To answer this question, it is advisable to pay attention to a special type of behavior of people in sociodynamic systems - called Distinctive behavior. This term can denote the form social activity a person, which is based on his desire to show his unique individuality, despite social norms and the disapproval of the majority. Moreover, the methods and content of such self-expression may not have any objective or rational explanation. The phenomenon of discriminating behavior is directly related to the concept of sociodynamic systems. By demonstrating such behavior, this or that person not only overcomes established social norms, but also creates his own and, if he finds followers, he receives the status of a leader, idol, ideologist, leader, messiah, guru, etc. Moreover, in the vast majority of cases, he exhibits forms of self-expression that are often not directly related to motivation related to meeting his physiological needs or economic (pragmatic) needs.

It should also be understood that no cultural norms arise on their own, as if objectively: they are always created by specific individuals, whose names are simply forgotten over time. Examples of this, both significant and striking, and very insignificant, in the culture of the past and at the present time, upon careful examination, one can find a great many.

Example

Such sociocultural phenomena may include, in particular:

• – ethnic traditions and rituals that are strictly observed by people of a particular nationality, but at the same time may contradict the principles of economic rationality and utility. IN in this case certain leaders stand out socially and create forms of behavior that acquire status national traditions:
• – religious beliefs and rituals proclaiming the principles of asceticism, altruism, sacrifice, etc. In society, specific people stand out who create not only new rituals within the framework of old beliefs, but also new religions (Jesus Christ, Buddha Shakyamuni, Mohammed, Baha'u'llah, Ron Hubbard, etc. );
• – various types competitive activity (new types of sports and other competitions) not related to economic or other rewards (for example, James Naismith - Canadian-American teacher, sports coach and creator of basketball);
• – musical creativity And fine arts, where on a global scale it is almost impossible to identify rationality and usefulness;
• – attributes of individualization of a person in a group (hairstyles, clothes, jewelry, tattoos, piercings, etc.).

This kind of manifestation of self-expression is characteristic of representatives of completely different cultures, both ancient and modern. And even more dynamically, such processes, which have a common psychological nature, occur in modern mass culture (advertising and image activity and self-promotion, fashion and styles, competitive activity). At the same time, as was shown by outstanding culturologists (L. Lévy-Bruhl, C. Lévi-Strauss, J. Fraser, F.W. Taylor, B. Malinovsky, A. Mol, etc.), to look for what kind of social individuality in such manifestations of social individuality -either the sacred fundamental principle or economic rationality very often does not make any sense.

This type of behavior is interesting in that it is determined by a certain nonspecific need of the individual for self-expression, which does not have its own specific subject, and is most manifested in at a young age(during the period of the highest social contacts of a person and his sexual activity) and in one form or another is characteristic of all people without exception.

A person’s desire to stand out in a social environment is the most important condition for the development of subcultures, something that does not have any rational or pragmatic meaning, more often begins with a change in forms and only later affects the content of phenomena or processes. Precisely because the main factor determining this phenomenon turns out to be a complex mechanism of normative and value regulation, it is possible that some nonspecific need for discriminatory behavior has not yet been identified. Thus, the task scientific analysis This problem turns out to be extremely complex and can only be solved at the level of fundamental psychological research and complex systemic methodology.

Example

The phenomenon of discriminatory behavior is found in almost all areas of human life. A very striking illustration of this is the phenomenon of numerous irrational “achievements” that are regularly included in the famous Guinness Book of Records. Such “meaningless” records indicate the desire of people to express themselves in any area, regardless of the social or personal benefits of such an act, which is especially typical of young people, for whom social contacts, supported by sexual desires, are the most important incentive for self-expression. At the same time, for civilization as a whole, as S. Freud repeatedly noted, it is an inexhaustible source of new things, and it doesn’t matter in what area this new thing arises: in art, science, politics or anything else.

It should be especially noted that the most striking discriminatory behavior is exhibited only by those fairly young people who manage to overcome certain social restrictions and norms that force the majority to experience a state of embarrassment, shame, shyness, and fear. Becoming the founders of new trends in various areas of intellectual activity is available to only a small number of people. Moreover, some spend enormous effort on this, while others simply, as they say, find themselves in the right place at the right time.

