Elite form of culture. Mass and elite culture

Elite culture

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 Schnittke, 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. The formula of elite culture is “art for art’s sake.”

Elite culture is intended for a narrow circle of highly educated public and is opposed to both folk and mass culture. It is usually incomprehensible to the general public and requires good preparation for correct perception.

Elite culture includes avant-garde movements in music, painting, cinema, and complex literature philosophical nature. Often the creators of such a culture are perceived as inhabitants of the “ivory tower”, who have fenced themselves off with their art from the real world. Everyday life. As a rule, elite culture is non-commercial, although sometimes it can be financially successful and move into the category of mass culture.

Modern trends are such that mass culture penetrates into all areas of “high culture”, mixing with it. At the same time, mass culture reduces the general cultural level of its consumers, but at the same time it itself gradually rises to a higher cultural level. Unfortunately, the first process is still much more intense than the second.

Today, mechanisms for the dissemination of cultural products occupy an increasingly important place in the system of intercultural communication. Modern society lives in a technical civilization, which is fundamentally distinguished by methods, means, technologies and channels for transmitting cultural information. Therefore, in the new information and cultural space, only what is in mass demand survives, and only standardized products of mass culture in general and elite culture in particular have this property.

Elite culture is a set of creative achievements of human society, the creation and adequate perception of which requires special training. The essence of this culture is associated with the concept of the elite as the producer and consumer of elite culture. In relation to society, this type of culture is the highest, privileged to special layers, groups, classes of the population that carry out the functions of production, management and development of culture. Thus, the structure of culture is divided into public and elite.

Elite culture was created to preserve pathos and creativity. The most consistent and holistic concept of elite culture is reflected in the works of J. Ortega y Gasset, according to whom the elite is a part of society gifted with aesthetic and moral inclinations and most capable of producing spiritual activity. Thus, very talented and skillful scientists, artists, writers, and philosophers are considered the elite. Elite groups can be relatively autonomous from economic and political strata, or they can interpenetrate each other in certain situations.

Elite culture is quite diverse in its methods of manifestation and content. The essence and features of elite culture can be examined using the example of elite art, which develops mainly in two forms: panaestheticism and aesthetic isolationism.

The form of panaestheticism elevates art above science, morality, and politics. Such artistic and intuitive forms of knowledge carry the messianic goal of “saving the world.” The concepts of panaesthetic ideas are expressed in the studies of A. Bergson, F. Nietzsche, F. Schlegel.

A form of aesthetic isolationism strives to express “art for art’s sake” or “pure art.” The concept of this idea is based on upholding the freedom of individual self-display and self-expression in art. According to the founders of aesthetic isolationism, the modern world lacks beauty, which is the only pure source of artistic creativity. This concept was implemented in the activities of artists S. Diaghilev, A. Benois, M. Vrubel, V. Serov, K. Korovin. A. Pavlova, F. Chaliapin, M. Fokin achieved high vocation in the musical and ballet arts.

In a narrow sense, elite culture is understood as a subculture that not only differs from the national one, but also opposes it, acquiring closedness, semantic self-sufficiency, and isolation. It is based on the formation of its own specific features: norms, ideals, values, a system of signs and symbols. Thus, the subculture is designed to unite certain spiritual values ​​of like-minded people, directed against the dominant culture. The essence of a subculture lies in the formation and development of its sociocultural characteristics, their isolation from another cultural layer.

Elite culture is high culture, contrasted with mass culture by the type of influence on the perceiving consciousness, preserving its subjective characteristics and providing a meaning-forming function.

The subject of elitist, high culture is the individual - a free, creative person, capable of carrying out conscious activities. The creations of this culture are always personally colored and designed for personal perception, regardless of the breadth of their audience, which is why the wide distribution and millions of copies of the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Shakespeare not only do not reduce their significance, but, on the contrary, contribute to the widespread dissemination of spiritual values. In this sense, the subject of elite culture is a representative of the elite.

Elite culture has a number of important features.

Features of elite culture:

complexity, specialization, creativity, innovation;

the ability to form a consciousness ready for active transformative activity and creativity in accordance with the objective laws of reality;

the ability to concentrate the spiritual, intellectual and artistic experience of generations;

the presence of a limited range of values ​​recognized as true and “high”;

a rigid system of norms accepted by a given stratum as mandatory and strict in the community of “initiates”;

individualization of norms, values, evaluative criteria of activity, often principles and forms of behavior of members of the elite community, thereby becoming unique;

the creation of a new, deliberately complicated cultural semantics, requiring special training and an immense cultural horizon from the addressee;

the use of a deliberately subjective, individually creative, “defamiliarizing” interpretation of the ordinary and familiar, which brings the subject’s cultural assimilation of reality closer to a mental (sometimes artistic) experiment on it and, in the extreme, replaces the reflection of reality in elite culture with its transformation, imitation with deformation, penetration into meaning - conjecture and rethinking of the given;

semantic and functional “closedness”, “narrowness”, isolation from the whole national culture, which turns elite culture into a kind of secret, sacred, esoteric knowledge, and its bearers turn into a kind of “priests” of this knowledge, chosen ones of the gods, “servants of the muses,” “keepers of secrets and faith,” which is often played out and poeticized in elite culture .

