Elite or high culture remains inaccessible to most people for many years. This explains its name. It is created and consumed by a narrow circle of people. Most people are not even aware of the existence of this form of culture and are unfamiliar with its definition.
Elite, folk and mass - are there any similarities?
Folk art is the founder of any other cultural movement in general. Her works are created by nameless creators, they come from the people. Such creations convey features of each time, the image and lifestyle of people. This type of art includes fairy tales, epics, and myths.
Mass culture developed on the basis of folk culture. It has a large audience and is aimed at creating works that will be understandable and accessible to everyone. It has less value than any other. The results of its activities are produced in large volumes, they do not take into account the refined tastes or spiritual depth of people.
Elite culture is created by professionals for a specific circle of people with a certain level of education and knowledge. She does not seek to win the sympathy of the masses. With the help of such works, masters seek answers to eternal questions and strive to convey the depth human soul.
Over time, works of high creativity can be appreciated by the masses. Nevertheless, going to the people, such creativity remains the highest level in the development of any type of art.
Features and signs of elite culture
The best way to see the differences and characteristics of elite works of art is in their comparison with mass ones.
All signs elite art are contrasted with mass or folk ones, which are created for wide range spectators. Therefore, its results often remain misunderstood and unappreciated by most people. Awareness of their greatness and significance occurs only after more than one decade, and sometimes even a century.
What works belong to elite culture
Many examples of elite works are now known to everyone.
The group of people for whom such masterpieces of art are created may not stand out old name, nobility of the family and other differences that in everyday speech characterize the elite. It is possible to understand and appreciate such creations only with the help of a certain level of development, a set of knowledge and skills, and a pure and clear consciousness.
Primitive mass creativity will not be able to help in developing the level of intelligence and education.
It does not touch the depths of the human soul, it does not strive to understand the essence of existence. It adapts to the requirements of the time and desires of the consumer. That is why the development of elite culture is very important for all humanity. It is precisely such works that help even a small circle of people preserve high level education and the ability to appreciate truly beautiful works of art and their authors.
Forms of culture refer to such sets of rules, norms and patterns of human behavior that cannot be considered completely autonomous entities; Nor are they constituent parts of any whole. High or elite culture, folk culture and mass culture are called forms of culture because they represent a special way of expressing artistic content. High, folk and mass culture differ in the set of techniques and visual arts work of art, authorship, audience, means of communicating to the audience artistic ideas, level of performing skills.
Depending on who creates culture and what its level is, sociologists distinguish three forms:
-elite
-folk
-massive
High culture
Elite, or high culture is created by a privileged part of society, or at its request by professional creators. It includes fine art, classical music and literature. High culture, for example, the painting of Picasso or the music of Schoenberg, is difficult for an unprepared person to understand. As a rule, it is decades ahead of the level of perception of an averagely educated person. The circle of its consumers is a highly educated part of society: critics, literary scholars, regulars of museums and exhibitions, theatergoers, artists, writers, musicians. When the level of education of the population increases, the range of consumers high culture is expanding. Its varieties include secular art and salon music. The formula of elite culture is “art for art’s sake.”
Folk culture
Folk culture consists of two types - popular and folk culture. When a group of tipsy friends sings songs by A. Pugacheva or<Не шуми камыш>, That we're talking about about popular culture, and when an ethnographic expedition from the depths of Russia brings material from carol holidays or Russian lamentations, they always talk about folklore culture. As a result, popular culture describes today's life, morals, customs, songs, dances, etc. people, and folklore is its past. Legends, fairy tales and other genres of folklore were created in the past, and today they exist as historical heritage. Some of this heritage is still performed today, which means that part of the folklore culture has entered popular culture, which, in addition to historical legends is constantly updated with new formations, for example, modern urban folklore.
Thus, in folk culture, in turn, two levels can be distinguished - high, associated with folklore and including folk legends, fairy tales, epics, ancient dances, etc., and reduced, limited to the so-called pop culture.