It is obvious that the desire of people to be different from others, to stand out and to show their individuality in many cases is not the result of some rational motive. A person simply receives pleasure from the awareness of his uniqueness or significance. Perhaps this need, which does not yet have a suitable name and manifests itself only in social conditions, should be considered the basis for the formation human culture and to a large extent - public consciousness.

When studying the history and foundations of avant-garde art, where the main thing is form, method, technique, method, etc., and the resulting result is not aimed at anything other than attracting the attention of others, is devoid of content and any obvious meaning, we are also faced with a huge number of “self-expressing” individuals. Moreover, such self-expression often (and perhaps even most often) takes a pathological form. Moreover, a categorical denial of this phenomenon itself often takes the form of such self-expression. To be a nonconformist, independent of society, to be taller (or “cooler”) than those who want to stand out and look “cool” has been, as they say today, a fashionable trend among people in all eras. But also denying distinctiveness as a principle, huge amount people themselves implement it in the system of social relations and even become a trendsetter in new fashion trends or trends. Biographical method those. detailed research of biographies outstanding personalities, is one of the best psychological methods for studying this phenomenon.

As a result of the distinctive behavior of the most socially active people striving to take a leadership position in any area of ​​human activity, under favorable circumstances, closed sociodynamic systems are formed that guide the adaptive behavior of the so-called cultural consumers and form new social norms. Consequently, both in market economics and in social psychology, i.e. in science, apparently, the same universal laws operate, which proves the systemic nature of the world and the validity of the socio-psychological model we are describing.

Thus, strictly speaking, the behavior of those people who are the first in the history of civilization to introduce into culture a certain new sociodynamic norm of behavior, even if it does not have a rational meaning, which forms a certain group or even a large army of followers of such a norm, should be recognized as effectively distinctive. If we try to understand all this from the point of view of modern social psychology and refrain from criticism based on the dogmas that are familiar to us, then discriminatory behavior will not be so meaningless. It acts as a source of new forms, gradually turning into objective types of activity, without which humanity would not be as culturally diverse as it is today.

The problem would be quite simple if the process of studying discriminatory behavior could be reduced, for example, to the well-known phenomena of nonconformism, the influence of the minority on the majority, leadership and leadership, or explain it hysterical accentuation individual people or even manifestations of hysterical neurosis, narcissism or some other pathological phenomenon, which is not yet possible. That is why many social psychologists have great doubts about the definition of culture proposed by the laureate Nobel Prize world Albert Schweitzer: “Culture is the sum of all achievements of individuals and of all mankind in all fields and in all aspects to the extent that these achievements contribute to the spiritual improvement of the individual and general progress.”

Such a definition cannot be considered fair due to the fact that many cultural phenomena, both ancient and modern, do not “contribute” to anything and have nothing to do with what most of us could call progress or development. Otherwise, the culture of the 20th century. should be recognized as degradation compared to ancient or medieval culture, and no one more or less reasonable and educated person.

There are a huge number of examples confirming that the development of culture is not a unidirectional process. Its mechanism is based on the negation of the old and highlighting something new and original, or more precisely, on the transition of the best from the “old” to the classics section. It is not at all necessary that what is new in culture will be more complex and more perfect in internal structure and external form than what was created in the past. For example, primitive paintings by the self-taught Georgian artist Niko Pirosmanishvili, who created his works at the beginning of the 20th century, today cost a lot of money and are valued by collectors no less than the classical paintings of Rembrandt or Titian, who worked several centuries earlier.

Moreover, there are now psychological grounds to consider modern culture as a phenomenon of discriminatory behavior in the conditions of the so-called system sociodynamics. This concept allows us to put forward a hypothesis about the possible existence of “parallel cultures” that are independently formed on the basis of closed sociodynamic systems. In this case, a model appears that contradicts that part of Schweitzer's definition, which states that the concept of culture is always associated with linear and progressive social development.

Example

Many authors criticize Schweitzer's definition of culture, as well as the methodological and theoretical conclusions that follow from it. So, French philosopher Jean Baudrillard used the concept simulacrum as a kind of “image without an original,” a representation of something that does not really exist. With a certain understanding, its meaning comes down to the idea of ​​a conditional closed system world, where things have specific iconic properties that are inadequate to current events and do not obey the general system of values ​​and assessments of the outside world.

