The essence of the concepts of "culture", "socio-cultural sphere" and "socio-cultural activity. Culture as a side of various spheres of society (political culture, labor culture, etc.)

cultural figurative public

When culture is characterized various forms public life, then we are talking about aesthetic, moral, professional, political and legal, economic, environmental, household, physical culture.

Artistic culture is presented as a set of socially created art treasures, as well as the process of creation, distribution, assimilation by society and each individual. The functions of artistic culture include: aesthetic (it is associated with the ability of art to give a person aesthetic pleasure); cognitive (expresses the specifics of art as the knowledge of life through the system artistic images). Ideological (means that art acts as a spokesman and conductor of one or another worldview); educational (consists in the impact of art on people, in its ability to form spiritual world person); communicative (meaning that art culture serves as a channel for the transfer of not only knowledge, but also feelings, is a means of spiritual communication between people).

Morality arises after the myth goes into the past, where a person internally merged with the life of the collective and was controlled by various magical taboos that programmed his behavior at the level of the unconscious. Now a person needs self-control in conditions of relative internal autonomy from the team.

Morality is presented as a side, as an aspect of culture as a whole, understood as a world of objective and spiritual phenomena created by people, in which human essential forces are embodied, the development of human generic abilities and capabilities in mastering the world, in self-determination of a person in the world. The following levels of moral culture are distinguished: the lowest - here one observes the orientation of the individual towards the perception of moral culture through imitation and suggestion, the reproduction of the generally accepted content of actions; medium - there is a realization of moral prescriptions and values, determined public opinion; the highest is the level of self-regulation based on the main moral imperative - conscience.

Law, legal culture can be represented as a set of legal knowledge, beliefs, attitudes implemented in the processes of communication, behavior, activities, as well as attitudes towards the material and spiritual values ​​of society. Among the functions of legal culture, the following are distinguished: the definition of legal processes and their normative consolidation; regulation of relations between people in the process of social interaction; creation of optimal conditions for the formation and development of processes of socially significant interactions.

Politics is a set of attitudes and goals determined by the fundamental interests of social groups, parties and states, as well as their practical domestic and international activities to implement the developed course and achieve the goals set. Political culture is considered as a variety and an integral part of the general human culture; as goals, means, results of the activities of society, class, social group, individual, characterizing the level social development personality as a subject of transformation of social relations.

ecological culture implies the recognition of a single system "man - nature" or "society - nature", not only in terms of the impact on the development of society of the geographical environment and population, but also the recognition of the reverse impact of nature on society.

Household culture is an established way of life Everyday life person. All areas of non-manufacturing social life constitutes a system of everyday culture. Satisfying the needs of people in food, clothing, housing, treatment, health prevention, as well as the development by a person of spiritual benefits, works of art, communication, recreation, entertainment. Everyday culture is connected with the life of society, since everyday life has an impact on work, social activities, mood and behavior of people. A rich and prosperous society is characterized by a well-established life of its citizens.

Physical culture is based on the vital values ​​of culture, on the values healthy lifestyle life. For supporting physical culture appropriate institutions should function in the society. Specialized personnel and promotion of a healthy lifestyle are necessary components for the maintenance and existence of physical culture in society.

An important aspect of the functioning and development of society is its spiritual life. It can be filled with rich content, which creates a favorable spiritual atmosphere in people's lives, a good moral and psychological climate.

In other cases, the spiritual life of a society can be poor and inexpressive, and sometimes real lack of spirituality reigns in it. In the content of the spiritual life of society, its truly human essence is manifested. After all, the spiritual (or spirituality) is inherent only in man, distinguishes and elevates him above the rest of the world.

The main elements of the spiritual life of society. The spiritual life of society is very complex. It is not limited to various manifestations of people's consciousness, their thoughts and feelings, although with with good reason we can say that their consciousness is the core, the core of their personal spiritual life and the spiritual life of society.

