Popular culture: pros and cons

Participants in the conversation: Denis Dateshidze, Vasily Kovalev, Alexei Mashevsky, Alexander Melikhov, Alexander Frolov, Elena Chizhova.

MASHEVSKY: In our conversation today, we will focus on the phenomenon of mass culture in order to try to understand how this phenomenon should be treated and what, perhaps, it indicates to us.

MELIKHOV: Since the world is tragic and it is not good versus evil that fights in it, but different types of good versus each other, should we always seek the missing part of the truth from our enemies? in this case, the creators of mass culture, because our like-minded people will only sing along to our illusions. With that illusion? An environment that is absolutely necessary for man, what distinguishes us from animals, first of all, is the ability to treat the fruits of our imagination as seriously as we treat real objects. Moreover, I suspect that we can truly love only our own phantoms, at least, objects made up by our imagination. Only a transformed, in some way truncated, and in some way supplemented by fantasy world becomes at least partly acceptable to us.
Man has always been protected from reality by myths, religion, and simply the traditional worldview, "prejudices." One of the most important functions of art was also the protection of man from reality (the transformation of the world). Yes, art has never particularly pretended that it reflects reality, people have always clearly understood that there is a reality where you need to be pragmatic, careful and cowardly, and another, beautiful world where you can still relax your soul, soar and even believe, that in reality there is something pure and bright ...

MASHEVSKY: Excuse me for interrupting, but in aesthetics there was the "imitation theory" of Plato and Aristotle, according to which (or, in any case, its interpretations) it was assumed that art reflects reality. However, let's come back to this later.

MELIKHOV: I try to express myself schematically: art transforms and opposes reality. But from some point on, a person imagined that reality is more important than phantoms. Does she really demonstrate her power very convincingly? cruelty, danger, sweetness, and when a person yields his imaginary world to reality, he, of course, becomes "smarter": he creates science, conquers mountains-rivers, and so on. But at the same time, the mind, comprehending reality, reveals to us our frailty, insignificance, helplessness in this world. Along with the rise of productive forces, the number of suicides, depression, alcoholism and drug addiction are growing. That is, when the intoxication with culture disappears, a person seeks to return to his usual state by artificial means. And popular culture? this is an attempt to force just culture to fulfill its eternal functions, which it has changed. Serious art has imagined that it should reflect reality, that reality is higher than fiction. Belinsky had something like this theory: an adult is engaged in business, and a child lives in fiction, and tales about gods, kings and heroes? this is the childhood of mankind. Maybe this is so, but the big question is whether humanity will be viable if it leaves the state of childhood. First of all, Belinsky did not take into account that an adult who lives by "real things" stops reading books, he does not need them. At the next stage, I repeat, the very survival of man may be in question, because no one can see the world in all its terrible nakedness.
So, culture has betrayed its eternal cause? resist reality, console, enchant, inspire, suggest that even death, even defeat can be beautiful (whereas in reality? There is nothing beautiful in illness or defeat, and after all, a person, even the most successful one, is doomed to defeat,? death awaits everyone, no one fulfills even a tenth of what he has planned ...). In such a situation, mass culture is like a guerrilla movement that has risen to defend its eternal mission when the cultural elite has surrendered to the enemy.

MASHEVSKY: And it turned out to be too far from the people.

MELIKHOV: Not just from the people, but from the eternal needs of man. And now, if you look closely at the role that popular culture plays, it becomes clear: it is trying to defend the eternal schemes of art, perhaps even romantic art: love conquers death, a lone brave man can challenge a powerful corporation, loyalty exists, there is a beautiful life where something under the palm trees ... Another thing is that all this is in the interpretation for the masses? low quality, it is impossible for an educated person to read and watch this.

MASHEVSKY: Where does the category of quality come from in this situation?

MELIKHOV: Quality is created and maintained by the elites, by the continuity of the elites. Does one elite form the taste of the next on the basis of already existing samples, institutionalized? Homer, Cervantes, Pushkin, Tolstoy...

MASHEVSKY: That is, it (elite literature) is contextual.

MELIKHOV: If you like.

DATESHIDZE: Could you give an example of a literary work recognized as a masterpiece, which has already betrayed "eternal tasks"? Where is this border? When did this moment come?

MELIKHOV: Apparently, the apogee of realistic art was already the beginning of betrayal. Although the art still retained the grandeur of the ideas. Here, for example, "War and Peace": at first glance, everything is like in life,? marry, fight. But, in essence, this is a kind of model of the universe, demonstrating how history flows, what forces act in it, how the peasants Karp and Vlas defeat Napoleon. In general, Tolstoy likes to depict some kind of powerful, closed world that lives according to its own laws, and when some individualist tries to invade it, this world crushes it or discards it...

DATESHIDZE: But this contradicts our today's, as you said - romantic, setting for a lone brave man ...

MELIKHOV: Romantic worlds can also enchant.

MASHEVSKY: I would like to intervene and say that the orientation of art to reality does not belong only to the middle of the 19th century, to the times of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and others. We can take the Icelandic sagas of the 13th century and find there such a dactyloscopic description of reality, down to the names, nicknames and full images of all the first settlers of Iceland...

CHIZHOVA: In the framework of our discussion, agreeing on terms is a thankless task, but, to some extent, still necessary. It seems to me that a distinction needs to be made between realistic art and realism as such. As for realism as such, from which, most likely, we really need protection, each era understands it in its own way. It is quite obvious that for a medieval icon painter, realism is a reverse perspective, associated with the idea that God is looking at us, and not we at Him, etc. Joyce's realism is different: when the streets of Dublin are painted, right down to every tavern, and, at the same time, a psychological, verbal reality is depicted, which is no less realism than the realism of names, etc.

MASHEVSKY: I will clarify the situation with a very simple example. My students, when I ask what realism is, always answer: "It's like in life"; after which I ask: "How is life?" It turns out that each era interprets this differently.

Probably, the so-called realism, from the point of view of the representation of reality that it allows, is the same phantom as all others. That is, art is generally phantom in the sense that the reality that it depicts does not correspond to natural reality.

MELIKHOV: Undoubtedly. Chekhov's world is as phantom as the world of Aeschylus, but only a very sophisticated eye can notice this.