Elite culture (from the French elite - selected, selected, best) is a subculture of privileged groups in society, characterized by fundamental closedness, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. Appealing to a select minority of its subjects, who, as a rule, are both its creators and addressees (in any case, the circle of both almost coincides), E.K. consciously and consistently opposes the culture of the majority, or mass culture in the broad sense (in all its historical and typological varieties - folklore, folk culture, official culture of a particular estate or class, the state as a whole, the cultural industry of technocratic society -va 20th century, etc.). Moreover, E.k. needs a constant context of mass culture, since it is based on the mechanism of repulsion from the values ​​and norms accepted in mass culture, on the destruction of existing stereotypes and templates of mass culture (including their parody, ridicule, irony, grotesque, polemic, criticism, refutation), on demonstrative self-isolation in general national culture. In this regard, E.k. - a characteristically marginal phenomenon within any history. or national type of culture and is always secondary, derivative in relation to the culture of the majority. The problem of E.K. is especially acute. in communities where the antinomy of mass culture and E.K. practically exhausts all the variety of manifestations of nationalism. culture as a whole and where the mediative (“middle”) area of ​​the national culture, a constituent part of it. body and equally opposed to polarized mass and E. cultures as value-semantic extremes. This is typical, in particular, for cultures that have a binary structure and are prone to inversion forms of history. development (Russian and typologically similar cultures).

Political and cultural elites differ; the first, also called “ruling”, “powerful”, today, thanks to the works of V. Pareto, G. Mosca, R. Michels, C.R. Mills, R. Miliband, J. Scott, J. Perry, D. Bell and other sociologists and political scientists, have been studied in sufficient detail and deeply. Much less studied are cultural elites - strata united not by economic, social, political, and actual power interests and goals, but ideological principles, spiritual values, sociocultural norms, etc. Connected in principle by similar (isomorphic) mechanisms of selection, status consumption, prestige, political and cultural elites, nevertheless, do not coincide with each other and only sometimes enter into temporary alliances, which turn out to be extremely unstable and fragile. Suffice it to recall the spiritual dramas of Socrates, condemned to death by his fellow citizens, and Plato, disillusioned with the Syracuse tyrant Dionysius (the Elder), who undertook to put into practice Plato’s utopia of the “State”, Pushkin, who refused to “serve the king, serve the people” and thereby who recognized the inevitability of his creativity. loneliness, although regal in its own way (“You are a king: live alone”), and L. Tolstoy, who, despite his origin and position, sought to express the “folk idea” through the means of his high and unique art of speech, European. education, sophisticated author's philosophy and religion. It is worth mentioning here the short flowering of the sciences and arts at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent; the experience of the highest patronage of Louis XIV to the muses, which gave the world examples of Western European. classicism; a short period of cooperation between the enlightened nobility and the noble bureaucracy during the reign of Catherine II; short-lived pre-revolutionary union. rus. intelligentsia with Bolshevik power in the 20s. and so on. , in order to affirm the multidirectional and largely mutually exclusive nature of the interacting political and cultural elites, which enclose the social-semantic and cultural-semantic structures of the society, respectively, and coexist in time and space. This means that E.k. is not a creation and product of political elites (as was often stated in Marxist studies) and is not of a class-party nature, but in many cases develops in the struggle against politics. elites for their independence and freedom. On the contrary, it is logical to assume that it is the cultural elites that contribute to the formation of politics. elites (structurally isomorphic to cultural elites) in a narrower sphere of socio-political, state. and power relations as your own special case, isolated and alienated from the whole E.k.

In contrast to the political elites, the spiritual and creative elites develop their own, fundamentally new mechanisms of self-regulation and value-semantic criteria for active chosenness, going beyond the framework of the actual social and political requirements, and often accompanied by a demonstrative departure from politics and social institutions and semantic opposition to these phenomena as extracultural (unaesthetic, immoral, unspiritual, intellectually poor and vulgar). In E.k. The range of values ​​recognized as true and “high” is deliberately limited, and the system of norms accepted by a given stratum as obligations is tightened. and strict in the communication of the “initiates”. Quantities, narrowing of the elite and its spiritual unity are inevitably accompanied by its qualities, growth (intellectual, aesthetic, religious, ethical and other respects), and therefore, individualization of norms, values, evaluative criteria of activity, often principles and forms of behavior of members of the elite messages, thereby becoming unique.