The main elements of the spiritual life of society include the spiritual needs of people aimed at the creation and consumption of the corresponding spiritual values, as well as the spiritual values ​​themselves, as well as spiritual activities for their creation and, in general, spiritual production. The elements of spiritual life should also include spiritual consumption as the consumption of spiritual values ​​and spiritual relations between people, as well as manifestations of their interpersonal spiritual communication.

The basis of the spiritual life of society is spiritual activity. It can be considered as an activity of consciousness, during which certain thoughts and feelings of people, their images and ideas about natural and social phenomena arise. The result of this activity are certain views of people on the world, scientific ideas and theories, moral, aesthetic and religious views. They are embodied in moral principles and norms of behavior, works of folk and professional art, religious rites, rituals, etc.

A special type of spiritual activity is the dissemination of spiritual values ​​in order to assimilate them as possible. a large number of people. The main motivating forces of spiritual activity are spiritual needs.

There is a task of raising the level of culture of spiritual consumption. IN this case the consumer needs to be brought up by familiarizing with the real spiritual culture. To do this, it is necessary to develop and enrich the spiritual culture of society, make it accessible and interesting for every person.

The production and consumption of spiritual values ​​is mediated by spiritual relations. They really exist as a person's relationship directly to certain spiritual values ​​(whether he approves or rejects them), as well as his relationship to other people about these values ​​- their production, distribution, consumption, protection.

Any spiritual activity is mediated by spiritual relationships. Based on this, it is possible to single out such types of spiritual relations as cognitive, moral, aesthetic, religious, as well as spiritual relations that arise between a teacher and a student, an educator and those whom he educates.

It should be noted that the term "culture" comes from Latin word cultura - cultivation, processing, education, development. Initially, it meant cultivating the soil, cultivating it, that is, changing it by a person in order to obtain a good harvest.

Renaissance philosophers defined culture as a means of forming an ideal universal personality - comprehensively educated, educated, beneficially influencing the development of sciences and arts, contributing to the strengthening of the state. They also raised the problem of civilization as a specific social structure other than barbarism.

One should agree with numerous researchers that culture is purely social phenomenon associated with human life. Such a definition reflects only the most general in culture, since we can say the same about human society. This means that already in the very definition of the concept of "culture" there must be something that distinguishes it from the concept of "society". It has been noticed that the fusion of the cultural and the social exists only at a very low stage of the development of society. As soon as it starts public division labor - the separation of agriculture from cattle breeding, handicrafts from agriculture; trade from agriculture, cattle breeding and handicrafts, this is how the growth of the actual social problems.

In the same way, it is wrong to identify spiritual production with spiritual culture. Spiritual production is the production of all kinds of ideas, norms, spiritual values, and spiritual culture is both the production of spiritual values ​​themselves, and their functioning and consumption, including in education, upbringing, various forms of human life and communication. Here, too, there is a very close connection and interaction between spiritual production and spiritual culture, but one cannot be reduced to the other. Spiritual culture includes spiritual production and determines it, and spiritual production contributes to the development of spiritual culture.

As we can see, the desire to clarify the problem of the relationship between culture and society necessarily leads to an understanding of culture as a system of material and spiritual values ​​involved in the socially progressive creative activity of mankind in all spheres of being and cognition, its social relations, public consciousness, social institutions etc. The system of spiritual values ​​is a system of moral and other social norms, principles, ideals, attitudes, their functioning in specific historical conditions. It should be noted that culture is not reduced to values ​​as finished results. It incorporates the degree of development of the person himself. There is no culture without man, just as there is no culture in a static state. Culture is inseparable from the entire life of a person who is its bearer and creator. Man is, first of all, a cultural and historical being. His human qualities are the result of his assimilation of the language, the value orientations of society and the social or national community to which he belongs, as well as experience and skills for work, traditions, customs, spiritual and material values ​​inherited from previous generations and created by him.

Culture is a measure of the human in a person, a characteristic of his own development, as well as the development of society, its interaction with nature.

The problem of human dimension was noticed in antiquity.

