SOCIAL PRODUCTION AS MODE OF MAN S BEING IN

SOCIAL PRODUCTION AS MODE OF MAN’S BEING IN CULTURE

Plan 1. The concept of culture in philosophy. Culture as a symbolic world of human existence. 2. Material culture and its structure. 3. Spiritual culture and its structure. Social consciousness: levels and forms.

The Latin cultura, deriving from the word colere, meaning both to "cultivate" and to "worship". Culture is a historically evolved system comprising its objects, its symbolism, traditions, ideals, precepts, value orientations and, finally, its way of thought and life, the integrating force, the living soul of culture.

Forms of culture existence Human activity (modes and methods of its realization) Signs or symbolic forms of the existence of the spirit Palpable material forms, objects in which the individual’s purposeful activity finds its embodiment

Western and Eastern cultures § Deified man as the Creator’s likeness. §moved towards rational and pragmatic knowledge. §Emphasis on social action §Cultivated the idea of rejection of the personal self in favor of the impersonal absolute. §placed rational knowledge lower than introspective and intuitive one, and therefore has a greater range of devices for meditation and auto suggestion at its disposal. §preached the doctrine of refraining from action.

Value is a fact of culture, and it is social in its very essence. Values material values spiritual values moral values

Symbols represent the most superficial things and values as the deepest manifestations of culture. Symbols are: - words, - gestures, - pictures, - objects.

For ancient Greeks “symbol” is a conditional objective distinctive mark used by members of one social group In literature “symbol” is a character that represents some idea In science “symbol” is an accepted representation of the definite measure (e. g. mathematics, physics)

In art “symbol” is a universal aesthetic category which is shown through comparison with related categories such as image or allegory In religion “symbol” is a sign to indicate and express transcendent, sacred through sensual

Material Culture, Its Structure

Human activity is determined by : needs, interests and goal-setting Need is the state of an individual or social group, or society as a whole reflecting their dependence on the conditions of existence and acting as a motive force of life activity always directed in a particular way. Interest is an oriented motive of activity colored with an emotionalaxiological attitude. Goal is an idealized need that has found its object, a subjective image of the object of activity whose ideal form anticipates the result of such activity.

Material production could be defined as the labor activity of men who transform nature, using the necessary tools, in order to create material wealth meant to satisfy human needs.

Material production Means of production Productive forces Production relations MAN Form of property Objects of labor Implements of labor Exchange, distribution and consumption Science, technology Managerial relations Mode of production

Production technology Technology could be defined as a system of man-made means and implements of production which also includes devices and operations, the art of realization of the labor process.

• In technology the mankind has accumulated its valuable experience of the methods of the cognition and transformation of nature and the fruits of culture over many centuries. The historical process of the development of technology includes three main stages: • hand tools • machines • automata

Technique as an element of the productive forces covers both labor facilities and methods of their usage, ways to aggregate activity, used in material production. Technological development impacts on the social sphere of society, politics, and spiritual culture. Technological development is progressive as it creates conditions for realization of man’s essential forces.

In the development of techniques there are three important stages: Neolithic Revolution VIII c. B. C. Industrial Revolution of the XVII XIX cc. Scientific and Technical Revolution.

Material production Means of production Productive forces Production relations MAN Form of property Objects of labor Implements of labor Exchange, distribution and consumption Science, technology Managerial relations Mode of production

Correspondence between production relations and the character and level of the development of productive forces is the main principle of the development of material production.

Spiritual Culture, Its Structure

Spiritual culture - a system of knowledge and philosophical ideas inherent in a particular cultural and historical unity or to humanity at large.

Differences between spiritual and material production : all the people could be engaged in the material production but only talented people with the special skills are engaged in spiritual production; the result of material production is concrete things, the result of spiritual production is formation of abstract images and abstract concepts.

Culture is, on the one hand, the process of production, consumption, accumulation and distribution of spiritual values, and on the other, it is the result and measure got by the society in its spiritual becoming. One can distinguish the spiritual culture of a certain historical period (Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance etc. ); culture of the peoples (Ukrainian culture, culture of Maya people etc. ). The tendencies of the XIX century led to a complex phenomenon of anticulture (weapon of massive destruction, gas chambers in annihilation camps etc. ). These phenomena belong to modern civilization (in wide sense of the word), but they are not cultural.

