Modern society, mass culture and mass media The interference of mass media in the traditional picture of the world took place throughout the 20th century and was most acutely felt in the sphere of culture. The society gradually became more and more informed,

1. Popular culture ________________________________ page 2;

2. Elite trends in cultural studies ________________ page 9;

3. List of used literature __________ p.13

Elite and popular culture.

I.Mass culture.

If we recognize that one of the main features of genuine culture is the heterogeneity and richness of its manifestations, based on national-ethnic and class-class differentiation, then in the 20th century, the enemy of cultural "polyphony" was not only Bolshevism, which by its nature did not accept any pluralism. Under the conditions of an “industrial society” and scientific and technological revolution, humanity as a whole has shown a clearly pronounced tendency towards stereotypes and uniformity to the detriment of any kind of originality and identity, whether it is about an individual or certain social strata and groups. The modern state, like a gigantic machine, with the help of unified education systems and equally coordinated information, continuously “churns out” faceless and obviously doomed to anonymity human “material”. If the Bolsheviks and their followers sought to forcibly transform people and some kind of "cogs", then from the middle of this century the processes of standardization of everyday life have acquired an involuntary and all-encompassing character all over the world, with the exception of the remote periphery.

The ongoing changes, noticeable even with the naked eye, contributed to the emergence of sociological and philosophical-historical concepts of the so-called “mass society”. On their basis, theories of "mass culture" arose. Let us recall that O. Spengler, opposing culture and civilization, as distinctive features the latter emphasized in it the absence of a “heroic” principle, technicalism, lack of spirituality and mass character. Other culturologists, in particular N.A. Berdyaev. In general, “mass” society is interpreted as a new social structure emerging as a result of objective processes of human development - industrialization, urbanization, the rapid growth of mass consumption, the complication of the bureaucratic system and, of course, the unprecedented development of mass communications. Under these conditions, a person from the street, losing his individuality, turns into a faceless extra of history, dissolving in a crowd that no longer listens to genuine authorities, but easily becomes a victim of demagogues and even criminals deprived of any ideals.

The most complete and holistic concept of a mass society with direct access to cultural issues was proposed by the Spanish philosopher, art historian and critic Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955), the author of the famous essay “The Rebellion of the Masses” (1930), translated into all major languages ​​of the world ... True, long before Ortega, our outstanding compatriot K.N. Leontiev.

Ortega, as a philosopher, created his own doctrine of “rationalism”, the essence of which is not the separate existence of philosophy and life, science and art, but their mutual fertilization: a person is formed and exists as “I” and his life circumstances. As a cultural theorist, Ortega became not only one of the main founders of the theory of “mass society”, but also a prominent theorist of “mass art and creative“ modernism ”.

Jose Ortega y Gasset was born into the family of a famous journalist and member of the Spanish Parliament, graduated from the Jesuit College and the University of the Capital (1904), studied in Germany and from 1910 for a quarter of a century headed the Department of Metaphysics at the Faculty of Philosophy and Language of the University of Madrid, at the same time engaged in publishing and political activities in the ranks of the anti-monarchist and later anti-fascist intelligentsia. From 1936 to 1948 the philosopher was in exile in Germany, Argentina and Portugal, imbued with the ideas of Europeanism.

In his work “Rise of the Masses,” Ortega develops the idea that modern society and its culture are affected by a serious illness - the dominance of the soulless, devoid of any aspirations of a man in the street, imposing his lifestyle on entire states. In criticism of this phenomenon felt by many philosophers, Ortega follows Nietzsche, Spengler and other culturologists.

According to Ortega, the impersonal "mass" - a bunch of mediocre people - instead of following the recommendations of the natural "elite" minority, rises against it, drives the "elite" out of their traditional areas - politics and culture, which ultimately leads to all social troubles of our century. At the same time, the views of Ortega y Gasset should by no means be compared to the Marxist doctrine of the “revolutionary masses” making history. For the Spanish philosopher, a man of the “masses” is not a disadvantaged and exploited worker, ready for a revolutionary feat, but above all an average individual, “everyone and everyone who, neither in good nor in evil, does not measure himself with a special measure, but feels the same, "Like everyone else," and not only not depressed, but also content with his own indistinguishability. " Being incapable of critical thinking, a “mass” person thoughtlessly assimilates “that jumble of common truths, incoherent thoughts and just verbal rubbish that has accumulated in him by chance, and imposes it everywhere, acting out of mental simplicity, and therefore without fear and reproach ”. A creature of this type, due to its personal passivity and self-righteousness in conditions of relative prosperity, can belong to any social stratum, from a blood aristocrat to a simple worker and even a “lumpen” when it comes to “rich” societies. Instead of the Marxist division of people into “exploiters” and “exploited”, Ortega, proceeding from the very typology of the human personality, says that “the most radical of all is to divide humanity into two classes: those who demand a lot from themselves and take on the burdens themselves and obligations, and for those who do not demand anything and for whom to live is to go with the flow, remaining what they are, and not trying to outgrow themselves. "

The Spanish philosopher connects his reasoning about the emergence of a “new breed of people” - a “mass” person, first of all, with European history and reinforces very expressive statistics. “The 19th century bears fame and responsibility for the entry of the broad masses into the historical arena,” he writes, referring to the fact that for all twelve centuries of its existence - from the 7th to the 19th century - the population of Europe never exceeded 180 million people. and during the period from 1800 to 1914, over a hundred years or more, it reached 460 million. Such a dizzying growth, according to Ortega, meant “more and more crowds that are rushing down to the surface of history with such acceleration that they do not have time to be saturated with traditional culture” ... "The peculiarity of our time is," Ortega writes further, "that ordinary souls, not deceiving themselves about their own ordinariness, fearlessly assert their right to it and impose it on everyone and everywhere." It is the absence traditional culture in modern society leads to its spiritual degradation and the fall of morality.