Actually, for the sake of this, the circle of norms and values ​​of E.K. becomes emphatically high, innovative, what can be achieved in a variety of ways. means:

1) mastering new social and mental realities as cultural phenomena or, on the contrary, rejection of anything new and “protection” of a narrow circle of conservative values ​​and norms;

2) inclusion of one’s subject in an unexpected value-semantic context, which gives its interpretation a unique and even exclusive meaning;

3) the creation of a new, deliberately complicated cultural semantics (metaphorical, associative, allusive, symbolic and metasymbolic), requiring special knowledge from the addressee. preparation and vast cultural horizons;

4) the development of a special cultural language (code), accessible only to a narrow circle of connoisseurs and designed to complicate communication, to erect insurmountable (or the most difficult to overcome) semantic barriers to profane thinking, which turns out to be, in principle, unable to adequately comprehend the innovations of E.K., to “decipher” it meanings; 5) the use of a deliberately subjective, individually creative, “defamiliarizing” interpretation of the ordinary and familiar, which brings the subject’s cultural assimilation of reality closer to a mental (sometimes artistic) experiment on it and ultimately replaces the reflection of reality in E.K. its transformation, imitation - deformation, penetration into meaning - conjecture and rethinking of the given. Due to its semantic and functional “closedness”, “narrowness”, isolation from the whole national. culture, E.k. often turns into a type (or similarity) of secret, sacred, esoteric. knowledge that is taboo for the rest of the masses, and its bearers turn into a kind of “priests” of this knowledge, chosen ones of the gods, “servants of the muses,” “keepers of secrets and faith,” which is often played out and poeticized in E.K.

Historical origin of E.c. exactly this: already in primitive society, priests, magi, sorcerers, tribal leaders become privileged holders of special knowledge, which cannot and should not be intended for general, mass use. Subsequently, this kind of relationship between E.k. and mass culture in one form or another, in particular secular, were repeatedly reproduced (in various religious confessions and especially sects, in monastic and spiritual knightly orders, Masonic lodges, in the craft workshops that cultivated prof. mastery, in religious and philosophical. meetings, literary and artistic and intellectual circles that develop around charismatic people. leader, scientific reports and scientific schools, in political parties, associations and parties, including especially those that worked secretly, conspiratorially, underground, etc.). Ultimately, the elitism of knowledge, skills, values, norms, principles, traditions that was formed in this way was the key to sophisticated professionalism and deep subject-specific specialized knowledge, without which history would be impossible in culture. progress, postulate, value-semantic growth, contain, enrichment and accumulation of formal perfection - any value-semantic hierarchy. E.k. acts as an initiative and productive principle in any culture, performing mainly creative work. function in it; while mass culture stereotypes, routinizes, and profanes the achievements of E.K., adapting them to the perception and consumption of the sociocultural majority of the society. In turn, E.k. constantly ridicules or denounces mass culture, parodies it or grotesquely deforms it, presenting the world of mass society and its culture as scary and ugly, aggressive and cruel; in this context, the fate of representatives of E.K. depicted as tragic, disadvantaged, broken (romantic and post-romantic concepts of “genius and the crowd”; “creative madness”, or “sacred disease”, and ordinary “common sense”; inspired “intoxication”, including narcotic , and vulgar “sobriety”; “celebration of life” and boring everyday life).

Theory and practice of E.k. blossoms especially productively and fruitfully at the “breakdown” of cultural eras, with the change of cultural and historical. paradigms, uniquely expressing the crisis conditions of culture, the unstable balance between “old” and “new”, the representatives of E.K. themselves. realized their mission in culture as “initiators of the new,” as ahead of their time, as creators not understood by their contemporaries (such, for example, were the majority of romantics and modernists - symbolists, cultural figures of the avant-garde and professional revolutionaries who carried out the cultural revolution) . This also includes the “beginners” of large-scale traditions and the creators of the “grand style” paradigms (Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Gorky, Kafka, etc.). This view, although fair in many respects, was not, however, the only possible one. So, on Russian grounds. culture (where societies, the attitude towards E.K. was in most cases wary or even hostile, which did not even contribute to the spread of E.K., in comparison with Western Europe), concepts were born that interpret E.K. as a conservative departure from social reality and its pressing problems into the world of idealized aesthetics (“pure art”, or “art for art’s sake”), religion. and mythol. fantasies, socio-political. utopian, philosopher idealism, etc. (late Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, M. Antonovich, N. Mikhailovsky, V. Stasov, P. Tkachev and others, radical democratic thinkers). In the same tradition, Pisarev and Plekhanov, as well as Ap. Grigoriev interpreted E.k. (including “art for art’s sake”) as a demonstrative form of rejection of socio-political reality, as an expression of hidden, passive protest against it, as a refusal to participate in society. struggle of his time, seeing in this a characteristic history. symptom (deepening crisis), and pronounced inferiority of the E.K. itself. (lack of breadth and historical foresight, societies, weakness and powerlessness to influence the course of history and the life of the masses).