It is impossible not to note the importance of the personal dimension of culture from the point of view of man's relationship to nature. Today we are already talking about ecological culture, which reflects the attitude of man to nature, his morality. This ecological morality should now act as a categorical imperative of the individual, the state, and society. A person comes into the world not as a producer and not as a person, but as a person. He assimilates both the natural and social qualities of his being in the form in which he finds them in his environment, because he cannot choose one or another type of society or level of development. cultural property. Man is that element of the "nature - man - society" system, through which nature, society, and man himself change. And from what are the personal dimensions of the person himself, what are his value orientations, depend (in the presence, of course, of certain objective conditions) the results of its activities. Therefore, consciousness and responsibility, mercy and love for nature are far from being complete list human qualities, which measure the contact of man with nature, the ecological culture of man.

When we talk about the ecological culture of society, we should note that “good technology” (one that is focused on the conservation and recreation of nature) gives, respectively, “good ecology”. The ecological culture of society, associated with concern for the harmony of man and nature, incorporates both material and spiritual values ​​that serve both nature and man as its integral part.

The main elements of the spiritual life of society are:

spiritual activity;

Spiritual values;

Spiritual needs of people;

Spiritual consumption;

individual consciousness;

public consciousness.

The spiritual life of society is one of the main areas of social life, which determines the specifics of a particular society in its entirety. This area includes education and culture, religion and science.

spiritual realm

The spiritual sphere of society is a system of relations between people, which reflects moral life of this society.

The spiritual sphere is represented by such multifaceted subsystems as religion, science, culture, education, art and ideology. Why does the spiritual realm mean so much to any developed society?

First of all, the significance of the spiritual sphere lies in its function of revealing the value system of society. It is through the definition of values ​​that one can understand the level of development public consciousness.

Without a developed spiritual sphere, it is rather difficult to imagine a developed society of people. Through education, people become smarter and learn the world from new sides, thanks to culture, society is constantly enriched spiritually, as people have the opportunity to express their personal qualities and creativity.

culture

Culture is a combination of spiritual and material values, ways of their creation and opportunities to use them for further development humanity and the individual in particular. We can say that human labor is the first source of cultural development.

Culture is a set of spiritual achievements of mankind. But it is not for nothing that they say that every country or every nation has its own culture. This is due to the fact that each country developed in its own way and each country has its own history.

As a result cultural development each nation has a certain cultural and spiritual heritage, which create cultural customs. There are cultural achievements that are commonly called "overtime" - these are those cultural and spiritual phenomena that are not subject to change and time.

Education

The process and result of a person's assimilation of knowledge, skills and abilities is commonly called education. It is in this way that the mind and feelings of a person develop, his own opinion, value system, worldview and cognitive process.

Education is Main way to growing up and understanding the world around. Children begin to learn from early years- at first just sounds and movements, then the alphabet and counting, and every year the child learns something new.

In adolescence, a person not only accumulates systematized knowledge, he already learns to think critically and creatively - to independently evaluate the phenomena surrounding him and the historical past.

Getting an education is important for every person - after all, without a system of compulsory knowledge, he will not be able to fully communicate with people and feel comfortable in society. Education is a socially organized process.

Religion

Religion is one of the forms of social consciousness. And in the scientific sense, we are talking about religion as a special form of awareness of the world, which is due to belief in the supernatural. Any kind of religion includes moral norms and types of behavior, and also represents an association of people in certain organizations.

An example of such an organization is the church. The basis for religion is the concept of God, the meaning and purpose of life, good and evil, morality and honesty. That is why religion is one of the fundamental subsystems of the spiritual sphere of society.

The science

The sphere of human activity aimed at the theoretical systematization and development of knowledge about reality is usually called science. It is easiest to say that science is a collection of objective knowledge about the world.

Culture is an important component of social consciousness. It is a means of forming social personality, the sphere of communication between people and the implementation of their creativity. culture and its features are the object of study of philosophers, culturologists, intellectuals who seek to determine the role of spiritual culture in society and in human development.

