culture- this is the process of development of human strengths and abilities, an indicator of the measure of the human in a person, a process that receives its external expression in all the richness of reality created by people. Functions of culture- a set of roles that culture performs in relation to the community of people who generate and use (practice) it in their own interests; set of selected histories. experience of the most acceptable methods (technologies) in terms of their social significance and consequences for the implementation of the collective life of people. Multidimensional, multi-level structure allows it to carry out a number of functions:

1. Accumulation (accumulation) of tribal experience.

2. The function is epistemological, cognitive. (Covering all spheres of social consciousness, taken as a whole, culture gives a complete picture of the knowledge and development of the world, as well as the level of skills and abilities of people).

3. The function of historical exchange, the transfer of social experience. This function is called informational. Society has no other mechanism for the transmission of social experience, "social heredity", apart from culture. In this sense, culture can be called the "memory" of mankind.

4. Communicative function. Perceiving the information contained in the monuments of material and spiritual culture, a person thereby enters into indirect mediated communication with the people who created these monuments. First of all, language is the means of communication.

5. Regulatory and normative functions. Here it acts as a system of norms and requirements imposed by morality and law.

6. The significative function of culture is its ability; to develop holistic, meaningful ideas about the world and independence, philosophical and poetic worlds. For this culture has developed a stock of meanings, names, signs, language. Science, art, philosophy are specially organized sign systems, designed to represent the world from different sides, to make it understandable, meaningfully close to a person.

The transformative function of culture. Mastering and transforming the surrounding reality is a fundamental human need, since "the essence of a person is not limited to a tendency to self-preservation and, accordingly, a tendency to create conveniences; moreover, a specifically human essence is expressed in something else, in relation to which the created conveniences and the just the necessary base.

If we consider a person only as a creature striving for maximum convenience and self-preservation, then at some historical stage his expansion into the external environment should have stopped, since in the process of mastering and arranging the world there is always a certain amount of risk that persists with an increase in the size of transformations. . However, this does not happen. After all, a person is immanently inherent in the desire to go beyond the limits of the given given in transformation and creativity.

The protective function of culture is a consequence of the need to maintain a certain balanced relationship between man and the environment, both natural and social. The expansion of the spheres of human activity inevitably entails the emergence of more and more new dangers, which requires the culture to create adequate protection mechanisms (medicine, public order, technical and technological achievements, etc.). Moreover, the need for one type of protection stimulates the emergence of others. For example, the extermination of agricultural pests damages the environment and, in turn, requires means of environmental protection. The threat of ecological catastrophe now brings the protective function of culture into the category of paramount ones. Among the means of cultural protection is not only the improvement of safety measures - the purification of production waste, the synthesis of new medicines, etc., but also the creation of legal norms for nature protection.

The communicative function of culture. Communication is the process of exchanging information between people using signs and sign systems. Man, as a social being, needs to communicate with other people in order to achieve various goals. It is with the help of communication that complex actions are coordinated. The main channels of communication are visual, verbal, tactile. Culture produces specific rules and methods of communication that are adequate to the conditions of people's life.

The cognitive function of culture. The need for this function stems from the desire of any culture to create its own picture of the world. The process of cognition is characterized by the reflection and reproduction of reality in human thinking. Cognition is a necessary element of both labor and communication activities. There are both theoretical and practical forms of knowledge, as a result of which a person receives new knowledge about the world and himself.

Information function of culture ensures the process of cultural continuity and various forms of historical progress. It is manifested in the consolidation of the results of sociocultural activities, the accumulation, storage and systematization of information. In the modern era, information is doubling every fifteen years. S. Lem drew attention to the fact that the volume of unexplored problems increases in direct proportion to the amount of accumulated knowledge. The situation of "information explosion" required the creation of qualitatively new ways of processing, storing and transmitting information, more advanced information technologies.

Normative function of culture is due to the need to maintain balance and order in society, to bring the actions of various social groups and individuals into line with social needs and interests. The function of generally valid norms recognized in a particular culture is aimed at ensuring certainty, understandability, and predictability of behavior. You can name the legal norms that regulate the relationship between people, social institutions, individuals and social institutions; technical norms caused by industrial practice; ethical standards regulation Everyday life; environmental standards, etc. Many norms are closely related to the cultural tradition and way of life of the people.

In addition, other scientists also distinguish the following functions of culture:

Significative (sign) function of culture, literally - the function of assigning values ​​and values. Thanks to the significative function, culture appears as a meaningful representation of the world, no matter in what specific form this representation is expressed - in the form philosophical system, poems, myth, scientific theory. After all, it is with the help of signs, symbols, metaphors, formulas, numbers, names that a person determines for himself the world, and thereby builds a picture of the world. Every nation, country has its own sign system, which consists of verbal and non-verbal images and symbols.

Value (axiological) function of culture. Culture shows the significance or value of what is valuable in one culture and not so in another.

Spiritual and moral function of culture Culture instills and nurtures moral values ​​in a person.

Consumer (relaxation) function of culture. The function of relieving stress, tension. Of the natural ways of discharge - laughter, crying, fits of anger, screaming, confession. However, they belong to the category of individual and are not sufficient to relieve the collective tension. For such purposes, stylized forms of stress relief are used - entertainment, holidays, festivals, rituals.

From the foregoing, it becomes obvious that culture plays important role in life, which consists primarily in the fact that culture acts as a means of accumulation, storage and transmission of human experience.

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

Educational and educational function. You can say what culture does. An individual becomes a member of society, a person as he socializes, i.e. masters knowledge, language, symbols, values, norms, customs, traditions of his people, his own and all of humanity. The level of culture of an individual is determined by its socialization - familiarization with the cultural heritage, as well as the degree of development of individual abilities. The culture of personality is usually associated with developed creative abilities, erudition, understanding of works, fluency in native and foreign languages, accuracy, politeness, self-control, high morality, etc. All this is achieved in the process and.

Integrative and disintegrative functions of culture. For these functions Special attention drew in his studies E. Durkheim. According to E. Durkheim, the development of culture creates in people who are members of a particular community a sense of community, belonging to one nation, people, religion, group, etc. Thus, culture unites people, integrates them, ensures the integrity of the community. But uniting some on the basis of some subculture, it opposes them to others, and separates wider communities and communities. Within these broader communities and communities, cultural conflicts can arise. Thus, culture can and often performs a disintegrating function.

Regulatory function of culture. As noted earlier, in the course of socialization, values, ideals, norms and patterns of behavior become part of the self-consciousness of the individual. 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 school, at work, at home, etc., putting forward a system of prescriptions and prohibitions. Violation of these prescriptions and prohibitions triggers certain sanctions that are established by the community and supported by force. public opinion and various forms of institutional coercion.

The function of translation (transfer) of social experience often called the function of historical continuity, or informational. Culture, which is a complex sign system, transmits social experience from generation to generation, from era to era. In addition to culture, society has no 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 mankind.