Unlike elite culture, which is created by professionals, high folk culture is created by anonymous creators who do not have professional training. The authors of folk works (tales, lamentations, tales) are often unknown, but these are highly artistic works. Myths, legends, stories, epics, fairy tales, songs and dances belong to the highest creations of folk culture. They cannot be classified as elite or high culture just because they were created by anonymous folk creators.<Народная культура возникла в глубокой древности. Ее субъектом являются не отдельные профессионалы, а весь народ. Поэтому функционирование народной культуры неотделимо от труда и быта людей. Авторы ее зачастую анонимны, произведения существуют обычно во множестве вариантов, передаются устно из поколения в поколение. В этом плане можно говорить о народном искусстве (народные песни, сказки, легенды), народной медицине (лекарственные травы, заговоры), народной педагогике, суть которой часто выражается в пословицах, поговорках> 1)
In terms of execution, elements of folk culture can be individual (statement of a legend), group (performing a dance or song), or mass (carnival processions). Folklore is not the name of all folk art, as is often thought, but only of its part, associated primarily with oral folk art. Folklore, like popular, forms (or types) were created earlier and are being created today by various segments of the population. Folklore is always localized, i.e. connected with the traditions of a given area, and democratic, since everyone participates in its creation.
The place of concentration of folk culture, as a rule, is the village, and popular culture is the city, since the majority of the population lives there today. Some creative products are classified as folk culture as a whole, without dividing them into folklore and popular. Eg, ethnoscience, folk crafts, folk games and fun, folk songs and dances, folk rituals and holidays, folk cuisine, folk ethics and pedagogy.
The audience of folk culture is always the majority of society. This was the case in traditional and industrial societies. The situation changes only in post-industrial society.
Mass culture
Mass culture does not express the refined tastes or spiritual quest of the people. The time of its appearance is the middle of the 20th century, when the means mass media(radio, print, television, recordings and tape recorders) penetrated into most countries of the world and became available to representatives of all social strata. Mass culture can be international and national. Pop music a striking example of mass culture. It is understandable and accessible to all ages, all segments of the population, regardless of level of education.
Mass culture, as a rule, has less artistic value than elite or popular culture. But it has the widest audience and is original. It satisfies the immediate needs of people, reacts to and reflects any new event. Therefore, examples of mass culture, in particular hits, quickly lose relevance, become obsolete, and go out of fashion. This does not happen with works of elite and popular culture. High culture refers to the preferences and habits of townspeople, aristocrats, the rich, and the ruling elite, while mass culture refers to the culture of the lower classes. The same types of art can belong to high and mass culture: classical music - high, and popular music - mass, Fellini's films - high, and action films - mass, Picasso's paintings - high, and popular prints - mass. However, there are such genres of literature, in particular science fiction, detective stories and comics, which are always classified as popular or mass culture, but never as high. The same thing happens with specific works of art.
Bach's organ mass belongs to high culture, but if it is used as musical accompaniment in figure skating competitions, it is automatically included in the category of mass culture, without losing its belonging to high culture. Numerous orchestrations of Bach's works in the style of light music, jazz or rock do not at all compromise high culture. The same applies to the Mona Lisa on the packaging of toilet soap or a computer reproduction of it hanging in the back office.
Basic forms of culture
a specific sphere of cultural creativity associated with the professional production of cultural texts, which subsequently acquire the status of cultural canons. The concept of "E.K." occurs in Western cultural studies to designate cultural layers that are diametrically opposed in their content to “profane” mass culture. Unlike communities of sacred or esoteric knowledge inherent in any type of culture, E.K. represents the sphere of industrial production of cultural samples, existing in constant interaction with various forms of mass, local and marginal culture. At the same time, for E.K. characteristic high degree closedness, caused both by specific technologies of intellectual work (forming a narrow professional community), and by the need to master techniques for consuming complexly organized elite cultural products, i.e. a certain level of education. Samples of E.K. In the process of their assimilation, they imply the need for a targeted intellectual effort to “decipher” the author’s message. In fact, E.K. puts the recipient of an elite text in the position of a co-author, recreating in his mind a set of its meanings. Unlike mass culture products, elite cultural products are designed for repeated consumption and have fundamentally ambiguous content. E.K. sets the leading guidelines for the current type of culture, defining the set of " mind games", as well as a popular set of “low” genres and their heroes, reproducing the basic archetypes of the collective unconscious. Any cultural innovation becomes a cultural event only as a result of its conceptual design at the level of E.K., including it in the current cultural context and adapting it for mass consciousness Thus, the “elite” status of specific forms of cultural creativity is determined not so much by their closeness (characteristic of marginal culture) and the complex organization of the cultural product (inherent in high-class mass production), but by their ability to significantly influence the life of society, modeling. possible ways its dynamics and creating scenarios of social action adequate to social needs, ideological guidelines, art styles and forms of spiritual experience. Only in this case can we speak of the cultural elite as a privileged minority expressing the “spirit of the times” in their creativity.
Contrary to the romantic interpretation of E.K. as a self-sufficient “bead game” (Hesse) far from the pragmatism and vulgarity of the “profane” culture of the majority, the real status of E.K. most often associated with various forms of “game with power”, servile and/or non-conformist dialogue with the current political elite, as well as the ability to work with the “grassroots”, “garbage” cultural space. Only in this case E.K. retains the ability to influence the real state of affairs in society.