Written under the impression of the First World War and on the eve of the second essay by Ortega, "The Uprising of the Masses" began to be regarded as prophetic, which was also facilitated by subsequent events: the emergence of such examples of social "pathology" as fascism, Nazism and Stalinism with their mass conformism, hatred of the humanistic heritage of the past , unbridled self-praise and exploitation of the most primitive inclinations of human nature. Ultimately, Ortega strove to show that it was not “class contradictions” or the notorious “intrigues of imperialism”, but the inhuman attitudes imposed on millions of duped people in totalitarian societies that caused all the tragedies of our passing century.

Ortega's reflections largely echo the ideas of the philosophers and sociologists of the so-called Frankfurt School, the “new left”, or neo-Marxists, whose largest representative Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) also believed that it was the extreme technologization and bureaucratization of modern society that lead him into the dead ends of the soulless, cave authoritarianism and dictatorships.

One should not think, however, that “mass society” with its regulated, consumerist way of life and the absence of high ideals is fatally doomed to totalitarianism of the “right” or “left” persuasion. Of course, if one recognizes the intelligentsia as an active subject of culture, whose role in “mass society” is usually belittled, the danger of its shift to authoritarian forms of government increases. But just as an uneducated and soulless subject does not necessarily become a criminal (although the likelihood of this in this case is higher), so “mass society” is by no means the only explanation for the victory of fascism or Stalinism. Indeed, at the heart of the "mass" public life there are such material factors that are not subject to ideologies, such as standardized and conveyor machine production, one way or another unified education and replicated information, the exit of a significant layer of people to a certain “average” level of life that lulls creative energy. If we add to this the stabilizing effect of the principles of democracy, the success of which in our century is also impossible to deny, then it should be recognized that the phenomenon of “mass society” is noticeably neutralized as a potential danger, although it harbors the constant threat of totalitarianism. The geopolitical panorama of the industrial, and in some places the post-industrial XX century shows: the symptoms and manifestations of "mass society" with varying degrees of brightness and completeness made themselves felt both in highly developed fascist Germany, and in the Soviet Union that began industrialization, and in former countries"Socialist community", and even more so in the highly developed countries of the West and East, which have reached the forefront of technological progress.

As already noted, the most important, if not decisive, feature of “mass society” is “mass culture”. Responding to the general spirit of the times, unlike the social practice of all previous eras, from about the middle of this century it has become one of the most profitable sectors of the economy and even gets the corresponding names: “entertainment industry”, “commercial culture”, “pop culture”, “ leisure industry ”, etc. By the way, the last of the above designations reveals one more reason for the emergence of “mass culture” - the appearance among a significant layer of working citizens of an excess of free time, “leisure”, due to the high level of mechanization of the production process. More and more people have a need to “kill time”. For its satisfaction, naturally for money, “mass culture” is calculated, which manifests itself mainly in the sensory sphere, ie. in all types of literature and art. Cinema, television and, of course, sports (in its purely spectatorial part) have become especially important channels for the general democratization of culture over the past decades, gathering huge and not too picky audiences, driven only by the desire for psychological relaxation.

Having turned into a commodity for the market, “mass culture” hostile to any kind of elitism has a whole series of distinctive features... This is, first of all, its “simplicity”, if not primitiveness, often turning into a cult of mediocrity, because it is designed for “a man from the street”. To fulfill its function - to relieve strong industrial stresses - “mass culture” must be at least entertaining; addressed to people often with an insufficiently developed intellectual beginning, it largely exploits such spheres of the human psyche as the subconscious and instincts. All this corresponds to the prevailing theme of “mass culture”, which receives large profits from the exploitation of such “interesting” and understandable to all people as love, family, sex, career, crime and violence, adventure, horror, etc. It is curious and psychotherapeutic positive that, on the whole, “mass culture” is cheerful, shuns really unpleasant or depressing stories for the audience, and the corresponding works usually end with a happy ending. It is not surprising that, along with the “average” person, one of the consumers of such products, there is a pragmatic part of young people who are not burdened with life experience, who have not lost their optimism and are still thinking little about the cardinal problems of human existence.

In connection with such generally recognized features of "mass culture" as its emphasized commercial nature, as well as the simplicity of this "culture" and its prevailing orientation towards entertainment, the absence of great human ideas in it, one important theoretical question arises: did "mass culture" exist? in the now collapsed Soviet Union? On the grounds listed, apparently, no. But, undoubtedly, there was a special “Soviet” or “soviet” culture of totalitarianism, which was not elite and not “mass”, but reflected the general equalizing and ideologized character of Soviet society. However, this question requires a separate culturological study.

The phenomenon of "mass culture" described above from the point of view of its role in the development of modern civilization is not assessed by scientists unambiguously. Depending on the gravitation towards an elite or populist way of thinking, culturologists tend to consider it as something like social pathology, a symptom of the degeneration of society, or, conversely, an important factor in its health and internal stability. The first, largely fueled by the ideas of F. Nietzsche, were O. Spengler, H. many others. The latter are represented by the already mentioned L. White and T. Parsons. A critical approach to “mass culture” comes down to its accusations of neglecting the classical heritage, that it is allegedly an instrument of deliberate manipulation of people; enslaves and unifies the main creator of any culture - the sovereign personality; contributes to her alienation from real life; distracts people from their main task - "the spiritual and practical development of the world" (K. Marx). The apologetic approach, on the contrary, is expressed in the fact that “mass culture” is proclaimed as a natural consequence of irreversible scientific and technological progress, that it contributes to the rallying of people, especially young people, regardless of any ideologies and national-ethnic differences in a stable social system and not only does not reject the cultural heritage of the past, but also makes its best examples the property of the widest popular strata through their replication through the press, radio, television and industrial reproduction. The debate about the harm or beneficialness of “mass culture” has a purely political aspect: both democrats and supporters of authoritarian rule, not without reason, strive to use this objective and very important phenomenon of our time in their own interests. During the Second World War and in the post-war period, the problems of "mass culture", especially its most important element - mass information, were studied with equal attention both in democratic and totalitarian states.