MASHEVSKY: Maybe the problem is not what art does, because art always does the same thing, no matter what it hides behind: it still refers to the expression of a certain view of the world in which we live, with correction for the image, - as the symbolists said, - "the most real world", i.e. a second reality behind the first, which you, Alexander, call a phantom. But we will not argue now whether there is a God, because the question of "phantom" rests precisely on this ... It is completely clear that a person is a creature trying to live in an artificial space of meanings. You say that these meanings are phantom, that this is a kind of generic madness of creatures called homo sapiens. I would say this: these meanings correspond to something in reality, but not in natural or everyday reality.
By the way, Alexander, you contradict yourself somewhat. You say that in the 19th century there was a split when art recognized reality as the main reference point, and therefore all intoxication among the people passed, and the people went to "inject" and "drink". But then we must remember that realism, thank God, ended at the end of the 19th century, and the symbolism that came then proclaimed the adherence to the most real reality - myth ...

CHIZHOVA: But by that time the people had already "sat on the needle."

MASHEVSKY: Yes, it was already too late.

MELIKHOV: Or too difficult.

MASHEVSKY: In what sense is "difficult"? I think that, first of all, it is worth somehow dividing: how, in fact, does genuine culture differ from mass culture. Because there is no clear identification in Alexander's concept, he simply has "good art" and "bad art".

MELIKHOV: There is also mass and elite, requiring special training and, perhaps, even special abilities.

MASHEVSKY: The criterion of simplicity and elitism is extremely doubtful for me personally. For example: should the tragedies of Sophocles be considered simple? According to our (modern) concepts, this is precisely mass culture - created for the masses and perceived by the masses.

CHIZHOVA: Well, it's quite simple: each "high" work of art "works", so to speak, on several levels. Part of the theatrical audience that came to the performance perceives the plot outline, rejoices at successful remarks, that is, experiences momentary pleasure, the other part sees something more hidden and deep.

MASHEVSKY: No, it's not that simple at all. As we know, the Greek spectator (that is, the spectator of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides) did not follow the plot, simply because the plot of the myth was known to him. In principle, anyone could be popular with the audience. But, mind you, 24 times Sophocles, by the decision of the Athenian people, is recognized as the first tragic poet! And such of his dramas as "Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex" were written for all ages, these are works with some kind of second, third, tenth, hundredth bottom, that is, these are generally archetypal works, like the same "Don Quixote ". Apparently, it's not just about elitism, because the complexity of these tragedies did not prevent them from becoming popular. And Euripides, and Aeschylus, and Homer became common property. Moreover, we understand that the best "mass" works have come down to us, and we judge by them ... By the way, in late antiquity the situation was different. We see that the works of this period in many ways resemble what is now commonly called mass culture. Starting from the era of Hellenism, it turns out that the people have no relation to high culture. It is worth opening the idyll of Theocritus "Syracusan Woman" and reading about two gossips squeezing through the crowd to listen to a visiting singer (a kind of ancient Alla Pugacheva), as we immediately remember what is happening before our eyes. Therefore, I don’t think that people are always the same and always don’t understand in the same way ... So, apparently, there are some historical layers that differ sharply from each other, and it seems to me that because of this, culture and mass culture also differ sharply from each other. It would be nice to understand why.
I believe that mass culture accompanies eras characterized by a violation of the semantic hierarchy. When a person lives in a traditional society, with a ritual, with a completely defined system of values, connections, then culture is, in fact, what? It is a reflection of this system; that is why it is contextual, that is why it always relies on something already achieved by someone. So, when a person lives within the framework of semantic connection, when he does not just act, but acts, understanding what his actions mean, this, in fact, is a cultured person, this is a person who is aware of his life - in integrity. Then he will not be thrown out of the bosom of culture. The situation changes radically if the common semantic space is destroyed. A similar thing happens in the middle of the 19th century: on the basis of the development of individualistic consciousness, common values ​​are lost. Now, in this destroyed space, a person ceases to understand the meaning of his actions, he interprets his actions on the basis of immediate goals, without linking them in any way with the whole idea of ​​the world. Here he is really surrounded by phantoms, only phantoms, because they are random, they are not connected with each other. And mass culture is a surrogate, it does not explain, does not interpret a person's life, but simply distracts from life.

MELIKHOV: Big question. In American action films, the heroes are constantly fighting evil, demonstrating loyalty, selflessness...

And then, a peasant sitting on a corvée in the Penza province is related to the high art of the middle of the 19th century? You say that a cultured person is a person who is aware of his actions and is in context. This peasant is certainly in context.

MASHEVSKY: Yes, there is. And, because of this, is a cultured person. Not educated, but cultural, that is, involved in traditional folk culture. When he sits down at the table, he prays, because he understands that food is not just stuffing the stomach, but also a semantic action.

CHIZHOVA: You want to say that if our life is somehow hierarchically structured, that is, God or Stalin sits at the head of the "table" ...

MASHEVSKY: Big difference! The fact is that Stalin and the entire Soviet system is an attempt to simulate a hierarchical consciousness. From my point of view, both Bolshevism and fascism are monstrous experiments aimed at overcoming the semantic chaos of individualistic consciousness. They tried to directively introduce common values.

CHIZHOVA: Any atheist, if there is one here, will tell you that the whole system, at the basis of which God stood or sat, was an even more insane surrogate, and what will you answer him?

MELIKHOV: I am that same atheist, but I know that just faith in God and life among phantoms? it is the most natural state of man. A person is looking for a way to earth when he goes astray in heaven, it is generally natural for him to hover in the clouds ...

DATESHIDZE: And note: with this hovering in the clouds, his practical activity becomes not less, but more effective ...

MELIKHOV: Of course. If the clouds are well chosen.

DATESHIDZE: Then it's not entirely, perhaps, it is legitimate to say that these are distractions, phantoms.

MELIKHOV: Phantoms can be inspiring, they can inspire to fight, to work. There are phantoms that harmonize the universe, and there are destructive ones. Alexey said that where the hierarchy collapses, mass culture begins. I think that in Athens the elite imposed their tastes on the crowd, really, there were no crowds there, everyone was the elite? ..

CHIZHOVA: The relationship between elite culture and mass culture in every era is a very complex issue. For example, the Shakespearean near-theatrical community was very rigidly structured, and no "mass" was allowed to hear Shakespeare ...

KOVALEV: I want to clarify: in what sense was it not allowed? For performances?