Cognitive function (epistemological) is closely connected with the function of transferring 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 the richest knowledge about the world and thereby create favorable opportunities for its knowledge and development. It can be argued that a society is only as intelligent as it makes full use of the richest knowledge contained in the cultural gene pool of mankind. All types of society that live today on Earth differ significantly primarily on this basis.

Regulatory (normative) function connected primarily with the definition (regulation) of various aspects, types of social and personal activities of people. In the sphere of work, everyday life, interpersonal relations, culture in one way or another influences the behavior of people 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.

Sign function is the most important in the system of culture. Representing a certain sign system, culture implies knowledge, possession of it. It is impossible to master the achievements of culture without studying the corresponding sign systems. 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 for understanding the world of music, painting, theater. also have their own sign systems.

Value, or axiological, the function reflects the most important qualitative state of culture. Culture as a certain system of values ​​forms a person's well-defined value needs and orientations. 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 an appropriate assessment.

Social functions of culture

Social Features that culture performs allow people to carry out collective activities, in the best way to satisfy their needs. The main functions of culture are:

• social integration - ensuring the unity of mankind, a common worldview (with the help of myth, religion, philosophy);
• organization and regulation of the joint life of people through law, politics, morality, customs, ideology, etc.;
• provision of people's livelihoods (such as knowledge, communication, accumulation and transfer of knowledge, upbringing, education, stimulation of innovations, selection of values, etc.);
• regulation of individual spheres of human activity (culture of life, culture of recreation, culture of work, culture of food, etc.).

Thus, the system of culture is not only complex and diverse, but also very mobile. Culture is an indispensable component of the life of both society as a whole and its closely interconnected subjects: individuals,.

adaptive function

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

adaptive function is the most important function of culture, ensuring the adaptation of a person to environment. It is known that the adaptation of living organisms to their environment 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 that are most adapted to the environment, the preservation and transmission of useful traits to the next generations. But it happens in a completely different way: a person does not adapt to the environment, to changes in the environment, like other living organisms, but changes the environment in accordance with his needs, redoing it for himself.

When the environment is transformed, a new, artificial world is created - culture. In other words, a person cannot lead a natural way of life, like animals, and in order to survive, he creates an artificial habitat around himself, protecting himself from adverse conditions external environment. A person gradually becomes independent of natural conditions: if other living organisms can only live in a certain ecological niche, then a person is able to master any natural conditions for the estimates of the formation of an artificial world of culture.

Of course, a person cannot achieve complete independence from the environment, since the form of culture is largely due to natural conditions. The type of economy, dwellings, 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 way of life or engaged in sea fishing, etc. southern peoples many spices are used in cooking to delay spoilage in hot climates.

As culture develops, humanity provides itself with ever greater security and comfort. The quality of life is constantly improving. But having got rid of the old fears and dangers, a person stands face to face with new problems that he creates for himself. For example, today you can not be afraid of the formidable diseases of the past - plague or smallpox, but new diseases, such as AIDS, have appeared for which no cure has yet been found, and others are waiting in the wings in military laboratories. deadly diseases created by man himself. Therefore, a person needs to protect himself not only from the natural habitat, 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 protecting a person - the means of protection necessary for a person from outside world. These are all the products of culture that help a person to survive and feel confident in the world: the use of fire, the storage of food and other necessary things, the creation of productive agriculture, medicine, etc. At the same time, they 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 extermination and death - state structures, laws, customs, traditions, moral standards, etc.

On the other hand, there are non-specific means of protecting a person - 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 "doubling the world", separating in it sensory-objective and ideal-figurative layers. Linking culture with the ideal image world, we get the most important property of culture - to be a picture of the world, a certain grid of images and meanings through which the surrounding world is perceived. 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 outside world is perceived through this symbolic grid, it has a place in this system of meanings, and it will be assessed as useful, harmful or indifferent to a person.

Sign function

Sign, 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. Having given a name to an object or phenomenon and assessing it as threatening, a person simultaneously receives the necessary information that allows him to act in order to avoid danger, since when marking a threat, it is not only given a name, but it fits into the hierarchy of being. Let's take an example. Each of us at least once in his life was sick (not with a mild cold, but with some fairly serious illness). At the same time, a person experiences not only painful sensations, feelings of weakness and helplessness. Usually, in this state, unpleasant thoughts come to mind, including about a possible fatal outcome, the symptoms of all diseases that you have heard about are recalled. The situation is straightforward according to J. Jerome, one of the heroes of whose novel "Three Men in a Boat, Not Counting the Dog", studying a medical reference book, found in himself all diseases, 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 inscribing it in the picture of the world, which automatically gave information about possible means of combating it.

We can say that culture as an image and picture of the world is an ordered and balanced scheme of the cosmos, 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 ethnic group are fragmentarily aware of its content, in full it is available only a small number specialist in cultural studies. The basis of this picture of the world are ethnic constants - the values ​​and norms of ethnic culture.

cognitive function

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 thus creates favorable opportunities for its knowledge and development. Of course, knowledge is acquired not only in science, but also in other areas of culture, but there they are 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 of only European civilization and culture, while other peoples chose a different way of understanding the world around them. So, in the East for this purpose were created the most complex systems philosophy and psychotechnics. They seriously discussed such ways of understanding the world, unusual for rational European minds, as telepathy (transmission of thoughts at a distance), telekinesis (the ability to influence objects with thought), clairvoyance (the ability to predict the future), etc.

Accumulation function

Information accumulation and storage function is inextricably linked with the cognitive function, since knowledge, information are the result of cognition 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 correctly assess it, admit his mistakes; must know who he is, where he comes from and where he is going. To answer these questions, man has created sign systems that collect, organize 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 fix this understanding, structure it. Humanity has only one way to preserve, multiply and disseminate 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, fixed in the 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. Recently, electronic means of storing information have begun to play an increasingly important role. Society also created special institutions to perform this function of culture - libraries, schools and universities, archives, other services for collecting and processing information.

Communicative function

The communicative function of culture provides communication between people. A person cannot solve any problem of any complexity without the help of other people. People enter into communication in the process of any kind labor activity. Without communication with his own kind, a person cannot become a full-fledged member of society, develop his abilities. A long separation from society leads the 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 gives people the means to communicate. In turn, communicating, people create, preserve and develop culture.

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

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:

• coding of information to be transmitted to the addressee, i.e. translating it into some symbolic form;
• transmission over communication channels, while interference and loss of some information are possible;
• decoding of the message received 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, more or less losses in it are inevitable. The effectiveness of communication is ensured by a number of cultural conditions, such as the presence of a common language, channels of information transmission, appropriate motivation, ethical, semiotic rules, which ultimately determine who, 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. On the early stages In the history of mankind, the possibilities of communication were limited to direct contacts between people, and in order to transmit information, they had to approach at a distance of direct visibility and audibility. Over time, people have found a way to increase the range of communication, 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. AT modern world The mass 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.

