Determined the second birth of a person. Third birth on the path to God
It is very difficult to leave the social womb, to be born from it. Therefore, many people who experience some kind of spiritual aspirations try to replace the process of such a birth by fleeing from society: either into hermits, or into a monastery, or into the lower classes of society, where the degree of freedom is maximum.
But a person, even when left completely alone physically, is not left alone psychologically. He does not leave the social womb, he does not get rid of external conditioning, despite the fact that there are no other people nearby. Therefore, flight leads to the fact that a person begins to strive not from the social womb further to the World along the line of incarnation, the incarnation of the Spirit, but back to the mother’s womb. And since this is physically impossible, he begins to run wild in the social sense of the word, and his desire to free himself from social pressure or at least reduce its level leads only to the subjective illusion of freedom “from.”
To be born, to leave the social womb, it is necessary not only a large number of knowledge about what it is, but also colossal aspiration. In addition, we need very careful internal, I repeat once again, individual work, which is done not because someone keeps reminding you, but because something has crystallized inside that can be called a magnetic center. This something pulls me out, when I want to go beyond, no matter how scary it is, no matter how unknown there is ahead.
The only chance to be born from society is given to us by what we call essence, because in the very material of essence, in the very system of relations between the whole and the whole, there is a chance to carry out this work. When a person really walks along the Path and really approaches being born a second time and living from the essence, he experiences a deep experience. Life disappears, or rather, what man is accustomed to calling Life.
This is no less global and catastrophic, in the sense of a sharp change in the principles of Being, a fact than biological birth.
Imagine: here I am sitting in the womb, and, be that as it may, all my desires are instantly fulfilled, everything is provided, protected, and suddenly some force begins to push me out of there... Some kind of spasms, it squeezes me, then somewhere pushes, then I barely crawl through some terrible tunnels, my skull is like in a vice, pressing on my brain, it’s unclear what’s happening all around, suddenly gravity, light, sounds fall on me, and then again, boom! - I have to breathe myself. This terrible first breath, when a completely burning thing bursts into my body, which I will later call air. Then they cut me off from my mother, and I, this little lump, find myself in the abyss. Well, compare the scale, compare the world of the mother’s womb and the World into which a defenseless child ends up after all the stress of birth.
Defenseless... And here is an adult, protected, armed with “life experience”... and suddenly you need to relive such defenselessness. The second birth, if we compare the scale of society, although it is a huge scale, with what awaits us “outside the womb”, it is exactly the same thing as the birth of a baby.
This means that something is needed that will begin to push a person out of society. This something is a spiritual tradition. Her authenticity lies in the fact that she begins to work as a midwife, helping a person to be born from the social womb. Without the help of a spiritual tradition, a person cannot get out on his own; this is an illusion. We need a Call, we need a thirst, we need sensations and experiences akin to those experienced by a child in the womb when he begins to hear his father’s voice and various sounds coming from outside. A fundamentally new stimulus must arise, located outside the uterus.
Many people today ask with Nicodemus when they hear about being born from God: how can this be? The birth of God is the basis for God's work in us, the ground for adoption, for which we were chosen in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world. It is the narrow gate leading to the Kingdom of Heaven.
The birth of God, or the second birth, is a great experience of God's grace. Through it a person is freed from the past. Through being born again, the Divine future is revealed to us.
Being born again brings us forgiveness of sins, salvation from enslavement to passions, inner world with God, sealing with the Holy Spirit and conscious fellowship with God the Father, Jehovah, and the Son of God.
Being born again is, first of all, an internal experience through which the soul enters into conscious communication with God on the basis of God's perfect salvation. Therefore, the second birth is infinitely more than simply recognizing Divine truths as truth, because it is not a matter of knowledge, but a renewal of life, an experience that is fundamental. It can only be compared to physical birth. You can recognize everything that God has done for the salvation of man, you can admire the testimony of Holy Scripture about new life, you can agree with the necessity of being born again, and still remain without eternal life.
Every beginning in God's organic creation is shrouded in mystery. Nature has covered this secret with a veil that no one can lift. Thus, the first principles of Divine life in man are also hidden, although sometimes it is possible to establish how early the manifold grace of God acted on us, drawing us to Christ. Yet whoever has experienced being born again knows that he has received new life. A person breaks with his previous life of sin and finds the joy of fellowship with God and with the children of God. Such a person can testify in the words of a man born blind: “One thing I know, that I was blind, but now I see” (John 9:25).