CHIZHOVA: No, the public was simply not allowed to dictate its terms. There was a narrow and very elite circle. Well, of course, there were some criteria - people came or did not come to the performance ... Did the costs pay off ... But, it happened, there were almost no spectators, and the organizers of these spectacles still did their job, sometimes suffering losses.
And yet, I want to return our discussion to what is happening now. If you do not delve into history, but simply take it for granted that there is a certain elite culture and a certain Mass culture, then even at this empirical level one can make a number of considerations.
First, I also want to stand up for popular culture. If mass culture does not mimic and pretend to be a high culture, it can become a completely innocent entertainment that everyone has the right to indulge in. I turn on the TV, see a handsome Hollywood man and, knowing that in a couple of hours I will sit at the computer for half the night, I look at him with pleasure or listen to Larisa Dolina. However, pleasure does not lead me to the idea that it is now that I am joining a high culture. If this desire arises in me, I will not go to Kirkorov's concert, but, let's say, I will buy a ticket to the Philharmonic, and here I do not see any problem.
Moreover, if we talk about problems, I would perhaps allow myself to be more specific. It seems to me that most of the space that serves the aesthetic needs of society should belong to mass culture. There is no arrogance in this.

KOVALEV: Are they aesthetic?

CHIZHOVA: Well, in a sense, ethical ones too. I do not urge you now to get together and go together to Kirkorov's concert in order to satisfy your aesthetic needs. I just want to say that in any normally developing society, 90, or 93, or maybe 85% of people are in that state of mind, the needs of which the Kirkorov concert satisfies, and there is nothing shameful in this.

KOVALEV: It's not about shame. It just seems to me that the satisfaction of spiritual needs is connected with a hierarchy of meanings that can only be set by a genuine culture.

CHIZHOVA: Let's talk in natural language, because if we refine the scientific apparatus now, we will go far. Giving figures (90, 93 or 85), I do not insist on specific numerical values. I want to say something else: whatever this percentage is, it determines the level of aesthetic (or intellectual) development of society. Society, but not every individual. For example, when philharmonic concerts in America or Europe gather huge halls, this does not mean that the decline of mass culture is approaching, it’s just that society already dictates a certain model of behavior to an educated or successful person: once, let’s say, in three months, he should listen to a philharmonic concert; at the same time, it is not at all necessary that all those sitting in the hall be sophisticated music lovers. However, they all receive some social pleasure.

KOVALEV: That's exactly what - social ...

CHIZHOVA: If someone has made it to the people, he should go to certain shops, wear shoes for $200 or $500, and from time to time come with his wife to the Philharmonic and, most importantly, enjoy it. If he does not get pleasure, or, let's say, he has little social pleasure, this can become an alarming symptom for him, an incentive to try to understand why these chorales are so good ... When such an effort is made by a statistically significant number people, the percentage that we talked about is gradually starting to decrease: 90, 88 ... That is, mass culture is somewhat losing ground.

FROLOV: As a person who has worked at the Philharmonic for a couple of years, I can illustrate your words. Now the so-called middle class goes to the Philharmonic Society, which, as you know, we do not have. At first, there was nowhere to go during the concert from the squeak of mobile phones. A year later, they finally learned to turn it off.

CHIZHOVA: This is wonderful, but at the same time, I am convinced that, even moving in this direction, society will never achieve particularly impressive results. What I want to say has no evidence, it's just my own experience. I have taught English for many years. I had students of all ages: children from four to sixteen years old, adults, sometimes sixty years old, those who were preparing for life abroad. In my many years of teaching experience, I was firmly convinced that the ability to perceive high culture is an innate property. Having some skill, it is enough to look at a group of 4-year-old children, talk to them for about twenty minutes, and see which of them, sitting in front of you on small chairs, lives this property. Another thing, you can never say in advance whether it will develop in this child. That just depends on social conditions.

MASHEVSKY: If we state that the ability to perceive beauty is an innate property, then the following is of fundamental importance: how many of us are left? So how much does it feel like?

CHIZHOVA: Are you talking about my personal experience?

MASHEVSKY: Yes.

CHIZHOVA: Well, I had a kindergarten group, about 20 people, - in it I saw two, who then studied with me for several years. There were also groups in which there was not a single one, at least cry ...

MASHEVSKY: Well, in general, the ratio is clear.

CHIZHOVA: Maybe this is a very harsh view, but I think that these two are enough for society. It's important to keep them.

KOVALEV: Socially, yes. But it's not just social...

CHIZHOVA: You know, the idea that "enlightened" people are happy, and "unenlightened" people are poor, unhappy, some kind of "under-" is not true.

MELIKHOV: Quite the contrary.

CHIZHOVA: Well, no, not vice versa...
One more example. A five-year-old child sits, listens to the Requiem, understands absolutely nothing, but trembles with happiness, and the same children sit nearby and think that during the intermission they should ask their mother to buy gum. And there is nothing wrong with that, at least, I say this quite sincerely, these children are no worse than that one. Another thing is terrible: when this one circumstance is driven into a factory, and educated parents drag others by the ears to high art, they choose a “creative” profession for them, and they, the poor, do not have an organ for perceiving this high art ... Poets grow out of such poor fellows Ryukhins, whose fate is to mutter and mutter "A storm covers the sky with darkness ...", without comprehending what is so special in these words ... By the way, in the literature of the 19th century, the expression "innate ethical sense", "innate aesthetic sense" is constantly found , in the 20th century, these expressions disappeared somewhere ...
Just don't think that I'm trying to say that we, sitting here, belong to this small percentage, and all the rest, so to speak, are a crowd.

MASHEVSKY: There is no need to make excuses.

CHIZHOVA: It's just that I quite often saw how parents try to ignore the immunity of children to art and drag them to museums, theaters ... In childhood, this gives rise to melancholy.

MASHEVSKY: Or maybe not? Culture is multi-layered and multifaceted. Maybe a person is closed to music, for example, but open to painting? (I'm trying to save us all.)

CHIZHOVA: If the parents managed to find the area for which the child is open, thank God. I'm talking about the area for which it is closed.

MASHEVSKY: I'm talking about something else. After all, you put the question very harshly: from your words one can conclude that for the majority the path of spiritual activity is ordered. Or maybe we are mistaken, maybe they are musicians, but he is an artist? And then there is a spiritual perspective for everyone?..