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

The integrative function of culture is related to communicative and is connected with the fact that culture unites any social communities - peoples, social groups and states. The basis of the unity of such groups are: a common language, a single system of values ​​and ideals, creating a common worldview, as well as general rules regulating the behavior of people in society. As a result, there is a sense of community with people who are members of their own group, as opposed to other people who are perceived as "strangers". Because of this, the whole world is divided into “us” and “them”, into We and Them. As a rule, a person has more confidence in "their own" than in "strangers" who speak an incomprehensible language and behave incorrectly. Therefore, communication between representatives different cultures are always difficult, there is a high risk of mistakes that give rise to conflicts and even wars. But recently, in connection with the processes of globalization, the development of mass media and communication, intercultural contacts are being strengthened and expanded. This is largely facilitated by modern Mass culture, thanks to which many people in different countries books, music, achievements of science and technology, fashion, etc. become available. The Internet plays a particularly important role in this process. It can be said that the integrative function of culture has recently contributed to the rallying not only of individual social and ethnic groups but of humanity as a whole.

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

In any human communities, it is necessary to regulate the behavior of their constituent individuals in order to maintain balance within the community itself and for the survival of each individual. The products of culture that a person has at his disposal outline the field of his possible activity, make it possible to predict the development of various events, but do not determine how

a person must act in a given situation. Each person must consciously and responsibly perform 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 subconsciousness.

The norms of human behavior, both permissive and prohibitive, are an indication of the permissible limits and boundaries within which a person must act in order for his behavior to receive a positive assessment of other people and society as a whole. Every culture has its own code of conduct. There are cultures with a strong normative side (China) and cultures in which normativity is less pronounced (European cultures). The question of the existence of universal norms remains debatable.

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

Regulatory function culture is carried out at several levels:

• morality and all norms that are strictly observed, despite the absence of special controlling institutions; violation of these norms is met with sharp condemnation of society;
• rules of law, which are detailed in the constitution and laws of the country. Their observance is controlled by specially created institutions - the court, the prosecutor's office, the police, the penitentiary system;
• customs and traditions, which are a stable system of people's behavior in different spheres of life and different situations, which has become the norm and is passed down from generation to generation. As a rule, they take the form of a certain stereotype, they are stable for centuries with any social changes;
• norms of human behavior at work, at home, in communication with other people, in relation to nature, including a wide range of requirements - from elementary neatness and observance of good manners to general requirements for the spiritual world of man.

Axiological (evaluative) function 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 one or another object, state, need, goal in accordance with the criterion of their usefulness for human life and help society and a person 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 at all in another. Each nation forms its own hierarchy of values, although the set of values ​​has a universal character. Therefore, it is possible to conditionally classify the core values ​​as follows:

• vital values ​​- life, health, safety, well-being, strength, etc.;
• social - social status, work, profession, personal independence, family, gender equality;
• political - freedom of speech, civil liberties, legality,
• civil world;
• moral - good, good, love, friendship, duty, honor, disinterestedness, decency, fidelity, 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 above values. In addition, each culture represents certain values ​​in its own way. So, the ideals of beauty among different nations are quite different. For example, in medieval China aristocratic women, in accordance with the then existing ideal of beauty, should have tiny feet; the desired was achieved by painful foot-binding procedures, which girls from the age of five were subjected to, as a result of which they became literally crippled.

Values ​​guide people's behavior. A person cannot equally treat the opposites that make up the world, he must give preference to one thing. Most people believe that they are striving for goodness, truth, love, but what seems good to one may turn out to be evil for others. This again leads to cultural specificity of values. Based on our ideas about good and evil, we act as “appraisers” of the world around us all our lives.

Recreative function of culture(mental release) is the opposite of the normative function. Regulation and regulation of behavior are necessary, but their consequence is the restriction of 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 of communication, unsatisfied needs for love, faith, immortality, intimate contact with another person. Not all of these tensions are rationally resolvable. Therefore, culture is faced with the task of creating organized and relatively safe ways detentes that do not violate social stability.

The simplest, most natural individual means of discharge are laughter, crying, fits of anger, confession, declaration of love, speaking frankly. Specifically cultural collective forms of detente fixed by tradition are holidays and leisure freed from direct participation in production. On holidays, people do not work, do not observe everyday life standards, organize processions, carnivals, and feasts. The meaning of the holiday is the solemn collective renewal of life. During the holiday, the ideal and the real seem to merge, a person who is attached to the festive culture and knows how to celebrate feels relief and joy. Holidays also take place according to certain rules - with the observance of the appropriate place and time, playing stable roles. With the destruction of these formalities and the intensification of sensual inclinations, physiological pleasure can become an end in itself and will be achieved at any cost; as a result, alcoholism, drug addiction and other vices will appear.

Rituals also represent a means of collective relaxation and regulate the most important moments in people's lives related to the sphere of the sacred (sacred) in a given culture. Among the ritual events are birth and death, marriage, rites of growing up (initiation), which are especially important in primitive and traditional cultures. This group also includes religious rituals and ceremonies, the performance of which is one of the best ways of compensation created by culture. The rituals are characterized by a special solemnity, cultural richness.

Also, as a collective relaxation, a game is effectively used that satisfies the desires by symbolic means. The symbolism of the game will create a special psychological setting, when a person both believes and does not believe in what is happening, it encourages him to use all his strength and skill to achieve the goal. The game allows you to defuse unconscious impulses that are forbidden or unclaimed by culture. So, in many games there are competitive, sexual motives - sports, lottery, contests, dances. In games such as collecting, hoarding drives are realized, which are evaluated in everyday life as a manifestation of greed. Finally, there are games that play on the meaning of death - bullfighting, gladiator fights.

On the one hand, today we can talk about the humanization of games, the replacement of many entertainments of the past, such as street fistfights and public executions, with sports, television, and cinema. But on the other hand, cinema and television show many scenes of violence in films and programs, traumatizing the psyche of people, especially children.

The function of socialization and inculturation, or human-creative function, is the most important function of culture. Socialization is the process of assimilation by a human individual of certain knowledge, norms and values ​​necessary for life as a full member of society, and inculturation is the process of assimilation of skills and knowledge necessary for life in a particular culture. These close processes are possible only with the help of systems of upbringing and education specially created by culture. Outside of society, these processes are impossible, so a real person would never have come out of Mowgli or Tarzan. Children who, for some reason, grow up among animals, remain animals forever.

The processes of socialization and inculturation involve the active inner work of the person himself, striving to acquire the information necessary for life. Therefore, having mastered the complex of knowledge that is obligatory for a given culture, a person begins to develop his individual abilities, their natural inclinations. This may be the development of musical or artistic ability, mathematical or technical knowledge, something that may be useful in mastering a future profession or will become a person's occupation during leisure hours.