As a reaction to “mass culture” and its use in the ideological confrontation between “capitalism” and “socialism” by the 70s. of our century, in certain strata of society, especially in the youth and materially secured environment of industrialized countries, an informal complex of behavioral attitudes, called "counterculture", is taking shape. This term was proposed by the American sociologist T. Rozzak in his work “The Formation of Counterculture” (1969), although in general the ideological forerunner of this phenomenon in the West is considered F. Nietzsche with his admiration for the “Dionysian” principle in culture. Perhaps the most vivid and vivid expression of the counterculture was the movement of the so-called "hippies" that quickly spread across all continents, although it by no means exhausts this broad and rather vague concept. Its adherents include, for example, “rockers” - fanatics of motorsport; and “skinheads” - skinheads, usually with a fascist ideology; and the "punks" associated with musical movement“Punk rock” and having incredible hairstyles in different colors; and “tads” - the ideological enemies of “punks” who defend physical health, order and stability (cf. we have a recent confrontation between “hippies” and “lubers”), and many other informal youth groups. Recently, in connection with the sharp stratification of property in Russia, the so-called majors have also appeared - usually the most prosperous youths from the commercial semi-criminal world - "rich", whose behavior and life attitudes go back to the Western "po-pper", American "yoppie" , striving to outwardly show themselves as the “cream of society”. They, naturally, are guided by Western cultural values ​​and act as antipodes of both the pro-communist guardians of the past and youth national-patriots.

Movements of "hippies", "beatniks" and others like them social phenomena were a rebellion against the post-war nuclear and technotronic reality, which threatened with new cataclysms in the name of ideological and everyday stereotypes alien to the “free” person. Preachers and adherents of the “counterculture” were distinguished by a shocking manner of thinking, feeling and communication, a cult of spontaneous behavior uncontrollable by the mind, a tendency to mass “parties”, even orgies, often with the use of drugs (“drug culture”), the organization of various kinds of youth “communes "And" collective families "with open," disorderly - ordered " intimate relationships, interest in the occult and religious mysticism of the East, multiplied by the “sexually revolutionary” “mysticism of the body,” and so on.

As a protest against material well-being, conformism and lack of spirituality of the "richest" part of humanity, the counterculture, represented by its followers, made the existing social structures, scientific and technological progress, opposing ideologies and the post-industrial "consumer society" the main object of its criticism, or rather, its contempt. in general, with its everyday standards and stereotypes, the cult of bourgeois "happiness", hoarding, "success in life" and moral complexes. Property, family, nation, work ethics, personal responsibility and other traditional values ​​of modern civilization were declared unnecessary prejudices, and their defenders were viewed as retrogrades. It is easy to see that all this resembles the eternal conflict of “fathers” and “children,” and indeed, some scientists, drawing attention to the predominantly youthful character of “counterculture”, regard it as social infantilism, a “childhood illness” of modern youth, the physical maturation of which is much ahead of her civil formation. Quite a few former “rebels” later become completely law-abiding representatives of the “establishment”.

And, nevertheless, the questions arise: how to relate to the youth, “informal”, often rebellious culture? Should we be for it or against it? Is it a phenomenon of our century or has it always existed? The answers are clear enough: the youth subculture should be treated with understanding. To reject in it an aggressive, destructive, extremist principle: both political radicalism and hedonistic-drug escapism; to support the pursuit of creativity and innovation, remembering that the greatest movements of our century are in defense of natural environment, the anti-war movement, the movement for the moral renewal of mankind, as well as the latest art schools, born of a bold experiment, are the result of a disinterested, albeit sometimes naive, urge of young people to improve the world around them.

Youth informal culture, which is by no means reduced to the prefixes counter- and sub-, existed at all times and among all peoples, as there were always definite intellectual and psychological potencies of a certain age. But just as an individual cannot be torn apart into a young man and an old man, so youth culture cannot be artificially separated from the "adult" and "old man" culture, because they all mutually balance and enrich each other.

II.Elite trends in cultural studies.

For all the simplicity and transparency of the thesis about the beneficialness of democracy for the fate of culture, a closer examination of it shows that for many prominent representatives of social and cultural thought it turns out to be far from being so indisputable. “Who will guarantee,” asks H. Ortega y Gasset, “that the dictates of the masses will not force the state to abolish the individual and thereby finally extinguish the hope for the future?” Under certain historical conditions, democracy as the rule of the people can turn into "mediocracy" - the rule of mediocrity or, even worse, into "ochlocracy" - the rule of the crowd. “The autocracy of the people,” echoes the Spanish philosopher Berdyaev, “is the most terrible autocracy, for in it man depends on the unenlightened number, on the dark instincts of the masses. The will of one, or the will of a few, cannot extend its ambitions as far as the will of all. You can still protect part of your existence from the will of the autocrat, but it is incomparably more difficult to protect it from the will of the autocratic people. ” Even the great Pushkin allowed himself to doubt the right to autocracy of the “rabble”:

Shut up, mindless people

Day laborer, slave to need, worries!

You are the worm of the earth, not the son of heaven;

You would benefit from everything - by weight

Idol you appreciate the Belvedere ...

If democracy in political life can seem almost an ideal, then in the field of science and art, as the dominance of scientists or middle-level artists, it looks rather doubtful, most clearly embodied in mass culture, which deliberately orients material and spiritual values ​​to some averaged and standardized samples. ... Being a product of a consumer society with its pragmatism and lack of spirituality, mass culture also becomes a social drug that distracts people from a deeper spiritual and practical exploration of the world.

It is quite natural that the widespread offensive of mass culture, which usually accompanies democratic processes, could not but cause alarm in the most refined circles of the world scientific and artistic intelligentsia, especially in that part of it that adheres to the theory of "elites" and "heroes" as the main driving forces of cultural and social process.