CHIZHOVA: Yes, we should give it a chance. In the area we are talking about, democracy consists only in this: a person should not be closed in his estate, that is, he should not be a peasant by birth: no matter how he is born, he is obliged to plow. The opposite is also true: if he was born in the family of a professor, he also has the right to "plow" and read exclusively to Marinin, despite the fact that dad has collected a unique library at home.

CHIZHOVA: Gentlemen, to plow with soul - it depends on temperament, and not on some special organ.

KOVALEV: Not really.

DATESHIDZE: Not at all like that.

MASHEVSKY: Not at all like that. Because when I spoke about the culture of the peasant, I had in mind that plowing for him is a charitable deed.

CHIZHOVA: It is unlikely that he feels it in the process, while plowing. This he can then realize.

DATESHIDZE: And in the process of plowing!

MASHEVSKY: Exactly in the process! Just like an athlete lifting a barbell...

CHIZHOVA: I object! A sense of the piety of a deed is not identical with the ability to perceive high art...

MASHEVSKY: But this is a spiritual activity.

CHIZHOVA: Any person, not being an animal, is capable of spiritual activity.

MASHEVSKY: That's it, then you reassured me: it means we won't die.

(general laughter).

CHIZHOVA: Now, after the words in defense of mass culture, I, if I may, will speak about what threatens high culture. Again, I will not give definitions, but I will argue empirically.

Compared to mass culture, high culture is a much more complex organism. Illustration: man and earthworm. The worm is characterized by regeneration - it was cut in half, two worms grew. The same - Marina. Stop writing, tomorrow Dorinina will appear.

KOVALEV: Yes, mass culture reproduces by budding, that's true.

CHIZHOVA: In other words, high culture is much more vulnerable. But - and this seems to me important - mass culture itself (which postulates itself as mass culture, and society perceives it as such) does not threaten high culture in any way.

MELIKHOV: Danger? from fakes first of all. Vulgarity? these are high fakes.

CHIZHOVA: Yes, that's what I'm talking about! The danger begins only in that narrow band where mass culture begins to mimic, to imitate high culture. For me, the clearest example of such mimicry is our domestic postmodernism. I would like to emphasize that in these discussions I am not referring to Western postmodernism. Russian postmodernism tries to pass itself off as a high culture and thereby becomes a threat to it, not for Homer, of course, but, relatively speaking, for young writers or artists. Let me put it this way: postmodernism seduces them. In modern Russian, "temptation" is a rather mild word. Here, in my reflections, I put a completely medieval meaning into it.
The scope of our conversation does not allow indulging in detailed discussions. And yet, I will try - briefly. There are at least two fundamental properties of genuine culture. The first is the fundamental lack of ideology. A true work of art is not equal to itself, it is not limited to a set of dogmas that the ideologist builds to communicate with the audience.
One more postulate: secondariness, which postmodernists, as they said before, "raise to the shield." It is argued that contemporary art can be either a parody, or a stylization, or some kind of aggressively negative response to some phenomena that are receding into the past. The postmodernist experiences a special joy when someone's (one must think, backward personalities) ideals act in this capacity.
High culture is primary. Its fruit does not appear from the retort as a result of the combination of individual elements (parodies, stylizations, etc.), but is born. That is, he, sorry for the new medieval bias, is a sacrament, and not the result of alchemical efforts. Postmodernism, on the other hand, is nothing more than a new aggressive ideology that has occupied a free niche. Its adherents have adopted several rather vulgar postulates (the end of literature, the end of history, etc.) and are actively introducing them into the public consciousness. The mechanisms of this activity are quite simple. At the very least, socialist political economy describes them exhaustively: you need to take a few arbitrary, but ideologically correct postulates and subject them to logical manipulations. As a result of tricks, the simplest thing turns out: "Marx's teaching is omnipotent because it is true." This is what postmodernism is all about. It is not worth talking about aggressiveness, all their theoretical works are full of it.

MASHEVSKY: Then, this is a party, of course.

CHIZHOVA: Of course.
In addition, postmodernists like to talk about the fundamental formlessness of their works. Again I run the risk of incurring accusations of "medievalism", but I will say it anyway: what is born is never formless. Pour any number of associations into the retort, dilute it with an immense multitude of quotations - not only a person, a cockroach, and he will not be born.

The third postulate: it is declared that at some point (it just so happened that during our lifetime), culture ended, and something came to replace it ... Connoisseurs of Soviet political economy are no strangers to this kind of somersault: Smith and Ricardo , due to their ideological immaturity, they didn’t think of much, the economist Chernyshevsky moved further, but the real flowering came only when Marx and Engels appeared to the world and discovered in unison what no one had ever dreamed of before. Those who were born later can rest.
Everything I've said seems pretty obvious to me. To tell the truth, I have long been interested in something else: why is Russian postmodernism trying to prove with such aggressive persistence that it is high art? And then I think I realized what happened. In the 1970s and 1980s, an unnatural situation developed in society. The intellectual community of those years was formed under the strongest ideological oppression. As you know, a person who has been subjected to violence often becomes its source. Apparently, this psychological reaction is characteristic not only of individuals, but also of society. The intellectual community, subjected to violence, put pressure on its members, demanding that they all be "high". At the same time, the natural inclinations and capabilities of man were ignored. When the pressure eased, we faced the backlash of a tormented, warped consciousness, forced to honor high standards without loving or understanding them. In a word, "a storm covers the sky with mist..." Incidentally, the unprecedented flourishing of mass culture is a completely understandable reaction to the former coercion.

MASHEVSKY: It would be worth adding. What is the danger: in itself, mass culture is inert, it does not take any hostile actions against Homer, Shakespeare, Tolstoy. But it is like cotton wool, which clings to any "solid" particles of "authenticity". That's how, for example, they fight against insect pests, you know?

FROLOV: There is a method of sterile males.

MASHEVSKY: Yes, that's exactly what I had in mind: a large number of sterile individuals are dropped from an airplane and, competing with normal ones, as a result, they sharply reduce the population size. "Vata" of popular culture creates a chaotic space in which it is almost impossible to find anything real. I remember the counters of modern bookstores, full of bright covers of tabloid novels, detective stories, fantasy, among which it is very difficult to find the right, artistically valuable...

