Spiritual values ​​in human life. Philosophy of values ​​(axiology)

Too many people these days know the price of everything
​but do not understand their True Values
Ann Landers

A person’s life is impossible without a system of values ​​- stable ideas about the goals that he strives for for his own and the common good. Agree, the combination of these words - “value system” - in itself can evoke feelings of something important and fundamental. Such impressions came to me when I first heard about the value system. For a long time I associated this expression with external, social standards, as a set of generally accepted moral standards that allow society to develop in a certain direction. As I realized later, for me values ​​represent not only a system or a set of rules introduced “from the outside,” but a personally formed, own understanding of life and its moral foundations. Of the variety of values, three categories are mainly distinguished: material, socio-political and spiritual. And most likely, my thoughts here will concern the spiritual, individual values ​​of a person, which contribute to the formation of the characteristics of his internal worldview.

Personal values ​​are a much more powerful regulatory mechanism in our lives than they might seem at first glance. They guide a person along the path of his development, determine the specific character, his behavior and type of activity, regardless of whether we realize it or not. They are partially transmitted to us from our parents and are individually laid down from childhood, thereby determining our ideals, goals, interests, tastes, behavior; Almost everything that we are at the moment is a combination of various values ​​and “anti-values”. Everything that we learn and subjectively perceive in life through books, communication, films, interaction with people - all this is transformed in self-awareness into subjective experience and further into a value basis, thanks to which a subjective view of the world, a holistic worldview, is formed. Personal qualities, manifestations, events, and ideas that are preferred and significant to us become values.. I put the concept of “anti-value” in quotation marks because it is not the opposite or opposition to existing values. By “anti-values” I mean only a set of other values, views, actions or habits that weaken the basic, priority values ​​for a person, or inhibit his development in the desired direction. I'll tell you about them a little later, but for now let's continue. Our value system is made up of “little things”: the mental states that we prefer every day, the habits and thinking patterns through which we perceive and evaluate the world around us through various filters. In addition, the impact we have on the process of formation of society as a whole depends on the value orientations of each of us. There is an expression: “What are the values, so are both society and the individual.”

Just imagine if every person tried to sincerely weigh their lives and reconsider their current values, accepting/aware of their involvement in the processes and trends that are currently happening in the world. It is difficult for many to admit that in order to resolve the destructive and aggressive tendencies of the present time, efforts are required from each of us - to pay attention to and harmonize our own weaknesses and destructive states. It seems to me that after this many problematic situations in different countries would be resolved peacefully. But today we still live in a society of consumer orientations, which is not so often concerned with issues of correcting existing interpersonal relationships to creative and humane ones. Unfortunately, people still think that the world around us and all situations that do not directly concern us exist separately, and there is little we can do to change it.

Is this really true? Don't one person's values ​​influence existing system values ​​of an entire society? These questions began to worry me in my youth, when I was learning to recognize my own individual value system as the primary stage in determining my life purpose.

At the age of 15, it became clear to me that the range of interests of my peers was limited only to enjoying life and wasting their energy and time. Even then, a search for a broader meaning of further existence began to emerge in my mind. But before finding a use for myself in life, it was important for me to learn a lot about myself: what is my inner world, what brings joy in life, why I am not satisfied with anything, what I strive for and what ideals inspire me. At that time, bookstores were overflowing with esoteric literature, workshops on self-development, psychology and a lot of information about what a person is and what opportunities each of us has. Books became my source of inspiration, in them I found answers to many exciting questions and tried to get to know myself better. At that time, I understood that neither work, nor success, nor relationships in a couple could provide those internal processes of self-discovery, thanks to which genuine states of joy, love for life and for people, internal and external harmony appear.

I saw people who lived “not their own” lives and were unhappy: they went to jobs they didn’t like, got married, raised children, then got divorced and suffered, not because they sincerely wanted such a life, but because it was customary to live this way, this is what happened among everyone. Perhaps one of the reasons for this was not their own, but someone else’s value system - this is how their parents lived, this is how they “should” have lived. Without creating his own value basis, a person is often faced with the fact that he is forced to either agree or oppose and resist those demands that society promotes, which are authoritative and significant for many, but not for himself.

For many years I was unable to understand and accept the choices and life principles of the people I met, which forced me to experience a lot of different negative states: condemnation, arrogance, criticism, hostility, disappointment in myself and in others. And only much later it became clear why it was difficult for me to understand the behavior, actions and preferences of other people - the reason was hidden precisely in the difference in our personal value systems, in the priority of individual goals and outlooks on life. But how many destructive, non-positive states, quarrels and serious conflicts arise on the basis of such automatic rejection!

