The influence of culture on human personality and cognitive functions. The problem of the influence of public culture on a person

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1. Definition of culturologists

Culturology (from Latin cultura - cultivation, husbandry, education) is a set of studies of culture as a structural integrity.

Already in the 1st century. BC. Cicero applied the concept of “culture” to man, after which culture began to be understood as the upbringing and education of a person, an ideal citizen. At the same time, the signs of a cultured person were considered to be his voluntary self-restraint, submission to legal, religious, moral and other norms. The concept of “culture” extended to society as a whole, and this order was meant things, which opposed the natural state with its spontaneous actions. This is how the classical understanding of culture as the upbringing and education of a person was formed, and the term “culture” began to be used to denote the general process of intellectual, spiritual, aesthetic development of man and society, separating the world created by man from the natural world.

The word “culture” is often used to designate the culture of different peoples in certain historical eras, the specificity of the way of existence or way of life of a society, group of people or a certain historical period, to characterize the way of life of individual social groups or areas of activity. Thus, on the pages of textbooks the phrases “culture of Ancient Egypt”, “culture of the Renaissance”, “Russian culture”, “youth culture”, “family culture”, “village culture”, “urban culture”, “work culture” are often used. , “culture of leisure”, etc.

In everyday consciousness, the concept of “culture” is mainly associated with works of literature and art, theaters, museums, archives - everything that is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture (or a similar institution) in any country. Therefore, this term denotes the forms and products of intellectual and artistic activity, the entire area of ​​spiritual culture.

In everyday life, the word “culture” expresses approval, is understood as the presence of an ideal or an ideal state with which we implicitly compare the facts or phenomena being evaluated. For example, they talk about a high professional culture, a culture of doing something. People's behavior is assessed from the same positions. But when they evaluate a person as cultured or uncultured, they mean well-educated or poorly educated people. Entire societies are sometimes assessed in the same way if they are based on law, order, and gentleness of morals as opposed to a state of barbarism.

This is what has led to the emergence of many definitions of culture, the number of which is constantly growing. Thus, in 1952, American cultural scientists A. Kroeber and K. Kluckhohn, systematizing the definitions of culture known to them, counted 164 definitions. In the 1970s the number of definitions reached 300 in the 1990s. exceeded 500. Currently there are about 1000 of them, which is not surprising, since everything created by man, the entire human world, is culture. Can be classified existing definitions, highlighting several important groups.

The philosophical approach provides the broadest panorama of the vision of culture, suggesting the study of the fundamental foundations of human existence, the depths of the self-awareness of the people. The task of this approach is not just to provide a description or enumeration of cultural phenomena, but to penetrate into their essence. As a rule, the essence of culture is seen in conscious human activity in the transformation of the surrounding world and the people themselves.

Within the framework of the philosophical approach today, several positions are distinguished that express different shades and semantic meanings of the concept “culture”. Firstly, it is emphasized that culture is a “second nature”, an artificial world, consciously and purposefully created by man, and the mediator between these two worlds is human activity, which is viewed extremely broadly as technology and the production of culture, as the production of not only material environment, but also the entire social existence of a person. Secondly, culture is interpreted as a way of development and self-development of a person as a tribal being, i.e. conscious, creative, amateur. Of course, these attempts deserve attention, but they emphasize only certain aspects, narrowing the concept of culture.

The essence of the anthropological approach is the recognition of the intrinsic value of the culture of each people, which underlies the way of life of both individuals and entire societies. In other words, culture is a way of human existence through numerous local cultures. This extremely broad approach equates culture and history of the entire society. The specificity of the anthropological approach lies in the focus of the study on the holistic knowledge of man in the context of a specific culture.

In general, the anthropological approach is distinguished by its specificity, orientation towards the study of “intermediate” layers and levels of culture, when the researcher tries to identify specific forms or units of culture with the help of which human life is decomposed into rationally constructed elements. As a result, the concept of cultural traits emerged - indivisible units of culture (material products, works of art, or patterns of behavior). Among them, there are both universal features inherent in all cultures (cultural universals) and specific ones, characteristic of one or several peoples.

Cultural universals express generic principles in a culture. These are common features, characteristics or components of culture inherent in all countries and peoples, regardless of their geographical and socio-economic situation. Thus, in 1965, J. Murdoch identified over 60 universals of culture, including the manufacture of tools, the institution of marriage, property rights, religious rites, sports, body decoration, joint labor, dancing, education, funeral rituals, hospitality, games , prohibitions of incest, rules of hygiene, language, etc. It can be assumed that cultural universals are based on corresponding biological needs, for example, the helplessness of infants and the need for their care and education are recognized in cultures of all types.

The sociological approach understands culture as a factor in the formation and organization of social life. The organizing principle is considered to be the value system of each society. Cultural values ​​are created by society itself, but they then determine the development of this society. What begins to dominate a person is what he himself created.

In sociology, as in social or cultural anthropology, three interrelated approaches to the study of culture exist and compete with each other:

Subject-based, studying the content of culture as a system of values, norms and values ​​or meanings, i.e. ways to regulate life in society;

Functional, identifying ways to satisfy human needs or ways to develop the essential powers of a person in the process of his conscious activity;

Institutional, exploring typical units or stable forms of organizing joint activities of people.

Within the framework of the sociological approach, the structure and functions of culture are studied, but when analyzing the external organizing factors of culture, sociologists pay little attention to the internal content of cultural phenomena.

2. Culture and civilization

Civilization arises where culture dies. Oswald Spengler's modern concept of “culture” as a civilization was mainly formed in the 18th - early 19th centuries. Western Europe. Subsequently, this concept, on the one hand, began to include differences between different groups of people in Europe itself, and, on the other hand, differences between the metropolises and their colonies around the world. Hence the fact that in this case the concept of “culture” is the equivalent of “civilization”, that is, the antipode of the concept of “nature”. Using this definition, one can easily classify individual people and even entire countries according to their level of civilization. Some authors even define culture simply as “all the best things in the world that have been created and said” (Matthew Arnold), and everything that does not fall into this definition is chaos and anarchy. From this point of view, culture is closely related to social development and progress in society. Arnold consistently uses his definition: “...culture is the result of constant improvement arising from the processes of acquiring knowledge about everything that concerns us, it consists of all the best that has been said and thought” (Arnold, 1882). in practice, the concept of culture applies to all the best products and actions, including in the field of art and classical music. From this point of view, the concept of “cultural” includes people who are in some way connected with these areas. At the same time, people involved in classical music are, by definition, at a higher level than rap fans from working-class neighborhoods or Australian aborigines leading a traditional lifestyle.

However, within the framework of this worldview, there is a current - where less “cultured” people are seen, in many ways, as more “natural”, and suppression is attributed to “high” culture. human nature" This point of view is found in the works of many authors since the 18th century. For example, they emphasize that folk music(as created by ordinary people) more honestly expresses the natural way of life, while classical music looks superficial and decadent. Following this view, people outside of “Western civilization” are “noble savages”, uncorrupted by Western capitalism.

Today, most researchers reject both extremes. They do not accept either the concept of the “only correct” culture or its complete opposition to nature. In this case, it is recognized that the “non-elite” can have the same high culture as the “elite”, and “non-Western” residents can be just as cultured, it’s just that their culture is expressed in different ways. However, this concept makes a distinction between “high” culture, as the culture of the elite, and “mass” culture, which refers to goods and works aimed at the needs of ordinary people. It should also be noted that in some works both types of culture, “high” and “low”, simply refer to different subcultures. The German representative of the philosophy of life, Oswald Spengler, presented a view of culture as a multitude of independent organisms (different peoples), which go through their own evolutionary cycle, lasting several hundred years, and, dying, are reborn into their opposite - civilization. Civilization is opposed to culture as a successive stage of development, where the creative potential of the individual is not in demand and dead, inhuman technicalism is dominant.

3. Culture structure

At the same time, the very existence of culture acts as a single process that can be divided into two spheres: material and spiritual. Material culture is divided into:

Industrial and technological culture, which represents the material results of material production and methods of technological activity of a social person;

Reproduction human race, which includes the entire sphere of intimate relationships between a man and a woman. It should be noted that material culture is understood not so much as the creation of the objective world of people, but rather the activity of shaping the “conditions of human existence.” The essence of material culture is the embodiment of various human needs, allowing people to adapt to biological and social conditions of life. The concept of spiritual culture:

Contains all areas of spiritual production (art, philosophy, science, etc.),

Shows the socio-political processes occurring in society (we are talking about power structures of management, legal and moral norms, leadership styles, etc.).

The ancient Greeks formed the classic triad of the spiritual culture of mankind: truth - goodness - beauty. Accordingly, three most important value absolutes of human spirituality were identified:

Theoreticism, with an orientation towards truth and the creation of a special essential being, opposite to the ordinary phenomena of life;

This subordinates all other human aspirations to the moral content of life;

Aestheticism that achieves the maximum fullness of life based on emotional and sensory experience. The above-mentioned aspects of spiritual culture have found their embodiment in various spheres of human activity: in science, philosophy, politics, art, law, etc. They largely determine the level of intellectual, moral, political, aesthetic, and legal development of society today. Spiritual culture involves activities aimed at the spiritual development of a person and society, and also represents the results of these activities. Thus, all human activity becomes the content of culture. Human society stood out from nature thanks to such a specific form of interaction with the surrounding world as human activity. Activity is a form of socio-cultural activity aimed at transforming reality. There are two types of activities:

Practical (i.e. materially transformative, aimed at changing the nature and existence of a person, and socially transformative, changing social reality, including the person himself);

Spiritual (the content of which is a change in people’s consciousness). Depending on the direction of human activity, sociocultural activity can be:

Creative (i.e., aimed at the formation of a “second nature”, the human environment, tools, machines and mechanisms, etc.);

Destructive (associated with various wars, revolutions, ethnic conflicts, destruction of nature, etc.). There are certain guidelines in human activity. They are called values. Value is what is significant for a person, what is dear and important to him, what he focuses on in his activities. Society builds a certain system cultural values, which grows out of the ideals and needs of its members. It may include:

Main life values(ideas about the purpose and meaning of life, happiness);

Interpersonal communication values ​​(honesty, friendliness);

Democratic values ​​(human rights, freedom of speech, conscience, parties); -- pragmatic values ​​(personal success, entrepreneurship, desire for material wealth);

Worldview, moral, aesthetic and other values. Among the most important values ​​for a person, the one that largely determines is the problem of the meaning of his life; a person’s view of the problem of the meaning of life is formed through his awareness of the finitude of his existence. Man is the only living creature who understands the inevitability of his death. Regarding the problem of the meaning of human life, two dissimilar points of view have emerged.