DATESHIDZE: I would like to draw attention to one more aspect of the problem under consideration, and here we cannot do without the category of consumption. After all, a creative act is, in fact, a disinterested action, a person engages in art for its own sake. And, in contrast to this, mass culture is created for consumption, it is not valuable in itself. First of all, what is easier to perceive is consumed. Accordingly (we turn to the question of quality), mass, that is, simplified, products sell better. I want to ask the question: is it possible to say that art is in some sense religious, because it is a selfless action, an action for the sake of quality?

KOVALEV: It is certainly axiological.

CHIZHOVA: I agree that art is by nature religious. But not in the sense of confessional affiliation, but in the sense that, it seems, Blessed Augustine put into the words: "The human soul is by nature a Christian", however, I do not think that the religiosity of art lies in disinterestedness. Selflessness or self-interest are the concepts of everyday life. I won't be upset if I find out that Tolstoy made good money by selling War and Peace.

FROLOV: Creation is disinterested by definition.

DATESHIDZE: Even if Tolstoy sold War and Peace well, he did not write in order to sell it. And, accordingly, the dividing line between mass culture and genuine seems to me quite clear - when something is done that obviously should be sold out, we have mass culture, when the artist does not set himself such a task, there is hope that he creates high art.

CHIZHOVA: The number of graphomaniacs is great, who work disinterestedly from morning to evening! ..

MASHEVSKY: Exactly. It seems to me that we still need to decide: are mass culture and elite, high culture phenomena of the same order or qualitatively different phenomena?

CHIZHOVA: I think that if we are talking about separate, distinguishable functions, they can be homogeneous. Just as a cleaner who cleans this room can be similar to an automaton in this function; but by nature they are still different...

MASHEVSKY: Well, then you need to specify in what function they are homogeneous (that is, where these concepts overlap), and then it will be possible to talk about criteria.

CHIZHOVA: For example, they are homogeneous in the sense that both mass and elite culture satisfy a certain group of human needs, ethical and aesthetic...

MASHEVSKY: It is doubtful, because if mass culture is able to truly satisfy ethical and aesthetic needs, then high culture can be dispensed with.

CHIZHOVA: Why?

MASHEVSKY: Then there is no fundamental difference between them...

CHIZHOVA: But in this function, really, no. Here sits, let's say, a saleswoman and, sobbing, reads the detective to Marinina ... I watched myself. She approached her specifically and asked.

DATESHIDZE: These are not aesthetic needs.

CHIZHOVA: Why? She likes the image of Kamenskaya, Kamenskaya's relationship with her husband ... Not only aesthetic, but also ethical needs. Maybe at this moment she begins a new life, taking this heroine as a model ...

MASHEVSKY: This is probably very important to somehow clarify: is culture really a system of phantoms that governs human behavior in real life?

MELIKHOV: Shielding real life from a person.

MASHEVSKY: If so, then it doesn't matter what a person is inspired by - even Kamenskaya, even Madame Broshkina, but if we assume that culture corresponds to some semantic reality (in the end, I'm talking about Truth), then the phantom of the phantom is discord, and ours reader Marinina is simply deceived, or rather, lulled to sleep by a fairy tale she likes.

CHIZHOVA: Why was she deceived? She was born a person for whom "other things" are important, she will not spend decades finally "rising" to the understanding of Homer ... When I spoke about the innate artistic feeling, I meant that it can exist in potential. Like a sprout. If you do not take care of him, time will pass, weeds will surely drown him out. A four-year-old child, no matter what sprout trembles in his heart, will not read Homer. To learn to understand art, you need to put your life into it ...

MASHEVSKY: So mass culture is music for the deaf.

CHIZHOVA: Well, in a sense, probably, yes.

MASHEVSKY: However, the deaf may have accurate vision or a whole host of other virtues. If we introduce the notion that one is "innate" with a sense of music, another with a sense of painting, and a third with a sense of sports competition (when he looks at football as an aesthetic action) - fine, let him realize his abilities in this .. .

DATESHIDZE: No, you mixed football in vain, it's a kind of show.

MASHEVSKY: I am deeply convinced that the aesthetic moment is present in any kind of activity. One should not only think that a person can receive aesthetic pleasure in the area where his hearing is inactive. It is there that he is satisfied with Marinina. Therefore, from my point of view, mass culture really has nothing to do with aesthetics.

DATESHIDZE: It seems to me that arguments about "innateness" are superfluous, because we are all consumers of both high and mass culture, in reality - coexisting. You can read Berkeley, or you can turn on the TV and watch James Bond or someone else.

MASHEVSKY: That is, here's how one could build an analogy: there are languages ​​- the language of painting, the language of music, the language of literature, the language of sports passion, the language of "plowing the land" and so on. And what should we do - those who know their "English", for example, and do not know "German"?

CHIZHOVA: We must learn.

MASHEVSKY: You are absolutely right, you really just need to learn another language. And then we are offered the so-called Esperanto (which is mass culture), a kind of simplified language, allegedly allowing everyone, communicating, to talk about anything; that is, it is a "kind of" language.

CHIZHOVA: Well, not exactly about anything. As far as I know, Esperanto is not quite a living organism.

MASHEVSKY: Here! So I want to say that mass culture is not a living organism. This is something that allows a person to carry out social communication, but does not satisfy the semantic needs that a developed language satisfies.

CHIZHOVA: Ultimately, every person - from a certain age - is responsible for himself ... I think that in any case, you should not "drive" him into high culture, and you should not "pull" him away from mass culture either.

MASHEVSKY: Then you need to tell him right away: "Read your Marinina, but you know exactly what it is Esperanto, which will not help you to understand essential things, to break through to your own soul, and if you nevertheless want to speak the original language, you must study it.

KOVALEV: I want to draw your attention to the fact that mass culture is not in the least aware of itself as a separate sphere, it mixes itself with life, does not feel its own boundaries - unlike true culture ... And this is perhaps the first sign of the phenomenon that we are discussing .

FROLOV: In addition, mass culture issues all existential questions in the form of some simplified answers, while in general art is engaged in raising questions.

MASHEVSKY: So, the second criterion that can be identified is the unformatability of recipes.

CHIZHOVA: Fundamentally non-ideological, when there are no direct answers and assessments. In popular culture, death is always bad.

KOVALEV: Bad...

CHIZHOVA: Whereas in art, death can be a moment of enlightenment, etc.