One story that I was lucky enough to hear from a good friend of mine helped me to see myself from the outside in such manifestations, which at that time caused a number of reflections and reflections on this matter.

He told one incident that happened to him. One day, an acquaintance of mine was in a hurry to attend a very special meeting for him and was a little late. He admitted that although he was outwardly calm, he was internally worried about this, because he considers punctuality an important trait of human character. On the way, he had to stop at a gas station to refuel the car. He immediately warned the dispatcher that he was late and asked to serve him as quickly as possible. A few minutes later, a young gas station attendant approached him and asked about the amount of fuel he wanted. "Full tank. Also, I'm very late. Please, could you serve me quickly,” my friend answered. Watching how the young gas station attendant slowly did everything, he was overcome by a wave of indignation and indignation. In order to balance himself and get out of states of increasing negativity, he began to look for motivation to justify the sluggishness of this guy. And that’s what he realized then for himself. In the personal value system of this young gas station attendant, such qualities as alertness, punctuality, mobility, empathy, assistance and others were not so significant for him that he could and wanted to show them to other people. Who knows, perhaps the very specifics of working at a gas station with flammable substances, which does not imply fuss, determined the behavior of the young employee: he took his duties responsibly and served without unnecessary haste. On the other hand, he could take his time if he was not happy with his work; Usually the perception of time during this type of activity changes and every hour drags on while waiting for the end of the shift. My friend at that moment felt the value of time in a completely different way: every minute was important, because important meetings and meetings were planned one after another. And being late among his friends was regarded as disrespect and irresponsibility.

He told me this story as his own example for finding justifiable motivations in difficult situations in relationships with people. Of course, there could be many and varied reasons for this behavior of the young gas station attendant: concentration and responsibility, accuracy and calmness, and perhaps a bad mood, well-being or other problems in life. But it's not that. This story prompted me to remember many similar situations from my own life, where internal and external conflicts with people arose for the same reasons: differences in views, ideas, upbringing, goals, beliefs, point of view, internal qualities. I was unable to accept people as they had every right to be. This is the right to freedom of choice, determination of one’s own needs, priorities, views and beliefs, which give each of us individuality in self-expression. I became interested: how does a value system influence the specific perception of oneself and others? Why do we tend to have a negative attitude towards people with a value system different from ours?

As I wrote above, the significance of certain things for a person is determined by a whole set of ideas that he was able to build for himself under the influence of many factors: heredity, upbringing, culture, religion, social circle, field of activity and much more. From these vast spheres of life, values, like filters, allow a person to choose the most important thing: they make the important “visible” and perceived, and the unimportant - vice versa. For example, if a person does not have of great importance cleanliness, order, neatness, then he will not notice untidiness or sloppiness in another person. Or absolutely the opposite: having excessive pedantry, exactingness and bias towards people, a person sees various details in others that do not correspond to his ideas, which causes misunderstanding and indignation in him. A person automatically “hangs” important skills and qualities on others, believing that they are equally significant for them and ultimately faces the result of his own delusions as disappointment and condemnation of the actions of these people.

When we interact with someone, we automatically compare and contrast our values ​​with theirs. This process can also occur alone with ourselves, when our choice begins to oscillate towards one value or another. For example, a quality such as laziness often manifests itself as an internal conflict between two values: in one direction the value that encourages one to achieve one’s goals is “pulled”, and in the other direction it is the enjoyment of a pleasant pastime. The first value encourages you to study a foreign language every day (a long-standing goal), and the other encourages you to do cleaning, watch a movie or chat with friends, which also seems important and necessary.

It happens that people do not clearly understand their personal values. It only seems to them that the “correct”, generally accepted moral standards and qualities are significant to them: goodwill, tact, delicacy, respect, tolerance and others. But more often than not, these are not real, but “potential” values, initiated by the subconscious desire to “be better.” And only in practice it becomes clear what is actually significant and valuable for a person, and what is only his desire to be such. There are people who like to skillfully give “helpful” advice to others, but they themselves act in the opposite way. This is precisely where one of the reasons for dissatisfaction with oneself and the life around us lies - a person is not aware of his real value system or is mistaken, inventing and attributing to himself certain characteristics and properties. As a consequence, in such cases there is an inconsistency or discrepancy between external actions and internal ideas about oneself, which leads to a feeling of disappointment. To be able to understand your personal qualities, you need to consciously study them in yourself, analyze and put them into practice, so that the best of them become our good habits, and the far-fetched ones are eliminated.

But what prevents us from living like this? And the reason lies in the so-called “anti-values”. “Anti-values” themselves cannot be called something “bad”; they are part of our life - they are very different and each has their own. For example, for one person, watching films is “anti-value” because he watches them a lot and often, and accordingly other areas of his life “suffer”; For another person, watching movies is a value that allows him to switch gears and relax after work, to relieve accumulated stress.