E.k. theorists - Plato and Augustine, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Vl. Soloviev and Leontiev, Berdyaev and A. Bely, Ortega y Gasset and Benjamin, Husserl and Heidegger, Mannheim and Ellul - variously varied the thesis about the hostility of democratization and the massification of culture and its qualities. level, its content and formal perfection, creative. search and intellectual, aesthetic, religious. and other novelty, about the stereotype and triviality that inevitably accompanies mass culture (ideas, images, theories, plots), lack of spirituality, and the infringement of creativity. personality and the suppression of its freedom in conditions of mass society and mechanics. replication of spiritual values, expansion of industrial production of culture. This tendency is to deepen the contradictions between E.K. and mass - increased unprecedentedly in the 20th century. and inspired many poignant and dramatic stories. collisions (cf., for example, the novels: “Ulysses” by Joyce, “In Search of Lost Time” by Proust, “Steppenwolf” and “The Glass Bead Game” by Hesse, “The Magic Mountain” and “Doctor Faustus” by T. Mann, “We "Zamiatin, "The Life of Klim Samgin" by Gorky, "The Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov, "The Pit" and "Chevengur" by Platonov, "The Pyramid" by L. Leonov, etc.). At the same time, in the cultural history of the 20th century. There are many examples that clearly illustrate the paradoxical dialectics of E.K. and mass: their mutual transition and mutual transformation, mutual influence and self-negation of each of them.

So, for example, creative. quest for various representatives of modern culture (symbolists and impressionists, expressionists and futurists, surrealists and dadaists, etc.) - artists, movement theorists, philosophers, and publicists - were aimed at creating unique samples and entire systems of E.C. Many of the formal refinements were experimental; theory manifestos and declarations substantiated the right of the artist and thinker to be creative. incomprehensibility, separation from the masses, their tastes and needs, to the intrinsic existence of “culture for culture.” However, as the expanding field of activity of the modernists included everyday objects, everyday situations, forms of everyday thinking, structures of generally accepted behavior, current history. events, etc. (albeit with a “minus” sign, like a “minus technique”), modernism began - involuntarily, and then consciously - to appeal to the masses and mass consciousness. Shocking and mockery, grotesque and denunciation of the average person, slapstick and farce are the same legitimate genres, stylistic devices and expressions, means of mass culture, as well as playing on cliches and stereotypes of mass consciousness, posters and propaganda, farce and ditties, recitation and rhetoric. Stylization or parody of banality is almost indistinguishable from the stylized and parodied (with the exception of the ironic author's distance and the general semantic context, which remain almost elusive for mass perception); but the recognition and familiarity of vulgarity makes its criticism - highly intellectual, subtle, aestheticized - little understandable and effective for the majority of recipients (who are not able to distinguish ridicule of low-grade taste from indulging it). As a result, one and the same work of culture acquires a double life with different semantic content and the opposite ideological pathos: on one side it turns out to be addressed to E.K., on the other - to mass culture. These are many works by Chekhov and Gorky, Mahler and Stravinsky, Modigliani and Picasso, L. Andreev and Verhaeren, Mayakovsky and Eluard, Meyerhold and Shostakovich, Yesenin and Kharms, Brecht and Fellini, Brodsky and Voinovich. E.c. contamination is especially controversial. and mass culture in postmodern culture; for example, in such an early phenomenon of postmodernism as pop art, there is an elitization of mass culture and at the same time a massification of elitism, which gave rise to the classics of modern times. postmodernist W. Eco characterize pop art as “low-browed high-browedness”, or, conversely, as “high-browed low-browedness” (in English: Lowbrow Highbrow, or Highbrow Lowbrow).

No fewer paradoxes arise when comprehending the genesis of totalitarian culture, which, by definition, is a mass culture and a culture of the masses. However, in its origin, totalitarian culture is rooted precisely in E.K.: for example, Nietzsche, Spengler, Weininger, Sombart, Jünger, K. Schmitt and other philosophers and socio-political thinkers who anticipated and brought the Germans closer to real power. Nazism, definitely belonged to E.K. and were in a number of cases misunderstood and distorted by their practical. interpreters, primitivized, simplified to a rigid scheme and uncomplicated demagoguery. The situation is similar with communists. totalitarianism: the founders of Marxism - Marx and Engels, and Plekhanov, and Lenin himself, and Trotsky, and Bukharin - they were all, in their own way, “highbrow” intellectuals and represented a very narrow circle of radically minded intelligentsia. Moreover, the ideal. The atmosphere of social-democratic, socialist, and Marxist circles, then strictly conspiratorial party cells, was built in full accordance with the principles of E.K. (only extended to political and cognitive culture), and the principle of party membership implied not just selectivity, but also a rather strict selection of values, norms, principles, concepts, types of behavior, etc. In fact, the mechanism of selection itself (based on race and nationality) or according to class-political), which lies at the basis of totalitarianism as a socio-cultural system, was created by E.K., in its depths, by its representatives, and later only extrapolated to a mass society, in which everything recognized as expedient is reproduced and is intensified, and what is dangerous for its self-preservation and development is prohibited and seized (including by means of violence). Thus, totalitarian culture initially arises from the atmosphere and style, from the norms and values ​​of the elite circle, is universalized as a kind of panacea, and then is forcibly imposed on society as a whole as perfect model and is practically introduced into mass consciousness and society, activities by any means, including extracultural ones.