The first is atheistic. It has a long tradition and dates back, in particular, to Epicureanism. Its essence is that if a person is a mortal being, then the meaning of life is in life itself. Epicurus denied the significance of the phenomenon of death for a person, arguing that it simply does not exist, because while a person is alive, it does not exist, and when he dies, he is no longer able to realize the very fact of his death. Appointing life itself as the meaning of life, the Epicureans taught that the ideal of human existence is ataraxia, or avoidance of suffering, a calm and measured life, consisting of spiritual and physical pleasures given in moderation. The end of this process means the end of human existence. Materialistic philosophy, which continues the ancient tradition of Epicureanism, in all its manifestations proceeds from the denial of the afterlife and orients a person towards the fullest possible realization of himself in the existing reality. However, this does not exhaust the entire content of this concept.

Another point of view on the problem of the meaning of life is religious. Religion solves this problem quite simply, affirming the fact of human existence after death. In its various modifications, religion teaches that earthly, human existence is only a preparation for death and the acquisition of eternal life. This is a necessary stage for the purification and salvation of the soul. The highest form of human activity is creativity. Creativity is a human activity that creates qualitatively new material and spiritual values ​​that have never existed before. Almost all types of human activity include elements of creativity. However, they are most clearly manifested in science, art and technology. There is also a special science - heuristics (gr. heurisko - I find), with the help of which you can not only study creative activity, but also create different models creative process. The process of creating something new brings the creator a sense of satisfaction, stimulates his inspiration and moves him towards a new creation.

Elite or high culture is created by a privileged part of society, or at its request by professional creators. It includes fine art, classical music and literature. High culture, for example, the painting of Picasso or the music of Schoenberg, is difficult for an unprepared person to understand. As a rule, it is decades ahead of the level of perception of an averagely educated person. The circle of its consumers is a highly educated part of society: critics, literary scholars, regulars of museums and exhibitions, theatergoers, artists, writers, musicians. When the level of education of the population increases, the circle of consumers of high culture expands. Its varieties include secular art and salon music. Formula E.K. -- "art for art's sake." High culture refers to the preferences and habits of city dwellers, aristocrats, the rich, the ruling elite, and Mass culture-- grassroots culture. The same types of art can belong to high and mass culture: classical music - high, and popular music- mass, Fellini's films - high, and action films - mass, Picasso's paintings - high, and popular prints - mass. However, there are such genres of literature, in particular science fiction, detective stories and comics, which are always classified as popular or mass culture, but never as high. The same thing happens with specific works of art. Bach's organ mass belongs to high culture, but if it is used as musical accompaniment in figure skating competitions, it is automatically included in the category of mass culture, without losing its belonging to high culture. Numerous orchestrations of Bach's works in the style of light music, jazz or rock do not at all compromise high culture. The same applies to the Mona Lisa on the packaging of toilet soap or a computer reproduction of it hanging in the back office. E.K. is created not by the entire people, but by the educated part of society - writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, in short, humanists. As a rule, high culture is initially experimental or avant-garde in nature. It tries out those artistic techniques that will be perceived and correctly understood by wide layers of non-professionals many years later. Experts sometimes give exact dates - 50 years. With such a delay, examples of the highest artistry are ahead of their time.

Folk culture consists of two types - popular and folk culture. When a group of tipsy friends sings Alla Pugacheva’s songs or “The Reeds rustled,” we are talking about popular culture, and when an ethnographic expedition from the depths of Russia brings material about carol holidays or Russian lamentations, we are talking about folklore culture. As a result, popular culture describes the current way of life, morals, customs, songs, dances of the people, and folk culture describes its past. Legends, fairy tales and other genres of folklore were created in the past, and today they exist as historical heritage. Some of this heritage is still performed today, which means that part of the folk culture has entered popular culture, which, in addition to historical legends, is constantly replenished with new formations, for example, modern urban folklore. Thus, in folk culture, in turn, two levels can be distinguished - high, associated with folklore and including folk legends, fairy tales, epics, ancient dances, etc., and low, limited to the so-called pop culture. The authors of folk works (tales, laments, epics) are often unknown, but these are highly artistic works. Myths, legends, stories, epics, fairy tales, songs and dances belong to the highest creations of folk culture. They cannot be classified as an elite culture just because they were created by anonymous folk creators: “Folk culture arose in ancient times. Its subject is the entire people, and not individual professionals. Therefore, the functioning of folk culture is inseparable from the work and life of people. Its authors are often anonymous; works usually exist in many versions and are passed down orally from generation to generation. In this regard, we can talk about folk art (folk songs, fairy tales, legends), folk medicine (medicinal herbs, spells), folk pedagogy, the essence of which is often expressed in proverbs and sayings.” In terms of execution, elements of folk culture can be individual (statement of a legend), group (performing a dance or song), or mass (carnival processions). The audience of folk culture is always the majority of society. This was the case in traditional and industrial society. The situation changes only in post-industrial society.

Mass culture does not express the refined tastes or spiritual quest of the people. The time of its appearance is the middle of the 20th century, when the means mass media(radio, print, television) penetrated into most countries of the world and became available to representatives of all social strata. Mass culture can be international and national. Pop music is a vivid example of this: it is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population, regardless of level of education. Mass culture, as a rule, has less artistic value than elite or popular culture. But it has the widest audience and is original. It satisfies the immediate needs of people, reacts to and reflects any new event. Therefore, its samples, in particular hits, quickly lose relevance, become obsolete, and go out of fashion. This does not happen with works of elite and popular culture. High culture refers to the preferences and habits of townspeople, aristocrats, the rich, and the ruling elite, while mass culture refers to the culture of the lower classes. The same types of art can belong to high and mass culture: classical music is high and popular music is mass, Fellini's films are high and action films are mass, Picasso's paintings are high and popular prints are mass. However, there are genres of literature (fiction, detective stories and comics) that are always classified as popular or mass culture, but never as high. The same thing happens with specific works of art.

TYPOLOGY OF CULTURES (Greek typos - imprint, form, sample, and logos - science, teaching, cultura - cultivation, education) is a classification of cultures based on a number of indicators that seem most significant for their characteristics.

Basis of classification:

1) diachronic divisions correlated with the world historical process, and synchronic (spatial) structures that express the internal richness of culture, allowing us to highlight material and spiritual culture;

2) differentiation according to the principle of religion (Christian, Confucian-Taoist, Hindu-Buddhist, Islamic types of culture); race and ethnicity; social basis (culture of castes, estates, classes); type of settlement (urban, rural, township culture), etc.;

3) according to sociobiological characteristics (masculine and feminine): matriarchy and patriarchy as structure-forming factors of traditional cultures; stage culture life cycle person (children, youth, elderly);

4) by historical periods - the culture of the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages (according to archaeological periodization), the culture of the period of the great civilizations of antiquity - the culture of the period of axial civilizations (according to the criterion of “axial time” by K. Jaspers); the culture of pre-capitalist societies - the culture of capitalism (in the formation theory of K. Marx; the culture of the slave system - the culture of feudalism - the culture of capitalism - the culture of socialism (in historical materialism); culture traditional society-- the culture of modern society (in various theories of “modernization”).

4. The role of culture in human life

This role of culture is realized through a number of functions:

Educational function. We can say that it is culture that makes a person a person. An individual becomes a member of society, a personality, as he socializes, i.e., masters knowledge, language, symbols, values, norms, customs, traditions of his people, his social group and all humanity. The level of a person's culture is determined by his socialization - familiarization with the cultural heritage, as well as the degree of development of individual abilities. Personal culture is usually associated with developed creative abilities, erudition, understanding of works of art, fluency in native and foreign languages, accuracy, politeness, self-control, high morality, etc. All this is achieved in the process of upbringing and education.

Integrative and disintegrative functions of culture. E. Durkheim paid special attention to these functions in his research. According to E. Durkheim, the development of culture creates in people - members of a particular community - a sense of community, belonging to one nation, people, religion, group, etc. Thus, culture unites people, integrates them, and ensures the integrity of the community. But while uniting some on the basis of some subculture, it contrasts them with others, separating wider communities and communities. Cultural conflicts may arise within these broader communities and communities. Thus, culture can and often does perform a disintegrating function.

Regulatory function of culture. As noted earlier, during socialization, values, ideals, norms and patterns of behavior become part of the individual’s self-awareness. They shape and regulate her behavior. We can say that culture as a whole determines the framework within which a person can and should act. Culture regulates human behavior in the family, school, at work, in everyday life, etc., putting forward a system of regulations and prohibitions. Violation of these regulations and prohibitions triggers certain sanctions that are established by the community and supported by the power of public opinion and various forms of institutional coercion.

The function of broadcasting (transferring) social experience is often called the function of historical continuity, or information. Culture, which is a complex sign system, transmits social experience from generation to generation, from era to era. Apart from culture, society does not have other mechanisms for concentrating the entire wealth of experience that has been accumulated by people. Therefore, it is no coincidence that culture is considered the social memory of humanity.

The cognitive (epistemological) function is closely related to the function of transmitting social experience and, in a certain sense, follows from it. Culture, concentrating the best social experience of many generations of people, acquires the ability to accumulate rich knowledge about the world and thereby create favorable opportunities for its knowledge and development. It can be argued that a society is intellectual to the extent that it fully utilizes the wealth of knowledge contained in the cultural gene pool of humanity. All types of society that live on Earth today differ significantly primarily in this regard.

The regulatory (normative) function is primarily associated with the determination (regulation) of various aspects, types of public and personal activities of people. In the sphere of work, everyday life, and interpersonal relationships, culture, one way or another, influences people’s behavior and regulates their actions and even the choice of certain material and spiritual values. The regulatory function of culture is supported by such normative systems as morality and law.

The sign function is the most important in the cultural system. Representing a certain sign system, culture presupposes knowledge and mastery of it. Without studying the corresponding sign systems, it is impossible to master the achievements of culture. Thus, language (oral or written) is a means of communication between people. Literary language acts as the most important means of mastering national culture. Specific languages ​​are needed to understand the world of music, painting, and theater. Natural sciences also have their own sign systems.

The value, or axiological, function reflects the most important qualitative state of culture. Culture as a certain value system forms very specific value needs and orientations in a person. By their level and quality, people most often judge the degree of culture of a person. Moral and intellectual content, as a rule, acts as a criterion for appropriate assessment.