Socialization and inculturation continue throughout a person's life, but the most important knowledge is acquired in childhood. Then the child learns to speak mother tongue learns the norms and values ​​of their culture. This mostly happens automatically when the child imitates first the behavior of the parents and then of peers, teachers and other adults. This is how the social experience accumulated by the people is assimilated, the cultural tradition is preserved and passed on from generation to generation, which ensures the stability of culture.

Based on the generalization of all the knowledge about culture, its structure and components obtained in the course of the work, it is possible to determine its main social functions.

1. The adaptive function of culture. Culture ensures the adaptation of a person to the environment, natural and historical conditions of his habitat. The word adaptation (from lat. adaptayio) means adjustment, adaptation. Every kind of living creature adapts to its environment. In plants and animals, this happens in the process of biological evolution due to variability, heredity and natural selection, through which the features of body organs and behavioral mechanisms that ensure survival in given environmental conditions (its ecological niche) function and are genetically transmitted from generation to generation. ). Human adaptation is different. Man, due to the peculiarities of his biological evolution, does not have an ecological niche assigned to him. He lacks instincts, his biological organization is not adapted to any stable form of animal existence. Therefore, he is not able to lead, like other animals, a natural way of life and is forced, in order to survive, to create an artificial, cultural environment around himself. Biological incompleteness, lack of specialization, inability of the human race to a certain ecological niche turned into the ability to master any natural conditions by forming artificial conditions for its existence - culture. The development of culture gave people the protection that nature did not provide them with: the possibility of accumulating experience and translating it into norms, rules and forms of direct life support (food, warmth, housing), the collective security of the community (defense), the individual security of community members, their property and legitimate interests (law enforcement system), etc. Ultimately, all man-made material culture, social organization, the system of economic, political and social relations perform an adaptive role.

2. Closely related to the adaptive function integrative function culture that ensures the social integration of people. At the same time, we can talk about different levels of social integration. The most common level of social integration is the formation of foundations, their sustainable collective existence and activities to jointly satisfy interests and needs, stimulating an increase in the level of their group solidarity and the effectiveness of interaction, the accumulation of social experience in guaranteed social reproduction of their teams as sustainable communities.

The second level of social integration should include the provision by culture of the basic forms of the integrated existence of human communities. Culture unites peoples, social groups, states. Any social community in which its own culture is formed is held together by this culture, because a single set of views, beliefs, values, ideals, patterns of behavior characteristic of this culture is spread among the members of society. On this basis, the consolidation and self-identification of people is carried out, a sense of belonging to a given social community is formed - a sense of "we";

However, solidarity between “ours” can be accompanied by wariness and even hostility towards “strangers”. The formation of group solidarity presupposes the existence of representatives of circles - "they". Therefore, the integration function has its own reverse side disintegration of people, which can lead to the most negative consequences. History shows that cultural differences between communities often became the cause of confrontation and enmity.

3. Integration of people is carried out on the basis of communication. Therefore, it is important to highlight communicative function of culture. Culture forms the conditions and means of human communication. Only through the assimilation of culture between people are established truly human forms of communication, since it is culture that provides the means of communication - sign systems, assessments. The development of forms and methods of communication is the most important aspect cultural history humanity. At the earliest stages of anthropogenesis, our distant ancestors could come into contact with each other only through direct perception of gestures and sounds. A fundamentally new means of communication was articulate speech. With its development, people received unusually wide opportunities for transmitting various information to each other. Later, written speech and many specialized languages, service and technical symbols are formed: mathematical, natural science, topographic, drawing, music, computer, etc .; there are systems for fixing information in a graphic, sound, visual and other technical form, its replication and broadcasting, as well as institutions involved in the accumulation, preservation and dissemination of information.

4. Socialization function. Culture is the most important factor of socialization, which determines its content, means and methods. Socialization is understood as the inclusion of individuals in public life, their assimilation of social experience, knowledge, values, norms of behavior corresponding to a given society, social group. In the course of socialization, people master the programs stored in the culture and learn to live, think and act in accordance with them. The process of socialization allows the individual to become a full-fledged member of the community, take a certain position in it and live as required by the customs and traditions of this community. At the same time, this process ensures the preservation of the community, its structure and the forms of life that have developed in it. AT historical process The “personal composition” of society and social groups is constantly updated, performers change, as people are born and die, but thanks to socialization, new members of society join the accumulated social experience and continue to follow the patterns of behavior fixed in this experience. Of course, social life does not stand still, certain changes are taking place in it. But any innovation public life, one way or another, are determined by the forms of life and ideals inherited from the ancestors and are also transmitted from generation to generation due to socialization.

According to G.V. fight, culture - as a multifunctional system, has another very important function - transmission (transmission) of social experience. She is often called function of historical continuity. Culture, which is a complex sign system, is the only mechanism for the transfer of social experience from generation to generation, from era to era, from one country to another. Therefore, it is no coincidence that culture is considered the social memory of mankind. The break in cultural continuity dooms new generations to the loss of social memory (the phenomenon of mankurtism) with all the ensuing consequences.

According to other classifications, the functions of culture include:

1) Cognitive or epistemological. Culture, concentrating in itself the best social experience of many generations of people, immanently acquires the ability to accumulate the richest knowledge about the world and thereby create favorable opportunities for its knowledge and development. The need for this function stems from the desire of any culture to create its own picture of the world. The process of cognition is characterized by the reflection and reproduction of reality in human thinking. Cognition is a necessary element of both labor and communication activities. exist as theoretical

and practical forms of knowledge, as a result of which a person receives new knowledge about the world and himself.

2) Regulatory (normative) function culture is connected, first of all, with the definition (regulation) of various aspects, types of social and personal activities of people. In the sphere of work, everyday life, interpersonal relations, culture, one way or another, influences the behavior of people and regulates their actions, actions, and even the choice of certain material and spiritual values. The regulatory function of culture is based on such normative systems as morality and law.

3) Semiotic or sign(from the Greek semeion - the doctrine of signs) function- occupies an important place in the system of culture. Representing a certain sign system, culture implies knowledge and possession of it. It is impossible to master the achievements of culture without studying the corresponding sign systems. So, the language (oral or written) is a means of communication between people, the literary language is the most important means of mastering the national culture. Specific languages ​​are needed for cognition special world music, painting, theatre. The natural sciences (physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology) also have their own sign systems.

4) Value or axiological function reflects the most important qualitative state of culture. Culture as a system of values ​​forms a person's well-defined value needs and orientations. 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 an appropriate assessment.

N.G. Bagdasaryan identifies the following among the functions of culture: transformative, protective, communicative, cognitive, informational, normative. Let's start with their description.

1) transform function culture. Mastering and transforming the surrounding reality is a fundamental human need, since “the essence of a person is not limited to a tendency to self-preservation and, accordingly, a tendency to create conveniences, moreover, a specifically human essence is expressed in something else, in relation to which the comforts created and the resulting self- just the necessary base.