One of the most prominent spiritual fathers of the elitist idea in the development of culture was the outstanding German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) with his concept of the “superman” and attacks on democratic ideology, allegedly reinforcing the “herd instincts” of the crowd. He fully shared Voltaire's textbook idea that “when the rabble begins to reason, everything is lost!”.

From a cultural point of view, Nietzsche is interesting not only as an original thinker and master of a capacious aphoristic word, but also as the author of many works directly related to the theory of culture. Just like Machiavelli, who gave birth to Machiavellianism, Nietzsche, called by bourgeois liberals "the evil genius of Europe", laid the foundation for Nietzscheism - a derivative and rather controversial system of ideas that became widespread at the turn of two centuries, including in Russia. True, its much deeper creative heritage is not at all reduced to "Nietzscheanism." The denial of Christianity and religious morality, the preaching of the “right of the strong” and the “superman” acting “on the other side of good and evil”, the cult of war and contempt for the weak (“ little man”) - these are some of the postulates of Nietzsche, adopted by totalitarian regimes, primarily National Socialism and Fascism. A supporter of “strong” power and an enemy of democracy, he believed that “disregard for the state, the decline and death of the state is more unbridled than a private individual ... are the consequences of the democratic concept of the state; this is his mission ... ”,“ modern democracy is a historical form of the fall of the state, ”Nietzsche argued.

He was born into the family of a pastor with Polish noble ancestors, and by his mother - family ties with the circles of the hereditary German intelligentsia. The future philosopher studied excellently at Bonn, and later at Leipzig universities, without defending his thesis, he became an honorary doctor, gradually moving from classical philosophy to broad worldview generalizations. In 1869, Nietzsche, renouncing his German citizenship, moved to Switzerland, where for 10 years he worked as a professor at the University of Basel and became close friends with the great German composer Richard Wagner, who had a great influence on him (later this friendship turned into enmity). In 1879, Nietzsche, suffering from nervous depression from a young age, became practically insane and his creative activity completely ceased.

As already noted, Nietzsche is considered the ideological father of nihilism at the end of the last century, the inspirer of modern rebellious youth and the ideologue of violence and war as an “ennobling” and “cleansing” agent. But, despite this, the undoubted merit of the German philosopher, who considered the modern "average" person a "shame and shame" of history, became sharpest criticism bourgeois-philistine mass culture, reducing people to the level of “herd” mediocrity. That is why Nietzsche was hostile to democracy and socialism, mercilessly exposing their existing imperfections and shortcomings. With the culture of Russia, Nietzsche is associated with his sympathy for the Slavs, a good knowledge of Russian literary classics and above all, Dostoevsky, whose acquaintance with the work of which he ranked among the "finest successes" of his life.

Among other early advocates of the decisive role of individuals and elites in the fate of mankind, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) stands out - an English writer and historian who largely anticipated the views of Nietzsche, herald of the "cult of heroes", executors of the will of "divine providence" and spiritual fathers of the historical process, towering over the "anonymous" mass. “Find the man who is the most capable in a given country, put him as high as you can, invariably honor him,” wrote Carlyle, “and you will have a completely perfect government, and no ballot box, parliamentary eloquence, voting, constitutional institution, none at all. mechanics can no longer improve the situation of such a country by one iota. "

Thomas Carlyle was the “master of thought” in the cultural life of 19th century Europe. and a deep critic of the socio-cultural processes that determined the reality of that time. Highly revered in his homeland, whose conservative-hierarchical tradition he passionately and expressively refracted in his polemical writings, Carlyle, an informally very religious person, became the most authoritative opponent of atheistic materialism, utilitarianism and spiritual equalization generated by the French bourgeois revolution with its failed ideals equality and fraternity ”. In modern cultural studies, Carlyle was the founder of the elite approach to the cultural and historical process, in his own way anticipating the views of such thinkers as F. Nietzsche, K.N. Leontiev, as well as other philosophers and sociologists of an anti-democratic persuasion.

The most famous work of Carlyle, which defined his unique face in the history of European culture - "Heroes, the veneration of heroes and the heroic in history" (1841) - was not a blind apologetics for the "right of the strong", for geniuses and heroes who, according to Carlyle, created history, unlike the Nietzschean "superman", fundamentally anti-religious, had a divine origin and were always associated with some transcendental truth. For the principled opponent of democracy and parliamentarism, who identified them with the omnipotence of the "rabble", examples of historical geniuses were Cromwell, Napoleon and Frederick the Great. Modern political culture The West, based on the ideals of bourgeois revolutions, is in clear contradiction with the main idea of ​​Carlyle, but it still retains its significance. This is the priority that Carlyle gives to the divine-personal principle over “rule of the people” and mass character, which is now expressed in “mass culture”; the indisputability of the principle of spiritual hierarchism in the life of any society; criticism of the mercantile spirit of contemporary Europe, incompatible with genuine culture; defense of the thesis that the mental health of society, and therefore culture as a whole, is not conditioned by purely material consumer welfare. Diligence, honesty, courage, responsibility - these are the ideals that Carlyle proclaimed in his works in a brilliant literary form and without which, in his opinion, the progressive development of mankind is impossible.

If you do not go into the details of the general elite approach to culture in all its individual and conceptual versions, then it is based on a rather simple and by no means easily refuted idea:

any spiritually unconnected group of people, crowd, nameless mass is passive in itself. People can become bearers of civilization or barbarism, depending on whether there is a person among them who is capable of taking on the generally recognized burden of supremacy. Just as it is impossible to obtain genius from the addition of many "gray" people, it is impossible to obtain high culture from the addition of a mass of mediocrities.

