural activity in the narrow sense (properly cultural) of the word, embracing the relationship of man to the outside world. This is, firstly, theoretical-scientific activity, secondly, aesthetic-artistic, and thirdly, technical-industrial activity.

3. Political activity, including both domestic and foreign policy.

4. Socio-economic activity, in the process of which certain economic relations and systems are created.

In accordance with the categories of human cultural activity, N.Ya. Danilevsky distinguished the following cultural types:

Primary or preparatory cultures, whose task was to develop those conditions under which life in an organized society becomes possible at all. These cultures have not shown themselves sufficiently fully or clearly in any of the categories of sociocultural activity. These cultures include Egyptian, Chinese, Babylonian, Indian and Iranian cultures, which laid the foundations for subsequent development.

Monobasic cultures historically followed the preparatory ones and showed themselves quite brightly and fully in one of the categories of socio-cultural activity. These cultures include Jewish (creating the first monotheistic religion that became the basis of Christianity); Greek, embodied in proper cultural activity (classical art, philosophy); Roman, which realized itself in political and legal activities (classical system of law and state system).

The culture is dual-based - Germano-Roman, or European. Danilevsky called this cultural type the political-cultural type, since it was these two areas that became the basis of the creative activity of European peoples (the creation of parliamentary and colonial systems, the development of science, technology, and art). In his opinion, the Europeans succeeded to a much lesser extent in economic activity, since the economic relations they created did not reflect the ideal of justice.

Culture is a four-basic-hypothetical, just emerging cultural type. Danilevsky writes about a completely special type in the history of human culture, which has the opportunity to realize in its life the four most important values: true faith; political justice and freedom; culture proper (science and art); perfect, harmonious socio-economic system, which could not be created by all previous cultures. The Slavic cultural-historical type can become such a type, if it does not succumb to the temptation to adopt ready-made cultural forms from Europeans. The destiny of Russia, wrote Danilevsky, is "a happy destiny": "not to conquer and oppress, but to liberate and restore..."6.

The history of Danilevsky's philosophy is based on the idea of ​​denying the unity of mankind, a single direction of progress: "A universal human civilization does not exist and cannot exist, because it would only be an impossible and completely undesirable incompleteness ... There is not only a universal human civilization in reality, but also a wish to be it means to be content with a common place, colorlessness, lack of originality, in a word, content with an impossible incompleteness.

Without doubting the biological unity of mankind, Danilevsky insists on the originality, "self-sufficiency" of cultures created by peoples. The true creators of history are not the peoples themselves, but the cultures created by them and having reached a mature state, which are like "perennial single-fruited plants" that live for many years, but bloom and bear fruit only once in a lifetime.

Ideas N.Ya. Danilevsky are developed by O. Spengler (1880 - 1936) in the work "The Decline of Europe" (1914). It is known that he read Danilevsky's book, although he does not refer to it anywhere.

Lecture 11

1. Local cultures as a model of human development. The concept of cultural and historical types (N.Ya. Danilevsky)

In philosophy and cultural studies, an important problem is the question of what constitutes a historical and cultural process: the development of world culture as a whole or the change of local cultures, each of which lives its own, separate life. From the point of view of the theory of local cultures, the scheme of history is not a unidirectional linear process: the lines of development of cultures diverge. This position was held by N.Ya. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, L. Frobenius, A. Toynbee, E. Meyer, E. Troelch and others. These thinkers opposed their concepts to the idea of ​​universality and world history (the concepts of Voltaire, Montesquieu, G. Lessing, I. Kant, I. G. Herder, V. Solovyov, K. Jaspers and others).

Russian sociologist Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky (1822-1885) developed the concept of local cultural-historical types, or civilizations, successively passing through the stages of birth, flourishing, decline and death in their development. Cultural-historical types are the subjects of human history. However, the history of culture is not exhausted by these subjects. Unlike positive cultural-historical types, there is also the so-called. "negative figures of mankind" - barbarians, as well as ethnic groups, which are not characterized by either positive or negative historical roles. The latter make up ethnographic material, being included in cultural-historical types, but not reaching historical individuality.

N.Ya. Danilevsky identifies the following cultural and historical types:

1) Egyptian culture;

2) Chinese culture;

3) Assyrian-Babylonian-Phoenician;

4) Chaldean, or ancient Semitic, culture;

5) Indian culture;

6) Iranian culture;

7) Jewish culture;

8) Greek culture;

9) Roman culture;

10) Arabian culture;

11) Germano-Roman, or European, culture.