MASHEVSKY: There is a third, very important and fundamentally different moment between mass culture and genuine culture: genuine culture is historical and contextual, any real work of art remembers (in its blood, in its genetics) what was written a hundred, two hundred, a thousand years ago, it lives on this blood, it develops like a living organism. As for mass culture, it always grows as if from scratch and does not remember anything about the mass culture of the past. In Bulanova's songs, for example, there is no hint of a hit from the beginning of the 20th century.
Thus, from our conversation we can conclude that the main problem of modern society, defenseless against mass culture, is the problem of polyglot, mastering many developed languages, rejecting a surrogate ... And one more thing - the problem of translation from one language to another. But this is a topic for another discussion.

MELIKHOV: I think that an equally important problem is the loss by the elite of the gift to create and be fascinated by beautiful dreams. But it's really time for us to finish.

Nizhny Novgorod branch of the State University of Higher School of Economics

Essay on the course

"Culturology"

"Mass culture as a cultural paradox"

performed by a student of group 06-FK-1

Uksusnikova Natalia Vladimirovna

checked by teacher

Porshnev Alexander Valerievich

Nizhny Novgorod 2007

Mass culture as a cultural paradox

So, in order to understand this issue, we first define the essence of the concepts that make up this issue.

Modern encyclopedic dictionary :

Mass culture, a concept that covers the diverse and heterogeneous cultural phenomena of the 20th century, which have become widespread in connection with the scientific and technological revolution and the constant renewal of mass media. The production, distribution and consumption of mass culture products is of an industrial-commercial nature. The semantic range of mass culture is very wide - from primitive kitsch (early comics, melodrama, pop hit, soap opera) to complex, content-rich forms (some types of rock music, "intellectual" detective story, pop art). The aesthetics of mass culture is characterized by a constant balancing between the trivial and the original, the aggressive and the sentimental, the vulgar and the sophisticated. Actualizing and objectifying the expectations of the mass audience, mass culture meets its needs for leisure, entertainment, play, communication, emotional compensation or relaxation, etc.

culture(from Latin cultura - cultivation, upbringing, education, development, veneration), a historically defined level of development of society, the creative forces and abilities of a person, expressed in the types and forms of organizing the life and activities of people, in their relationships, as well as in the material they create and spiritual values. The concept of "culture" is used to characterize certain historical eras (ancient culture), specific societies, peoples and nations (Mayan culture), as well as specific areas of activity or life (labor culture, political culture, artistic culture); in a narrower sense - the sphere of the spiritual life of people. It includes the objective results of people's activities (machines, structures, results of knowledge, works of art, norms of morality and law, etc.), as well as human strengths and abilities implemented in activities (knowledge, abilities, skills, level of intelligence, moral and aesthetic development, worldview, ways and forms of communication between people).

Paradox(from Greek paradoxos - unexpected, strange), 1) unexpected, unusual, statement, reasoning or conclusion that is at odds with tradition. 2) In logic, a contradiction obtained as a result of logically formally correct reasoning, leading to mutually contradictory conclusions.

From the definition of the phrase "mass culture *" it follows that:

1. This term appeared in the 20th century.

2. Developed infrastructure and accessibility of mass media are the preconditions for the emergence of MC. like phenomena.

3. The semantic range of the concept, although wide, still has many more limitations than culture in general (we will consider this point in more detail below).

4. reference to the masses, and hence the general availability of m.k. leads to a fairly low level of m.c. like a culture.

With the concepts of the topic, everything is clear, now let's explain to ourselves what the question of the topic requires from us, and analyze it.

Every society has its own culture. This culture is divided into subcultures. Mk, in my opinion, is just a subculture.

I understand the question as follows: there is a common culture, its part is a subculture, “mk”, the norms, traditions and values ​​of which contradict the corresponding points of the “main culture”. The main one, I named the culture that each of us thinks about when he hears this word itself. The definition of the modern dictionary even contains synonyms: upbringing, education, development. When we say that a person behaves culturally (1), we mean intelligently, and intellectuals (2) are intellectuals (3), so we come to the conclusion that we are talking about people whose level of mental development has reached great heights, to In addition, intellectuals usually have a high spiritual level.

So, main The difference between "mass culture" and "mainstream culture" lies in the difference in the types of activities, as well as in the breadth of the interested audience.

The availability of any information to a wide range of people is achieved in cases of using simple ways of expression. There is a phrase: "the people demand bread and circuses." I understand that people need food and organized leisure to be happy. The method of getting food is not dictated by mass culture, except that: work - get paid - feed, if to speak in more detail, then this paradigm (4) is different for everyone. But as for leisure activities, although there are a large number of options, they are more definite. There is something that unites them:

1). relatively low material costs (otherwise, the method of spending free time will be available only to materially very wealthy people, and in principle there cannot be very many of them, which means there will be no mass character)

2). relatively low spiritual level (because in order to achieve a high level of spirituality, it is necessary to spend a lot of time on self-improvement, on understanding all the subtleties of the subject; for most people, free time is the time during which a person relaxes and does not want to load his brain with information difficult to process)

3) relatively low intellectual level (simply speaking, everyone cannot be smart, there is always an elite, a middle stratum and a lower level; almost always the middle stratum is the largest share of the population);

Thus, representatives of mass culture are people whose indicators of levels in different spheres fall within the range of averages. Only in this case we will get the largest number of culture carriers, people who will be interested in it.

Now you need to determine what "parameters" the culture has. Although in principle everything has already been sorted out, it remains only to emphasize the contradictions.

First: although, speaking of the "main culture" we did not touch on the financial aspects. But entertainment and hobbies that bring pleasure to a cultured person have practically no limits in their price. Especially when it comes to gourmets and connoisseurs in any field. Even if we take the theater as an example, the cost depends on the location and level of the theater itself. If we talk about M.C., then managers here attract the public rather through advertising and “hype”, making the object attractive to the “average person”.

It is the financial side that is taken here, not only because the author of the essay is a future economist, but also because this barrier rarely breaks. It would not even occur to an individual whose spiritual level is low to “sit out” everything in the theater, when the alternative is a couple of trips to a cafe, for example. He will perceive this as the presence of "extra" money. And for those whose spiritual development is at the middle level, the thought of going to the museum and the exhibition, although it will come, is rare.

So, often people prefer a different type of recreation in general.