The concept of the so-called mosaic culture, described by the French social psychologist Abraham Antoine Mol (Fig. 9.5), as well as some other researchers. According to Mol, in modern culture, which in many ways turns out to be mosaic, what is valuable to a person is no longer what contributes to the objective development of society or the person himself. What is valuable is what can be considered subjectively as something original in relation to what over time begins to be perceived as banal, ceases to surprise and deprives a person of the opportunity to stand out in a conservative social environment. If within classical culture a person could always distinguish a real masterpiece from a handicraft, then for a person included in the mosaic culture, the value classic masterpiece may be equal to the value of launching a new product brand or, say, information about life popular actor. However, such a situation cannot be assessed as right or wrong, good or bad. This phenomenon simply takes place, and in the modern globalizing world it is impossible not to take it into account.

Thus, modern mosaic culture is in many ways a conglomeration of new forms, and not a linear, directly proportional development of ideas or objects that can be recognized as a certain " cultural heritage"from the position of social progress. Modern mosaic culture is characterized by the fact that in it the greatest value is often acquired not by the “best”, but by the “different”, not by the “progressive”, but by the “unusual”, not by the “rational”, but by the “original”.

It should be emphasized that A. Mol and his followers considered the concept of mosaic culture as something that characterizes culture as a whole, as “true culture,” regardless of its value content from the point of view of social progress. For a person who defends such a position, there is no progress in culture other than technical, i.e. except for the progress of “tools of self-expression”. Of course, this position is unacceptable for many cultural figures, especially for those who have spent enormous work and time on mastering cultural values.

However, a significant number of facts prove that the linear development of culture is a kind of myth that arises and lives as a reaction of the previous generation to the active self-expression of the next generation of people. This defensive reaction“fathers” to the reluctance of “children” to obey the old norms of thinking and behavior. This reaction may be caused by a subconscious fear that the objects of worship of the “fathers” for the “children” will lose their “supersensible” properties. This is the fear that after some time the created values ​​will be called an “ordinary phenomenon”, and then, perhaps, for an entire generation life will largely lose its meaning. That is why it is difficult for any mature generation of people who have already created their own value system to accept the fact that the norms and forms of culture move in a circle rather than develop linearly, from “simple” to “complex”.

The main “law” of culture is that everything created by people is valuable in it, that form is no less valuable than content, and subsequent cultural values and the products are not necessarily structurally more complex than the previous ones. They may be more primitive - the main thing is that they are perceived as new and original, although there is often a need to reconsider some principles for assessing sociocultural experience. From the above definition by A. Schweitzer, it logically follows that modern culture, based on the methodology of the avant-garde in the broad sense, inevitably degrades and falls into decay. However, this does not appear to be the case in reality.

Thus, we can draw a fairly reasonable conclusion that historically culture is created by the distinctive behavior of socially oriented people, i.e. some type of non-normative behavior. One can also assume that there are an unimaginably large number of socially oriented people, i.e. There are a great many individuals in the world who, solving problems of self-expression, offer new forms of organization in all spheres of our lives. Moreover, many of these people have a set of necessary psychological qualities that allow them to become leaders and trendsetters of a certain social fashion, which is especially typical for the field of art. Let us recall, for example, one of the creators and greatest representatives surrealism of the Spanish artist Salvador Dali (Fig. 9.6).

In turn, all this presupposes a rejection of the widespread division of cultures into “right” and “wrong,” “developed” and “primitive,” “real” and “fake.” In other words, within the framework of the stated socio-psychological concept there cannot be a contrast between “highly cultural” and “highly artistic” and something “lowly cultural” and “lowly artistic”. Comparison is possible only within a specific sociodynamic system, which actually happens in practice, although people very often do not realize this. Consequently, any value judgments turn out to be fair and correct only in relation to certain sociodynamic systems, which act as a kind of analogue of inertial systems in physics.

Rice. 9.6.

This position is most suitable for business and the development of competitive national economies. The fact is that the criterion of culture in a market economy is a person acting as a consumer. And if some people need simple and primitive art, since it is precisely this that corresponds to the level of their development, and other people need complex, classical art and do not accept the primitive, then they have the right to receive a work that corresponds to their intellectual level. For example, surreal paintings Dali (Fig. 9.7).

Of course, this task is by no means easy. Its solution takes time, and it will inevitably be carried out in conditions of constant contradictions and conflicts between by individuals and social groups. However free society- this is always a society with contradictions, which are for it a kind of global socio-economic and socio-psychological norm.