Contradictory nature of Mass culture Positive: Mass culture has made art accessible to the masses, to millions of ordinary people, who previously vegetated in a state of ignorance and illiteracy. Negative: the masses are not raised to the level of real culture, when "culture" itself is prefabricated to suit the primitive tastes of the backward sections of the population and degenerates to a lower level as to be an affront to all real cultivation of the senses.

D. Bell allocated five major characteristics of the term "mass" Mass is a non-differentiated set of people. Mass is a synonym of ignorance. Mass is understood as a bureaucratic apparatus which accepts decisions without taking into account the decision of the main producers. As industrial society regulates people’s way of life, their preferences the result is transformation of an individual into his technical function. Mass is understood as a crowd. D. Bell «End of Ideology» .

Mass culture is the main mechanism of the consumer society creating a certain social and cultural homogeneity. In the context of homogeneity, the main signs of democratization and equality of opportunity are standardization and unification of the act.

Elite culture (1924– 1998) Elite culture can be defined as “high” cultural forms and institutions that were exclusive to, and a distinguishing characteristic of, modern social elites. “Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture: one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats Mc. Donald’s food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and “retro” clothes in Hong Kong; knowledge is a matter for TV games. It is easy to find a public for eclectic works. By becoming kitsch, art panders to the confusions which reigns in the “taste” of patrons. Artists, gallery owners, critics and the public wallow together in the “anything goes, ” and the epoch is one of slackening ’’ The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge”

Social consciousness social psychology ideology forms of social consciousness

SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS The essence of social consciousness is the ability to reflect social being only on the condition of its simultaneous creative transformation. Social consciousness includes different levels: veveryday consciousness; vtheoretical consciousness; The relationship between the everyday and theoretical levels of consciousness is transformed in a specific manner in the relation between vsocial psychology; videology;

Social psychology is a partial analogue of the everyday level of consciousness; it embraces various scientific and nonscientific views and assessments, aesthetic tastes and ideas, mores and traditions, inclinations and interests, images of fantasy and the logic of common sense.

Ideology is a partial analogue of theoretical level of consciousness; it systematically evaluates social reality from the positions of a definite class or party. Ideology accumulates the historical experiences of definite groups or classes, formulates their sociopolitical tasks and goals, and builds a system of authoritative ideals.

FORMS OF SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS v v v v Moral Religious Legal Political Science Philosophy Aesthetical

All forms of social consciousness with the exception of philosophy can be divided, somewhat arbitrary, into two cycles. Political, Legal and Moral Underlying all of them are various modifications of the primary relations between subjects Art, Religion and Science The focus here is the basic relation between subject and object.

Questions for express-control 1. What cultures does the classification that reckons mostly with differences between major cultural entities divide culture into ? 2. What concepts value is correlative with? 3. Words, gestures, pictures, or objects that carry a particular meaning which is only recognized by those who share a particular culture are called… 4. The labor activity of men who transform nature, using the necessary tools, in order to create material wealth meant to satisfy human needs is is called. . . 5. What levels of social consciousness do you know?

Literature Basic: • Culture / Chris Jenks. — London ; New York : Routledge, 2005. − 234 p. • Production of Culture / Cultures of Production / P. du Gay. — London : Thousand Oaks, Calif. , 1997. – P. 67− 119. • Relations of Production: Marxist Approaches to Economic Anthropology / D. Seddon. − London : Cass, 1978. − P. 5 -43. • Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture / T. Modleski. — Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1986. — 210 p. Supplementary: • Mass Media and Popular Culture / Kathleen J. Turner. Chicago : Science Research Associates, 1984. — 38 p. Primary sources: • Herbert Marcuse. One-dimensional Man : Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society / Herbert Marcuse. — Boston : Beacon Press, 1991. — 260 p. • Jose Ortega y Gasset. The Revolt of the Masses / Jose Ortega y Gasset. — New York : Norton, 1957. — 190 p. • P. Kozlowski. The Postmodern Culture / P. Kozlowski. — M. : Republic, 1997. — 236 p. • S. Frank. The Spiritual Basis of the Society / S. Frank. — M. : Mir. Rogers K. , 1995. — 155 p.