So, if democracy as a form of power with all its undoubted merits in the field of culture reveals a certain inconsistency, and the mechanical majority is not always the bearer of truth, goodness and beauty, then what should be the optimal structure of society to support and develop talents? Indeed, a truly creative person is just as sickened by the tyranny of the next tyrant, as the omnipotence of the "rabble" that overthrows him. Where is the exit? The answer to this question, again, can be found in N.A. Berdyaev, who relies on the achievements of modern sociology with its concepts of social stratification, developed, in particular, by P. Sorokin. Ultimately, we are talking about the eternal hierarchical structure of society, due to the initial inequality of people, some are born smart and talented, others are deprived of these innate qualities. This is hierarchism human qualities and gifts, as opposed to a formal hierarchy of physical strength, lineage and positions. So in a democracy, social differentiation based on the real merits and talents of individuals should be preserved and supported. This path, in fact, went, although not without costs, after the Great French revolution Western culture, successfully combining democratic and hierarchical principles. “Consistent democracy, overthrowing all hierarchism,” writes Berdyaev, “has never been and cannot be. This consistent democracy is anarchy ... ”; “Civilized peoples cannot allow the overthrow of their existence into anarchic chaos and therefore cling to the eternally renewing and reviving hierarchical principle”.

III. List of used literature.

Elite culture. 3

Mass culture. 4

Mass culture and its social functions. 5

Art and popular culture. eleven

Keach and popular culture. 12

Mass culture as the culture of mass society. fourteen

Conclusion. eighteen

List of sources used. 21

The growing interest in cultural problems is characteristic of the entire world science of the 20th century and is associated with many historical and socio-cultural reasons: the formation of a multicultural post-industrial civilization; search for means of "cultural adaptation" of a person to the achievements of the technogenic world and information culture; the spread of the phenomenon of mass culture; an increase in the "anthropological character" of science, the transfer of its interest from a person - a product of culture to a person - a creator of culture. All this stimulated the development of a complex of cultural and anthropological sciences in most countries of the world; cultural studies became the domestic equivalent of such a science.

Elite or high culture is created by a privileged part of society, or by its order by professional creators. It includes fine arts, classical music and literature. High culture, such as Picasso painting or Schoenberg's music, is difficult for an unprepared person to understand. As a rule, it is decades ahead of the level of perception of an average educated person. The circle of its consumers is a highly educated part of society: critics, literary critics, regulars of museums and exhibitions, theater-goers, artists, writers, musicians. When the level of education of the population grows, the circle of consumers of high culture expands. Its variety includes secular art and salon music. The formula of elite culture is "art for art". High culture denotes the passions and habits of townspeople, aristocrats, the rich, the ruling elite. The same types of art can belong to high and popular culture: classical music is high, and popular music is popular, Fellini's films are high, and action films are massive, Picasso's paintings are high, and popular music is massive. However, there are such genres of literature, in particular science fiction, detective stories and comics, which are always classified as popular or popular culture, but never high. The same thing happens with specific works of art. The Bach Organ Mass belongs to high culture, but if it is used as musical accompaniment in figure skating competitions, it is automatically enrolled 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 compromise high culture at all. The same applies to the Mona Lisa on a toilet soap box or a computer reproduction hanging in the back office. Elite culture is created not by the entire people, but by the educated part of society - writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, in short, humanitarians. Typically, high culture is initially experimental or avant-garde. It tries those artistic techniques that will be perceived and correctly understood by wide layers of non-professionals many years later. Experts sometimes call exact terms - 50 years. So late, the samples the highest artistry ahead of their time.

Mass culture

With the advent of the mass media (radio, mass print media, television, gramophone records, tape recorders), the distinction between high and popular culture was erased. This is how a mass culture arose, which is not associated with religious or class subcultures. The media and popular culture are inextricably linked. Culture becomes "mainstream" when its products are standardized and disseminated to the general public.

Mass culture (lat. Massa - lump, piece) is a concept that in modern cultural studies is associated with such social groups, which are characterized by an "average" level of spiritual needs.

Mass culture, a concept that encompasses the diverse and diverse cultural phenomena of the 20th century, which became widespread in connection with the scientific and technological revolution and the constant renewal of the mass media. The production, distribution and consumption of mass culture products is of an industrial and commercial nature. The semantic range of mass culture is very wide - from primitive kitsch (early comics, melodrama, pop hit, "soap opera") to complex, meaningful forms (some types of rock music, "intellectual" detective story, pop art). The aesthetics of mass culture is characterized by a constant balance between the trivial and the original, the aggressive and the sentimental, the vulgar and the sophisticated. By actualizing and objectifying the expectations of the mass audience, mass culture meets its needs for leisure, entertainment, play, communication, emotional compensation or relaxation, etc. Mass culture does not express the refined tastes or spiritual searches of the people; it has less artistic value than elite or folk culture. But she has the most wide audience and it is copyright. It satisfies the immediate needs of people, reacts to any new event and reflects it. Therefore, samples of mass culture, in particular hits, quickly lose their relevance, become obsolete, go out of fashion. It can be international and national. Pop music is a vivid example of mass culture. It is understandable and accessible to all ages, to all segments of the population, regardless of the level of education.

Popular culture and its social functions

In the morphological structure of culture, two areas can be distinguished: ordinary and specialized culture. Mass culture occupies an intermediate position with the function of a translator. The gap between ordinary and specialized cultures in antiquity was small (the specialty of an artisan or a merchant was mastered in the process of home education), but with scientific and technological development, it increased much (especially in science-intensive professions).

Everyday culture is realized in the corresponding forms of lifestyle. The way of life is determined, among other things, by the type of professional occupation of a person (a diplomat inevitably has different ways of life than a peasant), aboriginal traditions of the place of residence, but most of all - the social status of a person, his class or class affiliation. Exactly social status sets the direction of the economic and cognitive interests of the individual, the style of his leisure, communication, etiquette, information aspirations, aesthetic tastes, fashion, image, everyday rituals and rituals, prejudices, images of prestige, ideas about his own dignity, general outlook, social philosophy, etc. ., which constitutes the bulk of the features of everyday culture.

Ordinary culture is not studied by a person specifically (with the exception of emigrants who purposefully master the language and customs of the new homeland), but is assimilated spontaneously in the process of children's upbringing and general education, communication with relatives, social environment, colleagues in the profession, etc. and is adjusted throughout life the individual according to the intensity of his social contacts.