A special place in Danilevsky's theory is given to the Mexican and Peruvian cultures, which were destroyed before they could complete their development.

Among these cultures stand out "solitary" and "successive" types. The first type is Chinese and Indian cultures, and the second is Egyptian, Assyrian-Babylonian-Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Jewish and European cultures.

The fruits of the activity of the latter were transferred from one cultural type to another as nourishment or "fertilizer" of the soil on which another culture subsequently developed.

Each original cultural and historical type evolves from the ethnographic to the state state, and from it to civilization.

All history, according to Danilevsky, demonstrates that civilization is not transmitted from one cultural-historical type to another.

It does not follow from this that they did not mutually influence each other, but this influence cannot be considered as a direct transmission.

The peoples of each cultural-historical type do not generally work; the results of their labor remain the property of all other peoples who have reached the civilizational period of their development.

Under the period of civilization, Danilevsky understood the time during which the peoples that make up the type manifest mainly their spiritual activity in all those directions for which there are guarantees in their spiritual nature. Danilevsky singles out the following basis of cultural typology: directions of human cultural activity.

The Russian sociologist divides all sociocultural human activity into four categories that are not reducible to one another:

1) religious activity, including a person's attitude to God - the people's worldview as a firm faith, which forms the living basis of all human moral activity;

2) cultural activity in the narrow sense (actually cultural) of this word, embracing the relationship of a person to the outside world. This is, firstly, theoretical-scientific activity, secondly, aesthetic-artistic and, thirdly, technical-industrial activity;

3) political activity, including both domestic and foreign policy;

4) socio-economic activity, in the process of which certain economic relations and systems are created. In accordance with the categories of human cultural activity, N.Ya. Danilevsky distinguished the following cultural types:

1) primary cultures, or preparatory. Their task was to work out the conditions under which life in an organized society becomes possible at all. These cultures have not shown themselves sufficiently fully or clearly in any of the categories of sociocultural activity. These cultures include Egyptian, Chinese, Babylonian, Indian and Iranian cultures, which laid the foundations for subsequent development;

2) monobasic cultures - historically followed the preparatory ones and showed themselves quite clearly and fully in one of the categories of sociocultural activity. These cultures include Jewish (creating the first monotheistic religion that became the basis of Christianity); Greek, embodied in the actual cultural activity (classical art, philosophy); Roman, which realized itself in political and legal activities (classical system of law and state system);

3) dual-base culture - Germano-Roman, or European. Danilevsky called this cultural type the political-cultural type, since it was these two areas that became the basis of the creative activity of European peoples (the creation of parliamentary and colonial systems, the development of science, technology, and art). Indeed, in economic activity, the Europeans succeeded to a much lesser extent, since the economic relations they created did not reflect the ideal of justice; 4) four-basic culture - a hypothetical, just emerging cultural type. Danilevsky writes about a completely special type in the history of human culture, which has the opportunity to realize in its life the four most important values: true faith; political justice and freedom; culture proper (science and art); perfect, harmonious socio-economic system, which could not be created by all previous cultures. The Slavic cultural-historical type can become such a type, if it does not succumb to the temptation to adopt ready-made cultural forms from Europeans. The destiny of Russia, Danilevsky believed, is not to conquer and oppress, but to liberate and restore.

Danilevsky's philosophy of history is based on the idea of ​​denying the unity of mankind, a single direction of progress: a universal civilization does not exist and cannot exist. Universal means colorlessness, lack of originality. Without doubting the biological unity of mankind, Danilevsky insists on the originality, self-sufficiency of cultures. The true creators of history are not the peoples themselves, but the cultures created by them and having reached a mature state.

2. Local cultures and local civilizations (O. Spengler and A. Toynbee)

The development of the problem of locally developing cultures was continued by Oswald Spengler (1880–1936). In The Decline of Europe, he defends the idea of ​​the discrete nature of history.

Spengler argues that there is no progressive development of culture, but only the circulation of local cultures. Likening cultures to living organisms, Spengler believes that they are born unexpectedly, being absolutely isolated and devoid of common ties. The life cycle of every culture inevitably ends with death.

Spengler identifies eight types of cultures that have reached their completion: Chinese; Babylonian; Egyptian; Indian; antique (Greco-Roman), or "Apollo"; Arabic; Western European, or "Faustian"; the culture of the Mayan people. In a special type, which is still at the stage of emergence, Spengler singled out the Russian-Siberian culture.