Elite culture
Elite or high culture is created by a privileged part of society, or at its request by professional creators. It includes fine art, classical music and literature. High culture, for example, the painting of Picasso or the music of Schnittke, is difficult for an unprepared person to understand. As a rule, it is decades ahead of the level of perception of an averagely educated person. The circle of its consumers is a highly educated part of society: critics, literary scholars, regulars of museums and exhibitions, theatergoers, artists, writers, musicians. When the level of education of the population increases, the circle of consumers of high culture expands. Its varieties include secular art and salon music. The formula of elite culture is “art for art’s sake.”
Elite culture is intended for a narrow circle of highly educated public and is opposed to both folk and mass culture. It is usually incomprehensible to the general public and requires good preparation for correct perception.
Elite culture includes avant-garde movements in music, painting, cinema, complex literature philosophical in nature. Often the creators of such a culture are perceived as inhabitants of an “ivory tower”, fenced off with their art from real everyday life. As a rule, elite culture is non-commercial, although sometimes it can be financially successful and move into the category of mass culture.
Modern trends are such that mass culture penetrates into all areas of “high culture”, mixing with it. At the same time, mass culture reduces the general cultural level of its consumers, but at the same time it gradually rises to a higher cultural level. Unfortunately, the first process is still much more intense than the second.
Today, more and more important place Mechanisms for the dissemination of cultural products occupy a role in the system of intercultural communication. Modern society lives in technical civilization, which is fundamentally distinguished by methods, means, technologies and channels for transmitting cultural information. Therefore, in the new information and cultural space, only what is in mass demand survives, and only standardized products of mass culture in general and elite culture in particular have this property.
Elite culture is a combination creative achievements human society, the creation and adequate perception of which requires special training. The essence of this culture is associated with the concept of the elite as the producer and consumer of elite culture. In relation to society, this type of culture is the highest, privileged to special layers, groups, classes of the population that carry out the functions of production, management and development of culture. Thus, the structure of culture is divided into public and elite.
Elite culture was created to preserve pathos and creativity. The most consistent and holistic concept of elite culture is reflected in the works of J. Ortega y Gasset, according to whom the elite is a part of society gifted with aesthetic and moral inclinations and most capable of producing spiritual activity. Thus, very talented and skillful scientists, artists, writers, and philosophers are considered the elite. Elite groups can be relatively autonomous from economic and political strata, or they can interpenetrate each other in certain situations.
Elite culture is quite diverse in its methods of manifestation and content. The essence and features of elite culture can be examined using the example of elite art, which develops mainly in two forms: panaestheticism and aesthetic isolationism.
The form of panaestheticism elevates art above science, morality, and politics. Such artistic and intuitive forms of knowledge carry the messianic goal of “saving the world.” The concepts of panaesthetic ideas are expressed in the studies of A. Bergson, F. Nietzsche, F. Schlegel.
A form of aesthetic isolationism strives to express “art for art’s sake” or “pure art.” The concept of this idea is based on upholding the freedom of individual self-display and self-expression in art. According to the founders of aesthetic isolationism, the modern world lacks beauty, which is the only pure source of artistic creativity. This concept was implemented in the activities of artists S. Diaghilev, A. Benois, M. Vrubel, V. Serov, K. Korovin. A. Pavlova, F. Chaliapin, M. Fokin achieved high calling in the musical and ballet arts.
In a narrow sense, elite culture is understood as a subculture that not only differs from the national one, but also opposes it, acquiring closedness, semantic self-sufficiency, and isolation. It is based on the formation of one’s own specific features: norms, ideals, values, systems of signs and symbols. Thus, the subculture is designed to unite certain spiritual values of like-minded people, directed against the dominant culture. The essence of a subculture lies in the formation and development of its own sociocultural characteristics, their isolation from another cultural layer.
Elite culture is high culture, contrasted with mass culture by the type of influence on the perceiving consciousness, preserving its subjective characteristics and providing a meaning-forming function.
The subject of elitist, high culture is the individual - a free, creative person, capable of carrying out conscious activities. The creations of this culture are always personally colored and designed for personal perception, regardless of the breadth of their audience, which is why the wide distribution and millions of copies of the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Shakespeare not only do not reduce their significance, but, on the contrary, contribute to the widespread dissemination of spiritual values. In this sense, the subject of elite culture is a representative of the elite.
Elite culture has a number of important features.