In conditions of post-totalitarian development, as well as in the context of Western democracy, the phenomena of totalitarian culture (emblems and symbols, ideas and images, concepts and style of socialist realism), being presented in a culturally pluralistic way. context and distanced from modern times. reflection - purely intellectual or aesthetic - begin to function as exotic. E.c. components and are perceived by a generation familiar with totalitarianism only from photographs and anecdotes, “strangely,” grotesquely, associatively. The components of mass culture included in the context of E.K. act as elements of E.K.; while the components of E.K., inscribed in the context of mass culture, become components of mass culture. In the postmodern cultural paradigm, the components of E.k. and popular culture are used equally as ambivalent game material, and the semantic boundary between mass and E.k. turns out to be fundamentally blurred or removed; in this case, the distinction between E.k. and mass culture practically loses its meaning (retaining for the potential recipient only the allusive meaning of the cultural-genetic context).

The product of elite culture is created by professionals and is part of the privileged society that formed it. Mass culture is part of general culture, an indicator of the development of the entire society, and not of its individual class.

Elite culture stands apart; mass culture has a huge number of consumers.

Understanding the value of a product of elite culture requires certain professional skills and abilities. Mass culture is utilitarian in nature, understandable to a wide range of consumers.

Creators of elitist culture products do not pursue material benefit, they dream only of creative self-realization. Products of mass culture bring great profits to their creators.

Mass culture simplifies everything and makes it accessible to wide sections of society. Elite culture is focused on a narrow circle of consumers.

Mass culture depersonalizes society, elitist culture, on the contrary, glorifies the bright creative individuality. More details: http://thedb.ru/items/Otlichie_elitarnoj_kultury_ot_massovoj/

Classic literature

Instructions

Elite culture includes works of various types of art: literature, theater, cinema, etc. Since its understanding requires a certain level of training, it has a very narrow circle of connoisseurs. Not everyone understands the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Alexander Sokurov. A special type of thinking is required to understand the works of Franz Kafka or James Joyce's Ulysses. Creators of elite culture, like , do not try to achieve high fees. Much more valuable for them is creative self-realization.

Consumers of elite culture are people with a high educational level and developed aesthetic taste. Many of them are creators of works of art themselves or professional researchers of them. First of all, we're talking about about writers, artists, art critics, literary and art critics. This circle also includes connoisseurs and connoisseurs of art, regular visitors to museums, theaters and concert halls.

Moreover, works of the same types of art can belong to both elite and mass culture. For example, classical music belongs to elite culture, and popular music belongs to mass culture, Tarkovsky’s films belong to elite culture, and Indian melodramas belong to mass culture, etc. At the same time, there are literary genres that always belong to mass culture and are unlikely to ever become elite. Among them are detective stories, romance novels, humorous stories and feuilletons.

Sometimes interesting things happen about how works belonging to elite culture can, under certain conditions, become popular. For example, Bach's music is undoubtedly a phenomenon of elite culture, but if it is used as an accompaniment to a figure skating program, it automatically turns into a product of mass culture. Or the completely opposite: many of Mozart’s works were most likely “light music” for their time (i.e., they could be classified as mass culture). But now they are perceived rather as elitist.

Most works of elite culture are initially avant-garde or experimental in nature. They use means that will become clear to the mass consciousness several decades later. Sometimes experts even name the exact period – 50 years. In other words, examples of elite culture are half a century ahead of their time.

Related article

The term “classical music” is sometimes interpreted extremely broadly. It includes not only the creations of outstanding composers of past years, but also hits that have become world famous popular artists. However, there is a strictly authentic meaning of "classical" in music.

In the narrow sense, classical music refers to a rather short period in the history of this art, namely the 18th century. The first half of the eighteenth century was marked by the work of such outstanding composers as Bach and Handel. Bach developed the principles of classicism as the construction of a work in strict accordance with the canons in his works. His fugue has become a classical - that is, exemplary - form of musical creativity.

And after the death of Bach, a new stage opens in the history of music, associated with Haydn and Mozart. The rather complex and ponderous sound was replaced by lightness and harmony of melodies, grace and even some coquetry. And yet, it is still a classic: in his creative search, Mozart sought to find the ideal form.

Beethoven's works represent the junction of the classical and romantic traditions. In his music there is much more passion and feeling than rational canons. During this period of formation of the European musical tradition, the main genres were formed: opera, symphony, sonata.