Even though the creative work in us, through which we became a new creature, cannot be explained, we still know that “old things have passed away, now everything is new.”
Many years ago the late servant God's doctor Baedeker asked an older brother who was sitting with him in a large congregation at the pulpit: “Brother, tell me, how do you know that you are born again?” The brother was confused and did not know what to answer. And since he continued to remain silent, Dr. Baedeker addressed the same question to the second brother. But this brother was silent and did not know what to answer. Having received no answer, Brother Baedeker said: “Well, brother, say: because I live!”
Where there is life, there was also birth!
He who lives in communion with God has found the way to Him. Whoever inhales the heavenly atmosphere must also have the appropriate organs for this. In communion with Christ, only those who have found their Savior in Him feel good.
Of course, we cannot always determine the way in which God revealed His Son to us as our Savior, but we know that His grace was not in vain for us.
Being born again is not a human thing, but a God thing. Only when a seed is placed on the soil can the soil produce new organic life. The vine will not grow unless a seedling is planted. The most fertile soil of itself cannot produce wheat unless the seed of wheat is thrown into the soil. The same thing happens with the new spiritual life. A spiritual man, such as he is by nature, can never produce Divine life from himself. All efforts to achieve this on our own are doomed to failure. There is no point in putting demands on a person that he is not able to fulfill. Live new life only one who has received this Divine life through being born again can.
Through physical birth, a spiritual person received organs only for physical life, and not for eternal life. Anyone who tries to serve God without having been born again experiences the state described by St. Paul: “I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I do not want, I do” (Rom. 7:19). Paul became a new creation after God was pleased to reveal His Son in him (Gal. 1:15-16). Although he was an immaculate man before the law and surpassed his peers in his zeal to serve God, all this did not give him new life. New life is not born in us through works of the law or through the performance of religious rites. God intervened in his life and revealed to him that new life, of which he later testified: “It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
Being born again is not the result of our efforts, including our prayers and confession of sins. Only God does this, entering our lives through the life-giving Word and giving birth to new life in us.
It is not man who seeks God, but God who seeks man. And this intervention of God in our lives occurred on the basis of God’s great mercy.
Being born again is also not pardon and correction of the old man, but judgment of the old man. Through being born again, that new life is revealed to us, which is possible only in Christ. Paul writes about those who are in Christ: “The old things have passed away, the new things have come” (2 Cor. 5:17). Life outside of Christ was condemned on the cross so that in the Risen One we could receive new life.
Just as through physical birth we received organic unity and union with the first man, with Adam, so on the basis of being born again we received spiritual unity with Jesus Christ, with the second Adam and the firstborn from the dead. Because of the judgment of the first Adam, we received the resurrection life of the second Adam. Therefore we have one Spirit with Him and are members of His body.
So, many souls thirst for a sanctified life, liberation from sinful bonds, seeking the power of the Holy Spirit and fruits in service through self-improvement. But Christ's answer to Nicodemus clearly shows that without being born of God, no one can see the Kingdom of God, namely, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Moreover, no one, therefore, can live the life in Christ hidden in God.
Sanctified character and feelings are not a product sincere person. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, but new life is life from the Holy Spirit.
What distinguishes a spiritual person from a spiritual person? The difference is not in development, but in birth.
Life born of God flows in a new direction, practices fellowship with God, and bears His image. Whoever has comprehended this truth no longer places hope in the old man, who can never achieve sanctification. Man no longer counts on his correction, but takes into account his helplessness and gives the old man his rightful place - on the cross, “knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin might be abolished, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.” (Rom.6:6).
Despite this truth, it often happens to us as it once happened to Abraham when Ishmael was born to him. He still believed that Ishmael would be useful to God's plans and would go down in history as the bearer of God's promises. However, one day God told Abraham that it was not Ishmael, but Isaac, who should be the heir! (Gen.21:10).
The same is true in relation to our old man. Happy birthday spiritual person he has no right to exist. Based on this, the Apostle Paul testifies: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God” (Gal. 2:20).
The Apostle Paul was crucified to the world and the world to him. Only the second Adam, Christ, had the right to live in it. In Christ and for us are hidden all the sources of blessings and guarantees of the new life for which we are born by the great mercy of God.
To be born again is to voluntarily renounce the old life and dedicate oneself to a new life.
The new life is not forced upon anyone, for God does not want to enslave anyone, but wants to give man freedom. If the person is still not disgusted old life and if the external performance of religious rites satisfies him, if the feeling of guilt and bankruptcy own strength has not become an unbearable burden, then for such a person the new life in Christ will be alien. A person does not look for it, and it does not impose itself on him.