Features of elite culture:
complexity, specialization, creativity, innovation;
the ability to form a consciousness ready for active transformative activity and creativity in accordance with the objective laws of reality;
the ability to concentrate the spiritual, intellectual and artistic experience of generations;
the presence of a limited range of values recognized as true and “high”;
a rigid system of norms accepted by a given stratum as mandatory and strict in the community of “initiates”;
individualization of norms, values, evaluative criteria of activity, often principles and forms of behavior of members of the elite community, thereby becoming unique;
the creation of a new, deliberately complicated cultural semantics, requiring special training and an immense cultural horizon from the addressee;
using a deliberately subjective, individually creative, “defamiliarizing” interpretation of the ordinary and familiar, which brings closer cultural development reality by the subject to a mental (sometimes artistic) experiment on it and, to the limit, replaces the reflection of reality in elite culture with its transformation, imitation with deformation, penetration into meaning with conjecture and rethinking of the given;
semantic and functional “closedness”, “narrowness”, isolation from the whole of national culture, which turns elite culture into a kind of secret, sacred, esoteric knowledge, and its bearers turn into a kind of “priests” of this knowledge, chosen ones of the gods, “servants of the muses” , “keepers of secrets and faith,” which is often played out and poeticized in elite culture.
Elite culture (from the French elite - selected, chosen, best) is a subculture of privileged groups in society, characterized by fundamental closedness, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. Appealing to a select minority of its subjects, who, as a rule, are both its creators and addressees (in any case, the circle of both almost coincides), E.K. consciously and consistently opposes the culture of the majority, or mass culture in the broad sense (in all its historical and typological varieties - folklore, folk culture, official culture of a particular estate or class, the state as a whole, the cultural industry of technocratic society -va 20th century, etc.). Moreover, E.k. needs a constant context of mass culture, since it is based on the mechanism of repulsion from the values and norms accepted in mass culture, on the destruction of existing stereotypes and templates of mass culture (including their parody, ridicule, irony, grotesque, polemic, criticism, refutation), on demonstrative self-isolation in general national culture. In this regard, E.k. - a characteristically marginal phenomenon within any history. or national type of culture and is always secondary, derivative in relation to the culture of the majority. The problem of E.K. is especially acute. in communities where the antinomy of mass culture and E.K. practically exhausts all the variety of manifestations of nationalism. culture as a whole and where the mediative (“middle”) area of the national culture, a constituent part of it. corps and equally opposed to polarized mass and E. cultures as value-semantic extremes. This is typical, in particular, for cultures that have a binary structure and are prone to inversion forms of history. development (Russian and typologically similar cultures).
Political and cultural elites differ; the first, also called “ruling”, “powerful”, today, thanks to the works of V. Pareto, G. Mosca, R. Michels, C.R. Mills, R. Miliband, J. Scott, J. Perry, D. Bell and other sociologists and political scientists, have been studied in sufficient detail and deeply. Much less studied are cultural elites - strata united not by economic, social, political, and actual power interests and goals, but ideological principles, spiritual values, sociocultural norms, etc. Connected in principle by similar (isomorphic) mechanisms of selection, status consumption, prestige, political and cultural elites, nevertheless, do not coincide with each other and only sometimes enter into temporary alliances, which turn out to be extremely unstable and fragile. Suffice it to recall the spiritual dramas of Socrates, condemned to death by his fellow citizens, and Plato, who was disillusioned with the Syracuse tyrant Dionysius (the Elder), who undertook to put into practice Plato’s utopia of the “State”, Pushkin, who refused to “serve the king, serve the people” and thereby who recognized the inevitability of his creativity. loneliness, although regal in its own way (“You are a king: live alone”), and L. Tolstoy, who, despite his origin and position, sought to express the “folk idea” through the means of his high and unique art of speech, European. education, sophisticated author's philosophy and religion. It is worth mentioning here the short flowering of the sciences and arts at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent; the experience of the highest patronage of Louis XIV to the muses, which gave the world examples of Western European. classicism; a short period of cooperation between the enlightened nobility and the noble bureaucracy during the reign of Catherine II; short-lived pre-revolutionary union. rus. intelligentsia with Bolshevik power in the 20s. and so on. , in order to affirm the multidirectional and largely mutually exclusive nature of the interacting political and cultural elites, which enclose the social-semantic and cultural-semantic structures of the society, respectively, and coexist in time and space. This means that E.k. is not a creation and product of political elites (as was often stated in Marxist studies) and is not of a class-party nature, but in many cases develops in the struggle against politics. elites for their independence and freedom. On the contrary, it is logical to assume that it is the cultural elites that contribute to the formation of politics. elites (structurally isomorphic to cultural elites) in a narrower sphere of socio-political, state. and power relations as its own special case, isolated and alienated from the whole E.K.