Second: the spiritual level of leisure. Enough has been said about this in the cases of both cultures.

Third: the intellectual level of entertainment. If in one case the indicators are average, then in the second they are high, or close to them. Yes, even humor is different! It all depends on spiritual and intellectual education: the manner of communication, and etiquette norms, and ... yes, almost all norms differ.

That’s all, in my opinion, I don’t know other parameters for assessing the use of personal time, that they coincided with all the points on which I showed the differences in cultures - an accident, but it only helped me.

What was the paradox? The fact that "m.k" and culture, as we are accustomed to perceive it, are in many respects on different sides of the barricades. It's like saying "Colorless/transparent/non-visible color as a color/color paradox". You immediately feel that something is not right.

I must admit that despite the fact that, at least to myself, I proved the existence of this paradox, I still have the feeling that it is possible to prove the regularity of such a phenomenon. So, I propose to try to find the reverse side of this coin. I'm sure it must exist!

So, let's start from the beginning: every society has a culture... Eureka! That's it! It cannot be that some part of the population, and in this case the largest, lived without its own culture! If there is an individual, then there is something that interests him, something that he understands, then the totality of all this is culture. And mass culture must necessarily exist, if technical progress allows, since all people are similar in some way, somewhere there must be points of contact. The totality of these points is mass culture, its boundaries: traditions, values, norms, etc. are very blurred and that is why they suit everyone! It turns out that any culture is a mass subculture? I don't see any arguments against.

It turned out as a result of the work that we proved the paradox that we should have found and found another one, which was in the name itself. We have a vicious circle of contradictions, as well as a circle in which each point is proved through the other ... in my opinion this is somewhat strange, but very interesting.

As a conclusion, I can only say that I will return to this topic more than once in my thoughts. I'm sure there's more to think about here. (I hope the reader was also interested, and that you have something to argue with and something to add, since only such a reaction indicates interest in the topic, and that's what you are also imbued with it. How many people, so many opinions!)

Footnotes:

Explanatory Dictionary of D. N. Ushakov:

{1} Cultural, cultural, cultural; cultural, cultural, cultural. 1. full only forms. App. to culture. cultural level. cultural skills. || In the field of culture, associated with the field of culture. Cultural rapprochement with France. Cultural revolution. The worker ... demands that all his material and cultural needs be met, and we are obliged to fulfill this demand of his. Stalin.

2. Standing at a high level of culture, having mastered the culture, educated. Cultural person. Cultural Society. ||

3. only full. forms. Engaged in educational work. Cultural Commission. cultural sector.

4. App., by value. associated with culture in 4 meanings. (s.-x.). cultural breeds. Cultivated apple tree (as opposed to wild). Cultural land area (a land plot suitable for processing).

5. Processed, resulting from the work of a person (special). The cultural layer of the earth (filled by a person in the process of various works, in contrast to deeper, natural layers).

{2} Intelligentsia(from lat. intelligens - understanding, thinking, reasonable), the social stratum of people professionally engaged in mental, mostly complex, creative work, development and dissemination of culture. The concept of intelligentsia is often given a moral meaning, considering it the embodiment of high morality and democracy. The term "intelligentsia" was introduced by the writer P. D. Boborykin and moved from Russian to other languages.

In the West, the term is more common "intellectuals"(3), also used as a synonym for the intelligentsia. The intelligentsia is heterogeneous in its composition. The prerequisite for the emergence of the intelligentsia was the division of labor into mental and physical. Originating in ancient and medieval societies, it has received significant development in industrial and post-industrial societies.

Modern encyclopedic dictionary:

{4} Paradigm(from the Greek. paradeigma - example, sample), in philosophy, sociology - the initial conceptual scheme, a model for posing problems and solving them, research methods that dominated during a certain historical period in the scientific community. The paradigm shift represents a scientific revolution.

All information on dictionaries is taken from the site - a collection of dictionaries:

http://tolks.ru/?to=2&what=view_word&file_id=146967&from=new_base

And sleepy, bottomless element
drowned us,
And dark huge Russia
She crushed us.
A. Bely

The modern world as a whole is not very attracted by the transition to other worlds, to another being, including the transition provided by the Bible. Humanity rather likes only acquaintance with

These worlds through works of art, through the media. This is quite understandable: the catastrophe on the screen is not at all the same as in your own house or your own life, as well as the amazing changes in life.
It seems to me that the origins of the so-called mass culture are in the catastrophic history of mankind: two world wars, nuclear and ecological cataclysms are fresh in people's memory. Therefore, with each new global catastrophe, the stereotypes of mass culture and the consumer orientation of the media are getting stronger.
Let us recall the phenomenal success of the film “The Next Day” among Western viewers, which was released in the United States at the height of the nuclear confrontation with the USSR. The film imitated a nuclear war on the planet: cities turned into ruins, nuclear darkness descends on the earth, nuclear winter sets in, etc. When you watch such films in a comfortable home environment, you get the feeling that hopeless disasters do not exist in nature, but only in the imagination of the artists. The influx of mass culture is especially powerful today. All those burning hotels, out-of-control airliners, victorious superheroes seem to help us survive in a world of real disasters. By the way, if we take the past year 1996 as an example, then in terms of the number of real disasters it almost equaled the disasters brought to our table by the media. Consequently, mass culture today has achieved an unprecedented flourishing: we can hardly distinguish between real cataclysms and their imitation. Heroes-supermen, with hands up to the elbows in blood, seem to tell us: "We kill for the sake of life."
Today, mass culture is already closely within the framework of the earthly world; it is increasingly turning to the image of the space theme. Films appear on the screens in which the plot is already the war of the worlds. But here, too, mass culture leaves a saving loophole for the consumer: we are convinced that cosmic catastrophes can be overcome, albeit at the cost of titanic efforts and sacrifices.
So, mass culture, in my opinion, takes death, disintegration, destruction for granted. The presentation of news by the media is also based on playing out these tragic moments in our lives. They are brought to the front pages of newspapers and magazines, shown on television at the most convenient time of the day for the mass audience.
Popular culture, as always, shows great flexibility. The psyche of the consumer is not able to withstand the continuous pressure of only catastrophic. Therefore, sex begins to successfully compete with such material. It creates a sense of stability in life. Various erotic shows, group sex, cynicism and disregard for the values ​​of real culture are presented, in my opinion, as a détente, lighting up the underworld of our gray existence in eternal fear of catastrophes.
Mass culture is alive. It brings big profits, is economically stable, while the real one now and then turns out to be “on the panel”. Poems are not printed, paintings are not bought, there is no demand for performances of spiritual content. But the most surprising thing is that the figures of true culture themselves often cheat on it from the mass. As an example, I can cite famous artists who advertise consumer goods and contraceptives.
One could be upset if these phenomena were inherent only in our time. But we are not alone in history. It is known, for example, that the great Russian spiritual thinker Nikolai Berdyaev wrote in Self-Knowledge: “I have a very characteristic eschatological feeling, a feeling of approaching danger, catastrophe and the end of the world. I profess an active creative eschatology that calls for the transformation of the world. ”
Apparently, mass culture hides behind, first of all, the desire to “transform the world” from a friend-toilet bowl on a colorful poster pasted in a subway car to a higher human being who wins the struggle of the worlds.
So, humanity cannot get away from mass culture, therefore, I think, it remains for us to at least not be blind and thoughtless consumers of it, try to comprehend the temptations that it offers, and recognize the lies on which it is built.