But whoever thirsts for righteousness, for whom ritual religion has not quenched his innermost thirst for God, a new life will be revealed to him in all its fullness and strength. Therefore Christ also said: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). The Kingdom of God is not revealed to the satiated, not to the proud, not to the self-righteous, but to the poor in spirit, to those who labor and are heavy laden, to publicans and sinners. One of these, caught by robbers, half-dead by the roadside, could still hear the voice of the Heavenly Samaritan: “I passed by you, and saw you thrown under trample... and I said to you: “...live!” (Ezek. 16:6 ).
There is not and cannot be birth again without a deep consciousness of guilt, without contrition of heart, without thorough repentance, without a change in the way of thinking, without voluntary renunciation of sin and vices by which a person is bound, without forgiveness of sins, without conscious dedication of oneself to God.
The new birth is God's original phenomenon. Life does not make copies, but gives birth in its own image. No matter how Jesus Christ is reflected in the lives of the disciples, one disciple can never be like another. No matter how related their features may be, yet each of them is an original creation of a new life.
How little Paul resembled Peter, even after his meeting with Christ at the gates of Damascus! And how different were the paths of the prison guard in Philippi from the life of the purple seller, from Lydia! How different was the path of Martin Luther’s search for the Savior from the path on which St. Augustine found the salvation of his soul and peace with God! Let us imagine before our spiritual gaze a host of personalities familiar to us from the Holy Scriptures and from history, who lived and worked - and each of them was original. The more deeply we comprehend this, the more we will be able to show the path to life to searching and despondent souls. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ, so says the Scripture.
The action of Jesus Christ is the decisive factor in the salvation of a sinner. We must be very careful not to try to mold this new life in another person according to the norm in which we were brought up. This would be violence against the new life born of God in the soul of our neighbor. There are many people today who, instead of taking the hand of a blind man and leading him to the great prophet of Nazareth, try to calm these unfortunate ones when they begin to cry out to the Lord in their need.
“Many forced him to remain silent...” (Map.10:48), when he sought blind help from Jesus Christ passing by. Of course, he did not need to shout so loudly, but in his blindness he could not determine the distances, how far Jesus of Nazareth was from him. It was not so important for the man born blind how to approach the Savior; he had only one desire - to meet Jesus Christ. So he did everything he could do, shouting even louder: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus Christ healed him and made him sighted.
Cry also, my brother, until He opens your eyes too. Crying out until your soul finds healing and peace in God. Your new birth, your path to life, must again and again reflect the wonderful and manifold power of the Savior and testify to what God can do. Let others look critically at this path that you have followed in your quest, but let your life testify to the great work of God that brought you from death to life.
The most important characteristic of culture will be the fact that, undoubtedly, culture is collective communication. In this regard, we can cite the very apt judgment of the German philosopher M. Heidegger: philosophy is questioning, and culture is mutual questioning, it is dialogue. Above we also cited the famous expression of the Russian writer M. M. Prishvin: “Culture is the connection of people, and civilization is the connection of things.” In both cases it is marked social function culture.
Everyone is familiar with the concept “ national culture”, it includes national history, literature, traditions. Political culture and economic culture are also completely legitimate concepts. One of the definitions of culture is this: culture is the self-creation of the human race. Indeed, it is in culture that a person acts as a creator and at the same time as a creation of culture. Culture is an area of creativity. By studying various sciences, people get acquainted with the world culture of humanity. They ponder creative activity humanity to transform and use natural forces.
It is also important that culture is an area of free creativity. Essentially, at all times, culture has been an alternative to established tradition. In the 15th century - in relation to religion. In our time, perhaps, in relation to science. Culture at all times has been a force for liberation from any fanaticism: religious or political, national or scientific-technocratic.
Let's consider the etymological meaning of the concept. Contents of the “culture” category: cultivation; education; spiritual creativity; a sufficient level of quality of material and spiritual values. Translated from Latin language“culture” - cultivation, processing, care, improvement. Initially, this word meant nothing more than tillage of the soil, its cultivation, agricultural labor. This is the etymology (i.e. origin) of the concept of culture.
Several generally accepted definitions of the concept of culture can be given.
First: the meaning of culture in the broad and narrow senses. In the broad sense of the word, culture is everything that is created by human society, by the physical and mental labor of people. In a narrower sense of the word, this is the ideological and moral state of society, undoubtedly associated with its material living conditions. This is the spiritual level of society, which is reflected in its way of life, ideology, education and upbringing, and in the achievements of science, art, and literature.
