Lecture
Culture has several levels and shapes people’s behaviour. By levels of content, a distinction is made between the national (society), institutional (profession), and organizational (company) levels.
Each culture has its own language system, through which its members communicate with one another.
The significance of language in the culture of any people is difficult to overestimate. It comes down to the following points:
Language – is the mirror of culture, in which is reflected not only the real world surrounding a person, but also the mentality of a people, its national character, traditions, customs, morals, a system of norms and values, a picture of the world; it facilitates a person’s adaptation to the surrounding environment.
Thus, language is a specific means of storing and transmitting information, as well as of controlling human behaviour.
Value represents an attitude toward a thing, event, process, etc.; thus values – are complex principles, grouped in a particular way, that lend coherence and direction to the various motives of human thought and activity in the course of solving common human problems.
Every people develops its own system of value-based attitudes toward nature, toward people of its own and other communities, toward ideas, things, etc. On the basis of these attitudes, the value system of that people and its culture are formed.
Normativity is one of the essential properties of the culture of any society and people. This is expressed in the fact that in every culture there exist a fairly large number of norms relating to all spheres of the life of society. In practice, the norms of a culture represent existing rules, patterns of behaviour, criteria, etc., which restrict natural permissiveness and require strict compliance in all cases without exception.
Depending on the method, nature, purpose and sphere of application, the boundaries of their spread, and the strictness of their enforcement, the whole variety of behavioural norms is divided into the following types: mores, customs, traditions, rites, and laws.
A systemic approach to the content of culture
Culture is multifaceted, consisting of a number of interconnected elements, and changes affecting one of its elements influence all the others; the following elements are distinguished:
The family system - is family relations and the way in which people reproduce, raise and introduce their children into society. Within the family, patterns of behaviour are first formed that children will need in the future to perform various roles in an organization (for example, relations based on status, age, sex, etc.)
The education system – is how young and new members of society are provided with information, knowledge, skills, and value orientations. For example, in some cultures more teaching is done through what must not be done, while in others it is the opposite.
The economic system – is the way in which society produces and distributes goods and services. Here group, collective and individual approaches all occur.
The political system – is what is primarily used to maintain order and existing power. These may be attributes of a tribal or even clan-based approach, or elements of a developed democracy.
The religious system – is the non-material, spiritual means of providing meaning and motivation in people’s actions. This system determines the morals and prevailing values in society, which the organizations operating within that society are guided by.
The socialization system – is the network and principles of social grouping created by people in a given society.
The health system – is the way in which a culture prevents and cures illness, and through which care is shown for the victims of disasters and incidents.
+The leisure system - is the ways in which people socialize and use their free time. Some cultures pay considerable attention to people engaging in sports, and various forms of active recreation are cultivated. In a number of cultures, emphasis during leisure time is placed on folk dancing and singing, on attending spectacles, etc.
All the components listed have a direct influence on the formation of a particular national culture, which is most often taken into account when forming the culture of an organization operating within that society.
National cultures, unlike ethnic ones, are not an original, inherent form of the historical existence of human communities, since the emergence of nations – is a relatively late phenomenon. In the social sciences and humanities, no generally accepted theory of this process has yet been developed. Some scholars view the formation of nations as the differentiation and increasing complexity of intra-ethnic ties. Others emphasize the connection between the process of nation-building and the formation of the state. Still others consider the decisive factor to be psychological – the emergence of national character as a special phenomenon, incorporating the ethnic and social traits of the mentality of one or several peoples united by a common historical destiny.
However, all researchers agree that there are no ethnically homogeneous nations. In most cases, national unification occurs on the basis of ethnically related tribes. However, ethnic kinship in itself is not a necessary condition for nation-building. Many nations were formed not only from ethnically heterogeneous groups, but also from different races. For example, the Brazilian nation was formed from several ethnic and racial groups: Indians, heterogeneous in tribal affiliation, Portuguese, Africans, etc.
A nation is also not defined by religion or state affiliation. Thus, the Russian nation includes Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews (practising Jews), followers of archaic ethnic beliefs (for example, animistic and shamanic cults), as well as a very significant number of people who profess no religion at all. In addition, in the near abroad (the Baltic states, Ukraine, Belarus, the states of Central Asia and the Caucasus) there live hundreds of thousands of Russophones (people who speak Russian as their native language), who count themselves as part of the Russian nation and are in fact bearers of Russian culture.
National culture takes shape historically – in the process of the prolonged coexistence of ethnic communities linked by a common territory, economy, and language. In this process a commonality of spiritual life arises and features of national psychology appear; such markers of a nation as national mentality and national self-awareness are formed.
The formation of a national culture generally takes place in parallel with the formation of the nation and national statehood. In Western Europe these processes began at the dawn of the modern era, when traditional feudal societies started to undergo qualitative transformation and the bourgeoisie moved to the forefront of socio–economic life. The capitalist form of social development took shape at the same time as the emergence of the national idea: a new type of economic ties, uniting the population of various regions, was perceived by people as a special kind of spiritual unity – national integrity. For example, the inhabitants of Provence, Brittany, and Normandy came to see themselves as French as market ties between the regions developed.
The formation of cultures imbued with the national idea took place in Western Europe in close interaction with the creation of the socio–economic conditions for the existence of nations and the building of national states.