If we consider a person only as a creature striving for maximum convenience and self-preservation, then at some historical stage his expansion into the external environment should have stopped, since in the process of mastering and arranging the world there is always a certain amount of risk that persists with an increase in the size of transformations. . However, this does not happen. After all, a person is immanently inherent in the desire to go beyond the limits of the given given in transformation and creativity.

2) The protective function of culture is a consequence of the need to maintain a certain balanced relationship between man and the environment, both natural and social. The expansion of the spheres of human activity inevitably entails the emergence of more and more new dangers, which requires the culture to create adequate protection mechanisms (medicine, public order, technical and technological achievements, etc.). Moreover, the need for one type of protection stimulates the emergence of others. For example, the extermination of agricultural pests damages the environment and requires, in turn, means of environmental protection. The threat of ecological catastrophe now brings the protective function of culture into the category of paramount ones. Among the means of cultural protection is not only the improvement of safety measures - the purification of production waste, the synthesis of new medicines, etc., but also the creation of legal norms for nature protection.

3) The communicative function of culture. Communication is the process of exchanging information between people using signs and sign systems. Man, as a social being, needs to communicate with other people in order to achieve various goals. It is with the help of communication that complex actions are coordinated. The main channels of communication are visual, verbal, tactile. Culture produces specific rules and methods of communication that are adequate to the conditions of people's life.

4) Information function culture provides a process of cultural continuity and various forms of historical progress. It manifests itself in the consolidation of the results of socio-cultural activities, the accumulation, storage and systematization of information. In the modern era, information is doubling every fifteen years. S. Lem drew attention to the fact that the volume of unexplored problems increases in direct proportion to the amount of accumulated knowledge. The situation of the "information explosion" required the creation of qualitatively new ways of processing, storing and transmitting information, more advanced information technologies.

5) normative function culture is due to the need to maintain balance and order in society, to bring the actions of various social groups and individuals into line with social needs and interests. The function of generally valid norms recognized in a particular culture is aimed at ensuring certainty, understandability, and predictability of behavior. One can name the legal norms regulating the relationship between people, social institutions, individuals and social institutions; technical norms caused by industrial practice; ethical standards for the regulation of everyday life; environmental standards, etc. Many norms are closely related to the cultural tradition and way of life of the people.

Thus, whatever is the basis of the functional analysis of the phenomenon of culture, the main thing here is that all the richness and integrity of each culture forms a certain way of understanding both the world and being in it. The result of this specific vision of the world in which a person lives is called the cultural picture of the world. - a system of images, ideas, knowledge about the structure of the world and the place of man in this world. So, in the end, the semantic connections formed due to culture form those fundamental rhythms, images and meanings of human life, those spatial and temporal dependencies that constitute the prerequisite for the cultural process.

From all of the above, it becomes obvious that culture plays an important role in the life of society, which consists primarily in the fact that culture acts as a means of accumulation, storage and transmission of human experience.

By the way, this role of culture is realized through a number of functions:

Educational and educational function. We can say that it is culture that makes a person a person. An individual becomes a member of society, a person in the process of socialization, i.e., understanding of knowledge, language, symbols, values, norms, customs, traditions of his people, his social group and all of humanity. The level of culture of an individual is determined by its 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 ϶ᴛᴏ is achieved in the process of upbringing and education.

Integrative and disintegrative functions of culture. E. Durkheim paid special attention to these functions in their studies. According to E. Durkheim, the perception of culture creates in people - members of a particular community a sense of community, belonging to one nation, people, religion, group, etc. Based on all of the above, we come to the conclusion that culture unites people, integrates them, ensures the integrity of the community. But by rallying some on the basis of some subculture, it opposes them to others, separating wider communities and communities. Cultural conflicts can arise within these broader communities and communities. Proceeding from all of the above, we come to the conclusion that culture can and often performs a disintegrating function.

Regulatory function of culture. As noted earlier, in the course of socialization, values, ideals, norms and patterns of behavior become part of the self-consciousness of the individual. It is worth noting that they shape and regulate her behavior. We can say that culture as a whole determines the framework in which a person can and should act. Culture regulates human behavior in the family, at school, at work, at home, etc., putting forward a system of prescriptions and prohibitions. Violation of these prescriptions and prohibitions triggers certain sanctions, which are established by the community and supported by the power of public opinion and various forms of institutional coercion.

The function of translation (transfer) of social experience often called the function of historical continuity, or informational. Culture, which is a complex sign system, transmits social experience from generation to generation, from era to era. In addition to culture, society has no other mechanisms for concentrating all the wealth of experience that has been accumulated by people. Therefore, it is no coincidence that culture is considered the social memory of mankind.

Cognitive function (epistemological) is closely connected with the function of transferring 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 the richest knowledge about the world and thereby create favorable opportunities for its knowledge and understanding. It can be argued that a society is only as intelligent as it makes full use of the richest knowledge contained in the cultural gene pool of mankind. All types of society that live today on Earth differ significantly, primarily on the basis of ϶ᴛᴏ.

Regulatory (normative) function connected primarily with the definition (regulation) of various aspects, types of social and personal activities of people. In the sphere of work, everyday life, interpersonal relations, culture in one way or another influences the behavior of people 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.

Sign function will be the most important in the system of culture. Representing a certain sign system, culture implies knowledge, possession of it. It is impossible to master the achievements of culture without studying ϲᴏᴏᴛʙᴇᴛϲᴛʙ sign systems. So, language (oral or written) will be a means of communication between people. The literary language acts as the most important means of mastering the national culture. Specific languages ​​are needed for understanding the world of music, painting, theater. The natural sciences also have their own sign systems.

Value, or axiological, the function demonstrates the most important qualitative state of culture. Culture as a certain system of values ​​forms a person's well-defined value needs and orientations. By their level and quality, people most often judge the degree of culture of a person. Moral and intellectual content is traditionally the criterion of ϲᴏᴏᴛʙᴇᴛϲᴛʙevaluation.

Social functions of culture

Social Features, which culture implements, allow people to carry out collective activities, satisfying their needs in the best way. The main functions of culture ᴏᴛʜᴏϲᴙ are:

• social integration - ensuring the unity of mankind, a common worldview (with the help of myth, religion, philosophy);
• organization and regulation of the joint life of people through law, politics, morality, customs, ideology, etc.;
• provision of people's livelihoods (such as knowledge, communication, accumulation and transfer of knowledge, upbringing, education, stimulation of innovations, selection of values, etc.);
• regulation of certain spheres of human activity (life culture, recreation culture, labor culture, food culture, etc.)

Based on all of the above, we come to the conclusion that the system of culture is not only complex and diverse, but also very mobile. Culture is an indispensable component of the life of both society as a whole and its closely interconnected subjects: individuals, social communities, social institutions.

adaptive function

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

adaptive function will be the most important function of culture, ensuring the adaptation of man to the environment. It is known that the adaptation of living organisms to the environment of their habitat will be 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 that are most adapted to the environment, the preservation and transmission of useful traits to the next generations. But it happens in a completely different way: a person does not adapt to the environment, to changes in the environment, like other living organisms, but changes the environment in ϲᴏᴏᴛʙᴇᴛϲᴛʙii with ϲʙᴛʙi with their needs, remaking it for himself.