A broad interpretation of the term “classical music” implies the work of composers of past eras, which has stood the test of time and has become a standard for other authors. Sometimes classical means music for symphonic instruments. The most clear (although not widely used) can be considered classical music as authorial, clearly defined and implying performance within a given framework. However, some researchers urge not to confuse academic (that is, squeezed into certain frameworks and rules) and classical music.

In an evaluative approach to defining classics as highest achievements in the history of music, there is a hidden possibility. Who is considered the best? Can the masters of jazz, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and other recognized authors and performers? On the one hand, yes. This is exactly what we do when we call them exemplary. But on the other hand, in pop-jazz music there is no rigor of the author's musical text characteristic of classics. In it, on the contrary, everything is based on improvisation and original arrangements. This is where a fundamental difference lies between classical (academic) music and the modern post-jazz school.

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• What is culture? Definition of the word culture. The meaning of the word culture and photo

There are several types of literature, each of which has its own characteristics. Yes, under classical literature understand works that are considered exemplary for a particular era.

History of the term

Classical is a rather broad concept, since this type includes works of different eras and genres. These are generally recognized works, considered exemplary for the eras in which they were written. Many of them are included in the mandatory program.

The concept of classics evolved into three last centuries era of antiquity. Then it denoted certain writers who, for various reasons, were considered models and role models. One of the first such classics was the ancient Greek poet Homer, the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

In the 5th-8th centuries AD. There were authors of texts who determined the theories and norms transmitted in the learning process. This canon differed minimally in different schools. Gradually, this list was replenished with new names, among which were representatives of pagan and Christian faith. These authors became cultural treasures of the public, imitated and quoted.

Modern meaning of the concept

During the Renaissance, European writers turned their attention to the authors of antiquity, due to the liberation of secular culture from excessive pressure. The result of this in literature was an era in which it became fashionable to imitate ancient Greek playwrights, such as Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, and follow the canons classical drama. Then the term “” in a narrow sense began to mean the whole ancient literature.

In a broad sense, any work that created a canon in its genre began to be called classical. For example, there are eras of modernism, eras, realism, etc. There is a concept of domestic and foreign, as well as world classics. Thus, the recognized classics of Russian literature in Russia are A.S. Pushkin, F.M. Dostoevsky, etc.

As a rule, in the history of literature of different countries and nations there is a century in which artistic literature gained its greatest influence, and such a century is called classical. There is an opinion that a work gains public recognition when it carries “eternal values”, something relevant for all times, and encourages the reader to think about some universal human problems. Classics remain in history and are contrasted with ephemeral works that eventually fall into oblivion.

A person’s ability to have an emotional and sensory perception of reality and to artistic creativity prompted him to express his experiences figuratively, with the help of colors, lines, words, sounds, etc. This contributed to the emergence artistic culture in a broad sense.

What is included in the concept

Artistic culture is one of the spheres of public culture. Its essence is a creative reflection of existence (, society and its life) in artistic images. It has important functions, such as the formation of aesthetic perception and consciousness of people, public values, norms, knowledge and experience, and recreational function (rest and restoration of people).

As a system it includes:
- art as such (individual and group), works and artistic values;
- organizational infrastructure: institutions ensuring the development, preservation, dissemination of artistic culture, creative organizations, educational institutions, demonstration sites, etc.;
- spiritual atmosphere in society - perception, public interest in artistic and creative activities, art, public policy in this area.

Artistic culture includes mass, folk, artistic culture; artistic and aesthetic aspects of various types of activities (political, economic, legal); regional artistic subcultures; artistic subcultures of youth and professional associations, etc.

It manifests itself not only in art, but also in everyday life and in material production, when a person gives expressiveness to the practical and utilitarian objects he creates and, realizing his need for aesthetics and beauty, in creativity. In addition to the material sphere and physical objects, it also concerns the spiritual sphere.

Artistic culture in the narrow sense

The core of artistic culture is professional and household art. This includes Tip 6: Who are geishas, ​​one of which is the word “man”, the other is “art”. Already from the etymology of the word, you can guess that geishas are not Japanese courtesans. For the latter, there are separate words in Japanese - joro, yujo.

Geisha mastered being a woman perfectly. They lifted the spirits of men, creating an atmosphere of joy, ease and emancipation. This was achieved through songs, dances, jokes (often with erotic overtones), tea rooms, which were demonstrated by geishas in men's companies along with casual conversation.

Geishas entertained men like social events, and on personal dates. There was also no place for intimate relationships at the one-on-one meeting. A geisha can have sex with her patron, who took her virginity. For geisha, this is a ritual called mizu-age, which accompanies the transition from apprentice, maiko, to geisha.

If a geisha gets married, then she will leave the profession. Before leaving, she sends her clients, patron, teachers with a treat - boiled rice, thereby informing about the severance of communication with them.