Second definition: culture is the degree of perfection achieved in mastering one or another branch of knowledge or activity (work culture, speech culture, etc.).
Third definition: culture as agricultural activity, breeding new breeds of livestock, cultivation, processing, soil cultivation, etc.
The fourth definition is related to human research practice: the culture of microorganisms (growing so-called cultures, microorganisms for research purposes). Finally, a similar definition is also associated with human experimental scientific activity: tissue culture (growing tissue of an animal or plant organism in artificial nutrient media; used as an experimental method in biology and medicine).
Culture is objectified work activity of people. With the advent of this kind of activity in the history of mankind, a special reality arose - the sphere of culture, and in it - new connections and relationships. Which? Extranatural relationships, social and even transcendental (with God, Cosmos, etc.). The emergence of culture is a process as objective as the emergence of nature.
Let us consider some of the most well-known scientific definitions of culture in scientific thought.
I.-G. Hegel viewed the entire cumulative culture of humanity as its “second nature,” which arose independently of individuals. This second nature was understood as a culture that was formed objectively. Man and social group become the most important subjects of culture.
The German thinker of the Enlightenment I. G. Herder (1744-1803), who can well be considered the founder of the science of culture, cultural studies, in his work “An Idea for the Philosophy of Human History” defined culture as “the level of humanity” and “the second birth of man.” He wrote: “If a person extracted everything from himself and developed it without connection with external objects, then it is true that the history of man would be possible, but not of people, not of the entire human race. But our specific character lies precisely in the fact that, born almost without instincts, we are raised to the level of humanity only through exercise throughout our lives, and on this is based our ability both for improvement and for corruption and decay... We We can, if we wish, give this second birth to a person passing through his life; a name associated with the cultivation of the land - “culture”, or with the image of light - “enlightenment”.
The famous philosopher and culturologist of the last century F. Nietzsche (1844-1900) in his work “On the benefits and harms of history for life” defined main feature culture is like this: it is “culture—determination.”
He wrote: “Our modern culture...has the character of something inanimate...and cannot be considered a real culture at all; it does not go beyond some knowledge of culture... it does not translate into culture-determination.” In explaining the past of a culture, the thinker recommends, you must proceed from what constitutes the highest force of our time. And if you are interested in biographies, then read not those about whom they wrote: “The name and his era,” but only those about whom they said: “A fighter against his time.” “Try to saturate your souls with Plutarch and have the courage to believe in yourself, believing in his heroes. A hundred such people, educated not in the spirit of the times, that is, who have reached maturity and are accustomed to the heroic, can silence forever all the noisy false education of our era.” Next, Nietzsche cited his famous conclusion that “the goal of humanity cannot lie at the end of it, but only in its most perfect specimens.”
Nietzsche confirmed this idea with a reference to A. Schopenhauer (1788-1860). In his work “New Paralipomena” Schopenhauer wittily remarked the following. In the history of culture, “one giant calls out to another at deserted intervals, and these conversations of spirit giants continue, undisturbed by the frisky bustle of a noisy generation of dwarfs who swarm at their feet. The task of history is to serve as a mediator between them and in this way, again and again, to contribute to the creation of the great and give it strength.”
Thus, Nietzsche separated genuine culture from its copy, mere external decoration, and in defining culture he emphasized the basic values of “real culture.” And, as we have seen, Nietzsche attached great importance to the normalizing mission of culture (overcoming chaos at the personal level, including).
But Nietzsche's most famous and often quoted definition of culture is perhaps the most accurate: “Culture is but a thin apple peel over a world of chaos.”
Now let us dwell on the most important, from our point of view, definitions of culture in modern cultural analysis.
The original definition of the concept of culture was given by the American researcher J. Feibleman (1904-1998) in the book “The Theory of Human Culture” (New York, 1968): “Culture... does not mean exclusively social development, nor the intellectual side of civilization, this great definition includes a system of values namely human society" Culture, as we see, is defined here as the value system of human society. This is an axiological (i.e. value-based) definition of culture.
According to Feibleman, culture is an applied ontology (ontology is the doctrine of the essence of being). Feibleman understood culture as, basically, an applied science about the essence of human existence. Feibleman attached the utmost importance to culture. He believed that in it we find a reflection of human existence. The essence of human existence is manifested, in turn, in a certain synthesis of ethos (i.e. the character of the people) and eidos (i.e. its common sense). Culture is a reflection of the emotional-moral and rational-logical factors of people's existence. This is one of the definitions of culture belonging to the modern American cultural anthropologist J. Feibleman.