Social functions of culture

The social functions that culture performs allow people to carry out collective activities, optimally satisfying their needs. The main functions of culture include:

Social integration - ensuring the unity of humanity, a common worldview (with the help of myth, religion, philosophy);

Organization and regulation of the joint life activities of people through law, politics, morality, customs, ideology, etc.;

Providing the means of human life (such as cognition, communication, accumulation and transfer of knowledge, upbringing, education, stimulation of innovation, selection of values, etc.);

Regulation of certain spheres of human activity (life culture, leisure culture, work culture, nutrition culture, etc.).

Thus, the cultural system is not only complex and diverse, but also very mobile. Culture is an integral part of the life of both society as a whole and its closely interconnected subjects: individuals, social communities, social institutions.

The complex and multi-level structure of culture determines the diversity of its functions in the life of a person and society. But there is no complete unanimity among culturologists regarding the number of functions of culture. Nevertheless, all authors agree with the idea of ​​multifunctionality of culture, with the fact that each of its components can perform different functions.

The adaptive function is the most important function of culture, ensuring human adaptation to the environment. It is known that the adaptation of living organisms to their habitat is a necessary condition for their survival in the process of evolution. Their adaptation occurs due to the work of the mechanisms of natural selection, heredity and variability, which ensure the survival of individuals best adapted to the environment, the preservation and transmission of useful characteristics to subsequent generations. But what happens is completely different: a person does not adapt to the environment, to changes environment, like other living organisms, but changes the environment in accordance with its needs, remaking it for itself.

When the environment is transformed, a new, artificial world is created - culture. In other words, a person cannot lead a natural lifestyle like animals, and in order to survive, he creates an artificial habitat around himself, protecting himself from unfavorable environmental conditions. Man gradually becomes independent of natural conditions: if other living organisms can live only in a certain ecological niche, then man is able to master any natural conditions at the cost of forming an artificial world of culture.

Of course, a person cannot achieve complete independence from the environment, since the form of culture is largely determined by natural conditions. The type of economy, housing, traditions and customs, beliefs, rites and rituals of peoples depend on natural and climatic conditions. So. the culture of mountain peoples differs from the culture of peoples leading a nomadic lifestyle or engaged in maritime fishing, etc. Southern peoples use a lot of spices when preparing food to delay spoilage in hot climates.

As culture develops, humanity provides itself with increasing security and comfort. The quality of life is constantly improving. But having gotten rid of old fears and dangers, a person comes face to face with new problems that he creates for himself. For example, today there is no need to be afraid of the terrible diseases of the past - the plague or smallpox, but new diseases have appeared, such as AIDS, for which no cure has yet been found, and other deadly diseases created by man himself are waiting in military laboratories. Therefore, a person needs to protect himself not only from the natural environment, but also from the world of culture, artificially created by man himself.

The adaptive function has a dual nature. On the one hand, it manifests itself in the creation of specific means of human protection - the means necessary for a person to protect against outside world. These are all cultural products that help a person survive and feel confident in the world: the use of fire, storing food and other necessary things, creating productive agriculture, medicine, etc. Moreover, these include not only objects of material culture, but also those specific means that a person develops to adapt to life in society, keeping him from mutual destruction and death - state structures, laws, customs, traditions, moral norms, etc. .d.

On the other hand, there are non-specific means of human protection - culture as a whole, existing as a picture of the world. Understanding culture as a “second nature”, a world created by man, we emphasize the most important property of human activity and culture - the ability to “double the world”, highlighting sensory-objective and ideal-imaginative layers in it. By connecting culture with the ideal-shaped world, we obtain the most important property of culture - to be a picture of the world, a certain network of images and meanings through which it is perceived. the world. Culture as a picture of the world makes it possible to see the world not as a continuous flow of information, but as ordered and structured information. Any object or phenomenon of the external world is perceived through this symbolic grid, it has a place in this system of meanings, and it is often assessed as useful, harmful or indifferent to a person.

The symbolic, significative function (naming) is associated with culture as a picture of the world. The formation of names and titles is very important for a person. If some object or phenomenon is not named, does not have a name, is not designated by a person, they do not exist for him. By giving a name to an object or phenomenon and assessing it as threatening, a person simultaneously receives the necessary information that allows him to act to avoid danger, since when labeling a threat, it is not just given a name, but it fits into the hierarchy of existence. Let's give an example. Each of us has been sick at least once in our lives (not with a mild cold, but with some fairly serious illness). In this case, a person experiences not only painful sensations, feelings of weakness and helplessness. Usually, in such a state, unpleasant thoughts come to mind, including about a possible death, and the symptoms of all the diseases that we have heard about are recalled. The situation is exactly according to J. Jerome, one of the heroes of whose novel “Three in a Boat, Not Counting a Dog,” while studying a medical reference book, found all the diseases in himself, except for puerperal fever. In other words, a person experiences fear because of the uncertainty of his future, because he feels a threat, but knows nothing about it. This significantly worsens the general condition of the patient. In such cases, a doctor is called, who usually makes a diagnosis and prescribes treatment. But relief occurs even before taking medication, since the doctor, having made a diagnosis, gave a name to the threat, thereby entering it into the picture of the world, which automatically provided information about possible means of combating it.

We can say that culture as an image and picture of the world is an orderly and balanced scheme of the cosmos, and is the prism through which a person looks at the world. It is expressed through philosophy, literature, mythology, ideology and in human actions. Most members of the ethnos are fragmentarily aware of its content; it is fully accessible only to a small number of cultural specialists. The basis of this picture of the world are ethnic constants - the values ​​and norms of ethnic culture.

The cognitive (epistemological) function most fully manifests itself in science and scientific knowledge. Culture concentrates the experience and skills of many generations of people, accumulates rich knowledge about the world and thereby creates favorable opportunities for its knowledge and development. Of course, knowledge is acquired not only in science, but also in other spheres of culture, but there it is a by-product of human activity, and in science, obtaining objective knowledge about the world is the most important goal.

Science for a long time remained a phenomenon only of European civilization and culture, while other peoples chose a different path to understanding the world around them. Thus, in the East, the most complex systems of philosophy and psychotechnics were created for this purpose. They seriously discussed such ways of understanding the world, unusual for rational European minds, as telepathy (transfer of thoughts at a distance), telekinesis (the ability to influence objects with thought), clairvoyance (the ability to predict the future), etc.

The function of accumulation and storage of information is inextricably linked with the cognitive function, since knowledge and information are the result of knowledge of the world. The need for information on a variety of issues is a natural condition for the life of both an individual and society as a whole. A person must remember his past, be able to evaluate it correctly, admit his mistakes; should know who he is, where he comes from and where is he going. To answer these questions, people have created sign systems that collect, systematize and store the necessary information. At the same time, culture can be represented as a complex sign system that ensures historical continuity and the transfer of social experience from generation to generation, from era to era, from one country to another, as well as the synchronous transfer of information between people living at the same time. Various sign systems help a person not only understand the world, but also record this understanding and structure it. Humanity has only one way to preserve, increase and distribute accumulated knowledge in time and space - through culture.

The means of storing, accumulating and transmitting information are the natural memory of the individual, the collective memory of the people, enshrined in language and spiritual culture, symbolic and material means of storing information - books, works of art, any objects created by man, since they are also texts . IN Lately All big role Electronic means of information storage began to play a role. The society also created special institutions to perform this cultural function - libraries, schools and universities, archives, and other services for collecting and processing information.

The communicative function of culture ensures that people communicate with each other. A person cannot solve any complex problem without the help of other people. People enter into communication in the process of any type of work activity. Without communication with others like themselves, a person cannot become a full-fledged member of society and develop his abilities. A long separation from society leads an individual to mental and spiritual degradation, turning him into an animal. Culture is the condition and result of human communication. Only through the assimilation of culture do people become members of society. Culture provides people with a means of communication. In turn, by communicating, people create, preserve and develop culture.

Nature has not endowed man with the ability to establish emotional contacts, exchange information without the help of signs, sounds, writing, and for communication man has created various means of cultural communication. Information can be transmitted by verbal (verbal) methods, non-verbal (facial expressions, gestures, postures, communication distance, information transmitted through material objects, for example through clothing, especially uniforms) and paraverbal (rate of speech, intonation, volume, articulation, pitch of voice and so on.).

To communicate with other people, a person uses natural languages, artificial languages ​​and codes - computer, logical, mathematical symbols and formulas, traffic signs, as well as various technical devices.

The communication process consists of three stages:

Encoding of information that must be transmitted to the recipient, i.e. translation into some symbolic form;

Transmission via communication channels, with possible interference and loss of some information;

Decoding of the received message by the addressee, and due to differences in ideas about the world, different individual experiences of the sender and recipient of the message, decoding occurs with errors. Therefore, communication is never 100% successful; greater or lesser losses are inevitable. The effectiveness of communication is ensured by a number of cultural conditions, such as the presence of a common language, channels for transmitting information, appropriate motivation, ethical, semiotic rules, which ultimately determine to whom, what, when and how can be communicated and from whom and when to expect a response message.

The development of forms and methods of communication is the most important aspect of the formation of culture. In the early stages of human history, the possibilities of communication were limited to direct contacts between people and in order to transmit information they had to move closer to the distance of direct visibility and hearing. Over time, people found the opportunity to increase the communication range, for example, with the help of special devices. This is how signal drums and bonfires appeared. But their capabilities were limited to transmitting only a few signals. Therefore, the most important stage in the development of culture was the invention of writing, which made it possible to transmit complex messages over long distances. In the modern world, mass communication media are becoming increasingly important, primarily television, radio, print, as well as computer networks, which come to the fore as a means of communication between people.

In modern conditions, the importance of the communicative function of culture is growing faster than any other function. The development of communication capabilities leads to erasure national characteristics and contributes to the formation of a single universal civilization, i.e. processes of globalization. These processes, in turn, stimulate intensive progress in means of communication, which is expressed in an increase in the power and range of communication means, an increase in information flows, and an increase in the speed of information transfer. Along with this, people’s mutual understanding and their ability to sympathize and empathize are progressing.