The concept of culture

Throughout history, human life has been shaped into culture. This concept covers the widest sphere of human life. The meaning of the word "culture" - "cultivation", "processing" (originally - land) - is due to the fact that with the help of various actions a person transforms the surrounding reality and himself. Culture is an exclusively human phenomenon, animals, unlike people, adapt to the world, and a person adjusts it to his needs and requirements. In the course of these transformations, it is created.

Due to the fact that the spheres of spiritual culture are extremely diverse, there is no single definition of the concept of "culture". There are several approaches to its interpretation: idealistic, materialistic, functionalist, structuralist, psychoanalytic. In each of them, separate aspects of this concept are distinguished. In a broad sense, culture is all the transformative activity of a person, directed both outside and inside oneself. In the narrow is creative activity human, expressed in the creation of works of various arts.

Spiritual and material culture

Despite the fact that culture is a complex, complex phenomenon, there is a tradition to divide it into material and spiritual. To area material culture It is customary to attribute all the results of human activity embodied in various objects. This is the world surrounding a person: buildings, roads, household utensils, clothing, as well as a variety of equipment and technologies. The spheres of spiritual culture are connected with the production of ideas. These include theories, philosophies, moral norms, scientific knowledge. However, such a division is often purely arbitrary. How, for example, to separate works of such art forms as cinema and theater? After all, the performance combines the idea, literary basis, the game of actors, as well as subject design.

The emergence of spiritual culture

The question of the origin of culture still causes lively disputes between representatives of different sciences. Social science, for which the sphere of spiritual culture is an important research area, proves that cultural genesis is inextricably linked with the formation of society. Condition of survival primitive man was the ability to adapt the world around them to their needs and the ability to coexist in a team: it was impossible to survive alone. The formation of culture was not instantaneous, but was a long evolutionary process. A person learns to transfer social experience, creating for this a system of rituals and signals, speech. He has new needs, in particular, the desire for beauty, social ones are formed, and All this becomes a platform for the formation of spiritual culture. Comprehension of the surrounding reality, the search for cause-and-effect relationships lead to the formation of a mythological worldview. It symbolically explains the world around and allows a person to navigate in life.

Main areas

Over time, all spheres of spiritual culture grow out of mythology. The human world evolves and becomes more complex, and at the same time, information and ideas about the world become more complex, special areas of knowledge are distinguished. Today, the question of what the sphere of spiritual culture includes has several answers. In the traditional sense, it includes religion, politics, philosophy, morality, art, science. There is also a broader view, according to which the spiritual sphere includes language, a system of knowledge, values ​​and plans for the future of mankind. In the narrowest interpretation, the sphere of spirituality includes art, philosophy and ethics as an area for the formation of ideals.

Religion as a sphere of spiritual culture

Religion stands out first. All spheres of spiritual culture, including religion, are a special set of values, ideals and norms that serve as guidelines in human life. Faith is the basis for understanding the world, especially for a person of antiquity. Science and religion are two antagonistic ways of explaining the world, but each of them is a system of ideas about how a person and everything that surrounds him was created. The specificity of religion is that it appeals to faith, not to knowledge. The main function of religion as a form of spiritual life is ideological. It sets the framework for a person's worldview and worldview, gives meaning to existence. Religion also performs a regulatory function: it controls the relations of people in society and their activities. In addition to these, faith performs communicative, legitimizing and cultural-transmitting functions. Thanks to religion, many outstanding ideas and phenomena appeared, it was the source of the concept of humanism.

Morality as a sphere of spiritual culture

Moral and spiritual culture is the basis for regulating relationships between people in society. Morality is a system of values ​​and ideas about what is evil and good, about the meaning of people's lives and the principles of their relationships in society. Often researchers consider ethics highest form spirituality. Morality is a specific area of ​​spiritual culture, and its features are due to the fact that it is an unwritten law of people's behavior in society. She represents the unspoken social contract, according to which all peoples consider the highest value of a person and his life. Main public functions morals are:

Regulatory - this specific function consists in managing the behavior of people, and they are not dominated by any institutions and organizations that control a person. Fulfilling moral requirements, a person is motivated by a unique mechanism called conscience. Morality establishes the rules that ensure the interaction of people;

Evaluative-imperative, that is, a function that allows people to understand what is good and what is evil;

Educational - it is thanks to it that the moral character of the individual is formed.