Thus, if we compare in detail instinctive behavior characteristic of all living organisms, and Distinctive behavior characteristic exclusively of humans, the species Homo Sapiens, one can notice an interesting pattern. Any examples of instinctive behavior contribute to the process of reproduction by living organisms of its adaptive forms and thereby make individuals identical. Distinctive behavior provides people with psychological variability, individualization and personalization in social conditions and thus is a factor in the development of both the individual and the culture as a whole in all the diversity of their manifestations.

“Although the history of ideas is not the subject of our study, it seems quite natural to try to fit the basic concepts that we have identified in speaking of mosaic culture into the picture of the evolution of Western thought.

In fact, it was mainly the West that created the mosaic culture. This culture is the result of the victory of a civilization based on material abundance and the development of mass communication. The concept of Western thought is inextricably linked with the idea of ​​culture. There are various theories regarding the origin and development of culture.

We will consider four of them.

First of all, this is the theory of continuous development , according to which Western civilization is the result of a consistent combination of elements of very different origins, continuously arising over many centuries. Their quantitative characteristics increase exponentially. This is a mechanism corresponding to the idea of ​​the sociocultural cycle. All quantities that characterize this mechanism have the form of “continuous functions”.

The second theory, on the contrary, sees in Western culture series of sharp jumps , as if climbing a ladder, which included a number of eras of particularly large acquisitions in the field of culture. The sites on this ladder correspond to the eras of assimilation and dissemination of new cultural acquisitions throughout society. This refers to the era of Greek philosophy with its apology for reason and scholasticism. The Renaissance, a series of industrial revolutions - revolutions in production and energy, and finally the era of automation, which we are currently entering. All these stages in the development of Western thought are unanimously identified by most historians. About this Einstein wrote: “The development of Western science is based on two major achievements: the system of formal logic invented by Greek philosophers, embodied in Euclidean geometry, and the ability discovered by the Renaissance to find causal relationships through systematic experimentation.” Thus, Einstein pointed to two sharp leaps in the history of science, which corresponds to this theory of cultural development.

The third theory is based on the idea of ​​dialectical contradictions within a particular culture. Emphasizing the importance of the “tendency to confrontation” in intellectual creativity, she views the development of Western civilization as a series of dialectical clashes, revolts of the new against the old. These clashes in the theory of dialectical contradictions correspond to the same stages as the leaps in the previous theory. Thus, scholastic thinking is interpreted as a reaction to the atheism of ancient Greek philosophy, the Renaissance - as a struggle against dogmatism and scholasticism, modern logic - as an energetic strengthening of the rationality of thought and its purification from excessive empiricism, etc. As Bachelard wrote, truth is only a correction some previous mistakes.

Finally, the fourth, structuralist theory sees in the development of Western thought a process of crystallization, a process of self-knowledge of the West, carried out through the consistent unification of the cultural achievements of different eras in a more or less integral structure - the rationalism of the ancient Greeks, experimental science, which began with Galilee, liberation from ancient religious superstitions, the spread of knowledge through printing - and the merging of Western civilization, which occurred towards the end of the Renaissance, when the West was finally defined as a single closed world, manifesting itself in all the originality characteristic of a certain geographical and demographic region. The idea of ​​an encyclopedia, the very idea of ​​culture - these are the most obvious results of the self-awareness of the West in contrast to the East or the Third World, the West moving towards the conquest of the Moon, towards overcoming the power of ancient myths through their implementation.

“Events,” of course, are part of culture, since in a civilization obsessed with the idea of ​​continuity, they fall into the annals of history and through them into the memory of mankind. However, history in the narrow sense of the word is just an insignificant part of the “sociocultural table,” but the media, giving “events” primary importance, transform the culture of society mainly into a collection of various stories.

In any case, it is obvious that the combination random events in the process of development of society, it influences the formation of a mosaic culture based precisely on this kind of accidents. This may be regretted by a moralist, but such regret goes beyond the bounds of scientific inquiry. It is necessary to get used to the idea that we live surrounded by a mosaic culture, that it is this culture that determines our actions, and that well-organized thinking based on universal logic is now just a bygone ideal that can only be regretted.