The integrative function of culture is related to the communicative one and is associated with the fact that culture unites any social communities - peoples, social groups and states. The basis for the unity of such groups is: a common language, a common system of values ​​and ideals that creates a common outlook on the world, as well as common norms governing the behavior of people in society. The result is a sense of community with people who are members of the in-group, as opposed to others who are perceived as “outsiders.” Because of this, the whole world is divided into “us” and “strangers”, into Us and They. As a rule, a person has more trust in “his own” than in “strangers” who speak an incomprehensible language and behave incorrectly. Therefore, communications between representatives of different cultures are always difficult, and there is a high risk of mistakes that give rise to conflicts and even wars. But recently, due to the processes of globalization, the development of media and communication, intercultural contacts are strengthening and expanding. This is largely facilitated by modern mass culture, thanks to which books, music, achievements of science and technology, fashion, etc. become available to many people in different countries. The Internet plays a particularly important role in this process. We can say that the integrative function of culture has recently contributed to the unity of not only individual social and ethnic groups, but also humanity as a whole.

The normative (regulatory) function of culture manifests itself as a system of norms and requirements of society for all its members in all areas of their lives and activities - work, everyday life, family, intergroup, interethnic, interpersonal relations.

In any human community, it is necessary to regulate the behavior of the individuals composing them in order to maintain balance within the community itself and for the survival of each individual. The cultural products that a person has at his disposal delineate his field possible activities, allow one to predict the development of various events, but do not determine how a person should act in a given situation. Each person must consciously and responsibly carry out his actions, based on the norms and requirements for the behavior of people that have historically developed in society and are clearly entrenched in our consciousness and subconscious.

Norms of human behavior, both permissive and prohibitive, are an indication of the acceptable limits and boundaries within which a person must act in order for his behavior to be positively assessed by other people and society as a whole. Each culture has its own norms of behavior. There are cultures with a strong normative side (China) and cultures in which normativity is weaker (European cultures). The question of the existence of universal human norms remains debatable.

Through norms, culture regulates and coordinates the actions of individuals and human groups, develops optimal ways to resolve conflict situations, gives recommendations when resolving vital issues.

The regulatory function of culture is carried out at several levels:

Morals and other norms that are strictly observed, despite the absence of special control institutions; violation of these norms is met with sharp condemnation from society;

Rules of law that are set out in detail in the constitution and laws of the country. Their compliance is controlled by specially created institutions - the court, the prosecutor's office, the police, the penitentiary system;

Customs and traditions, which represent a stable system of behavior of people in different spheres of life and different situations which has become the norm and is passed on from generation to generation. As a rule, they take the form of a certain stereotype and are stable over the centuries with any social changes;

Norms of human behavior at work, at home, in communication with other people, in relation to nature, including wide circle requirements - from basic neatness and adherence to the rules of good manners to general requirements for the spiritual world of a person.

The axiological (evaluative) function of culture is associated with its value orientations. Cultural regulation of human activity is carried out not only normatively, but also through a system of values—ideals that people strive to achieve. Values ​​imply the choice of a particular object, state, need, goal in accordance with the criterion of their usefulness for human life and help society and people to separate good from bad, truth from error, fair from unfair, permissible from forbidden, etc. The selection of values ​​occurs in the process of practical activity. As experience accumulates, values ​​form and disappear, are revised and enriched.

Values ​​provide the specificity of each culture. What is important in one culture may not be important in another. Each nation develops its own hierarchy of values, although the set of values ​​has a universal human character. Therefore, we can conditionally classify the core values ​​as follows:

Vital values ​​- life, health, safety, welfare, strength, etc.;

Social - social status, work, profession, personal independence, family, gender equality;

Political - freedom of speech, civil liberties, legality,

Civil Peace;

Moral - goodness, goodness, love, friendship, duty, honor, selflessness, decency, loyalty, justice, respect for elders, love for children;

Aesthetic values ​​- beauty, ideal, style, harmony, fashion, originality.

Each society, each culture is guided by its own set of values, which may lack some of the values ​​listed above. In addition, each culture represents certain values ​​in its own way. Thus, the ideals of beauty vary quite widely among different nations. For example, in medieval China, aristocratic women, in accordance with the then existing ideal of beauty, should have tiny feet; the desired was achieved through painful foot-binding procedures, which girls were subjected to from the age of five and as a result of which they became literally crippled.

People's behavior is oriented through values. A person cannot treat the opposites that make up the world in the same way; he must give preference to one thing. Most people believe that they strive for good, truth, love, but what seems good to some may turn out to be evil to others. This again leads to cultural specificity of values. Based on our ideas about good and evil, all our lives we act as “evaluators” of the world around us. culture atheistic elitist mass

The recreational function of culture (mental relaxation) is the opposite of the normative function. Regulation and regulation of behavior are necessary, but their consequence is the restriction of the freedom of individuals and groups, the suppression of some of their desires and inclinations, which leads to the development of hidden conflicts and tensions. A person comes to the same result due to excessive specialization of activity, forced loneliness or excess communication, unsatisfied needs for love, faith, immortality, intimate contact with another person. Not all of these tensions can be rationally resolved. Therefore, culture faces the task of creating organized and relatively safe ways of detente that do not violate social stability.

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Federal Agency for Education and Science

Higher professional education

Tula State University

Department of Sociology and Political Science

TOcourse work

on the topic: “The influence of culture on personality development”

Completed by: student gr.720871

Pugaeva Olesya Sergeevna

Tula 2008

Introduction

1. Sociological analysis of cultural phenomena

1.1 Concept of culture

1.2 Functions and forms of culture

1.3 Culture as a systemic education

2. The role of culture in human life

2.1 Forms of manifestation of culture in human life

2.2 Socialization of personality

2.3 Culture as one of the most important methods of socialization of the individual

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

The word “culture” comes from Latin word cultura, which means to cultivate, or cultivate the soil. In the Middle Ages, this word came to mean a progressive method of cultivating grains, thus the term agriculture or the art of farming arose. But in the 18th and 19th centuries. it began to be used in relation to people, therefore, if a person was distinguished by grace of manners and erudition, he was considered “cultured.” At that time, the term was applied mainly to aristocrats in order to separate them from the “uncultured” common people. The German word Kultur also meant a high level of civilization. In our life today, the word “culture” is still associated with the opera house, beautiful literature, good upbringing. The modern scientific definition of culture has discarded the aristocratic connotations of this concept. It symbolizes the beliefs, values ​​and expressions (as used in literature and art) that are common to a group; they serve to organize experience and regulate the behavior of members of this group. The beliefs and attitudes of a subgroup are often called a subculture. The assimilation of culture is carried out through teaching. Culture is created, culture is taught. Since it is not acquired biologically, each generation reproduces it and passes it on to the next generation. This process is the basis of socialization. As a result of the assimilation of values, beliefs, norms, rules and ideals, the child’s personality is formed and his behavior is regulated. If the process of socialization were to cease on a mass scale, it would lead to the death of culture.

Culture shapes the personalities of members of society, thereby largely regulating their behavior.

How important culture is for the functioning of an individual and society can be judged by the behavior of people who have not been socialized. The uncontrollable, or infantile, behavior of the so-called jungle children, who were completely deprived of communication with people, indicates that without socialization people are not able to adopt an orderly way of life, master a language and learn how to earn a living. As a result of observing several “creatures that showed no interest in what was happening around them, rocking rhythmically back and forth like wild animals in a zoo,” an 18th-century Swedish naturalist. Carl Linnaeus concluded that they were representatives of a special species. Subsequently, scientists realized that these wild children did not develop the personality that requires communication with people. This communication would stimulate the development of their abilities and the formation of their “human” personalities. With this example we proved the relevance of the given topic.

Target This work is to prove that culture really influences the development of the individual and society as a whole. For achievement specified purpose The course work states the following: tasks:

· conduct a complete sociological analysis of cultural phenomena;

· identify the various elements and components of culture;

· determine how culture influences the socialization of an individual.

1. Sociological analysis of cultural phenomena

1.1 Concept of culture

The modern understanding of the word culture has four main meanings: 1) the general process of intellectual, spiritual, aesthetic development; 2) the state of a society based on law, order, morality coincides with the word “civilization”; 3) features of the lifestyle of a society, group of people, historical period; 4) forms and products of intellectual, and above all artistic activity, such as music, literature, painting, theater, cinema, television.

Culture is also studied by other sciences, for example, ethnography, history, anthropology, but sociology has its own specific aspect of research in culture. What is the specificity of the sociological analysis of culture, what is characteristic of the sociology of culture? A characteristic feature of the sociology of culture is that it discovers and analyzes the patterns of sociocultural changes, studies the processes of the functioning of culture in connection with social structures and institutions.

From a sociological point of view, culture is a social fact. It covers all ideas, ideas, worldviews, convictions, beliefs that are actively shared by people, or enjoy passive recognition and influence social behavior. Culture does not simply passively “accompany” social phenomena that occur as if outside and apart from culture, objectively and independently of it. The specificity of culture is that it represents in the minds of members of society any and all facts that mean something specifically for a given group, a given society. Moreover, at every stage of the life of society, the development of culture is associated with the struggle of ideas, with their discussion and active support, or passive recognition of one of them as objectively correct. Turning to the analysis of the essence of culture, it is necessary to take into account, firstly, that culture is what distinguishes humans from animals, culture is a characteristic human society; secondly, culture is not inherited biologically, but involves learning.

Due to the complexity, multi-layered, multi-dimensional, multifaceted nature of the concept of culture, there are several hundred of its definitions. We will use one of them: culture is a system of values, ideas about the world and rules of behavior common to people associated with a certain way of life

1.2 Functions andforms of culture

Culture performs diverse and responsible social functions. First of all, according to N. Smelser, it structures social life, that is, it does the same thing as genetically programmed behavior in the life of animals. Culture is passed on from one generation to another through the process of socialization. Since culture is not transmitted biologically, each generation reproduces it and passes it on to the next generation. It is this process that is the basis of socialization. The child learns the values, beliefs, norms, rules and ideals of society, and the child’s personality is formed. Personality formation is an important function of culture.

