The complexity of some terms lies in a huge number of interpretations, each of which is correct to some extent, but does not reflect the overall picture. This is exactly what is happening with culture - this word is used so often that there is an illusion of an absolutely transparent understanding. How can one determine the level of culture so that one can recognize it as sufficient or, on the contrary, recognize the need for careful work to improve it? If we leave the academic definitions to culturologists, then any person can name some general concepts that relate specifically to this area of life.
Origin and interpretation of the term
If we study the linguistic structure of the word "culture", then we can safely say that we are talking about a system for removing everything superfluous, about prohibitions and restrictions. The Latin word culter, which underlies the concept itself, is translated as "knife" or any other tool that cuts off the excess. It turns out that the level of culture of somethingor - it is a phenomenon freed from superfluous, unnecessary and even dangerous, some kind of ideal or close to ideal phenomenon.
Cultivation - bringing from the wild state to the ennobled, comfortable, pleasant and beautiful. Cultivation (a related term from agriculture) - the purposeful cultivation of something useful in the required quality and quantity. Consequently, the levels of development of culture are the desire of a person to improve and ennoble his life by creating rules, eliminating the superfluous. It is worth recognizing that culture in the broadest sense of the word makes life safer, more convenient and more enjoyable. In a domestic application, for example, it is much calmer to coexist with people who mutually observe the rules of communication, are attentive to the interlocutor, do not allow themselves wild antics, untidiness, and so on.
How to determine your level of culture in the everyday sense?
Given that the phrase "cultured person" in itself has a positive emotional connotation, you really want to meet high standards in order to receive the accompanying social bonuses. How to determine whether you are a decent enough person in this sense to be proud of yourself and consider yourself worthy of communicating with other, no less cultured people? This is where we fall into a standard trap, because an objectively high level of culture includes a huge number of factors that are subjectively difficult to assess. Nevertheless, everyone considers himself en titled to declare his personal evaluative opinion as the reference one.
Howin the everyday sense to determine the level of human culture? You need to eat with a full set of cutlery, a fork and a knife, you can’t lick your fingers, sniff, sneeze without covering your mouth with your hand. Better not to sneeze at all. Therefore, young people concerned about their own reputation have quite reasonable questions regarding etiquette. Is it possible, for example, to blow your nose into a handkerchief while being in society? The question is not idle and rather complicated, because you can’t sniff, you can’t wipe it with your hand, you can’t cancel a runny nose with a wave of a magic wand. And making physiological sounds in a handkerchief also seems indecent.
Different levels of culture in society often come into contact precisely with etiquette, the ability to behave according to the rules established in this particular meeting of people. This is the basis of such a phenomenon as subcultures. It turns out that the same actions can be declared uncivilized, acceptable (excusable) or approved, depending on the age, professional, leisure or worldview orientation of the group members.
Main types of culture
This concept is usually divided into two main categories - material and spiritual. At the same time, it is hardly possible to strictly separate them, because there is interpenetration in them. For example, material culture includes all kinds of material objects that make up human life, from housing, transport and clothing, to all kinds of professional and handicraft industries. But oneit is difficult to limit oneself to the presence of a material unit, therefore, spiritual culture inevitably seeps into all the listed spheres of life.
When it comes to housing, we strive to make it beautiful and attractive with the help of all sorts of techniques that evoke positive emotions. To some extent, interior design can be considered a part of spiritual culture, since in this case the artist-designer creates a certain image and perception of space using material utilitarian objects. A great example is high fashion, which seems to many people strange, incomprehensible and completely impractical. However, high fashion does not really aim to give the world a new look for a skirt or suit. These are artistic images and emotional spiritual cultural phenomena embodied with the help of clothes, just like a painter wields paints or pencils.
The level of culture in the spiritual sense is a complex combination of intangible works, which, of course, are created with the help of material auxiliary means. Music is completely devoid of material embodiment, it cannot be felt, weighed and measured, but in order to write, perform and let others listen, it is necessary to use tools that correspond to the technique.