In contrast to the political elites, the spiritual and creative elites develop their own, fundamentally new mechanisms of self-regulation and value-semantic criteria for active chosenness, going beyond the framework of the actual social and political requirements, and often accompanied by a demonstrative departure from politics and social institutions and semantic opposition to these phenomena as extracultural (unaesthetic, immoral, unspiritual, intellectually poor and vulgar). In E.k. The range of values recognized as true and “high” is deliberately limited, and the system of norms accepted by a given stratum as obligations is tightened. and strict in the communication of the “initiates”. The number, narrowing of the elite and its spiritual unity is inevitably accompanied by its qualities, growth (in intellectual, aesthetic, religious, ethical and other respects), and therefore, the individualization of norms, values, evaluative criteria for activities, often principles and forms of behavior of members of the elite messages, thereby becoming unique.
Actually, for the sake of this, the circle of norms and values of E.K. becomes emphatically high, innovative, what can be achieved in a variety of ways. means:
1) mastering new social and mental realities as cultural phenomena or, on the contrary, rejection of anything new and “protection” of a narrow circle of conservative values and norms;
2) inclusion of one’s subject in an unexpected value-semantic context, which gives its interpretation a unique and even exclusive meaning;
3) the creation of a new, deliberately complicated cultural semantics (metaphorical, associative, allusive, symbolic and metasymbolic), requiring special knowledge from the addressee. preparation and vast cultural horizons;
4) the development of a special cultural language (code), accessible only to a narrow circle of connoisseurs and designed to complicate communication, to erect insurmountable (or the most difficult to overcome) semantic barriers to profane thinking, which turns out to be, in principle, unable to adequately comprehend the innovations of E.K., to “decipher” it meanings; 5) the use of a deliberately subjective, individually creative, “defamiliarizing” interpretation of the ordinary and familiar, which brings the subject’s cultural assimilation of reality closer to a mental (sometimes artistic) experiment on it and, in the extreme, replaces the reflection of reality in E.K. its transformation, imitation - deformation, penetration into meaning - conjecture and rethinking of the given. Due to its semantic and functional “closedness”, “narrowness”, isolation from the whole national. culture, E.k. often turns into a type (or similarity) of secret, sacred, esoteric. knowledge that is taboo for the rest of the masses, and its bearers turn into a kind of “priests” of this knowledge, chosen ones of the gods, “servants of the muses,” “keepers of secrets and faith,” which is often played out and poeticized in E.K.
Historical origin of E.c. exactly this: already in primitive society, priests, magi, sorcerers, tribal leaders become privileged holders of special knowledge, which cannot and should not be intended for general, mass use. Subsequently, this kind of relationship between E.k. and mass culture in one form or another, in particular secular, were repeatedly reproduced (in various religious denominations and especially sects, in monastic and spiritual knightly orders, Masonic lodges, in craft workshops that cultivated professional skills, in religious and philosophical . meetings, in literary, artistic and intellectual circles that formed around charismatic leaders, scientific communities and scientific schools, in political organizations, associations and parties, including especially those that worked conspiratorially, underground and etc.). Ultimately, the elitism of knowledge, skills, values, norms, principles, traditions that was formed in this way was the key to sophisticated professionalism and deep substantive specialized knowledge, without which history would be impossible in culture. progress, postulate, value-semantic growth, contain, enrichment and accumulation of formal perfection - any value-semantic hierarchy. E.k. acts as an initiative and productive principle in any culture, performing mainly creative work. function in it; while mass culture stereotypes, routinizes, and profanes the achievements of E.K., adapting them to the perception and consumption of the sociocultural majority of the society. In turn, E.k. constantly ridicules or denounces mass culture, parodies it or grotesquely deforms it, presenting the world of mass society and its culture as scary and ugly, aggressive and cruel; in this context, the fate of representatives of E.K. depicted as tragic, disadvantaged, broken (romantic and post-romantic concepts of “genius and the crowd”; “creative madness”, or “sacred disease”, and the ordinary “ common sense"; inspired “intoxication”, incl. narcotic, and vulgar “sobriety”; “celebration of life” and boring everyday life).