Another, no less important function of culture is the regulation of individual behavior. If there were no norms and rules, human behavior would become practically uncontrollable, chaotic and meaningless. How important culture is for human life and society can be judged by once again recalling the human cubs described in scientific literature, who by chance found themselves completely deprived of communication with people and were “raised” in a herd of animals in the jungle. When they were found - after five to seven years and again came to people, these children of the jungle could not master the human language, they were unable to learn an orderly way of life, to live among people. These wild children did not develop the personality that requires interaction with people. The spiritual and moral function of culture is closely related to socialization. It identifies, systematizes, addresses, reproduces, preserves, develops and transmits eternal values ​​in society - goodness, beauty, truth. Values ​​exist as an integral system. The set of values ​​generally accepted in a particular social group or country, expressing their special vision of social reality, is called mentality. There are political, economic, aesthetic and other values. The dominant type of values ​​are moral values, which represent the preferred options for relationships between people, their connections with each other and society. Culture also has a communicative function, which makes it possible to consolidate the connection between the individual and society, to see the connection between times, to establish a connection between progressive traditions, to establish mutual influence (mutual exchange), and to select what is most necessary and appropriate for replication. You can also name such aspects of the purpose of culture as being an instrument of development social activity, citizenship.

The complexity of understanding the phenomenon of culture also lies in the fact that in any culture there are its different layers, branches, sections.

In most European societies by the beginning of the 20th century. two forms of culture emerged. Elite culture - fine art, classical music and literature - was created and perceived by the elite.

Folk culture, including fairy tales, folklore, songs and myths, belonged to the poor. The products of each of these cultures were intended for a specific audience, and this tradition was rarely violated. With the advent of the media (radio, mass printed publications, television, recordings, tape recorders), the differences between high and popular culture began to blur. This is how mass culture arose, which is not associated with religious or class subcultures. The media and popular culture are inextricably linked. Culture becomes “mass” when its products are standardized and distributed to the general public.

In all societies there are many subgroups with different cultural values ​​and traditions. The system of norms and values ​​that distinguish a group from the majority of society is called a subculture.

A subculture is formed under the influence of factors such as social class, ethnic origin, religion and place of residence.

The values ​​of the subculture influence the formation of the personality of group members.

The term “subculture” does not mean that this or that group opposes the dominant culture in society. However, in many cases, the majority of society views the subculture with disapproval or distrust. This problem can even arise in relation to respected subcultures of doctors or the military. But sometimes a group actively seeks to develop norms or values ​​that conflict with core aspects of the dominant culture. On the basis of such norms and values, a counterculture is formed. A well-known counterculture in Western society is bohemianism, and the most prominent example of it is the hippies of the 60s.

Counterculture values ​​can be the cause of long-term and insoluble conflicts in society. However, sometimes they penetrate into the dominant culture itself. The long hair, ingenuity in language and clothing, and drug use characteristic of hippies became widespread in American society, where, mainly through the media, as often happens, these values ​​became less provocative, therefore attractive to the counterculture and, accordingly, less threatening to the dominant culture.

1.3 Culture as a systemic education

From the point of view of sociology, two main parts can be distinguished in culture - cultural statics and cultural dynamics. The first describes culture in a state of rest, the second - in a state of movement. Cultural statics is the internal structure of culture, i.e. the totality basic elements culture. Cultural dynamics includes those means, mechanisms and processes that describe the transformation of culture, its change. Culture originates, spreads, is destroyed, is preserved, and many different metamorphoses occur with it. Culture is a complex formation that is a multilateral and multidimensional system; all parts, all elements, all structural characteristics of this system constantly interact, are in endless connections and relationships with each other, constantly transform into one another, and permeate all spheres of social life. If we imagine human culture as complex system, which was created by numerous previous generations of people, then individual elements (traits) of culture can be attributed to either material or intangible types. The totality of the material elements of culture constitutes a special form of culture - material culture, which includes all objects, all objects that are created by human hands. These are machines, machines, power plants, buildings, temples, books, airfields, cultivated fields, clothing, etc.

The totality of intangible elements of culture forms spiritual culture. Spiritual culture includes norms, rules, samples, standards, laws, values, rituals, symbols, myths, knowledge, ideas, customs, traditions, language, literature, art. Spiritual culture exists in our minds not only as an idea of ​​norms of behavior, but also as a song, fairy tale, epic, joke, proverb, folk wisdom, national flavor of life, mentality. In cultural statics, elements are delimited in time and space. The geographical area within which different cultures have similarities in their main features is called a cultural area. At the same time, the boundaries of a cultural area may not coincide with the state boundaries or with the boundaries of a given society.

That part of the material and spiritual culture created by past generations, which has stood the test of time and is passed on to subsequent generations as something valuable and revered, constitutes cultural heritage. Cultural heritage is extremely important important role in periods of crisis and instability, acting as a factor of national unity, a means of unification. Each people, country, even some groups of society have their own culture, which may have a lot of features that do not coincide with one or another culture. There are a great many different cultures on earth. And yet, sociologists identify common features common to all cultures - cultural universals.

More than several dozen cultural universals are confidently named, i.e. elements of culture that are inherent in all cultures, regardless of geographical location, historical time and social structure of society. In cultural universals it is possible to isolate elements of culture that are related in one way or another to human physical health. This age characteristics, sports, games, dancing, maintaining cleanliness, prohibiting incest, obstetrics, treatment of pregnant women, postpartum care, weaning a child,

Cultural universals also include universal human moral norms: respect for elders, the distinction between good and evil, mercy, the duty to come to the aid of the weak in distress, respect for nature and all living things, caring for babies and raising children, the custom of giving gifts, moral norms , culture of behavior.

A separate very important group consists of cultural universals associated with the organization of the lives of individuals: cooperation of labor and division of labor, community organization, cooking, solemn celebrations, traditions, making fire, food taboos, games, greetings, hospitality, housekeeping, hygiene, prohibition of incest , government, police, punitive sanctions, law, property rights, inheritance, kinship groups, nomenclature of relatives, language, magic, marriage, family responsibilities, meal times (breakfast, lunch, dinner), medicine, decency in the exercise of natural needs, mourning, number, personal name, propitiation supernatural powers, customs associated with the onset of puberty, religious rituals, settlement rules, sexual restrictions, status differentiation, making tools, trade, visiting.

Among the cultural universals, one can distinguish a special group that reflects views on the world and spiritual culture: the doctrine of the world, time, calendar, the doctrine of the soul, mythology, fortune telling, superstitions, religion and various beliefs, belief in miraculous healings, interpretation of dreams, prophecies, weather observation, education, artistic creativity, folk crafts, folklore, folk songs, fairy tales, tales, legends, jokes.

Why do cultural universals arise? This is due to the fact that people, no matter what part of the world they live in, are physically built the same, they have the same biological needs and face common problems that their living conditions pose to them.

Every culture has standards for “correct” behavior. In order to live in a society, people must be able to communicate and cooperate with each other, which means that they must have an understanding of how to act correctly in order to be understood and achieve agreed upon actions. Therefore, society creates certain patterns of behavior, a system of norms - examples of correct or appropriate behavior. A cultural norm is a system of behavioral expectations, an image of how people should act. Normative culture is a system of social norms or standards of behavior that members of society follow more or less accurately.

At the same time, norms go through several stages in their development: they arise, receive approval and dissemination in society, grow old, become synonymous with routine and inertia, and are replaced by others that are more consistent with the changed living conditions.

Some norms are not difficult to replace, for example, etiquette norms. Etiquette is the rules of courtesy, the rules of politeness, which differ in each society and even in each class. We can easily bypass etiquette standards. So, if at a party you are “invited to a table on which there is only a fork near the plate and no knife, you can do without a knife. But there are norms that are extremely difficult to change, because these rules regulate areas of human activity that are important to society. These are state laws, religious traditions, etc. Let us consider the main types of norms in order of increasing their social significance.

Customs are a traditionally established order of behavior, a set of workable patterns, standards that allow members of society the best way interact both with the environment and with each other. These are not individual, but collective habits, ways of life of the people, elements of everyday, everyday culture. New generations adopt customs through unconscious imitation or conscious learning. From childhood, a person is surrounded by many elements of everyday culture, since he constantly sees these rules in front of him, they become the only possible and acceptable ones for him. The child assimilates them and, becoming an adult, treats them as self-evident phenomena, without thinking about their origin.

Every people, even the most primitive societies, has many customs. So, Slavic and Western peoples They eat the second dish with a fork, taking it for granted to use a fork if they serve a cutlet with rice, and the Chinese use special chopsticks for this purpose. The customs of hospitality, celebrating Christmas, respect for elders and others are mass patterns of behavior approved by society that are recommended to be followed. If people violate customs, this causes public disapproval, censure, and condemnation.

If habits and customs are passed from one generation to another, they become traditions. Originally this word meant “tradition.” Raising the national flag at a holiday, singing the national anthem while honoring the winner of a competition, meeting fellow soldiers on Victory Day, honoring labor veterans, etc. can become traditional.

Each person, in addition, has many individual habits: doing gymnastics and taking a shower in the evening, going skiing on weekends, etc. Habits have developed as a result of repeated repetition, and are expressed in them. cultural level of a given person, and his spiritual needs, and the level of historical development of the society in which he lives. Thus, the Russian nobility was characterized by the habits of organizing hound hunts, playing cards, having a home theater, and so on.

Most habits do not meet with either approval or censure from others. But there are also so-called bad habits (talking loudly, biting nails, eating with noise and slurping, unceremoniously looking at a passenger on the bus and then making comments out loud about his appearance, etc.), they indicate bad manners.

Manners refer to etiquette, or rules of politeness. If habits are formed spontaneously, under the influence of living conditions, then good manners must be cultivated. In Soviet times, etiquette was not taught either at school or at university, considering all this bourgeois nonsense, “harmful” for the people. There is no etiquette in the officially approved programs of universities and schools even today. Therefore, rude manners have become the norm everywhere. Suffice it to say about the vulgar, disgusting manners of our so-called pop stars, which are replicated on television and perceived by millions of fans as a standard of behavior and a role model.

Is it possible to learn good manners yourself? Of course, for this you need to read books on etiquette, reflect on your behavior, and apply to yourself the rules that are described in publications. The everyday manners of a well-mannered person are to make sure that your presence does not create inconvenience to anyone, to be helpful, polite, to give way to elders, to give the girl a coat in the wardrobe, not to talk loudly or gesticulate, not to be sullen and irritable, to have clean shoes, ironed trousers, a neat hairstyle - all this and some other habits can be quickly learned, and then communication with you will be easy and pleasant, which, by the way, will help you in life. A variety of customs are ceremony and ritual. A ceremony is a sequence of actions that have symbolic meaning and are dedicated to the celebration of some important event for the group. For example, the ceremony of the solemn inauguration of the President of Russia, the ceremony (enthronement) of the enthronement of the newly elected Pope or Patriarch.

A ritual is a custom-developed and strictly established procedure for doing something, which is designed to dramatize a given event and evoke awe in the viewer. For example, ritual dances of shamans during the process of witchcraft, ritual dances of a tribe before a hunt. Moral standards are different from customs and habits.