Contrasting the concepts of culture and life, under culture, Spengler understands the external manifestation of the internal structure of the soul of the people, the desire of the collective soul of the people for self-expression.

Each culture, each soul has a primary worldview, its own “primary symbol”, from which all the richness of its forms flows; inspired by him, she lives, feels, creates. For European culture, the "first symbol" is only its characteristic way of experiencing space and time - "aspiration to infinity". Ancient culture, on the contrary, mastered the world, based on the principle of a visible limit. Everything irrational is alien to them, zero and negative numbers are not known.

The historical and cultural type is closed in itself, exists separately, in isolation. Culture lives its own, special life; it cannot absorb anything from other cultures. There is no historical continuity, no influence or borrowing. Cultures are self-sufficient, and therefore dialogue is impossible. A person belonging to a certain culture not only cannot perceive other values, but is also unable to understand them. All norms of human spiritual activity make sense only within the framework of a particular culture and are significant only for it.

According to Spengler, the unity of mankind does not exist, the concept of "humanity" is an empty phrase. World history is an illusion generated by the European cultural type. Each type of culture, with the inevitability of fate, goes through the same life stages (from birth to death), gives rise to the same phenomena, painted, however, in peculiar tones.

Russian philosopher Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev(1874-1948) substantiates the idea of ​​the gradual transformation of the "human race" into "humanity". A huge role in the way of humankind's awareness of its community belongs to Christianity, which historically arose and revealed itself during the period of the universal meeting of all the results of the cultural processes of the Ancient World. During this period, the cultures of the East and the cultures of the West merged.

The fall of great cultures, according to N. Berdyaev, testifies not only to their experience of the moments of birth, flourishing and dying, but also to the fact that culture is the beginning of eternity. The fall of Rome and the ancient world is a catastrophe in history, not the death of culture. After all, Roman law is eternally alive, Greek art and philosophy are eternally alive, like all other principles of the Ancient World, which form the basis of other cultures.

Arnold Toynbee(1889-1975) in his work "Comprehension of History" develops the concept of local civilizations. Civilizations are divided by him into three generations. The first is primitive, small, non-literate cultures. There are countless of them, and their age is small. They are characterized by one-sided specialization, adaptability to life in a certain geographical environment; social institutions - the state, education, church, science - they do not have. These cultures breed like rabbits and die spontaneously unless they merge, through a creative act, into a more powerful second generation civilization.

The creative act is hampered by the static nature of primitive societies: in them, the social connection (imitation), which regulates the uniformity of actions and the stability of relations, is directed to deceased ancestors, to the older generation. In such cultures, custom rules and innovation is difficult. With a sharp change in living conditions, which Toynbee calls a "challenge", society cannot give an adequate response, rebuild and change its way of life; continuing to live and act as if there is no “challenge”, as if nothing has happened, the culture is moving towards the abyss and perishing.

However, some cultures produce a "creative minority" from their midst who are aware of the challenge and are able to respond satisfactorily to it. This handful of enthusiasts - prophets, priests, philosophers, scientists, politicians - by the example of their own disinterested service, carry away the main mass, and the society moves on to new tracks. The formation of a subsidiary civilization begins, which inherited the experience of its predecessor, but is much more flexible and versatile.

According to Toynbee, cultures that live in comfortable conditions, do not receive a challenge from the environment, are in a state of stagnation. Only where difficulties arise, where the mind of people is excited in search of a way out and new forms of survival, conditions are created for the birth of a civilization of a higher level.

According to Toynbee's Law of the Golden Mean, the challenge should be neither too weak nor too harsh. In the first case, there will be no active response, and in the second, difficulties can stop the emergence of civilization. The most common answers are: the transition to a new type of management, the creation of irrigation systems, the formation of powerful power structures capable of mobilizing the energy of society, the creation of a new religion, science, and technology.

In second-generation civilizations, social bonding is directed towards creative individuals who lead the pioneers of a new social order. Civilizations of the second generation are dynamic, they create large cities, they develop the division of labor, commodity exchange, the market, there are layers of artisans, scientists, merchants, people of mental labor, a complex social stratification system is established. Attributes of democracy can develop here: elected bodies, legal system, self-government, separation of powers.

The emergence of a full-fledged secondary civilization is not a foregone conclusion.