Theory and practice of E.k. blossoms especially productively and fruitfully at the “breakdown” of cultural eras, with the change of cultural and historical. paradigms, uniquely expressing the crisis conditions of culture, the unstable balance between “old” and “new”, the representatives of E.K. realized their mission in culture as “initiators of the new,” as ahead of their time, as creators not understood by their contemporaries (such, for example, were the majority of romantics and modernists - symbolists, cultural figures of the avant-garde and professional revolutionaries who carried out the cultural revolution) . This also includes the “beginners” of large-scale traditions and the creators of the “grand style” paradigms (Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Gorky, Kafka, etc.). This view, although fair in many respects, was not, however, the only possible one. So, on Russian grounds. culture (where societies, the attitude towards E.K. was in most cases wary or even hostile, which did not even contribute to the spread of E.K., in comparison with Western Europe), concepts were born that interpret E.K. as a conservative departure from social reality and its pressing problems into the world of idealized aesthetics (“ pure art", or "art for art's sake"), religious. and mythol. fantasies, socio-political. utopian, philosopher idealism, etc. (late Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, M. Antonovich, N. Mikhailovsky, V. Stasov, P. Tkachev and others, radical democratic thinkers). In the same tradition, Pisarev and Plekhanov, as well as Ap. Grigoriev interpreted E.k. (including “art for art’s sake”) as a demonstrative form of rejection of socio-political reality, as an expression of hidden, passive protest against it, as a refusal to participate in society. struggle of his time, seeing in this a characteristic history. symptom (deepening crisis), and pronounced inferiority of the E.K. itself. (lack of breadth and historical foresight, societies, weakness and powerlessness to influence the course of history and the life of the masses).
Theorists E.K. - Plato and Augustine, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Vl. Soloviev and Leontiev, Berdyaev and A. Bely, Ortega y Gasset and Benjamin, Husserl and Heidegger, Mannheim and Ellul - variously varied the thesis about the hostility of democratization and the massification of culture and its qualities. level, its content and formal perfection, creative. search and intellectual, aesthetic, religious. and other novelty, about the stereotype and triviality that inevitably accompanies mass culture (ideas, images, theories, plots), lack of spirituality, and the infringement of creativity. personality and the suppression of its freedom in conditions of mass society and mechanics. replication of spiritual values, expansion of industrial production of culture. This tendency is to deepen the contradictions between E.K. and mass - increased unprecedentedly in the 20th century. and inspired many poignant and dramatic stories. collisions (cf., for example, the novels: “Ulysses” by Joyce, “In Search of Lost Time” by Proust, “ Steppenwolf"and "The Glass Bead Game" by Hesse, "The Magic Mountain" and "Doctor Faustus" by T. Mann, "We" by Zamyatin, "The Life of Klim Samgin" by Gorky, "The Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov, "The Pit" and "Chevengur" by Platonov, “Pyramid” by L. Leonov and others). At the same time, in the cultural history of the 20th century. There are many examples that clearly illustrate the paradoxical dialectics of E.K. and mass: their mutual transition and mutual transformation, mutual influence and self-negation of each of them.
So, for example, creative. quest for various representatives of modern culture (symbolists and impressionists, expressionists and futurists, surrealists and dadaists, etc.) - artists, movement theorists, philosophers, and publicists - were aimed at creating unique samples and entire systems of E.C. Many of the formal refinements were experimental; theory manifestos and declarations substantiated the right of the artist and thinker to be creative. incomprehensibility, separation from the masses, their tastes and needs, to the intrinsic existence of “culture for culture.” However, as the expanding field of activity of modernists included everyday objects, everyday situations, forms of everyday thinking, structures of generally accepted behavior, current history. events, etc. (albeit with a “minus” sign, as a “minus technique”), modernism began - involuntarily, and then consciously - to appeal to the masses and mass consciousness. Shocking and mockery, grotesque and denunciation of the average person, slapstick and farce are the same legitimate genres, stylistic devices and expressions, media of mass culture, as well as playing on cliches and stereotypes of mass consciousness, posters and propaganda, farce and ditties, recitation and rhetoric. Stylization or parody of banality is almost indistinguishable from the stylized and parodied (with the exception of the ironic author's distance and the general semantic context, which remain almost elusive for mass perception); but the recognition and familiarity of vulgarity makes its criticism - highly intellectual, subtle, aestheticized - little understandable and effective for the majority of recipients (who are not able to distinguish ridicule of low-grade taste from indulging it). As a result, one and the same work of culture acquires double life with different semantic content and opposite ideological pathos: on one side it turns out to be addressed to E.K., on the other - to mass culture. These are many works by Chekhov and Gorky, Mahler and Stravinsky, Modigliani and Picasso, L. Andreev and Verhaeren, Mayakovsky and Eluard, Meyerhold and Shostakovich, Yesenin and Kharms, Brecht and Fellini, Brodsky and Voinovich. E.c. contamination is especially controversial. and mass culture in postmodern culture; for example, in such an early phenomenon of postmodernism as pop art, there is an elitization of mass culture and at the same time a massification of elitism, which gave rise to the classics of modern times. postmodernist W. Eco characterize pop art as “lowbrow highbrow”, or, conversely, as “highbrow lowbrow” (in English: Lowbrow Highbrow, or Highbrow Lowbrow).