If I don't brush my teeth, then I harm myself, if I don't know how to use a knife for eating, some won't notice my bad manners, while others will notice, but won't say anything about it. But if a friend abandoned him in difficult times, if a person borrowed money and promised to give it back, but does not give it back. In these cases, we are dealing with norms that affect the vital interests of people and are important for the well-being of a group or society. Moral or moral norms determine the relationship of people to each other on the basis of the distinction between good and evil. People fulfill moral norms based on their own conscience, public opinion and traditions of society.

Morals are especially protected, highly respected mass patterns of action by society. Morals reflect the moral values ​​of a society. Every society has its own mores, or morals. Nevertheless, respect for elders, honesty, nobility, care for parents, the ability to come to the aid of the weak, etc. in many societies is the norm, and insulting elders, mocking a disabled person, and the desire to offend the weak is considered immoral.

A special form of morality is taboo. A taboo is an absolute prohibition of any action. In modern society, taboos apply to incest, cannibalism, desecration of graves or insulting the sense of patriotism.

The set of rules of behavior associated with the concept of personal dignity constitutes the so-called code of honor.

If norms and customs begin to play a particularly important role in the life of society, then they become institutional and a social institution emerges. These are economic institutions, banks, the army, etc. Norms and rules of conduct here are specially developed and formalized in codes of conduct and are strictly observed.

Some of the norms are so important for the functioning of society that they are formalized as laws; The state, represented by its special law enforcement agencies, such as the police, court, prosecutor's office, and prison, guards the laws.

As a systemic education, culture and its norms are accepted by all members of society; it is the dominant, universal, dominant culture. But in every society there are some groups of people who do not accept the dominant culture, but form their own norms that differ from generally accepted standards and even challenge it. This is counterculture. Counterculture comes into conflict with the dominant culture. Prison morals, standards of behavior in a gang of bandits, hippie groups are clear examples of counterculture.

There may be other, less aggressive cultural norms in a society that are not shared by all members of the society. Differences between people associated with age, nationality, occupation, gender, characteristics of the geographical environment, profession, lead to the emergence of specific cultural patterns that make up a subculture; “life of immigrants”, “life of northerners”, “army life”, “bohemia”, “life in a communal apartment”, “life in a hostel” are examples of an individual’s life within a certain subculture.

2. The role of culture in human life

2.1 Forms of manifestation of culture in human life

Culture plays a very contradictory role in human life. On the one hand, it helps to consolidate the most valuable and useful patterns of behavior and transfer them to subsequent generations, as well as to other groups. Culture elevates man above the animal world, creating a spiritual world; it promotes human communication. On the other hand, culture is capable of perpetuating injustice, superstition, and inhuman behavior with the help of moral norms. In addition, everything created within the framework of culture to conquer nature can be used to destroy people. Therefore, it is important to study individual manifestations of culture in order to be able to reduce tension in the interaction of a person with the culture generated by him.

Ethnocentrism. There is a well-known truth that for every person the earth's axis passes through the center of his hometown or villages. American sociologist William Summer called ethnocentrism a view of society in which a certain group is considered central, and all other groups are measured and correlated with it.

Without a doubt, we admit that monogamous marriages are better than polygamous ones; that young people should choose their own partners and that The best way formation of married couples; that our art is the most humane and noble, while the art belonging to another culture is provocative and tasteless. Ethnocentrism makes our culture the standard against which we measure all other cultures: in our opinion, they will be good or bad, high or low, right or wrong, but always in relation to our own culture. This is manifested in such positive expressions as “chosen people”, “true teaching”, “super race”, and in negative ones - “backward peoples”, “primitive culture”, “crude art”.

To some extent, ethnocentrism is inherent in all societies, and even backward peoples feel somehow superior to everyone else. They, for example, may consider the culture of highly developed countries stupid and absurd. Not only societies, but most social groups (if not all) in society are ethnocentric. Numerous studies of organizations conducted by sociologists from different countries show that people tend to overestimate their own organizations and at the same time underestimate all others. Ethnocentrism is a universal human reaction that affects all groups in society and almost all individuals. True, there may be exceptions to this issue, for example: anti-Semitic Jews, aristocratic revolutionaries, blacks who oppose blacks on issues of eliminating racism. It is obvious, however, that such phenomena can already be considered forms of deviant behavior.

A natural question arises: is ethnocentrism a negative or positive phenomenon in the life of society? It is difficult to answer this question clearly and unambiguously. Let's try to identify the positive and negative aspects in such a complex cultural phenomenon, as ethnocentrism, First of all, it should be noted that groups in which there are clearly expressed manifestations of ethnocentrism, as a rule, are more viable than groups that are completely tolerant of other cultures or subcultures. Ethnocentrism holds the group together and justifies sacrifice and martyrdom for its well-being; Without it, the manifestation of patriotism is impossible. Ethnocentrism is a necessary condition for the emergence of national identity and even ordinary group loyalty. Of course, extreme manifestations of ethnocentrism are also possible, for example, nationalism and contempt for the cultures of other societies. However, in most cases, ethnocentrism manifests itself in more tolerant forms, and its basic attitude is this: I prefer my customs, although I admit that some customs and mores of other cultures may be in some way better. So, we encounter the phenomenon of ethnocentrism almost every day when we compare ourselves with people of a different gender, age, representatives of other organizations or other regions, in all cases where there are differences in the cultural patterns of representatives of social groups. Every time we put ourselves at the center of culture and consider its other manifestations, as if trying them on ourselves.

Ethnocentrism can be artificially strengthened in any group in order to oppose other groups in conflict interactions. The mere mention of a danger, for example, to the existence of an organization, unites its members and increases the level of group loyalty and ethnocentrism. Periods of tension in relations between nations or nationalities are always accompanied by an increase in the intensity of ethnocentric propaganda. Perhaps this is due to the preparation of group members for struggle, for the upcoming hardships and sacrifices.

Speaking about the significant role that ethnocentrism plays in the processes of group integration, in rallying group members around certain cultural models, it should also be noted its conservative role and negative impact on the development of culture. Indeed, if our culture is the best in the world, then why do we need to improve, change, and especially borrow from other cultures? Experience shows that such a point of view can significantly slow down the development processes occurring in a society with a very high level of ethnocentrism. An example is the experience of our country, when the high level of ethnocentrism in the pre-war period became a serious brake on the development of culture. Ethnocentrism can also be a tool that acts against changes in the internal structure of society. Thus, privileged groups consider their society to be the best and fairest and strive to instill this in other groups, thereby raising the level of ethnocentrism. Also in Ancient Rome representatives of the poorer classes cultivated the opinion that, despite their poverty, they were still citizens of a great empire and therefore superior to other nations. This opinion was specifically created by the privileged strata of Roman society.

Cultural relativism. If members of one social group view the cultural practices and norms of other social groups only from the point of view of ethnocentrism, then it will be very difficult to achieve understanding and interaction. Therefore, there is an approach to other cultures that softens the effect of ethnocentrism and allows us to find ways to cooperate and mutually enrich the cultures of different groups. One such approach is cultural relativism. It is based on the assertion that members of one social group cannot understand the motives and values ​​of other groups if they analyze these motives and values ​​in the light of their own culture. In order to achieve understanding, to understand another culture, you need to connect its specific features with the situation and the characteristics of its development. Each cultural element must be related to the characteristics of the culture of which it is a part. The value and significance of this element can only be considered in the context of a particular culture. Warm clothing is fine in the Arctic, but ridiculous in the tropics. The same can be said about other, more complex cultural elements and the complexes that they make up. Cultural complexes concerning female beauty and the roles of women in society are different in different cultures. It is only important to approach these differences not from the point of view of the dominance of “our” culture, but from the point of view of cultural relativism, i.e. recognizing the possibility of other cultures interpreting cultural patterns differently from “ours” and recognizing the reasons for such modifications. This point of view, naturally, is not ethnocentric, but helps bring together and develop different cultures.

We need to understand the basic tenet of cultural relativism, according to which certain elements of a particular cultural system are correct and generally accepted because they have worked well in that particular system; others are considered incorrect and unnecessary because their use would give rise to painful and conflicting consequences only in a given social group or only in a given society. The most rational way of development and perception of culture in society is a combination of traits of both ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, when an individual, feeling a sense of pride in the culture of his group or society and expressing commitment to the main examples of this culture, is at the same time able to understand other cultures and the behavior of members other social groups, recognizing their right to exist.

2.2 Socialization of personality

Personality is one of those phenomena that is rarely interpreted in the same way by two different authors. All definitions of personality are determined in one way or another by two opposing views on its development. From the point of view of some, each personality is formed and develops in accordance with its innate qualities and abilities, and the social environment plays a very insignificant role. Representatives of another point of view completely reject the innate internal traits and abilities of the individual, believing that personality is a certain product, completely formed in the course of social experience.

Methods of socialization of the individual in each culture are different. Turning to the history of culture, we will see that each society had its own idea of ​​education. Socrates believed that to educate a person means to help him “become a worthy citizen,” while in Sparta the goal of education was considered to be the education of a strong, brave warrior. According to Epicurus, the main thing is independence from the outside world, “serenity.” In modern times, Rousseau, trying to combine civic motives and spiritual purity in education, ultimately came to the conclusion that moral and political education are incompatible. "The study of the human condition" leads Rousseau to the conviction that it is possible to educate either "a man for himself" or a citizen living "for others." In the first case, he will be in conflict with social institutions, in the second - with his own nature, so he has to choose one of two - to educate either a person or a citizen, because it is impossible to create both at the same time. Two centuries after Rousseau, existentialism, for its part, will develop his ideas about loneliness, about “Others” that are opposed to “I”, about a society where a person is in slavery to norms, where everyone lives the way it is customary to live.

Today, experts continue to argue about which factor is most important for the process of personality formation. Apparently, all of them together carry out the socialization of the individual, the education of a person as a representative of a given society, culture, or social group. According to modern thinking, the interaction of factors such as a person's physical traits, environment, individual experiences and culture creates a unique personality. To this should be added the role of self-education, i.e., the individual’s own efforts based on an internal decision, one’s own needs and requests, ambition, volition - to form certain skills, abilities, and abilities in oneself. As practice shows, self-education is a powerful tool in a person’s achievement of professional skills, career, and material well-being.