When the environment is transformed, a new, artificial world is created - culture. In other words, a person cannot lead a natural way of life, like animals, and, in order to survive, he creates an artificial habitat around himself, protecting himself from adverse environmental conditions. A person gradually becomes independent of natural conditions: if other living organisms can only live in a certain ecological niche, then a person is able to oϲʙᴏ any natural conditions beyond the estimate of the formation of an artificial world of culture.

Of course, a person cannot achieve complete independence from the environment, since the form of culture is largely due to natural conditions. The type of economy, dwellings, 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 way of life or engaged in sea fishing, etc. Southern peoples use a lot of spices in cooking to delay its spoilage in a hot climate.

As culture develops, humanity provides itself with ever greater security and comfort. The quality of life is constantly improving. But having got rid of the old fears and dangers, a person stands face to face with new problems, which he creates for himself. For example, today you can not be afraid of the formidable 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 habitat, but also from the world of culture, artificially created by man himself.

The adaptive function has a dual nature.
From one point of view, it will be in the creation of specific means of protecting a person - the means of protection necessary for a person from the outside world. These are all the products of culture that help a person to survive and feel confident in the world: the use of fire, the storage of food and other necessary things, the creation of productive agriculture, medicine, etc. When ϶ᴛᴏm, they are 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 extermination and death - state structures, laws, customs, traditions, moral standards, etc. .d.

On the other hand, there are non-specific means of protecting a person - 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 "doubling the world", separating in it sensual-objective and ideal-figurative layers. Linking culture with the ideal image world, we get the most important property of culture - to be a picture of the world, a certain grid of images and meanings, through which the surrounding world is perceived. 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 outside world is perceived through this symbolic grid, it has a place in the ϶ᴛᴏth system of meanings, and it will be assessed as useful, harmful or indifferent to a person.

Sign function

Sign, significative function(taking names) 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. Having given a name to an object or phenomenon and assessing it as threatening, a person simultaneously receives the necessary information that allows him to act in order to avoid danger, because when marking a threat, it is not only given a name, but it fits into the hierarchy of being. Let's take an example. Note that each of us at least once in our life was ill (not with a mild cold, but with some rather serious illness). With ϶ᴛᴏm, a person experiences not only painful sensations, feelings of weakness and helplessness. Usually, in this state, unpleasant thoughts come to mind, incl. about a possible fatal outcome, the symptoms of all diseases are recalled, about which one has heard. The situation is straightforward according to J. Jerome, one of the heroes of his novel “Three Men in a Boat, Not Counting the Dog”, studying a medical reference book, found all the diseases in him, except for puerperal fever. In other words, a person is afraid 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 inscribing it in the picture of the world, which automatically gave information about possible means of combating it.

We can say that culture as an image and picture of the world is an ordered and balanced scheme of the cosmos, it will be the prism through which a person looks at the world. It is worth noting that it is expressed through philosophy, literature, mythology, ideology and in human actions. It is important to know that the majority of the members of an ethnos are aware of its content in a fragmentary way; in full, it is available to an exceptionally small number of specialists in cultural studies.
It is worth noting that the basis of the ϶ᴛᴏth picture of the world will be ethnic constants - the values ​​and norms of ethnic culture.

cognitive function

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 thus creates favorable opportunities for its knowledge and understanding. Of course, knowledge is acquired not only in science, but also in other areas of culture, but there they will be a by-product of human activity, and in science, obtaining objective knowledge about the world will be the most important goal.

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

Accumulation function

Information accumulation and storage function is inextricably linked with the cognitive function, since knowledge, information will be the result of knowing 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 the past, be able to correctly assess it, recognize ϲʙᴏ and mistakes; must know who he is, where he comes from and where he is going. It is worth saying that in order to get an answer to these questions, a person created sign systems that collect, systematize and store the necessary information. With ϶ᴛᴏm, 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 fix ϶ᴛᴏ understanding, structure it. Humanity has only one way to preserve, multiply and disseminate 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, fixed in the language and spiritual culture, symbolic and material means of storing information - books, works of art, any objects created by man, since they will also be texts. Recently, electronic means of storing information have begun to play an increasingly important role. Society also created special institutions to perform this function of culture - libraries, schools and universities, archives, other services for collecting and processing information.

Communicative function

The communicative function of culture provides communication between people. A person cannot solve any problem of any complexity without the help of other people. People enter into communication in the process of any kind of labor activity.
Without communication with his own kind, a person cannot become a full-fledged member of society, develop ϲʙᴏ and abilities. It is worth saying that a long separation from society leads the individual to mental and spiritual degradation, turning him into an animal. Culture is the condition and result of human communication. Only through the improvement of culture do people become members of society. Culture gives people the means to communicate. At the same time, communicating, people create, preserve and develop culture.

Nature has not endowed a person with the ability to establish emotional contacts, exchange information without the help of signs, sounds, letters, and for communication, a person has created various means of cultural communication. Information can be transmitted in verbal (verbal) ways, non-verbal (facial expressions, gestures, postures, distance of communication, information that is transmitted through material objects, for example, with the help of clothing, especially uniforms) and paraverbal (rate of speech, intonation, loudness, articulation, pitch of voice etc.)

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:

• coding of information, which should be transmitted to the addressee, i.e. translating it into some symbolic form;
• transmission through communication channels, with ϶ᴛᴏm interference and loss of some information are possible;
• decoding of the message received 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, more or less losses in it are inevitable. The effectiveness of communication is ensured by a number of cultural conditions, such as the presence of a common language, channels of information transmission, ϲᴏᴏᴛʙᴇᴛϲᴛʙshaping motivation, data, semiotic rules, which ultimately determine who, what, when and how can be reported and from whom and when to expect a response message.

The development of forms and methods of communication will be 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 approach at a distance of direct visibility and audibility. Over time, people have found a way to increase the range of communication, for example, with the help of special devices. This is how signal drums and bonfires appeared. But their capabilities were limited to the transmission of 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. Let us note the fact that in the modern world the mass 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.

Let us note the fact that 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 the erasure of national characteristics and contributes to the formation of a single universal civilization, i.e. globalization processes. These processes, in turn, stimulate the intensive progress of means of communication, which is expressed in an increase in the power and range of means of communication, an increase in information flows, and an increase in the speed of information transmission. Along with this, the mutual understanding of people, their ability to sympathize and empathy are progressing.