The work of the Dutch cultural thinker J. Huizinga (1872-1945) “Homo Ludens” presents the concept of culture as a game. A man of culture is a “man who plays.” A cultured person is a person who follows the peculiar rules of the “social game”. This refers to various types of agreements - economic, legal, political, aesthetic, religious. Breaking the rules means going beyond the boundaries of the “game” and beyond the boundaries of culture, a turn towards anticulture (wars are an example). This is the playful definition of culture. We will talk about it in more detail separately.
So, here are the most typical definitions of the concept of culture. V. Bibler: Culture is the communication of different forms of understanding, different historical types of this understanding. I. Herder: Culture is the “level of humanity” and the “second birth of man.” J. Feibleman: Culture is the value system of human society.
No matter how different these views are from each other, they have one thing in common: they all substantiate a predominantly value-based approach to the concept of culture.
At the same time, the famous philosopher-logician of the twentieth century. L. Wittgenstein (1889-1951), for example, emphasized the objective significance of such a value and its independence from momentary existence: “If there is a value that has value, then it must lie outside everything that happens and outside Such (So-Sein) For everything that happens and This is accidental.” What does it mean? Culture (of a people, era, region) is distinguished by its values (moral, political, religious). And each culture gave a person a very definite answer to the question of what is valuable in this world. This is a view of the logician's culture. It also has an axiological meaning.
Another thinker, modern American cultural scientist and anthropologist L. White (1900-1975), defined culture as a “symbol.” He believed that symbols are the product of a person’s special thinking ability. In culture, L. White believed, a person’s ability is manifested, distinguishing him from animals. This is the ability to give objects, phenomena, actions symbolic meaning. Culture is a person’s ability to symbolize. Objects created in this way are symbols.
L. White studied the problems of cultural evolution using ethnographic material, in particular, using the example of studying American Indians pueblo. His main works: “The Evolution of Culture”, 1959; "The Science of Culture", 1949; “The Concept of Cultural Systems”, 1975, etc. An evolutionist, he coined the term “cultural studies”. Symbols, he wrote, are culture. And the science of symbols is cultural studies. White published an article with this title in New York, in the journal Science, in 1958. This is how the term “cultural studies” appeared and entered the science of the twentieth century.
White explained his point of view this way: symbols, or symbolatats, do not exist in nature, they are generated by human thought. For example, the expression “holy water” is a symbol. People attach sacred meaning to water that has some special (healing) properties. And such water becomes sacred to them. Culturology is the science of such cultural symbols, with the help of which man gives symbolic meaning to nature.
The Austrian culturologist K. Lorenz (1903-1989) belonged to the ethological direction in culturology. He defined culture as a modification of the norms of human behavior that makes him different from animals. Considering human behavior from the point of view of an animal being (as a “weak animal”), Lorenz defined culture as a kind of ritual, a model of human behavior, a hierarchy of norms and traditions that influence the reduction of aggressiveness. Culture for him is a factor in the vitality of the human animal. His definition of culture: Culture is the modification of human behavior. The main works of K. Lorenz: “Aggression” and “The Other Side of the Mirror”.
French thinker, sociologist and ethnographer, theorist of structuralism and creator of structural anthropology L. Lévi-Strauss conducted a study of primitive systems of kinship, mythology and folklore. His research became world famous and had a great influence on the philosophy of culture. He called his research method structuralism.
Lévi-Strauss's first work, “Elementary Structures of Kinship,” was written in 1949, and his main work, “Structural Anthropology,” was written in 1958. Other works of the scientist: “The Thinking of Savages” (1962), “The Way of Masks” (1979), “Primitive Thinking” (1994).
So, in the modern scientific understanding of culture, the main definitions can be identified as axiological (Feibleman), symbolic (White), structural (Levi-Strauss), ethological (Lorenz) definitions of culture. What these definitions have in common is the idea of culture as a system of values (religious, moral, legal, etc.). Culture allows you to form your own special value categories and views on life and human activity that distinguishes man from animal.