Society
In society, a well-mannered person is most often called one who observes the requirements of etiquette. Indeed, what qualities characterize the level of general culture in society? If we take modernity as an example, then this is spirituality, tolerance and lack of bias,responsiveness and empathy towards other people, honesty, responsibility and other positive universal human qualities that caring parents try to instill in their children literally from the first years of life. Remember: you can’t throw sand, take away a scoop and a bucket is ugly, beating girls and fighting is generally terrible.
Mayakovsky's poem "What is good and what is bad" can be called a brief encyclopedia of social culture. Simple rhyming lines perfectly explain what should be considered acceptable, and what qualities are clearly condemned by well-mannered people and cannot be considered an object of imitation.
How to raise the social level of culture, if it is most often formed at the expense of the bulk of the population? It turns out that the opinion of society as a whole becomes a determining factor, and if the majority decides that a certain phenomenon does not meet the requirements of spirituality, then it must be eradicated. Society can take up arms against anything, since the aggressive persecutors are most often skillful manipulators, followed by the masses who do not take the trouble to think for themselves. Objectivity and impartiality in this case, unfortunately, do not work, because they contradict the primitive desire to protect "us" from "strangers".
Physical Education
Perhaps we owe the chanting of a he althy trained body to Ancient Greece. One way or another, physical culture is called the desire for harmonious development as a method of active pastime. Lessons from the school curriculumtimes should be aimed at this - children form the correct posture, moderate physical activity helps to learn new knowledge, contributes to a more complete rest. It is worth noting that now many people are trying to replace the level of physical culture with sporting achievements, but sport itself is considered a separate category. There is too much focus on the net result, competitiveness, records, and if we take into account the commercial component, then we have activity solely for the sake of activity itself as a closed system.
The well-known slogan "A he althy mind in a he althy body" can be considered somewhat outdated, especially when you consider all kinds of physical culture. You can have a not perfectly he althy body, lose legs or arms, but at the same time have an indomitable spirit. There is therapeutic and corrective physical education, which just allows people with disabilities to prove, first of all, to themselves that they can fully enjoy life. Moreover, the Paralympic Games have become a source of inspiration for many perfectly he althy people. A tremendous amount of motivation arises from those who admire the sporting achievements of those who are considered to be disabled - they were able to overcome their problems and achieve impressive results. The motivational effect in this case blurs the boundaries between sports and physical culture, and goes into the category of real values that inspire accomplishments and spiritual growth as well.
Professional ethics
In any sphere of human activity there is a set of ethical andspiritual qualities that must be observed. They often talk about the levels of professional culture of teachers, since the demands on the representatives of this profession are increasing every year. This is not surprising, because some one and a half centuries ago, children were a value of a different order. The teacher could resort to physical punishment, he was recognized the right of moral pressure. By and large, the authority of the teacher was considered indisputable and inaccessible, especially against the background of the low level of education of the population. Now the opportunities are much wider, as are the rights of the child. It is impossible to consider a teacher who allows himself to hit a student as a professional.
It can be said that the levels of legal culture, that is, the degree of understanding of one's rights, are closely connected with this. The professional ethics of one group of people will always border on the mundane level of another, such as teachers and students in the example described above, doctors and patients, sellers and buyers.
Culture as a symbiosis of art trends
Perhaps the broadest and most familiar sense of the term is art: music, painting, sculpture, dance, literature, and so on. The diversity of beauty creates a certain halo of inaccessibility, but even art has its own levels of cultural development.
First of all, this is, of course, a mass or popular direction. "Pop star" - the concept is just from this area. Popular culture in the overwhelming majority of cases has a commercial direction, needsmedia support and is, in fact, a profitable enterprise. But the elite level implies the development of fundamental types of art - academic vocals, ballet, symphonic music. That is the direction of traditional classical arts. There is an opinion that this direction can only be free or very expensive, because it is impossible to "make" high art on your knee, subsisting on crumbs. This must be done either professionally for a lot of money, or at the behest of the soul and talent, while one does not exclude the other.