The fate of our era is that, even if we want to resist the existing state of affairs, we must first understand it as clearly as possible, and then look for palliatives. "Most new feature in the fate of man in the 20th century there is a state of unstable balance between a superficial and a deep view of things.” Therefore, we should get used to the idea of ​​​​the mosaic nature of our culture, that is, of a whole assembled from individual pieces, recognize that this is culture in the full sense of the word, and try to determine its characteristics. In the new world of perceptions imprinted in memory, in this new orientation screen of knowledge, formal logic gives way to less precise systems, clearly distinguishable facts are replaced by “vague” phenomena, that is, phenomena that do not meet the canonical rule of the excluded middle and the requirements of necessity. Associations of ideas are built according to laws that are difficult to define, but quite real. As noted Lévi-Strauss, associativity becomes the dominant feature of thinking.

In another work, specifically devoted to the study of scientific thought, we proposed to call these flexible and vague, but very important laws governing the connection of ideas, infralogical laws. The study of these laws and the factors hidden in them is the task of philosophy modern culture».

Abraham Mol, Sociodynamics of culture, M., “Komkniga”, 2005, p. 350-353.

Birth of the concept

Social psychologist Abraham Mohl, one of the first to make extensive use of this concept, writes:

knowledge is made up of scattered fragments connected by simple, purely random relations of proximity in time of assimilation, in consonance or association of ideas. These fragments do not form a structure, but they have a cohesive force that, no worse than old logical connections, gives the “screen of knowledge” a certain density, compactness, no less than that of the “fabric-like” screen of humanitarian education. ...

The emergence of mosaic culture is closely connected with the press... knowledge is formed mainly not by the education system, but by the means of mass communication.

Media

in fact, they control our entire culture, passing it through their filters, highlighting individual elements from the general mass of cultural phenomena and giving them special weight, increasing the value of one idea, devaluing another, thus polarizing the entire field of culture. What is not included in the channels of mass communication in our time has almost no influence on the development of society.

The message should always have a level of intelligibility that corresponds to an IQ approximately 10 points below the average coefficient of the social class for which the message is intended.

Modern use of the concept

Term mosaic culture modern sociologist S. Kara-Murza widely uses:

Humanitarian culture was passed on from generation to generation through mechanisms whose genetic matrix was the university. It gave a holistic idea of ​​the universe - the Universe, regardless of the volume and at what level this knowledge was given (the Soviet primer was built like a university - for a child). The skeleton of such a culture was disciplines (from the Latin word, which means both teaching and rods). On the contrary, a mosaic culture is perceived by a person almost involuntarily, in the form of pieces snatched from the flow of messages washing over a person.

In the chaos of information messages, no matter how sophisticated they are presented by the media, one can see the curse of the 20th century - mosaic culture. In other words, the average citizen of our time knows a little about everything. He is not afraid of the Internet, the digital divide, e-business, or e-government. He has already heard about everything, although he still doesn’t really know what it means or what it is needed for.

Notes

See also

Links

• Glotov M. B. Sociodynamic concept of “mosaic culture” by A. Mol as a prototype of its virtual model // Virtual space of culture. Proceedings of the scientific conference April 11-13, 2000. - St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Philosophical Society, 2000. - P. 64-66.
• Zhukova E. D.

Mosaic culture

Mosaic culture - sociocultural situation, characterized by random, chaotic perception of heterogeneous information by the majority of subjects, as a result of which this information is not organized by the subject’s consciousness into hierarchically ordered structures, but consists “from scattered fragments connected by simple, purely random relations of proximity in time of assimilation, in consonance or association of ideas. These fragments do not form a structure, but they have a cohesive force, which, no worse than old logical connections, gives the “screen of knowledge” a certain density, compactness, no less than that of the “fabric-like” screen of humanitarian education.”. The concept of “mosaic culture” was formulated in expanded form by the French sociopsychologist Abraham Mol (French) Russian .

The emergence of mosaic culture, according to Mohl, is closely related to the work of the media, designed for the low intellectual level of the recipient.

From Mol, the concept of mosaic culture was adopted by a number of publicists - in particular, Sergei Kara-Murza, who wrote that mosaic culture, as opposed to traditional humanitarian culture permeated with value verticals, “is perceived by a person almost involuntarily, in the form of pieces snatched from the stream washing a person messages".

Notes

Literature

• Abraham Mol. Sociodynamics of culture. - Progress, 1973.
• Zemlyanova L. M. Modern American communication studies: theoretical concepts, problems, forecasts. - M., 1995.

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