TOPIC 2. Basic cultural theories of the past and present
2.1. Concepts of the origin and essence of culture of European enlighteners
To the German educator Johann Gottfried Herder(1744-1803) belongs to the merit of writing one of the first fundamental works, in which culture is considered as a theoretical category and a wide space of cultural problems is opened. The purpose of the essay “Ideas for the Philosophy of Human History” was to present the history of mankind as a holistic picture. Herder presents it as an evolutionary process of development. Origins human history lie in nature, it is a continuation of the evolution of the natural world (plant and animal) at a higher stage, in the person of man. Man is the highest creation, closing the chain of earthly creatures. Man, as the last link of evolution, is endowed with a new qualitative achievement that distinguishes him from other creations, culture.
The thinker defines culture as the second birth of man. The first birth of a person is biological, natural. It creates strengths and inclinations, human needs. A person receives his second birth through upbringing. Education is a two-way process. On the one hand, this is always the transmission of traditions, on the other hand, the assimilation and application of what is transmitted, based on a person’s ability to imitate and learn. This process of human creation can be called culture, or cultivation (according to the etymology Latin word). If we turn to the image of light, culture can be called enlightenment. Herder does not reduce culture to just spiritual and moral development, considering language, state, family relationships, art, religion, science as its main elements, i.e. almost everything that is created by man. Thus, the German educator laid the theoretical foundation of the anthropological approach to the study of culture, its understanding as “second nature.” In addition, it was Herder who first used the concept of “culture” in the plural, thereby emphasizing the uniqueness of the culture of any people.
In many ways, opposing views on the essence of culture were preached by another, no less famous educator, Jean-Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778). He believed that civilization (culture) did not enrich man spiritually, but only corrupted and spoiled his nature. In his reasoning, Rousseau came to the conclusion that the successes of civilization were bought at too high a price, since the well-being and education of the privileged layer of people are based on the poverty and suffering of the people. From this follows his thesis that the sciences and arts not only do not benefit man, but also spoil him. Rousseau came to this conclusion in his first essay, “Discourse on the Sciences and Arts,” which brought scandalous fame to the author. This point of view was completely opposite to the opinion of all other educators, who saw the development of sciences and art as the basis of social progress.
In contrast to I.G. To Herder, who considered the development of culture a natural continuation of the evolution of nature, Rousseau proclaimed the idea that as a result of the development of culture, a radical break between man and nature occurred. Modern civilization has torn man away from the “natural state”, in which there was still no inequality and social evil, and in man the moral impulses inherent in him by nature spontaneously manifested themselves. To correct the current situation, Rousseau called not to abandon cultural achievements, but to return to pristine nature by creating reasonable and fair social conditions that would promote the development of human organic inclinations. Thus, more than any other cultural theorist, he sharpened the contradiction between nature and culture.
Founder of German classical philosophy Immanuel Kant(1724-1804) used the concept of culture in his studies quite rarely, but he is credited with the discovery of freedom as an internal feature of culture.
In Kant's philosophy, man is a dual being. It simultaneously belongs to both the world of “nature” (phenomena, sensually comprehended phenomena) and the kingdom of “freedom” (noumena, spiritual and only intelligible reality). Man, as a part of nature, is subject to the objective law of cause and effect. But at the same time, he is free from any cause and effect. Free subjectively, primarily in his ability to do independent moral choice. In the field of morality, a person is absolutely free; no one is able to force him to follow or not follow the dictates of conscience and duty. Nature in Kant’s understanding is everything that exists in space and time, everything about which it can be said that it “is.” The same cannot be said about the kingdom of “freedom.” It does not include what “is,” but what should be. This is the area of ideals and values. Culture as a human acquisition belongs to the area of freedom.
Kant defines culture as “the acquisition by a rational being of the ability to set any goals at all,” using nature as a means. Without strictly contrasting the phenomena of nature and culture, Kant draws the following distinction between them: nature – causality and necessity, culture – freedom and free goal-setting. From here we can draw a far-reaching conclusion: any type of human activity belongs to culture to the extent that it is free and creatively productive. The ideas of Kant's philosophy about culture stimulated the emergence of the philosophy of culture as an independent discipline (in the neo-Kantian schools of Western philosophy) and served as the basis for the axiological interpretation of the essence of culture.
2.2. Marxist (“labor”) cultural theory
The theory of culture, which developed in line with Marxism in the 19th century, was based on the concept of the origin of man, set out by F. Engels in the article “The Role of Labor in the Process of Transformation of Ape into Man.” The essence of the concept is that man descended from ape-like ancestors through evolution. In this case, labor played a key role, which is a purposeful activity that began with the manufacture of tools from stone, bone and wood. According to the classics of Marxism, it was labor that was the prerequisite for the evolution of the monkey’s brain and the emergence of human consciousness. Work as a joint activity created the need for communication, which influenced the development of articulate speech. From here came the birth of man, his separation from natural environment. Man has turned into a social animal, whose behavioral patterns are not inherited genetically, but are acquired through socialization. The very essence of man is contained in the totality of all social relations.