Modern knowledge and cultural patterns are developed in the depths of highly specialized areas of social practice. They are understood and assimilated by the relevant specialists, while for the bulk of the population, the language of modern specialized culture (political, scientific, artistic, engineering, etc.) is almost inaccessible. Therefore, society needs a system of means to "translate" information from the language of highly specialized areas of culture to the level of ordinary understanding of unprepared people, to "interpret" this information to its mass consumer, to infantilize its figurative incarnations, as well as to "control" the consciousness of the mass consumer.

This kind of adaptation has always been required for children when, in the processes of upbringing and general education, "adult" meanings were translated into the language of fairy tales, parables, entertaining stories, and simplified examples. Now such an interpretive practice has become necessary for a person throughout his life. Modern man, even being very educated, remains a narrow specialist in one area, and the level of his specialization increases from century to century. In other areas, he needs a permanent "staff" of commentators, interpreters, teachers, journalists, advertising agents and other kind of "guides" leading him through the endless sea of ​​information about goods, services, political events, artistic innovations, social collisions, etc.

Mass culture has become a realizer of this kind of needs. The structure of being in it is given to a person as a set of more or less standard situations, where everything has already been chosen by those very "guides" through life: journalists, advertising agents, public politicians, etc. In mass culture, everything is already known in advance: the "correct" political system, the only correct doctrine, leaders, place in the ranks, sports and pop stars, fashion for the image of a "class fighter" or "sexual symbol", movies where "ours" are always right and always win, etc.

This begs the question: weren't there problems in the past with the translation of the meanings of a specialized culture to the level of everyday understanding? Why did mass culture appear only in the last one and a half to two centuries, and what cultural phenomena performed this function earlier?

Apparently, before the scientific and technical revolution of recent centuries, there really was no such gap between specialized and ordinary knowledge. The only exception was religion. We know very well how great the intellectual gap was between "professional" theology and the mass religiosity of the population. Here a "translation" from one language to another was really necessary. This task was solved by preaching. Obviously, we can regard church preaching as the historical predecessor of the phenomena of mass culture.

Phenomena of mass culture are created by professional people who deliberately reduce complex meanings to primitives. This is not to say that this kind of infantilization is simple to execute; It is well known that the technical prowess of many show business stars arouses sincere admiration among the representatives of the "artistic classics".

Among the main manifestations and directions of mass culture of our time, the following can be distinguished:

the industry of "subcultures of childhood" (works of art for children, toys and industrially produced games, goods specifically for children's consumption, children's clubs and camps, paramilitary and other organizations, technologies for collective education of children, etc.);

mass general education school, introducing students to the basics of scientific knowledge, philosophical and religious beliefs about the world around us with the help of standard programs;

mass media (print and electronic), broadcasting current information, "explaining" to an ordinary person the meaning of current events, judgments and actions of figures from specialized spheres;

the system of ideology and propaganda, which forms the political orientations of the population;

mass political movements initiated by the elite in order to involve broad strata of the population in political actions, for the most part far from political interests, little understanding of the meaning of political programs;

entertainment leisure industry, which includes mass artistic culture (practically in all types of literature and art, maybe with the exception of architecture), mass production and entertainment performances (from sports and circus to erotic), professional sports, structures for organizing entertainment (corresponding types of clubs, discos, dance floors, etc.) and other types of shows. Here, the consumer, as a rule, acts not only as a passive spectator, but is also constantly provoked to active inclusion or an ecstatic emotional reaction to what is happening. Mass artistic culture achieves its effect through a special aestheticization of the vulgar, ugly, physiological, i.e. acting on the principle of a medieval carnival and its semantic "shape-shifters". This culture is characterized by:

replicating the unique and reducing it to the commonplace;

the industry of recreational leisure, physical rehabilitation of a person and correction of his bodily image (resort industry, mass physical culture movement, bodybuilding and aerobics, sports tourism, as well as a system of medical, pharmaceutical, perfumery and cosmetic services to correct appearance);

the industry of intellectual leisure ("cultural" tourism, amateur art activities, collecting, hobby groups, various societies of collectors, amateurs and admirers of whatever, scientific and educational institutions and associations, as well as everything that falls under the definition of "popular science ", Mind games, quizzes, crosswords, etc.), introducing people to popular science knowledge, scientific and artistic amateurism, developing the general "humanitarian erudition" of the population;

a system for managing consumer demand for things, services, ideas for both individual and collective use (fashion advertising, image-making, etc.), which forms the standard of socially prestigious images and lifestyles, interests and needs, types of appearance;

gaming complexes - from mechanical gaming machines, electronic consoles, computer games, etc. to virtual reality systems;

all kinds of dictionaries, reference books, encyclopedias, catalogs, electronic and other banks of information, special knowledge, the Internet, etc., designed not for trained specialists, but for mass consumers.

And no one imposes this "cultural production" on us. Everyone has the right to turn off the TV whenever he wants. Popular culture as one of the freest in terms of the mode of its distribution of goods in the information market can exist only in conditions of voluntary and rush demand. Of course, the level of such excitement is artificially supported by interested sellers of the goods, but the very fact of increased demand for this very thing, made precisely in this figurative style, in this language, is generated by the consumer himself, and not by the seller.

In the end, the images of mass culture, like any other imaginative system, show us nothing more than our own "cultural face", which in fact has always been inherent in us; it's just that in Soviet times this "side of the face" was not shown on TV. If this "face" were absolutely alien, if there was no really massive demand for all this in society, we would not react to it so sharply.

Although mass culture, of course, is the "ersatz product" of specialized areas of culture, does not generate its own meanings, but only imitates phenomena, one should not evaluate it only negatively. Mass culture is generated by the objective processes of modernization of society, when the socializing and inculturing functions of traditional culture lose their effectiveness. Popular culture actually assumes the functions of a tool for ensuring primary socialization. It is quite possible that mass culture is the embryonic predecessor of some new, still nascent everyday culture.