Finally, there is also folk art, which also cannot be discounted. It is difficult to popularize it, while it is more related to the fundamental part. There is also a certain level of culture, which is the antagonist of generally accepted canons. This is the so-called counterculture, which includes, for example, the underground.
The counterculture opposes itself to the dominant direction, while over time it can be neatly woven into it, thus enriching the general intellectual and spiritual baggage of mankind. All sorts of subcultural currents, denial, rebellious, and even outright aggressive, can completely disappear or change direction. This happened, for example, with hippies or punks. Everything unstable and temporary has been eliminated, and now these subcultures have enriched us by adding new facets of perception.
Destructive currents that preach the destruction of cultural values cannot exist for long enough. First, man is a creator by nature, and onlyhe cannot destroy. Secondly, everything created is of course - when there is nothing more to destroy, you have to create, even if on the wreckage. The desire to “destroy to the ground” was traced in Bolshevik morality, and from the point of view of preserving cultural values, this was, of course, a destructive trend of a temporary nature.
Improving the culture of society
When analyzing some negative phenomena, one can hear such an argument as "low level of society's culture" as explanations. And indeed it is. In the pursuit of economic development, many areas simply lost funding, and this entailed quite logical consequences. A high level of culture is not given by default, it needs to be worked on, promoted, literally taught to citizens. In the Soviet Union there was such a phenomenon as the cultural and educational department, which was engaged in the promotion of all kinds of art to the masses. Now this is not so noticeable, and many creative people sincerely believe that they are not given enough opportunities for development, therefore, society has less and less chance to raise its cultural level.
It is also tragic that people prefer entertaining art, popular, while not paying attention to the fundamental, which requires reflection, reading, disclosure of subtext. There is no balance, and therefore the cultural level of the average person begins to form on entertainment content. However, with age, many discover andfundamental direction, and they are sincerely surprised that it turns out to be not as boring as it seemed under the fashionable rhythms of popular songs.
Cultural values
This common expression in most cases combines all kinds of works of art, from architectural monuments and jewelry to songs, dances and literary works. This is a combination of everything that affects the level of general culture, forming a certain standard of perception. At the same time, any one value cannot be considered an absolute standard, so we are talking about perception, about the feelings that it causes. It is believed that culture should cause an upliftment, which at the same time can be colored by different feelings and sensations - sadness is the same equal emotion as joy. One cannot demand that a work of art evoke only positive emotions, otherwise a bias will inevitably appear, smacking of artificiality and insincerity.
It is the ability to perceive and feel the message that determines the level of upbringing and education of a person. The absence of an unambiguous template makes it possible to develop, new cultural values appear that may contradict each other. The desire to pass for an elevated person according to the specified parameter can lead to a desire to pretend to understand, but it is worth remembering that any work of art is ambiguous, because it affects the emotional part of the personality, and perception is individual, up to misunderstanding andrejection.
Self-education
It is not necessary to carefully study cultural studies in order to rightfully consider yourself an educated person in this sense. This is exactly the area of life in which you can and should engage in self-education. Raising the level of culture is not only about learning and fulfilling the requirements that etiquette imposes. It is necessary to remember the subjectivity of perception, and if something does not seem to you to meet the standard, but does not violate generally accepted rules, then you should not immediately declare the phenomenon egregious.
A he althy society cannot rely only on material values, otherwise inevitable decline and chaos will follow. The spiritual growth of each individual ultimately helps to form a strong and fruitful civilization in which the level of education, culture and traditions does not contradict economic growth and material well-being. Each person can have their own path, different from others: various areas of art or religion, as spiritual values, or material culture, without which it is very difficult to create something ephemeral, affecting emotions and awakening wonderful spiritual impulses.