No fewer paradoxes arise when comprehending the genesis of totalitarian culture, which, by definition, is a mass culture and a culture of the masses. However, in its origin, totalitarian culture is rooted precisely in E.K.: for example, Nietzsche, Spengler, Weininger, Sombart, Jünger, K. Schmitt and other philosophers and socio-political thinkers who anticipated and brought the Germans closer to real power. Nazism, definitely belonged to E.K. and were in a number of cases misunderstood and distorted by their practical. interpreters, primitivized, simplified to a rigid scheme and uncomplicated demagoguery. The situation is similar with communists. totalitarianism: the founders of Marxism - Marx and Engels, and Plekhanov, and Lenin himself, and Trotsky, and Bukharin - they were all, in their own way, “highbrow” intellectuals and represented a very narrow circle of radically minded intelligentsia. Moreover, the ideal. The atmosphere of social-democratic, socialist, and Marxist circles, then strictly conspiratorial party cells, was built in full accordance with the principles of E.K. (only extended to political and cognitive culture), and the principle of party membership implied not just selectivity, but also a rather strict selection of values, norms, principles, concepts, types of behavior, etc. In fact, the selection mechanism itself (based on race and nationality) or according to class-political), which lies at the basis of totalitarianism as a socio-cultural system, was created by E.K., in its depths, by its representatives, and later only extrapolated to a mass society, in which everything recognized as expedient is reproduced and is intensified, and what is dangerous for its self-preservation and development is prohibited and seized (including by means of violence). Thus, totalitarian culture initially arises from the atmosphere and style, from the norms and values of an elite circle, is universalized as a kind of panacea, and then is forcibly imposed on society as a whole as an ideal model and is practically introduced into the mass consciousness and societies, activities by any , including non-cultural means.
In conditions of post-totalitarian development, as well as in the context of Western democracy, the phenomena of totalitarian culture (emblems and symbols, ideas and images, concepts and style of socialist realism), being presented in a culturally pluralistic way. context and distanced from modern times. reflection - purely intellectual or aesthetic - begin to function as exotic. E.c. components and are perceived by a generation familiar with totalitarianism only from photographs and anecdotes, “strangely,” grotesquely, associatively. The components of mass culture included in the context of E.K. act as elements of E.K.; while the components of E.K., inscribed in the context of mass culture, become components of mass culture. In the postmodern cultural paradigm, the components of E.k. and popular culture are used equally as ambivalent game material, and the semantic boundary between mass and E.k. turns out to be fundamentally blurred or removed; in this case, the distinction between E.k. and mass culture practically loses its meaning (retaining for the potential recipient only the allusive meaning of the cultural-genetic context).
The product of elite culture is created by professionals and is part of the privileged society that formed it. Popular culture - part general culture, an indicator of the development of the entire society, and not of its individual class.
Elite culture stands apart; mass culture has a huge number of consumers.
Understanding the value of a product of elite culture requires certain professional skills and abilities. Mass culture is utilitarian in nature, understandable to a wide range of consumers.
The creators of products of elite culture do not pursue material gain; they dream only of creative self-realization. Products of mass culture bring great profits to their creators.
Mass culture simplifies everything and makes it accessible to wide sections of society. Elite culture is focused on a narrow circle of consumers.
Mass culture depersonalizes society; elitist culture, on the contrary, glorifies bright creative individuality. More details: http://thedb.ru/items/Otlichie_elitarnoj_kultury_ot_massovoj/
Classic literature
Introduction
Culture is a general concept that covers various classes of phenomena. It is a complex, multi-layered, multi-level whole, including various phenomena. Depending on from what point of view, on what grounds to analyze it, one can identify certain of its structural elements, differing in the nature of the carrier, in the result, in the types of activities, etc., which can coexist, interact, resist each other, change their status. Structuring culture based on its carrier, we will single out as the subject of analysis only some of its varieties: elite, mass, folk culture. Since at the present stage they receive ambiguous interpretation, in this test we will try to understand the complex modern cultural practice, which is very dynamic and contradictory, as well as contradictory points of view. The test paper presents various historically established, sometimes opposing views, theoretical justifications, approaches, and also takes into account certain sociocultural context, the relationship of various components in the cultural whole, their place in modern cultural practice.