Ethics also performs a number of such socially significant functions as cognitive, communicative, orienting, prognostic.

Art as a sphere of spiritual culture

Cinema and theater

Cinema is one of the youngest and at the same time the most popular arts. Its history is short compared to the thousand-year history of music, painting or theater. At the same time, cinema halls are filled with millions of spectators every day, and more more people watching movies on TV. Cinema renders powerful impact on the minds and hearts of young people.

Today theater is less popular than cinema. With the ubiquity of television, it has lost some of its appeal. Besides, theater tickets are now expensive. Therefore, it can be said that the visit famous theater became a luxury. Yet theater is an integral part of intellectual life each country and reflects the state of society and the minds of the nation.

Philosophy as a sphere of spiritual culture

Philosophy - ancient man. Like other spheres of spiritual culture, it grows out of mythology. It organically combines the features of religion. Philosophers satisfy the important need of people to find meaning. The main questions of being (what is the world, what is the meaning of life) receive different answers in philosophy, but allow a person to choose his own life path. Its most important functions are ideological and axiological; it helps a person to build his own system of views and criteria for evaluating the world around him. Philosophy also performs epistemological, critical, prognostic and educational functions.

Science as a sphere of spiritual culture

The latest formed sphere of spiritual culture was science. Its formation is quite slow, and it is intended primarily to explain the structure of the world. Science and religion are forms of overcoming the mythological worldview. But unlike religion, science is a system of objective, verifiable knowledge and is built according to the laws of logic. The leading need that a person satisfies through science is cognitive. It is human nature to ask various questions, and the search for answers gives rise to science. Science is distinguished from all other spheres of spiritual culture by the strict evidence and verifiability of postulates. Thanks to it, a universal human objective picture of the world is formed. The main social ones are cognitive, worldview, practice-transformative, communicative, educational and regulatory. Unlike philosophy, science is based on a system of objective knowledge that is verifiable through experiments.

Culture is an essential aspect various areas the life of society: production, political and legal, etc. This aspect of the sociological cut of the structure of culture makes it possible to single out such elements as the culture of production, political culture, legal culture, etc.

Production is one of the most important spheres of society. It is divided into spiritual production and material production.

Spiritual production is the production of products that satisfy the spiritual needs of a person (books, paintings, articles). Thus, spiritual production is culture itself, but taken not by itself, but in a socio-economic and institutional context.

Material production is, firstly, the production of products that satisfy the material needs of a person (for food, clothing, housing), and, secondly, the production of material means with the help of which the needs for communication, transportation of products, spiritual needs are satisfied.

For example, the production of players, televisions cannot be attributed to spiritual production, since the player or television itself does not satisfy spiritual needs. It serves only as a means by which the spiritual product becomes available to the consumer.

In the socio-economic aspect, material production in general and spiritual production have a certain similarity - these are forms of ownership of the means of production, forms of profit distribution, etc. However, this similarity is very relative: spiritual production has its own specifics in this regard, in addition, different industries spiritual production differ significantly from each other.

Spiritual and material production differ even more in terms of the product, the technology of its manufacture, and the organization of labor.

However, these differences should not be absolutized either. At the present time, along with the preservation of differences, a tendency towards rapprochement between spiritual and material production is also paving its way; not without reason we are talking about the leisure industry, the show business industry, etc.

Keeping in mind the differences and similarities between the spiritual and material production, we will further use the generalized concepts of "production", and, accordingly, "social production", etc.

Following the methodological scheme proposed in the previous section, in order to define the concept of “production culture”, it is necessary to clarify the anthropological aspects of this phenomenon and its functional specifics. In accordance with this concept of “culture of production”, the following most general, preliminary definition can be given: “culture of production” is the methods and results of the development and use of the human potential of the subjects of social production in order to increase its efficiency and more and more fully satisfy the interests of society on its basis. individual social groups and individuals.