Labor activity is also responsible for the creation of culture. The basis of Marxist views on culture is the principle of economic determinism, in other words, the primacy of the economy in the entire structure of social relations. The specific historical stage of development of society is “ socio-economic formation", which is based on the method of production. Thus, the primitive communal socio-economic formation is characterized not by the producing, but by the appropriating nature of farming and collective forms of ownership. It is the method of production that determines all other spheres of social life: social structure (classes, social strata and groups), forms of family and life, etc. For example, the transition to slave labor as the leading form of production, coupled with property inequality and the emergence of classes, led to the replacement of the primitive communal system with a slave-owning one.
The economically strengthened ruling class in public life determines the type of statehood and the political system of society. All other spheres of social life are also directly or indirectly connected with economic relations, which represent the “basis” of society. The legal and political system is the first part of the “superstructure” over the actually established production relations. The crown of the socio-economic formation is another part of the “superstructure”, culture (religion, morality, art, philosophy). Culture is a spiritual form of reflection of objective reality, material in nature. Being a materialist philosopher, K. Marx believed that culture can only be understood if it is considered as a reflection of the history of material production.
Humanity is developing through a change in socio-economic formations (from primitive communal in the past to communist in the future), each of which represents a new round of cultural evolution. Thus, the Marxist theory of culture has become a classic example of the evolutionist concept, which suggests that human culture develops in universal stages and moves towards a universal goal.
2.3. Psychological teachings about culture
Another version of the development of the ideas of evolutionism as applied to culture (after I.G. Herder and Marxism) is the psychoanalytic teaching of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the famous Austrian psychologist who discovered the sphere of the unconscious, impersonal soul in man. According to psychoanalysis, the structure of the human psyche consists of three components, which are designated as “I”, “It” and “Super-ego”. It is the sphere of the animal in man, biological instincts and unconscious motives. Since Freud also shared Darwin's idea of the evolution of man from the ape, the scientist considered the id structure to be the most ancient and primary component of the psyche. The It contains basic psychic energies, sexual (Eros or libido) and the attraction to death, destruction (Thanatos). It lives according to the “principle of pleasure”, ignoring the objective requirements of external conditions, the degree of risk and the danger of possible harmful consequences. The structure of the Self is an intermediary between unconscious desires and the surrounding world, because is guided by the “principle of reality,” namely, it controls and curbs drives in accordance with the requirements of objective reality.
Culture is closely associated with the last structure, the Super-Ego, which arises from the need for adequate interaction with one’s own kind. The super-ego consists of social norms, restrictions and rules of behavior in society mastered and accepted by a person. The latter penetrate so deeply into a person’s inner world that they become an unconscious censor of his intentions and actions (in the form of a feeling of shame, conscience, etc.).
Thus, according to Freud, culture does not grow out of the labor activity of human ape-like ancestors. It is also not based on education and enlightenment, but is based primarily on prohibitions, or taboos. Culture is intended to be a mediator between the individual and the social environment around him. Freud considered one of the first cultural institutions in human society to be the introduction of exogamy, i.e. ban on marriage and sexual relations within one's own clan (between close relatives). This taboo was intended to curb a person’s sexual instinct in the interests of the collective. In a similar way, culture regulates all other relationships in society, establishing socially acceptable channels and mechanisms for the application of the individual’s psychic energy. Classical psychoanalysis interprets creative ability as sublimation (“repression”) of sexual energy, i.e. reorientation of exclusively biological drives to cultural goals (creation of works of art, desire for scientific knowledge). Culture ennobles man, allowing him to overcome purely animal, elemental and aggressive nature. On the other hand, when the prohibitions of a culture become too numerous, the latter creates the ground for the generation of neuroses and all kinds of mental deviations.
Freud's psychological teaching represents a biologizing concept of culture, in which the unconscious principle, primarily sexual energy, is given an exaggerated role. However, the scientist can be credited with the fact that he was the first to discover a layer of unconscious motivations for cultural behavior.