The integrative function of culture is related to communicative and is connected with the fact that culture unites any social communities - peoples, social groups and states.
It is worth noting that the basis for the unity of such groups will be: a common language, a single system of values ​​and ideals that creates a common view of the world, as well as common norms that regulate the behavior of people in society. As a result, there is a sense of community with people who are members of this group, as opposed to other people, who are perceived as "strangers". By virtue of ϶ᴛᴏgo, the whole world is divided into “ϲʙᴏ them” and “strangers”, into We and It is worth noting - they. As a rule, a person has more confidence in "them" than in "strangers" who speak an incomprehensible language and behave incorrectly. Therefore, communication between representatives of different cultures is always difficult, there is a high risk of mistakes that give rise to conflicts and even wars. But recently, in connection with the processes of globalization, the development of mass media and communication, intercultural contacts are being strengthened and expanded. This is largely facilitated by modern mass culture, thanks to which many people in different countries have access to books, music, achievements in science and technology, fashion, etc.
It should be noted that the Internet plays a particularly important role in this process. It can be said that the integrative function of culture has recently contributed to the rallying not only of individual social and ethnic groups, but of humanity as a whole.

Normative (regulatory) function culture will remain as a system of norms and requirements of society for all its members in all areas of their life and activity - work, life, family, intergroup, interethnic, interpersonal relations.

In any human communities, it is extremely important to regulate the behavior of the individuals that make them up in order to maintain balance within the community itself and for the survival of each individual. The products of culture, which a person has, outline the field of his possible activity, allow predicting the development of various events, but do not determine how

a person must act in a given situation. Note that each person must consciously and responsibly perform ϲʙᴏ and actions, based on the norms and requirements for human behavior, which have historically developed in society and are clearly entrenched in our consciousness and subconscious.

The norms of human behavior, both permissive and prohibitive, are an indication of the permissible limits and boundaries in which a person must act in order for his behavior to receive a positive assessment of other people and society as a whole. Every culture has accepted ϲʙᴏ and norms of behavior. There are cultures with a strong normative side (China) and cultures in which normativity is less pronounced (European cultures). The question of the existence of universal norms remains debatable.

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

Regulatory function culture is carried out at several levels:

• morality and all norms that are strictly observed, despite the absence of special controlling institutions; violation of these norms is met with sharp condemnation of society;
• rules of law, which are detailed in the constitution and laws of the country. Their observance is controlled by specially created institutions - the court, the prosecutor's office, the police, the penitentiary system;
• customs and traditions, which are a stable system of people's behavior in different spheres of life and different situations, which has become the norm and is passed down from generation to generation. As a rule, they take the form of a certain stereotype, they are stable for centuries with any social changes;
• norms of human behavior at work, at home, in communication with other people, in relation to nature, including a wide range of requirements - from elementary neatness and observance of good manners to general requirements for the spiritual world of man.

Axiological (evaluative) function 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, to achieve which people strive. Values ​​imply the choice of one or another object, state, need, goal in ϲᴏᴏᴛʙᴇᴛϲᴛʙii with the criterion of their usefulness for human life and help society and a person 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. Material published on http: // site
In the course of the accumulation of experience, values ​​are formed and disappear, revised and enriched.

Values ​​provide the specificity of each culture. What is important in one culture may not be important at all in another. Each nation forms a ϲʙᴏ th hierarchy of values, although the set of values ​​has a universal character. Therefore, it is possible to conditionally classify the core values ​​as follows:

• vital values ​​- life, health, safety, well-being, strength, etc.;
• social - social status, work, profession, personal independence, family, gender equality;
• political - ϲʙᴏboda of the word, civil ϲʙᴏboda, legality,
• civil world;
• moral - good, good, love, friendship, duty, honor, disinterestedness, decency, fidelity, justice, respect for elders, love for children;
• aesthetic values ​​- beauty, ideal, style, harmony, fashion, originality.

It is worth saying that every society, every culture is guided by the ϲʙᴏth set of values, in which some of the above values ​​may be absent. Excluding the above, each culture in its own way represents certain values. So, the ideals of beauty among different nations are quite different. For example, in medieval China, aristocratic women in ϲᴏᴏᴛʙᴇᴛϲᴛʙii with the then existing ideal of beauty should have tiny feet; the desired was achieved by painful foot-binding procedures, to which girls from the age of five were subjected, and as a result of which they became literally crippled.

Values ​​guide people's behavior. A person cannot have the same attitude towards opposites, of which the world consists, he must give preference to one thing. It is important to know that most people believe that they are striving for goodness, truth, love, but what seems good to one may turn out to be evil for others. This again leads to cultural specificity of values. Based on our ideas about good and evil, we act as “appraisers” of the world around us all our lives.

Recreative function of culture(mental release) is the opposite of the normative function. Regulation and regulation of behavior are necessary, but their consequence will be the limitation of the body 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 of communication, unsatisfied needs for love, faith, immortality, intimate contact with another person. Not all of these stresses are rationally resolvable. Therefore, culture is faced with the task of creating organized and relatively safe ways of detente that do not violate social stability. Material published on http: // site

The simplest, most natural individual means of discharge are laughter, crying, fits of anger, confession, declaration of love, speaking frankly. Specifically cultural collective forms of detente fixed by tradition are holidays and leisure freed from direct participation in production. On holidays, people do not work, do not observe everyday life standards, organize processions, carnivals, and feasts. The meaning of the holiday is the solemn collective renewal of life. During the holiday, the ideal and the real seem to merge, a person who is attached to the festive culture and knows how to celebrate feels relief and joy. Holidays also take place according to certain rules - with the observance of the ϲᴏᴏᴛʙᴇᴛϲᴛʙ of a given place and time, playing stable roles. With the destruction of these formalities and the strengthening of sensual inclinations, physiological pleasure can become an end in itself and will be achieved at any cost; as a result, alcoholism, drug addiction and other vices will appear.

Rituals are also a means of collective relaxation and regulate the most important moments in people's lives, ᴏᴛʜᴏϲᴙ approaching the sphere of the sacred (sacred) in a given culture. Among the ritual events are birth and death, marriage, rites of growing up (initiation), which are especially important in primitive and traditional cultures. This group also includes religious rituals and ceremonies, the performance of which will be one of the best ways of compensation created by culture. It is worth saying that the rituals are characterized by a special solemnity, cultural richness.

Also, as a collective relaxation, a game is effectively used that satisfies the desires by symbolic means. The symbolism of the game will create a special psychological setting, when a person both believes and does not believe in what is happening, it encourages him to use all his strength and skill to achieve the goal. The game allows you to defuse unconscious impulses that are forbidden or unclaimed by culture. So, in many games there are competitive, sexual motives - sports, lottery, contests, dances. In games such as collecting, hoarding drives are realized, which are evaluated in everyday life as a manifestation of greed. Finally, there are games that play on the meaning of death - bullfighting, gladiator fights.

From one point of view, today we can talk about the humanization of games, the replacement of many entertainments of the past, such as street fistfights and public executions, with sports, television, cinema. But on the other hand, cinema and television show many scenes of violence in films and programs, traumatizing the psyche of people, especially children.