National cultures formed differently in Asia, Africa and Latin America, where the liberation movement played the decisive role in the emergence of nations. For example, multi-ethnic and multi–religious Burma and India, which were under colonial dependence on England, were administratively united by the colonizers, although no cultural–historical, demographic or other objective grounds existed for such a union. In the struggle for independence, which became especially acute in the early twentieth century, supra-ethnic processes of national consolidation proceeded intensively in both India and Burma. For the Marathas, Tamils, Bengalis and other peoples of Hindustan, the national idea was expressed in the brief formula – «Mother India», («Bharat Mata»), while for the ethnic groups of Burma it was – «Our Burma» («Doh Bama»).
After independence was achieved in the mid-twentieth century, two large states arose on the territory of Hindustan – the secular Republic of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, along with a number of comparatively small state formations. Multi-ethnic Burma, meanwhile, resumed the history of its independent statehood, which had been interrupted by colonialism.
The national culture of India functions as a whole, linking together the distinctive ethnocultural traditions of the peoples who inhabit the country while at the same time ensuring their free development. A law on language union was drawn up, according to which three languages are compulsorily taught in the general-education schools of every Indian region (state): two official languages (Hindustani and English) and the language of the indigenous ethnic group. In every state of the country, newspapers and magazines are published in three languages, official record-keeping and legal proceedings are conducted, radio and television broadcasting is carried out, and educational, scholarly, and literary works are published.
The spiritual life of the country is based on the principle of freedom of conscience and the equality of religions. Multi-religious India was called a «secular» republic precisely in order to preserve and strengthen national unity. Since religion still plays a very important role in the life of the peoples of India, the emphasis in the national culture is placed on religious tolerance as a unifying secular value. The unification of school education programmes on a nationwide scale and the standardization of secondary and higher specialized education serve the cause of strengthening a unified national culture.
In Burma the process of building a national culture proved far more complicated, since the economic, social and inter-ethnic ties between its two regions (Upper and Lower Burma) were poorly developed. The Burmese, being numerically the largest ethnic group in the state and possessing an ancient written culture, laid claim to the leading role in nationwide cultural construction. The advancement of programmes to develop the distinctive cultures of the country’s ethno-religious minorities (Chins, Kachins, Karens, Shans, and others) was accompanied by conflicts. The drive to work out a nationwide cultural consensus, based on recognizing the equal rights of all ethnocultural traditions, found its reflection in the renaming of the state and its capital. Today this country is called Myanmar on the political map of the world, and its capital (formerly Rangoon) – Yangon, which is more acceptable to its peoples, since it harks back to the history of pre-colonial statehood.
It is important to emphasize that in the formation of every national culture without exception, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, a significant role belonged to language, literature, and the study of the nation’s history. It was precisely through literary creation, written language, and an awareness of a shared historical destiny that national cultural identity crystallized. National artistic values are also important in this respect, symbolizing a nation’s contribution to the world’s treasury of cultural achievements – architectural monuments, works of fine art, music, drama, and theatre. Being an object of national pride, such values simultaneously possess a significance for all humankind.
The regional features of national cultures are of great cultural-studies interest. The cultural space of a region (province, oblast, territory) is part of the national cultural space and at the same time possesses its own particular characteristics. These include the specific features of the population’s economic activity, religiosity, ethnocultural heritage, and the specifics of everyday culture.
The study of regional cultural features makes it possible to identify the influence of the territorial–geographic, ethnic, linguistic, religious, and sociocultural diversity of the provinces on the process of forming and functioning of a unified national culture.
In terms of an individual’s psychological experience of belonging to both a regional culture and the national culture, dual self-identification is significant – for example, the particular identity of «a native of Pskov» is combined with the general identity of «a Russian (rossiyanin)».
During the 1990s, Russian cultural-studies and public discourse increasingly began to debate the question of what content should be invested in the concept of «rossiyane» (citizens of Russia): does this concept mean solely the legal fact of holding Russian citizenship, or does it also point to a cultural identity?
Indeed, there are serious grounds for the formation of a «rossiyane» identity. Alongside ethnic Russians, Russia includes many ethnic groups that historically had an unwritten cultural tradition (for example, the Veps, Evenks, Chechens, Chukchi), and peoples who have long developed their own written culture (for example, the Buryats, Kalmyks). In this respect one can and should speak of the multiculturalism of the Russian citizenry and the supra-ethnic character of Russian national culture. The Russian language, as a means of inter-ethnic communication, has become widespread throughout the country’s territory. At the same time, the languages of other ethnic groups are preserved and developed: national general-education schools operate, the folklore heritage of small-numbered ethnic groups is studied and recorded in writing, and national literatures develop. In higher and specialized secondary educational institutions of the national territorial–administrative autonomies (republics, districts, oblasts), instruction is conducted not only in Russian but also in the native language.
The religious aspect is also very important. At the legislative level, recognition has been given to the fact that four religions are traditional for Russian culture: Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism. Alongside these religions, ethnic beliefs function on an equal footing, and new religious associations are registered and operate. Freedom of conscience (the right to profess any religion or none at all) and a commitment to tolerance and interreligious dialogue are characteristic features of Russian national culture.
In light of the above, it becomes evident that the concepts of «rossiyanin» and «rossiyanka» (male and female citizens of Russia) denote a cultural identity of the broadest degree of commonality, compatible with more particular forms of cultural self-identification – ethnic and national. Nothing prevents a Kabardian, a Russian, a Tatar, an Evenk, or a representative of any other ethnic or national community from identifying themselves as a bearer of Russian culture, while retaining other forms of cultural identity at the same time.
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