In appearance, geisha are distinguished by their characteristic makeup with a thick layer of powder and bright red lips, which make the woman’s face look like a mask, as well as an old-fashioned high, fluffy hairstyle. The traditional geisha wears a kimono, the main colors of which are black, red and white.

Modern geisha

It is believed that geisha appeared in the city of Kyoto in the 17th century. The quarters of the city where geisha houses are located are called hanamachi (“flower streets”). There is a school here where, from the age of seven or eight, they are taught to sing, dance, conduct a tea ceremony, play the national Japanese instrument shamisen, conduct a conversation with a man, and are also taught to make up and put on a kimono - everything that a geisha should know and be able to do. .

When the capital of Japan was moved to Tokyo in the 70s of the 19th century, noble Japanese, who made up the bulk of the geisha's clients, also moved there. Geisha festivals, which are held regularly in Kyoto and have become its hallmark, were able to save their craft from the crisis.

After World War II, Japan was taken over by popular culture, leaving Japanese culture on the margins. national traditions. The number of geishas has decreased significantly, but those who have remained faithful to the profession consider themselves guardians of the true Japanese culture. Many continue to fully follow the ancient way of life of the geisha, some only partially. But being in the company of a geisha still remains the prerogative of the elite segments of the population.

Sources:

• Geisha world

Folk culture consists of two types - popular and folklore. Popular culture describes the current way of life, morals, customs, songs, dances of the people, and folklore describes its past. Legends, fairy tales and other genres of folklore were created in the past, today they exist as historical heritage. Some of this heritage is still performed today, which means that, in addition to historical legends, it is constantly replenished with new formations, for example, modern urban folklore.

The authors of folk works are often unknown. Myths, legends, stories, epics, fairy tales, songs and dances belong to the highest creations of folk culture. They cannot be classified as elite culture just because they were created by anonymous folk artists. Its subject is the entire people; 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, etc. 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, but the situation in post-industrial society is changing.

Elite culture inherent in the privileged strata of society, or those who consider themselves such. It is distinguished by comparative depth and complexity, and sometimes sophistication of forms. Elite culture was historically formed in those social groups, who had favorable conditions for familiarization with culture, a special cultural status.

Elite (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. Its varieties include secular art and salon music. The formula of elite culture is “art for art’s sake.” High culture, such as the painting of Picasso or the music of Bach, is difficult to understand for the untrained person.

The circle of consumers of elite culture includes the highly educated part of society: critics, literary scholars, regular visitors to museums and exhibitions, theatergoers, artists, writers, musicians. As a rule, high culture is decades ahead of the level of perception of a moderately educated person. When the level of education of the population increases, the circle of consumers of high culture expands significantly.

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. It's time to distribute funds mass media(radio, print, television). Through them, it became accessible to representatives of all social strata - a “needed” culture. Mass culture can be ethnic or national. Pop music stands as a shining example of it. Mass culture is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population, regardless of level of education.

Mass culture has less artistic value than elite or popular culture. But it has the largest and widest audience, since it satisfies the “momentary” needs of people, promptly responding to any new event in public life. 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 the ruling elite, and mass culture refers to the preferences of the “lower classes.” The same types of art can belong to high and mass culture. Classical music is an example of high culture, and popular music is an example of mass culture. A similar situation with fine arts: Picasso’s paintings represent high culture, and popular prints represent mass culture.

The same thing happens with specific works art. Bach's organ music belongs to high culture. But if it is used as musical accompaniment by figure skating, it is automatically included in the category of mass culture. At the same time, she does not lose her belonging to high culture. Numerous orchestrations of Bach's works in the style of light music, jazz, or rock do not compromise the very high level of the author's work.

Mass culture acts as a complex social and cultural phenomenon, characteristic of modern society. It became possible because high level development of communication and information systems and high urbanization. At the same time, mass culture is characterized by a high degree of alienation of individuals and loss of individuality. Hence the “idiocy of the masses”, due to manipulation and imposition of behavioral cliches through mass communication channels.

All this deprives a person of freedom and disfigures his spiritual world. In the environment of the functioning of mass culture, it is difficult to carry out the true socialization of the individual. Here everything is replaced by standard consumption models that are imposed by mass culture. It offers average models of human inclusion in social mechanisms. Created vicious circle: alienation > abandonment in the world > illusions of belonging to mass consciousness > models of average socialization > consumption of samples of mass culture > “new” alienation.

Elite culture- this is “high culture”, contrasted with mass culture by the type of influence on the perceiving consciousness, preserving its subjective characteristics and providing a meaning-forming function. Its main ideal is the formation of a consciousness ready for active transformative activity and creativity in accordance with the objective laws of reality. Historically, elite culture arose as the antithesis of mass culture and its meaning manifests its main meaning in comparison with the latter.