Essays on topics:

1. In today's world, people are judged not only by what they do, but how they do it. Life in society...

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Essay on the topic "Mass culture - for and against"

It is difficult to imagine the life of a modern person without mass culture. Its product - at times of high quality and interesting, but more often quite the opposite - finds its consumer everywhere, moreover, it finds itself, without effort on the part of this consumer. Usually this happens through the media, which are now not just accessible, but relentlessly accompanying a person around the clock through TV, radio and the ubiquitous Internet.

Popular movies, music, shows, blogs and websites are ready to endlessly supply us with information, both useful and dubious. In my opinion, it is precisely this - obsession, inevitability, let's be honest, the lack of alternatives to mass culture - that is its most characteristic feature, from which its positive and negative features follow.

What good does mass culture bring to people? First, it is available to everyone. With its help, it is easy to satisfy your entertainment needs - to listen to light songs, not burdened with deep meaning, while doing your own business, to distract yourself from your problems, plunging into the atmosphere of the film far from reality for an hour and a half, to kill time, watching how other people do something. do - grow potatoes in the country, perform extreme stunts, raise children on the air of various programs.

Among representatives of mass culture, people easily find objects for imitation, among the values ​​promoted by it - dreams and goals of life. Stop! This is where the positive becomes questionable. Although many believe that by watching someone and listening to their advice, they gain knowledge and experience in order to then do the same on their own.

Among the positive aspects, one can single out the opportunity that has spread with the development of the Internet for almost every person to get their share of popularity. You can upload a song, poem, video, cartoon, photo of your authorship to the network and find your admirer. Also, everyone can express their opinion and attitude to anything, without having special knowledge. But the question of whether this is good or bad here also remains open.

Mass culture is in any case a product of human social life. And social life always implies stereotyped actions. In society, a person to a large extent lives according to a predetermined program, with small nuances in its implementation. And mass culture reflects this and is often used to reinforce certain stereotypes in people's minds. Mass culture "teaches" us a certain way of life that is beneficial to those who receive political, economic or personal benefits from this - that is, authorities, manufacturers and sellers of goods, spiritual leaders, and so on. As classic detectives say, find someone who benefits and you'll find the culprit.

Today, mass culture is primarily a huge business industry, the purpose of which is to make a profit. And the means are already connected not even with the satisfaction of the real aesthetic needs of a person or the realization of his talents, but rather with the satisfaction of the artificially created needs of people. And mass culture copes with this very well - it creates and satisfies, while people remain its passive consumers, just as they consume any other product imposed on them by advertising.

From the point of view of those whom this industry feeds, there is, of course, nothing wrong with popular culture. And these are not only those who are at the very top of this business, but also those who occupy millions of ordinary jobs that they have created. That's just what gives a good mass culture to an ordinary person? Even if we leave aside the questions of spiritual development, which, in theory, should culture as a phenomenon contribute to?

Mass culture, due to its general accessibility, rewards each of us with a set of patterns of thinking, behavior, worldview, and these patterns and stereotypes begin to live their own lives, spread and strengthen, become the norm of life without critical evaluation. This limits the freedom of people, deprives them of the incentive to find their true place in life, weaning them from hearing their real desires and objectively assessing their needs. It “makes” us the same, forcing us to replace the real ones with those images that are promoted and popularized. It instills in us prejudices in relation to the various phenomena of life, and we judge people, the world in which we live, and ourselves, based on the criteria imposed on us by mass culture. And it is very difficult to isolate yourself from this, for this you need not only to give up all the media, but also to communicate with other people who relay their messages, and this is now almost every one of us. Is it realistic without becoming an outcast and a hermit? Don't know. But this is hardly easy to do.

Essay on mass culture (21st century, pros and cons, mass consciousness)

Mass culture is defined by both sociologists and philosophers as a state of bourgeois culture that has been established since the middle of the twentieth century. This term is relevant in the current century - the twenty-first. Here are the associations I have when I mention the phrase "mass culture": cheap "pocket" novels, bright glossy magazines, entertainment TV shows, popular music (the so-called pop music).

What role does popular culture play in the development of society? The answer is ambiguous. Popular culture is supported by the fact that people are entertained and relaxed with its help. This is sometimes very lacking in today's frantic pace of life. However, this phenomenon also has its downsides. And I think there are many more of them. For example, mass culture is designed for such base feelings and instincts of people as possessiveness and the desire to possess at any cost. Among the minuses is indirect and sometimes direct incitement of racial or class hatred (for example, if you do not have a smartphone, you are a loser).

It seems to me that precisely because of such a negative influence of culture, the state of modern mass consciousness is extremely deplorable. In the context of a spiritual crisis, there is a slow but sure destruction of centuries-old traditions (take, for example, the mass movement to legalize same-sex marriage!), generally accepted norms of behavior and social principles. In my understanding, the mass consciousness is a heterogeneous and disordered structure, subject to outside influence. How to make it more stable and organized? The answer is simple and complex at the same time - to pay more attention to the education of each member of society.

Unfortunately, we are not able to completely protect ourselves from the negative impact of mass culture. The only thing that remains in this situation is to learn to critically perceive information, not to be led by unscrupulous advertisers and not to succumb to temptations.