One way or another, but mass culture is a variant of the ordinary culture of the urban population, competent only in a narrow sphere, and otherwise preferring to use printed, electronic sources of information reduced "for the fools". In the end, the pop singer, dancing at the microphone, sings about the same thing that Shakespeare wrote about in his sonnets, but only in this case translated into the language of "two booms, three booms".

Art and popular culture

This problem affects today not only the relationship between art and economics, but also the very problem of artistry. In the XX century, art uses sources of sound, color, light that did not exist before. In every home, thanks to television, video, radio, one can hear classical music, see masterpieces from the collections of the world's best museums, watch films and theatrical performances of the greatest directors of our time. However, mass production and reproduction of works of art turns into the emergence of a standard not only in the material, but also in the spiritual sphere, and this, in turn, leads to the development of an average taste. Can we distinguish in the stream of music that falls on us every day, artistic from non-artistic, art from pseudo-art, ersatz culture? Standardization of tastes helps to average the level of artistic works. Quite often, it is not talent that creates the image of a particular star, but the presence of a good producer and advertising. Art begins to obey the laws of the market, where the creation of works of art depends on supply and demand. There is an intense competition for the viewer, and it is no coincidence that we are talking about a whole system of show business. Only a few go to museums, to concerts of classical music, and tens of thousands to show performances by rock musicians. Mass culture is dominated by sensual expression and pleasure.

Of course, popular culture has its positive aspects. Entertaining, delivering sensual pleasure, it gives a person the opportunity to forget about their problems, to relax. However, the works of mass culture or kitsch are momentary and only imitate the techniques of genuine art, are designed for external effect.

Keach and popular culture

The word "kitsch" comes from the German verbs "kitschen" (to cheat, create low-quality works), "verkilschen" (sell cheap, sell for a pittance, make cheap). If the first manifestations of kitsch were widespread only in applied arts, then, as it developed, the area of ​​kitsch began to capture all spheres of art: from easel painting to all types of art, including not only traditional ones - literature, music, theater, architecture, but also cinema, television. At the same time, in each country, it is possible to clearly define the specific national traits kitsch: the "corny vulgarity" of the German kitsch, the "frank obscenity" of the French, the ecstatic sentimentality of the Italian, the flat primitiveness of the American. Kitsch has become widespread in Russia as well.

In the modern world, kitsch is so common that there are already various classifications of it. There are several varieties of it.

Retrokich is a fashion for classic historical kitsch. Today many people collect classic kitsch: figurines, boxes, rugs, postcards.

Fair kitsch - modern market cats - piggy banks, toys that vaguely resemble folk, and other crafts.

Neokich, which includes a design kitsch, a gadget kitsch (various kinds of souvenirs, characterized by striking absurdity: a fountain pen - a pocket flashlight, cufflinks with a thermometer or a gun that shoots cigarettes).

And finally, the camp is a pseudo-intellectual specimen of the ugliest manifestations of kitsch.

The very etymology of the word indicates that it is hack and bad taste. As a rule, kitsch works mimic real phenomena of art, without being such. A kitsch is characterized by a set of surrogates, stereotypes, sentimentality, a set of everyday formulas, pomp, excesses, cosmopolitanism.

Kitsch is characterized by affectation of feelings, hypertrophy of attractions, shocking hyperbolism of situations. At the same time, hypertrophy of feelings is associated with shameless nakedness of the innermost. That is why in kitsch works one often encounters an apology for violence and gross eroticization.

Ultimately, kitsch forms primitiveness, conformity, lack of independence of thinking, which is easy to manipulate. That is why kitsch forms people who can easily perceive the most inhuman, inhuman ideas. It is no coincidence that, therefore, in the age of kitsch's triumph, the infection of fascism, racist ideas and national disunity has spread widely.

Keach captures the sphere of not only amateur and professional art, but even such a sphere that is not subject to the corrosive effects of folk art. Here we find elements of defolclorization, when professionals "correct" folk dances and songs, and already these pseudo-artistic works are spreading as standards folk art.

Keach is a phenomenon of creativity in the transition period, the collapse of the old cultural formation and the formation of a new one. The fear of insecurity, helplessness in the face of the formidable and incomprehensible, makes many people look for ways to disconnect from reality, go into the illusory peace of home comfort. For a person with undeveloped taste, this is going into the world of kitsch.

Mass culture as the culture of mass society

In many ways, the impetus for the study of mass culture was the change in technology that so dramatically influenced the fate of culture - the invention of photography, the emergence of cinema on the cultural scene, the development of radio and television. The very fact that art and culture began to be reproduced on the broadest scale created a number of problems for traditional ideas about the role of culture and art in society. The introduction of the principles of mass production into the field of culture meant that cultural artifacts could be treated like any other mass-produced product. This meant, from the point of view of critics of mass society and popular culture, that cultural products such as films could not be considered art, since they did not have the aura of genuine works of art. At the same time, they could not be attributed to folk culture, since, unlike folklore genres, they did not come from people and could not reflect their experience and interests. The problems of this new type of culture were associated by its researchers with the change in social structures and cultural orders in the industrial era. New type society - "mass society" - had its own culture, which embodied the values ​​and life styles of the broadest strata of the population.

Mass society theory views popular culture as mass culture, i.e. owned by a mass society. The main point in its formation is the process of industrialization and urbanization, which had devastating consequences for culture. The emergence of large-scale and mechanized industrial production, the growth of densely populated cities led to the destabilization of the previous value structures that united people. The destruction of land-based rural labor, rural cramped society, the decline of religion, secularization associated with belief in science, the spread of mechanical and alienated factory labor, the establishment of models of life in a large city, the lack of a moral foundation - all this lies at the basis of mass society and mass culture. ...

The most important characteristic mass society is the atomization of individuals. This means that society consists of people connected like atoms, the individual becomes divorced from the community in which he can find his identity. There is a decline in social ties and institutions that could help the individual (village, church, family). As a result, in a mass society, people are atomized socially and morally.