Since the subject of social production are, in particular, individual enterprises, we can talk about the culture of production in relation to the characteristics of an enterprise, industry, plant, factory.

In addition, given that the concept of "culture of production" correlates with the concept of "subject of activity", it makes sense to single out two levels in its structure: managerial and mass. With regard to each of them, taken separately, it is probably more appropriate to apply the concept of "work culture". The synthesis of the labor culture of the managerial and mass levels gives a certain state of the culture of production.

Since modern production is the scope the latest achievements science and technology, the first absolutely necessary sign of the culture of production is the presence of its participants in a large amount of professional knowledge and skills.

The outpacing growth of science in comparison with production determines the dynamic development of the latter, the emergence of new industries and, accordingly, professions. Hence such a criterion of labor culture, both managerial and mass level, as the ability of workers to constantly replenish their knowledge, readiness to master new types of activity in new conditions.

Great and undeniable importance aesthetic culture worker. The feeling of proportions, harmony or disharmony of the combination of various elements, sensitivity to color combinations not only contributes to the production of high-quality products, but also makes the employee physically incapable of marriage, sloppy maintenance of the workplace. Highly developed dynamic production is impossible without high culture communication between its members. Otherwise, failures of the rhythm, inconsistency and simply inhumane atmosphere are inevitable, which hinders the development of production.

The question of the place of the worker's moral culture in the structure of production culture deserves special attention.

There is a widespread prejudice that capitalism creates such powerful economic incentives to work that it does not need moral motivation. labor activity. However, this is not the case. As is known, the economic successes of the developed capitalist countries are largely based on the ethics of Protestantism, according to which hard work, coupled with frugality, are the most important moral values.

In this regard, it becomes clear that a culture in which the influence of religion is weakened, there is an acute problem, which consists in the need to provide a secular justification for the rules and principles of the work ethic.

specific criteria managerial level labor is the ability to organize work, use human potential and, above all, the personal interests of participants in production, in order to achieve its effectiveness.

Thus, it is safe to say that the culture of work reflects the general state of the culture of society. This is not surprising, since labor the most important species human activities and the scope of the greatest application and, consequently, the development of its essential forces. Therefore, raising the culture of work, which is a condition for the successful development of any society, requires the improvement of the entire system of its culture. And vice versa, an increase in the culture of work will certainly respond to an increase in cultural level the whole society.

political culture. Politics is the area of ​​relationships between different social groups and states. One of its sides is political culture, which in this sense can be considered as an independent sphere of culture, which has its own specific territory in social space. However, political culture is at the same time a necessary component of not only political, but also other types of activity: artistic, industrial and even leisure. In this second meaning, the concept of "political culture", like the concept of " moral culture”, correlates with the concept of “subject of activity” as one of the characteristics of the latter.

Based on the above considerations and the methodological principles used earlier, the concept of "political culture" can be defined as follows: "Political culture is the means and results of the development of a person as a subject of politics."

Like the culture of production, political culture can be structured into managerial and mass levels. Each of them, in turn, can be structured into ideal and real, spiritual and practical layers, etc.

This issue will be discussed in more detail in section 3 of this tutorial.

Legal culture. Law is a very complex sociocultural phenomenon. It arose in response to the needs of society in a clear regulation of relations between various subjects of social action: individual individuals, social groups, states. The other side of this need was to create a system of supervision, control over compliance with established norms and a system of punishments for deviations from the norms.

Satisfaction of this dual need - to create and improve the system of norms and control over their observance - became possible with the advent of the state.

State control over compliance with the norms of relations between people is what sharply distinguishes law from morality. Society monitors the observance of moral standards.

Another difference between law and morality is that the norms of law are expressed with the utmost clarity and are enshrined in laws, while the norms of morality are less distinct, allow a wider range of interpretations, and are less imperative.