In our analysis, we, of course, must take into account both the biological characteristics of the individual and his social experience. However, practice shows that social factors personality formations are more significant. The definition of personality given by V. Yadov seems satisfactory: “Personality is the integrity of a person’s social properties, a product of social development and the inclusion of the individual in the system of social relations through active work and communication." According to this view, personality develops from a biological organism solely thanks to various types social cultural experience.

2.3 Cultureas one of the most important methods of personality socialization

First of all, it should be noted that a certain cultural experience is common to all humanity and does not depend on what stage of development a particular society is at. Thus, each child receives nutrition from elders, learns to communicate through language, gains experience in the use of punishment and reward, and also masters some other most common cultural patterns. At the same time, each society provides almost all of its members with some special experience, special cultural samples that other societies cannot offer. From social experience, common to all members of a given society, a characteristic personal configuration arises, typical of many members of a given society. For example, a personality formed in a Muslim culture will have different traits than a personality raised in a Christian country.

The American researcher K. Duboys called a personality that has common traits for a given society “modal” (from the term “mode” taken from statistics, denoting a value that occurs most often in a series or series of parameters of an object). By modal personality, Duboys understood the most common type of personality, which has some features inherent in the culture of society as a whole. Thus, in every society one can find individuals who embody the average generally accepted traits. They talk about modal personalities when they mention “average” Americans, Englishmen or “true” Russians. The modal personality embodies all those general cultural values ​​that society instills in its members in the course of cultural experience. These values ​​are contained to a greater or lesser extent in every individual of a given society.

In other words, every society develops one or more basic personality types that correspond to the culture of that society. Such personal patterns are usually acquired from childhood. Among the lowland Indians of South America, the socially approved personality type for an adult male was a strong, self-confident, militant person. He was admired, his behavior was rewarded, and boys always strived to be like such men.

What could be a socially approved personality type for our society? Perhaps this is a sociable personality, i.e. easy to make social contacts, ready to cooperate and at the same time possessing some aggressive traits (i.e., able to stand up for herself) and practical savvy. Many of these traits develop secretly, within us, and we feel uncomfortable if these traits are absent. Therefore, we teach our children to say “thank you” and “please” to their elders, we teach them not to be embarrassed by the adult environment, and to be able to stand up for themselves.

However, in complex societies it is very difficult to find a generally accepted personality type due to the presence of a large number of subcultures. Our society has many structural divisions: regions, nationalities, occupations, age categories, etc. Each of these divisions tends to create its own subculture with certain personality patterns. These patterns are mixed with the personality patterns of individuals to create mixed personality types. To study the personality types of various subcultures, each structural unit should be studied separately, and then take into account the influence of the personality patterns of the dominant culture.

Conclusion

To summarize, it should be emphasized once again that culture is an integral part of human life. Culture organizes human life. In human life, culture largely performs the same function that genetically programmed behavior performs in animal life.

Culture is a complex formation that is a multilateral and multidimensional system; all parts, all elements, all structural characteristics of this system constantly interact, are in endless connections and relationships with each other, constantly transform into one another, and permeate all spheres of social life.

Among the many different definitions of this concept, the most common is the following: culture is a system of values, ideas about the world and rules of behavior common to people associated with a certain way of life.

Culture is passed on from one generation to another through the process of socialization. The formation and development of personality occurs largely thanks to culture. It would not be an exaggeration to define culture as the measure of humanity in a person. Culture gives a person a sense of belonging to a community, fosters control over one’s behavior, and determines the style of practical life. At the same time, there is culture decisive way social interactions, integration of individuals into society.

List of used literature

1. Vitanya I.N. Society. Culture. Sociology/I.N. Vitanya - M., 1984 - p.9-15.

2. Dobrenkov V.I. Sociology./V.I. Dobrenkov, Yu.G. Volkov and others - M.: Mysl, 2000 - p.52.

3. Ionin L.G. Sociology of culture: the path to the new millennium: Proc. manual for university students. - 3rd ed., revised. and additional/L.G. Ionin - M.: Logos, 2000 - p.19-24.

4. Kogan L. K Sociology of culture. Ekaterinburg, 1992 - p.11-12.

5. Kon I.S. Sociology of personality / I.S.Kon - M., 1967 - p.113-116.

6. Leontyev A.N. On the theory of personality development / A.N. Leontiev - M., 1982 - p. 402.

7. Minyushev F.I. Sociology of culture: Textbook for universities F.I. Minyushev - M.: Academic project, 2004- p. 34-38.

8. Sokolov E.V. Culture and personality / E.V. Sokolov - L., 1972 - p.51.

9. Yadov V.A. Attitude to work and value orientations of the individual // Sociology in the USSR in 2 vols. - T.2 Zdravosmyslov A.G., Yadov V.A. - M., -1996-p.71.

10. Forms of knowledge and society: the essence and concept of the sociology of culture // Sociological Journal, No. 1-2, 1999 // http://knowledge.isras.ru/sj/

Changes in the cultural sphere inevitably have an impact on crime. In turn, changes in crime are always somehow connected with cultural processes.

You can change the standards of people's behavior by changing both the culture itself and the mechanisms of its regeneration in the social environment: the transfer of cultural elements from one person to another, from generation to generation.

A. Culture change is a natural and continuous process. Culture has a dual nature. On the one hand, it is formed spontaneously in the process of interaction of an ethnic group with the environment. In this sense, culture appears to each generation as a certain given. On the other hand, each generation and each person makes its own contribution to culture, to the processes of its functioning.

Factors of culture change can be:

Nature;

Level of development of science and technology;

Understanding the surrounding world, the essence and meaning of existence.

Culture can change spontaneously: under the influence of the natural environment or in connection with scientific discoveries and progress in technology. And purposefully - under the influence of the conscious activities of people to achieve certain social goals. As society develops, the development of a tendency to manage cultural processes is becoming more and more visible. Such phenomena as the Ministry of Culture and cultural revolutions arose. Managing the cultural development of society is a reality.

One of the goals of influencing the cultural environment is to influence crime. Moreover, the intentions of certain entities do not always include changing culture in order to reduce crime. In any society there are criminal and anti-criminal, constructive and destructive vectors of cultural development. The sources of impulses for the destructive development of culture can be both external (a potential enemy, economic competitors) and internal (the criminal world, the comprador bourgeoisie, and other consortia for which the cultural environment of the people is alien). In this regard, Dulles’s 1945 reflections on the implementation of the American post-war doctrine against the USSR are of interest: “Having sowed chaos there, we will quietly replace their values ​​with false ones and force them to believe in these false values. How? We will find our like-minded people, our allies and helpers in Russia itself. Episode after episode, a grandiose tragedy of the death of the most rebellious people on earth, the final irreversible extinction of their self-awareness, will play out... Literature, theaters and cinema - everything will depict and glorify the basest human feelings. We will in every possible way support and raise the so-called artists who will plant and hammer into human consciousness the cult of sex, violence, sadism, betrayal - in a word, all kinds of immorality... Honesty and decency will be ridiculed and no one will need it, they will turn into a relic of the past. Rudeness and arrogance, lies and deceit, drunkenness and drug addiction, animal fear of each other and shamelessness, betrayal, nationalism and enmity of peoples, above all, enmity and hatred of the Russian people - we will deftly and quietly cultivate all this. And only a few, very few, will guess or even understand what is happening. But we will put such people in a helpless position, turn them into a laughing stock, find a way to slander them and declare them the scum of society.”

The transformation of culture occurs mainly due to changes in the ways of satisfying needs. Sometimes this can change the standards of need. Basically, changes in the hierarchy of needs occur under the influence of ideology and religion. It is necessary to take into account that in addition to processes over which society has relatively great control (modeling of certain elements of culture, persuasion and coercion), changing culture depends on the readiness of society to perceive the new. This phenomenon is relatively autonomous.

Culture change can be radical or gradual. They can be carried out both at the macro level (society), and at the mini level (group) and micro level (individual culture). In relation to the scale of organized cultural processes, it is necessary to keep in mind the following. The larger the task, the more effort and resources will be required to implement it, the more time it will take, the more serious the preparation should be, including both a theoretical understanding of the problem and the material side of support, the higher the likelihood that the final results will not meet original goals.

In the modern situation, in conditions of interaction and mutual influence of many cultures, when a national culture changes, it is usually not about the emergence of something fundamentally new, but about the introduction of elements of another into one culture, as a result of which a new cultural structure may arise, entailing systemic changes in society and people's way of life.

B. The world cultural environment is extremely diverse and polyphonic. There are cultures that deny crime, and vice versa - those that develop it. In these conditions, it is not so much the process of forming new elements of culture that acquires particular significance, but rather the promotion of the spread of anti-criminal cultures (the development of healthy national traditions, the perception of positive things from the outside) and the obstruction of the development of their antipodes. In this context, we are talking about the establishment of a positive cultural ideal in society and its widespread dissemination.

The cultural ideal is almost impossible to formulate in a comprehensive form, but its basic elements can be outlined:

Development of spiritual needs (including orientation towards higher justice), creation of priority in the social hierarchy of needs;

Excluding elements that develop social pathology - culture should help strengthen the health of the nation, prevent social disorganization and degradation;

Limitation and gradual displacement of violence and individualism as forms of social existence.

Mechanisms for the spread of culture must be controlled by society in two aspects:

Supporting the dissemination of a cultural ideal, finding means to increase the efficiency of the channels for disseminating such a culture;

Restriction, and in some aspects, ban on the propaganda of anti-culture (everything that denies the cultural ideal).

Today in Russia, many cultural processes have the opposite direction; anticulture is actively being introduced into the public consciousness. The current situation in our country can be assessed as a kind of testing. Signs of a viable culture are: 1) rejection of elements that initiate destruction; 2) the ability to self-heal after destructive external influences. V.O. Klyuchevsky attributes the ability of the culture of the Russian people to self-healing to the essential characteristics of our country as a social organism: “One of the distinctive features of a great people is its ability to rise to its feet after a fall. No matter how severe his humiliation may be, the appointed hour will strike, he will gather his confused moral forces and embody them in one great man or in several great people, who will lead him onto the straight historical path that he had temporarily abandoned.”