And so, the goal test work is to consider the varieties of culture, elite, mass and folk.
culture elite mass folk
The emergence and main characteristics of elite culture
Elite culture, its essence, is associated with the concept of elite and is usually contrasted with folk and mass cultures. The elite (elite, French - chosen, best, selected), as a producer and consumer of this type of culture in relation to society, represents, from the point of view of both Western and domestic sociologists and cultural scientists, the highest, privileged strata (stratum), groups, classes , carrying out the functions of management, development of production and culture. This affirms the division of the social structure into higher, privileged and lower, elite and the rest of the masses. Definitions of the elite in various sociological and cultural theories are ambiguous.
The identification of an elite layer has a long history. Confucius already saw a society consisting of noble men, i.e. minorities, and a people in need of constant moral influence and guidance from these noble ones. In fact, Plato stood in an elitist position. The Roman senator Menenius Agrippa classified most of the population as “draft animals”, which require drivers, i.e. aristocrats.
Obviously, from ancient times, when in the primitive community the division of labor began to occur, the separation of spiritual activity from material activity, the processes of stratification according to property, status, etc. began to stand out (alienate) not only the categories of rich and poor, but also the most significant people in in any respect - priests (magi, shamans) as bearers of special secret knowledge, organizers of religious and ritual actions, leaders, tribal nobility. But the elite itself is formed in a class, slave-owning society, when, thanks to the labor of slaves, privileged layers (classes) are freed from exhausting physical labor. Moreover, in societies of various types, the most significant, elite strata, constituting a minority of the population, are, first of all, those who have real power, backed up by the force of arms and law, economic and financial power, which allows them to influence all other areas public life, including sociocultural processes (ideology, education, artistic practice, etc.). Such is the slave-owning, feudal aristocracy (aristocracy is understood as the highest, privileged layer of any class, group), the highest clergy, merchants, industrial, financial oligarchy, etc.
Elite culture is formed within the framework of layers and communities that are privileged in any sphere (in politics, commerce, art) and includes, like folk culture, values, norms, ideas, ideas, knowledge, way of life, etc. in the sign-symbolic and their material expression, as well as ways of their practical use. This culture covers different areas social space: political, economic, ethical-legal, artistic-aesthetic, religious and other areas of public life. It can be viewed on different scales.
In a broad sense, elite culture can be represented by a fairly extensive part of the national (national) culture. In this case, it has deep roots in it, including folk culture, in another, narrow sense, declares itself to be “sovereign,” sometimes opposing the national culture, and to a certain extent isolated from it.
An example of elite culture in a broad sense is knightly culture as a phenomenon of secular culture in the Western European Middle Ages. Its bearer is the dominant noble-military class (knighthood), within which they have developed their own values, ideals, their own code of honor (loyalty to the oath, adherence to duty, courage, generosity, mercy, etc.). Their own rituals were formed, such as, say, the ritual of knighting (concluding an agreement with a lord, oath of allegiance, taking vows of obedience, personal perfection, etc.), ritualized and theatrical holding of tournaments to glorify knightly virtues. Special manners are developed, the ability to conduct small talk, play musical instruments, and write poetry, most often dedicated to the lady of the heart. Knightly musical and poetic creativity, cultivated in national languages and not alien to folk musical and intonation traditions, constituted a whole trend in world culture, but it faded away with the weakening and departure of this class from the historical arena.
Elite culture is contradictory. On the one hand, it quite clearly expresses the search for something new, still unknown, on the other hand, an orientation toward conservation, the preservation of what is already known and familiar. Therefore, probably in science and artistic creativity, new things achieve recognition, sometimes overcoming considerable difficulties. Elite culture, including areas of an experimental, even demonstratively nonconformist nature, contributed to the enrichment of the ideological, theoretical, figurative and content outline, to the expansion of the range of practical skills, means of expression, ideals, images, ideas, scientific theories, technical inventions, philosophical, social -political teachings.
Elite culture, including its esoteric (internal, secret, intended for initiates) directions, are included in different spheres of cultural practice, performing different functions (roles) in it: informational and cognitive, replenishing the treasury of knowledge, technical achievements, works of art; socialization, including a person in the world of culture; normative and regulatory, etc. What comes to the fore in elite culture is the cultural-creative function, the function of self-realization, self-actualization of the individual, and the aesthetic-demonstrative function (it is sometimes called the exhibition function).