"Mass society", "mass man" - these concepts become defining for studies of mass culture in the first half of the XX century, inclined to see its features in the specifics of social structures and the general nature of culture changing under the influence of new technologies.

The works of F. Leavis played an important role in the theoretical understanding of the forms of mass culture at an early stage. F. Leavis's views are based on an unusually high assessment of the role of culture (by which he means the elite culture of an enlightened minority) in the life of society. According to F. Leavis, the minority that defines true culture at the beginning of the 20th century finds itself in crisis. It faces a hostile environment, cut off from the forces that rule the world, in its place as cultural center a false center arises. What is the reason for this loss of authority, this shift in the value system? F. Leavis sees it in the Americanization of culture, expressed in standardization, in the management of mass production from overseas, in the penetration of mass tastes into all areas of mass culture - press, advertising, broadcasting, cinema. The success of Hollywood cinema is especially indicative in this sense. The most widespread forms of mass culture - cinema and broadcasting - are based on a model of passive perception and standardization. F. Leavis also sees a danger in advertising, since mass psychological control over the audience is carried out through it.

If we analyze the works of F. Leavis from the point of view of the problems of today's culture, we can see that these works contain many points that are quite relevant for modern studies of mass culture. Among them are the following:

Popular literature and popular culture are a source of cheap and accessible pleasures for a mass public that needs to meet the needs created by urbanization and the destruction of small communities;

Popular culture cannot be analyzed as genuine culture;

The cheap and readily available pleasures of bestselling, light and dance music have led to an overwhelming, pervasive eroticization of modern popular culture;

These pleasures are passive; they do not require the active participation of the perceiver;

These pleasures lead to an overemphasis on the role of the visual element, which is actually subordinate to reading.

A common motive for criticizing mass culture is standardization, which inevitably accompanies its "products". Such criticism always, explicitly or implicitly, proceeds either from the idealization of traditional culture, which supposedly did not know the standard, or from reducing the cultural values ​​of the past only to the highest, unique classical models (while forgetting that the "middle" and "lower" floors are often simply sunk into oblivion). It is pertinent to note that doing this means becoming like a person who would compare, for example, a modern typical residential building, built by a mass industrial method, with some Florentine palazzo of the 15th century. and to vigorously prove the obvious aesthetic defects of the former versus the latter, implying that there were no huts in Florence at that time.

Duplication is by no means necessarily a "vulgarization" of the high and the unique (although losses are possible and inevitable here). According to the research of art historians in the modern era, acquaintance with replicated cultural creations often leads to a deep penetration into the unique essence of the originals.

Standardization, closely related to mass character, is a universal social process, and the task is not at all to "expose" standardization as such. It is, of course, necessary to fully support and cultivate the value of the unique and inimitable, especially in artistic creation (without which it simply does not exist), but at the same time it is important to remember that it can (and sometimes should) become a standard, although not necessarily eternal and ubiquitous ...

The creation of original and diverse cultural standards is of the utmost importance in the functioning of culture, however paradoxical this statement may seem at first glance. Over time, the standard can become (and has become in history) unique. And, finally, an increase in the level of content of already existing standards of mass culture is required.

Undoubtedly, in the process of massification, a certain decrease in the quality of outstanding cultural creations is possible and even inevitable. But the historical process is dialectical in nature, any gains are accompanied by losses.

Dilemmas of the "mass - popular" type, "mass - classical", etc. dilemmas are highly artificial and devoid of logical and historical grounds. It is more appropriate and closer to reality to compare mass culture with elitist, traditional and specialized ones. But here, too, it is important to be aware of the conventionality and fluidity of this distinction. In modern societies, the elite, traditional and mass are overlapping and interpenetrating elements of culture, which often cannot exist without each other. It is also necessary to take into account the complexity of such seemingly understandable phenomena as elite and tradition.

The concept of the cultural elite is rather vague: first, it does not coincide with the concept of the social elite; secondly, it does not coincide with the concept of "creators" of culture. Therefore, even serious researchers are forced to introduce an evaluative component into the interpretation of the "elite - mass" dichotomy. The attribution of something to mass culture often simultaneously contains a hidden allusion to the existence of an elite culture (denoted as "high", "genuine", etc.). When critics, art critics or literary critics enroll a work in the category of "high" ("non-mass") culture, they, naturally, are guided by their own, very different value and taste orientations. As a result, both an empty, colorless (and, in addition, unreadable) novel and a masterpiece can be attributed to the sphere of the elite.

While theorists persistently expose mass culture, occasionally and reluctantly recognizing the right to exist of such "base" genres as pop, circus or operetta, life shows us that the most diverse types of creative activity and its results are somehow involved in the sphere of mass culture. Some of them are partly or from time to time "included" in it, others exist in it from the very beginning. The latter include industrial design, the design of the subject environment in accordance with human needs and certain social ideals.

Thus, mass culture, just like fashion in culture, are phenomena much more complex and rooted in socio-historical reality than its many critics think.

If we move from a negative-evaluative interpretation of these phenomena to their objective historical, cultural and sociological analysis, if we stop passing off a part as a whole, then it turns out that mass culture is not a special, rigidly fixed formation with a certain set of features, but a certain state due to modern stage of historical development. The specificity of mass culture is not that it is "bad" in its content, but that no matter how trivial this statement looks, it is massive. Therefore, in the sphere of mass culture at different times, with a greater or lesser degree of probability, there may be different and even opposing models of it, including classical, folklore, elite, etc. It is this last circumstance that makes it possible to successfully work on that so that genuine values, both created in the past and those formed before our eyes, do not confine themselves either on the upper, hard-to-reach and little-visited levels of culture, or on the lower ones, but live a full life together and everywhere. And then, perhaps, in the reasoning of cultural theorists, the “top” will not look so unattainably high, and the “bottom” will not look so obscenely low as they often look today.

List of sources used

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