In order for it to appear, a combination of a number of conditions is necessary. Since this is not always the case, some civilizations turn out to be frozen, or "underdeveloped".

The problem of the birth of civilization from a primitive culture is one of the central ones for Toynbee. He believes that neither racial type, nor environment, nor economic structure play a decisive role in the genesis of civilizations: they arise as a result of mutations of primitive cultures, which occur depending on combinations of many causes. Predicting a mutation is difficult, as a result of a card game.

Civilizations of the third generation are formed on the basis of churches. In total, according to Toynbee, by the middle of the 20th century. Of the three dozen civilizations that existed, seven or eight survived: Christian, Islamic, Hindu, etc.

Like his predecessors, Toynbee recognizes a cyclical pattern of civilization development: birth, growth, flourishing, breakdown and decay. But this scheme is not fatal, the death of civilizations is probable, but not inevitable. Civilizations, like people, are not far-sighted: they are not fully aware of the springs of their own actions and the essential conditions that ensure their prosperity.

The narrow-mindedness and selfishness of the ruling elites, combined with the laziness and conservatism of the majority, lead to the degeneration of civilization.

In contrast to the fatalistic and relativistic theories of Spengler and his followers, Toynbee is looking for a solid foundation for the unification of mankind, trying to find ways of a peaceful transition to the "universal church" and "universal state".

The pinnacle of earthly progress, according to Toynbee, would be the creation of a "community of saints." Its members would be free from sin and capable of cooperating with God, albeit at the cost of hard effort, to transform human nature. Only a new religion, built in the spirit of pantheism, could, according to Toynbee, reconcile the warring groups of people, form an ecologically healthy attitude towards nature, and thereby save humanity from destruction.

3. The theory of cultures-civilizations by S. Huntington

The theory of culture-civilizations of our contemporary Samuel Huntington is consonant with the general concepts of cultures presented above. It also promotes the idea of ​​the significance of cultural characteristics; Huntington declares the confrontation between the modern and the traditional to be the fundamental problem of the modern era.

S. Huntington revives a civilized approach to the analysis of the historical and cultural process. He uses the research method used by A. Toynbee, N. Danilevsky, O. Spengler.

Huntington believes that the main conflict of the era is the confrontation between modernity and traditionalism. The content of the modern era is the clash of cultures-civilizations. The leading culture-civilizations Huntington includes the following: Western, Confucian (China), Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Orthodox Slavic, Latin American and African.

According to S. Huntington, identity (self-awareness, self-identification) will have an ever more decisive significance in the near future precisely at the level of identified cultures-civilizations, or metacultures. This is also connected with the awareness of the conflict nature of the world and the upcoming clashes of civilizations along the "lines of cultural faults", that is, the spatial boundaries of metacultural communities. At the same time, S. Huntington is pessimistic about the prospect of historical development and believes that the fault lines between civilizations are the lines of future fronts.

S. Huntington proceeds from the idea that the differences between civilizations-cultures are enormous and will remain so for a long time to come. Civilizations are not similar in their history, cultural traditions and, most importantly, religions. People of different cultures-civilizations have different ideas about the world as a whole, about freedom, models of development, about the relationship between the individual and the community, about God. Fundamental for the general cultural concept is S. Huntington's position that intercultural differences are more fundamental than political and ideological ones.

A special role in determining the image of the modern world is played by fundamentalism (strict observance of archaic norms, a return to the old order), primarily in the form of religious movements.

S. Huntington assesses the return to traditional cultural values ​​as a reaction to the expansion of Western industrial culture into developing countries. This phenomenon has embraced, first of all, the countries of Islamic orientation, which play a significant role in the modern world.

The scientist sees the main "cultural fault" in the opposition of the West to the rest of the world; the Confucian-Islamic union plays a decisive role in defending their cultural identity.

S. Huntington, on the other hand, sees one of the possible options for the development of the conflict of the era in the fact that Euro-Atlanticism, being at the top of its power, will be able (more or less organically) to assimilate the values ​​of other cultures. In principle, the reorientation of modern industrial culture to a more introverted one, facing the inner world of man, has already been going on in recent decades. This was expressed in a huge interest in personal improvement, in religious systems of Buddhist and Taoist orientation, in the younger generation's rejection of a rational-material approach to life, the emergence of a counterculture and the search for the meaning of existence in Western culture. These trends have existed in Western culture since the early 1970s. They influence the internal functioning of industrialism.