Literature on the topic

Herder I. Ideas for the history of the philosophy of mankind. M., 1977; Dolgova A.I. Crime and society. M., 1992; Karpets I.I. crime: illusions and reality. M., 1992; Sorokin P.A. Human. Civilization. Society. M., 1992; Pozdnyakov E.A. Philosophy of politics. M., 1994; Fromm E. Anatomy of human destructiveness. M., 1994; Introduction to cultural studies. IN 3 volumes. M., 1995. T.1. ; Gumilev L.N. Ethnogenesis and biosphere of the Earth. M., 1997; Criminology. Textbook (edited by A.I. Dolgova) M., 1997; Crime: strategy of struggle. M., 1997; Crime and reforms in Russia. M., 1998; Ter-Akopov A.A. Human safety. M., 1998; Crime and culture. M., 1999.

Section IV. Impact on specific types of crime

Introduction

2. Ethno-cultural component

4. Musical education of children

5. Realization of musical abilities in different cultures

6. Identification, development and improvement of young talents

7. Genes are information carriers

8. Diagnosis of children's creative abilities

9. Cultural analysis of modern education

10. Reforms of creative education of children in various ethno-cultural formations

Conclusion

The social development of mankind has been well studied, and its laws are formulated by historical materialism. The spontaneous development of social forms through socio-economic formations is inherent only to a person in a group, and is in no way connected with his biological structure. There is not a single person on Earth outside the ethnic group. Ethnicity in the human mind is a universal phenomenon.

The norms and values ​​of individual groups or microcultures are called ethnic models, which affect many areas of life, including the sphere of education, including creative ones.

Ethnicity is the process of identifying oneself and others using ethnic labels. For example, subjective attributes reflect a person's ethnic self-identification. An objective definition of ethnicity is based on sociocultural criteria.

The goal facing us in this work is to consider the ethno-cultural component - as an opportunity to realize the child’s creative abilities in musical education.

The objectives of the work are to study the problem of the influence of the social environment on a person; consider what the ethno-cultural component is and how it affects the development of the child’s creative abilities.

1. The problem of the influence of public culture on a person

One of the first researchers to pay attention to the influence of culture and emphasize its importance was B. Simon in 1958. B. Simon especially sharply emphasized that the assessments of the subjects that the researcher receives primarily reflect not their true capabilities, but the social conditions in which they were born and raised. As an example, a number of verbal tests are given using words that the child must know the meaning of in order to answer the test questions well. The words used in the tests are better known to some children, worse to others, and for others they are not known at all. Thus, children who did not have the opportunity to read extensively or develop spoken language were at a disadvantage.

B. Simon's research applies only to English children, that is, children raised in one national culture, despite all its diversity. Naturally, these properties of tests become brighter when representatives of different ethnic groups, different national cultures, as well as people from a different social environment become the objects of diagnosis. In recent years, diagnostic research has expanded to include children and adults who were raised and formed in environments different from what is generally referred to as European culture, such as members of some African ethnic groups.

The formation of individual psychological differences between people is influenced by socio-economic and cultural factors. The role of heredity cannot be ruled out either. The identified characteristics of people are considered as a product of the joint action of the environment and heredity.

Now let's look in more detail at how social culture influences a person and his development.

It must be said that culture includes both abstract and material elements. Let's look at their differences. Abstract elements are understood as values, beliefs, ideas, personality types, and religious ideas. Material components include books, computers, tools, buildings, etc.

Culture gives a person awareness of himself as an individual and an understanding of acceptable patterns of behavior. The most important ideological and behavioral aspects formed under the influence of culture are:

Awareness of oneself and the world;

Communication and language;

Clothing and appearance;

Food culture;

Concepts of time;

Relationships;

Values ​​and norms;

Faith and beliefs;

Thought processes and learning;

Work habits.

Values ​​are beliefs or social norms that unite individuals. Norms are rules of behavior developed by a group based on the consent of all its members.

Culture is passed on from generation to generation, primarily through social institutions such as family, school, and religion. Previous experiences and interactions with peers are also sources of cultural values. So, three institutions - family, religion and school - make a huge contribution to the transmission and assimilation of traditional values ​​and prepare the ground for a harmonious perception of new realities.

2. Ethno-cultural component

People constitute a separate ethnic group depending on how common the members of the ethnic group are to have features of worldview and worldview that are different from the views of other ethnic groups. Just as human behavior is determined by culture and social environment, it is also determined by a sense of one’s own ethnicity.

The concept of ethno-cultural component distinguishes between such cultures as, for example, the culture of the indigenous inhabitants of a country; culture of national groups; culture of religious and ethnic groups. And then there are multicultural societies, such as the United States, Russia and Singapore, where cultural diversity and equality are highly valued.

Microcultures are formed around nationality, religion, and geographic location. Some ethnic groups contribute more to a country's cultural diversity than others, but the variables that are important to success are generally the same for everyone, regardless of ethnicity.

The influence of the ethno-cultural component on the development of people’s creative abilities is enormous. Each ethnic group has its own cultural characteristics and creative achievements in art, literature, and music.

Since the purpose of this work is to consider the ethno-cultural component as an opportunity to realize creative abilities in the musical education of a child, we should consider the relationship between the ethno-cultural component and the psychology of the creative education of a child.

3. Children's creativity

Sometimes the creative abilities of children border on genius, especially if they provide the opportunity to get ahead of their time and comprehend new areas of knowledge and experience.

If we take a point of view that has a pronounced social overtones and agree that talent is not a lucky gift given by nature, but the result of special optimal conditions of learning, hard work and curiosity, then the statement that an individual who has not received an education cannot be considered talented, far from true. It has long been proven over and over again that even in the most democratic society, people are not born with the same abilities.

The main question that interests us in this work is the question of whether the environment can have a serious impact on the development of a child’s creative abilities? Today there is debate in psychology about this. Many scientists believe that the environment and the external environment have important only for the disclosure and application of natural talent.

Others, on the contrary, are convinced that every child is influenced by his environment and, accordingly, is a product of his environment. Consequently, creative abilities are formed under the influence of psychodynamic influences, that is, under the influence of an environment that can be benevolent or hostile to it.

It should be said that the practical implementation of our innate inclinations increases the functional capabilities of the body, and the beneficial influence of the environment makes this process more productive.

The development of innate abilities is possible only if there is an environment conducive to their development, and the environment helps the development of abilities only if there is a good hereditary basis. If there is no such basis, then the environment is powerless. If the environment does not have its beneficial effect, then the best inclinations may be unclaimed.

The interaction of good hereditary material and the favorable influence of the environment creates optimal conditions for the development of creative abilities.

Regarding the influence of the ethno-cultural component on the development of children's creative abilities, numerous studies have shown that in terms of development and talent, all people of different ethnic groups are equal.

Let us give an example of such an equality. The young violinist takes the stage. Behind her is one of the most famous symphony orchestras in the world. At only 12 years old, she already enjoys well-deserved authority among musicians and critics who highly value her performing arts. When the famous American conductor first heard the young talent play, she impressed him so much that he invited the girl to be a soloist in a concert of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. She delighted the audience with her performance of Paganini's Concerto No. 1. The name of this violinist is Sarah Chang, she was born in America in a family of Korean immigrants. The public, having learned about Sarah Chang's Asian-American origin, was very surprised. Since many psychologists have proven that the level of intelligence and creativity is lower than that of whites.

For Jung, the conscious and unconscious complement each other. Both of them are sources of culture.

For Jung, the unconscious basis human personality, although of archaic origin, can still live in peace with culture. He believed that manifestations of the unconscious could be made relatively safe and even put at the service of culture.

To do this, one must not ignore unconscious forces, but find adequate cultural and symbolic expression for them. After all, it is the unconscious that gives us a feeling of the fullness of life; creativity and inspiration originate in archetypes.

(See: Grushevitskaya T.G. Culturology./Electronic library. – p. 26)

Jung proceeds from the following ideas about the relationship between man and culture.

For him, the basis of the soul (the unconscious), although of archaic origin, can still live in peace with culture. Of course, it is impossible to tame the “demons of the soul,” but they can be tame make their manifestation relatively safe and even put them at the service of culture.

A person is called upon not to ignore unconscious forces, but to find adequate cultural and symbolic expression for them. After all, the unconscious is the “giver of everything,” the true source vitality, without which there is no feeling of the colorfulness of life, the fullness of life. It is archetypes that give a person inspiration and are a source of creative energy.

At the same time, the symbolic expression of the unconscious is necessary in order to protect a person from the dangers of a direct meeting with the “demons of the soul” (for example, from the experience of omnipotence and the attractive horror of death (“sacred”) or from helplessness before the dark side of one’s own Self, that is, before one’s own "shadow".

The use of cultural symbols makes it possible to control “psychic demons” by contrasting the dark power of one with the light power of another. Religion plays a special role here. For example, a believer overwhelmed by sinful desires (“tempted by demons”) can pray and call on God for help.

According to Jung, both “God” and “demons” are psychic forces (archetypes) of man himself, symbolically expressed in corresponding cultural images. But on his own behalf, it would be very difficult (and perhaps even impossible) for a person to cope with the situation.

Thus, culture, according to Jung, is called upon not to fight, but dialogue with the unconscious, striving to ensure the integrity of the human soul.

However this dialogue is gradually lost with the development of civilization and the total rationalization of life. Life is rationalized, but a person does not become more rational in his mental structure. The old symbolic world is collapsing, and with it the cultural expression and realization of archetypes is becoming a thing of the past; “terrifying symbolic poverty” sets in, in which a person’s life becomes discolored and meaningless. The collapse of symbols also means the loss of symbolic control over the powerful “demons of the soul,” now left unattended. “Modern man does not understand how much his “rationalism” (which frustrated his ability to respond to divine symbols and ideas) has left him at the mercy of the psychic “underworld.” “Demons” escape from the control of a weakening culture, and the 20th century becomes the century of unheard-of mental epidemics, spreading under ideological overtones masking their true nature.

In an effort to escape from the horrific symbolic poverty that currently reigns, a person turns his attention to Eastern religions, but they correspond to a different culture and are not able to fully express the archetypes hidden in the psyche of Western man.

Therefore, European culture must change in order to restore the lost unity of the human soul, which, however, does not at all mean immersion in the unconscious and complete submission to its archaic motives. “The task... of man,” Jung concludes, “is to penetrate the unconscious and make it accessible to consciousness, without in any way remaining in it, without identifying oneself with it. Both are wrong.

Jung made a genuine revolution in cultural studies. He revealed the organic connection between culture and the human unconscious: the history of culture and its symbolic world appeared as the realization of the unconscious foundations of the soul. And at the same time, much remained outside of Jung’s concept. Jung did not claim to create the “only true teaching” about man, but without his ideas it is simply impossible to imagine modern cultural studies.