The function of socialization and inculturation, or human-creative function, will be the most important function of culture. Socialization is the process of acquisition by a human individual of certain knowledge, norms and values ​​necessary for life as a full member of society, and inculturation is the process of acquisition of skills and knowledge necessary for life in a particular culture. These close processes are possible only with the help of systems of upbringing and education specially created by culture. Outside of society, these processes are impossible, so Mowgli or Tarzan would never have turned out to be a real person. Children who, for some reason, grow up among animals, remain animals forever.

The processes of socialization and inculturation involve the active inner work of the person himself, striving to acquire the information necessary for life. Therefore, having acquired a complex of knowledge that is obligatory for a given culture, a person begins to develop ϲʙᴏ and individual abilities, ϲʙᴏ and natural inclinations. This may be the development of musical or artistic abilities, mathematical or technical knowledge, something that may be useful in mastering a future profession or will become a person's occupation during leisure hours.

Socialization and inculturation continue throughout a person's life, but the most important knowledge is acquired in childhood. Then the child learns to speak his native language, learns the norms and values ​​of his culture. Basically, ϶ᴛᴏ occurs automatically when a child first copies the behavior of parents, and then peers, teachers and other adults. This is how the social experience accumulated by the people is assimilated, the cultural tradition is preserved and passed on from generation to generation, which ensures the stability of culture.

→ Basic functions of culture

Considering the question of , we have seen that culture is a social phenomenon and acts as a factor in the emergence and formation of social relations. And this means that culture can also be considered from the standpoint of identifying the functions that it performs in society. Functions in the social sciences usually show the purpose, the role of any element in the social system. Under the concept "functions of culture" c implies the nature and direction of the impact of culture on individuals and society, the totality of roles that culture performs in relation to the community of people who generate and use it in their own interests. The number of social functions of culture is extremely large and these functions can be distinguished, classified and described in different ways . Next, we briefly review the main functions of culture:

1. adaptive function;

2. integrative function;

3. communicative function;

4. function of socialization;

5. compensatory and game functions.

1. Adaptive function of culture

Culture ensures the adaptation of a person to the environment, natural and historical conditions of his habitat. Word "adaptation" (from lat. adaptatio) means fitting, adaptation. Every kind of living beings adapts to its environment. In plants and animals, this occurs in the process of biological evolution due to variability, heredity and natural selection, through which the features of body organs and behavioral mechanisms that ensure survival in given environmental conditions (its ecological niche) function and are genetically transmitted from generation to generation.

Human adaptation is different. Man, due to the peculiarities of his biological evolution, does not have an ecological niche assigned to him. He lacks instincts, his biological organization is not adapted to any stable form of animal existence. Therefore, he is not able to lead, like other animals, a natural way of life and is forced, in order to survive, to create around himself artificial cultural environment.

Biological incompleteness, lack of specialization, inability of the human race to a certain ecological niche turned into the ability to master any natural conditions through the formation artificial conditions of their existence, culture. gave people the protection that it did not provide them with: the opportunity to accumulate experience and translate it into the norms, rules and forms of direct life support (primarily providing food, warmth, housing, in the methods and traditions of protecting health and interpersonal mutual assistance of people), ensuring the collective security of the community (defence) and individual security of community members, their property and legitimate interests (law enforcement system), etc. Ultimately, all material culture created by man, social organization, system of economic, social and political relations play an adaptive role.

2. Integrative function of culture

Closely related to the adaptive function integrative function. Culture ensures the social integration of people. At the same time, we can talk about different levels of social integration, which is carried out on the basis of culture.

Most general level of social integration is formation of the foundations for their sustainable collective existence and activity on the joint satisfaction of interests and needs, stimulating an increase in the level of their group consolidation and the effectiveness of interaction, the accumulation of social experience in guaranteed social reproduction of their teams as sustainable communities.

Co. the second level of social integration should be attributed providing culture with the main forms of integrated existence of human communities . Culture unites peoples, social groups, states. Any social community in which its own culture is formed is held together by this culture, because a single set of views, beliefs, values, ideals, patterns of behavior characteristic of this culture spreads among the members of the community. On this basis, consolidation and self-identification of people is carried out, a sense of belonging to a given social community is formed - feeling "we" .

However, solidarity between "ours" may be accompanied by wariness and even hostility towards "foreign" . Formation of group solidarity - "we" - implies the existence of representatives of other cultural circles - "they" . Therefore, the function of integrating communities has its reverse side - disintegration of people which can lead to the most negative consequences.

History shows that cultural differences between communities often became the cause of their confrontation and enmity.

3. Communicative function of culture

The integration of people is carried out on the basis of communications . Therefore, it is important to highlight communicative function of culture . Culture shapes. Only through the assimilation of culture between people are established truly human forms of communication, since it is culture that gives them the means of communication - sign systems, assessments.

The development of forms and methods of communication is the most important aspect of the cultural history of mankind. Our most distant ancestors could communicate with each other only through direct perception and sounds. A fundamentally new means of communication was articulate speech. With its development, people received unusually wide opportunities for transmitting various information to each other. Later, written speech and many specialized languages, service and technical symbols are formed: mathematical, natural science, topographic, drawing, music, computer, etc.; there are systems of fixing information in graphic, sound, visual and other technical form, its replication and broadcasting, as well as institutions involved in the accumulation, preservation and dissemination of information.

4. Socialization function

Culture is the most important factor of socialization, which determines its content, means and methods. Under socialization understood the inclusion of individuals in public life, their assimilation of social experience, knowledge, values, norms of behavior corresponding to a given society, social group. In the course of socialization, people master the programs stored in the culture and learn to live, think and act in accordance with them.

The process of socialization allows the individual to become a full-fledged member of the community, take a certain position in it and live as required by the customs and traditions of this community. At the same time, this process ensures the preservation of the community, its structure and the forms of life that have developed in it. In the historical process, the "personal composition" of society and social groups is constantly updated, performers change, as people are born and die, but thanks to socialization, new members of society join the accumulated social experience and continue to follow the patterns of behavior recorded in this experience. Of course, social life does not stand still, certain changes take place in it. But any innovations in social life, one way or another, are determined by the forms of life and ideals inherited from the ancestors and are also transmitted from generation to generation thanks to socialization.

5. Compensatory and play functions

A number of culturologists, as an independent function of culture, call compensatory and play functions . Forms compensation are leisure activities, tourism, communication with nature and other forms of distracting a person from participating in certain types of material or spiritual activities in order to take a break from life's problems and get emotional release. Holidays are a form of compensation, during which everyday life is transformed and an atmosphere of high spirits is created.

Game function of culture manifests itself not only in various sports or entertainment. Elements of the game are constantly used in such areas as politics, education, upbringing, art culture. Jesters and buffoons, clowns and entertainers were in demand in every society. Entertaining games are in the nature of fun, pursuing the goal of distracting participants and spectators from pressing problems and compensating them for unfulfilled aspirations in life.

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