The essence of elite culture was first analyzed by X. Ortega y Gasset and C. Mannheim. The subject of elitist, high culture is the individual - a free, creative person, capable of carrying out conscious activities. The creations of this culture are always personally colored and designed for personal perception, regardless of the breadth of their audience, which is why the wide distribution and millions of copies of the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Shakespeare not only do not reduce their significance, but, on the contrary, contribute to the widespread dissemination of spiritual values. In this sense, the subject of elite culture is a representative of the elite.

Elite culture is the culture of privileged groups of society, characterized by fundamental closedness, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. According to I.V. Kondakov, elite culture appeals to a select minority of its subjects, who, as a rule, are both its creators and recipients (in any case, the circle of both almost coincides).

Elite culture consciously and consistently opposes the culture of the majority in all its historical and typological varieties - folklore, folk culture, official culture of one or another estate or class, the state as a whole, the cultural industry of the technocratic society of the 20th century. and so on.

Philosophers consider elite culture as the only one capable of preserving and reproducing the basic meanings of culture and possessing a number of fundamentally important features:

• complexity, specialization, creativity, innovation;
• the ability to form a consciousness ready for active transformative activity and creativity in accordance with the objective laws of reality;
• the ability to concentrate the spiritual, intellectual and artistic experience of generations;
• the presence of a limited range of values ​​recognized as true and “high”;
• a rigid system of norms accepted by a given stratum as mandatory and strict in the community of “initiates”;
• individualization of norms, values, evaluative criteria of activity, often principles and forms of behavior of members of the elite community, thereby becoming unique;
• the creation of a new, deliberately complicated cultural semantics, requiring special training and an immense cultural horizon from the addressee;
• the use of a deliberately subjective, individually creative, “defamiliarizing” interpretation of the ordinary and familiar, which brings the subject’s cultural assimilation of reality closer to a mental (sometimes artistic) experiment on it and, in the extreme, replaces the reflection of reality in elite culture with its transformation, imitation with deformation, penetration into meaning - conjecture and rethinking of the given;
• semantic and functional “closedness”, “narrowness”, isolation from the whole of national culture, which turns elite culture into a kind of secret, sacred, esoteric knowledge, taboo for the rest of the masses, and its bearers turn into a kind of “priests” of this knowledge, chosen ones of the gods , “servants of the muses”, “keepers of secrets and faith”, which is often played out and poeticized in elite culture.

The concept of subculture and counterculture

A subculture is a specific way of life, it is the realization of a person’s need for self-expression, personal development, satisfying the sense of beauty, and understanding one’s purpose in the world. Subcultures appear regardless of politics and economics. Material needs, their quantity and quality, associated with living conditions, cannot be significant for determining the reasons why a youth subculture appears.

a specific sphere of cultural creativity associated with the professional production of cultural texts, which subsequently acquire the status of cultural canons. The concept of "E.K." appears in Western cultural studies to designate cultural layers that are diametrically opposed in content to “profane” mass culture. Unlike communities of sacred or esoteric knowledge inherent in any type of culture, E.K. represents the sphere of industrial production of cultural samples, existing in constant interaction with various forms mass, local and marginal culture. At the same time, for E.K. characterized by a high degree of closedness, due to both specific technologies of intellectual work (forming a narrow professional community) and the need to master the techniques of consumption of complexly organized elite cultural products, i.e. a certain level of education. Samples of E.K. In the process of their assimilation, they imply the need for a targeted intellectual effort to “decipher” the author’s message. In fact, E.K. puts the recipient of an elite text in the position of a co-author, recreating in his mind a set of its meanings. Unlike mass culture products, elite cultural products are designed for repeated consumption and have fundamentally ambiguous content. E.K. sets the leading guidelines for the current type of culture, defining both the set of “intellectual games” inherent in “high” culture and the popular set of “low” genres and their heroes, reproducing the basic archetypes of the collective unconscious. Any cultural innovation becomes a cultural event only as a result of its conceptual design at the level of E.K., including it in the current cultural context and adapting it for mass consciousness. Thus, the “elite” status of specific forms of cultural creativity is determined not so much by their closeness (characteristic of marginal culture) and the complex organization of the cultural product (inherent and high-class mass production), but by their ability to significantly influence the life of society, modeling possible ways of its dynamics and creating scenarios adequate to social needs social action, ideological guidelines, artistic styles and forms of spiritual experience. Only in this case can we speak of the cultural elite as a privileged minority expressing the “spirit of the times” in their creativity.

Contrary to the romantic interpretation of E.K. as a self-sufficient “bead game” (Hesse) far from the pragmatism and vulgarity of the “profane” culture of the majority, the real status of E.K. most often associated with various forms of “playing with power”, servile and/or non-conformist dialogue with the current political elite, as well as the ability to work with the “grassroots”, “garbage” cultural space. Only in this case E.K. retains the ability to influence real situation affairs in society.