Further expansion of the range of cultural topics in psychology is associated with the name of Freud’s major student Carl Gustav Jung(1875-1961). The fruitfulness of Jung's research is associated with an original rethinking of the doctrine of psychoanalysis, a critical revision of his original guidelines. Firstly, Jung opposed his teacher’s “pansexualism”, the tendency to interpret any cultural phenomena from the standpoint of erotic symbolism. Secondly, Jung's innovation was the introduction of the concept of the “collective unconscious.” Jung discovered that behind the individual unconscious lies a larger and deeper layer of the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is a sediment of collective experience in the human psyche, obtained in the course of biological evolution and historical and cultural development. This is the memory of the human race, which is inherited and forms the foundation on which individual mental experience is based.
Jung identified the archetype as a structural unit of the collective unconscious. Archetypes are innate forms of the psyche that structure a person’s mental experience. Just as our body inherits instincts and unconditioned reflexes, our psyche contains mental “instincts” that convey ancestral experience. In their original state, archetypes are dark, confused images that evoke strong emotions and are perceived as something superior to man, “divine” (numinous). Archetypal images that arise in dreams, hallucinations, and mystical experiences are closest to the original state, since they undergo minimal processing by consciousness.
Jung came to the discovery that archetypes are the material for the emergence of many forms of culture, such as mythology, religion, and art. Myths, legends, fairy tales, literary images represent artistic media mastering archetypes. In culture, archetypal images turn into rationally comprehended symbols, no longer creepy and chaotic, but beautiful and harmonious images. Thus, in culture and art, the unconscious and generic experience of a person is reconciled with his personal and conscious experience. With the development of civilization and the general rationalization of life (in the 20th century), the isolation of consciousness occurs, which leads to the cessation of the dialogue between the unconscious and culture and the ignoring of the dark elements of human nature. In such a situation, archetypal images can invade a person’s consciousness in the most primitive forms, in the form of psychopathology, destructive mass movements (such as fascism, for example).
Having discovered the sphere of the collective unconscious in man and describing its connection with culture in the field of symbolic forms, Jung complemented the cultural ideas of psychoanalysis about the unconscious mental foundations of culture. It is important to note that, in contrast to classical psychoanalysis, Jung's analysis of culture showed that in culture the conscious and unconscious can organically complement each other. Let us recall that for Freud, cultural norms (Super-Ego) stand in absolute opposition to the sphere of the unconscious in man (It).
Answer from Liudmila Sharukhia[guru]
Culture is a measure of humanity in a person, a characteristic of his own development, as well as the development of society, its interaction with nature.
The problem of human measurement was noticed in antiquity.
Protagoras said: “Man is the measure of all things - those that exist, that they exist, those that do not exist, that they do not exist.” In the history of philosophy, in various aspects, the importance of characterizing a particular social phenomenon through a personal, human dimension has been noted.
This can be seen in the study of such problems as the relationship of the individual to the state and the state to the individual: the relationship of the individual to society and society to the individual; the attitude of the individual to the individual; the attitude of the individual to nature; the attitude of the individual towards himself.
If we talk about specific forms of the human dimension of culture, they manifest themselves in many ways: from the self-awareness of the individual as self-worth and the development of human dignity to the way of its life, creating or. on the contrary, does not create conditions for the implementation creative forces and human abilities. Man is the creator of culture, and culture shapes man. We can say that it is the human dimension of culture that indicates that in culture the ability of the human race for self-development is represented and clearly expressed, which makes the very fact of human history possible. American sociologist A. Small believed that society should satisfy such human interests as maintaining health, obtaining an education, ensuring decent communication, creating conditions for familiarization with beauty and the implementation of social justice. Today we note with bitterness that we have almost no truly humanistic values. We are destroying the valuable things that have been done in the sphere of spiritual values - collectivism, camaraderie, patriotism, internationalism; we abandon the values in the field of health, education, science, art, which the whole world admired. Of course, having proclaimed the goal of society - “everything for man - everything for the good of man,” they often forgot what was actually human. It was overshadowed by the interests of the state and pushed aside into a “bright future.” And we judged medicine by “beds”, education - by “percentage of academic performance”, the work of the food sector - by “seats”, etc., etc. From cultural process The human dimension disappeared the same way. how it disappeared from the analysis of the entire life of society.
Let us pose the question about the human dimension of culture more specifically: how and by what means can we determine the parameters of this human dimension? In general terms, we answered: the human dimension leads us to consider the goals of human activity and the means of achieving them. But what are these goals with “ human face"? This is, first of all, the content of working conditions, social and living conditions that allow the individual to realize his abilities and interests, the participation of the individual in the management of production and society, the development of material and spiritual values that contribute to human well-being.