I consider my own “anti-values” to be such bad habits and qualities that prevent me from achieving my goals. First of all, these are laziness, self-pity, superficiality, impulsiveness and intemperance, duplicity and ingratiation, irritability, condemnation and other various non-positive manifestations and weak sides that still need to be changed in yourself.

Most often, people, to one degree or another, are aware of their shortcomings, observe them in themselves, manifest them, and then suffer and regret it. Or they don’t see the reasons in themselves, but refer to the injustice of life or individual people in relation to them. And this happens day after day until a person understands that it is the world of “anti-values” that becomes a magnet for attracting unhappiness, disappointments and unfavorable situations in his life.

By the age of 30, I began to worry about the question: what does it mean to be a right, worthy person. What kind of life would I like to see around me? What values ​​are important to me now? Having stepped back for a while from external social generally accepted values, I discovered my own qualities, skills, goals, priorities - everything that makes me aware of myself as a full-fledged person. Of course, all values ​​are interconnected and grow from one another. For example, the desire to be a good daughter, friend, wife and mother, as well as to be a kind, wise, intelligent, strong woman living among the same people, are components of the needs and prerequisites for comprehending a more global value - to achieve the ideal human image that I managed imagine for yourself. This is the image of a perfect person, personifying wisdom, generosity, knowledge, and the creative power of kindness and love. Of course, this process never stops and, as we become better, we see (understand) that we can be even better and this continues forever. It is important to understand here that the main thing is the process itself - and not the end result. The process of constant change and transformation of mental states, ideals, needs in the desired direction; you need to learn to accept and enjoy your achievements, even if they are very small steps.

Now I try to be especially sensitive to things that are significant to me, interests, hobbies and internal processes; I try to observe what “anti-values” manifest themselves in me and prevent me from developing further. Moreover, the people around us are our good helpers in self-observation. If something in our behavior causes misunderstanding and a negative attitude in another person, then this is the first sign of the presence in us of some kind of inconsistency in our belief system that requires internal harmonization. Thanks to the practice of conscious living, which I am now trying to learn, everything began to appear in my environment. more people with similar interests and values. And such wise sayings: “Like attracts like,” “What goes around comes around,” “We ourselves deserve the world we live in” began to be confirmed in practice in my life. Then I realized that each of us bears personal responsibility for the society in which he lives. As long as we are “interested” in showing dissatisfaction, experiencing fears, being lazy, putting our own interests above the needs of others, we will be in a society capable of reflecting such desires or reluctances. Numerous internal conflicts, suffering, quarrels that fill the lives of many people, sooner or later force them to admit their own imperfection, as a result of which the main goal arises - to become more humane and build genuine relationships with people. harmonious relationships based on understanding, kindness, love and patience. After all, a person is not just a biological species. This is a high title that still needs to be earned.

They can be briefly expressed as follows:

• Self-development and self-improvement. The ability to devote time and attention to revealing your inner potential and your noble sides. Understanding and adequately assessing your shortcomings in order to change them.
• Responsibility. Responsibility for your life, decisions, for your successes or mistakes. Awareness of involvement in everything that happens in your life and in the world.
• Mindfulness. The ability to be an observer of one’s mental states and motives of behavior; accompany with consciousness your current states, actions, and the course of your life.
• Will and intelligence. Overcoming difficulties to achieve set goals, thanks to understanding and analyzing situations for their reasonable resolution.
• Constructiveness and self-discipline. The habit of actively looking for solutions rather than complaining. Own fulfillment of those requirements that are presented to others.
• Optimism and positive thinking. The ability to be happy and confident of success. Gratitude and the ability to forgive other people's mistakes. Joy for other people's successes.
• Openness and honesty. The ability and desire to be yourself, to “give” the best part of your inner world to others without duplicity, pretense and closedness.
• Trust in life. Perception of any situations and processes as necessary, fair and appropriate. Understanding cause-and-effect relationships.
• Faith in people. The ability to see people’s shortcomings, but at the same time always find them strengths and talents. A desire to please and inspire others.
• Altruism and caring for others. A sincere desire to be useful to others. Assistance, empathy, creative participation in the lives of people and society.
• Humanity. The highest dignity of a person. Possessing the best qualities that can change not only your own life, but the world as a whole.

The above-mentioned values ​​and goals are only part of a whole ensemble of qualities and virtues that I would like to develop in myself along with other life values: to be a caring wife, a good friend, a tactful interlocutor; study creative projects, be healthy and financially independent and so on.

Our value system can quite often change radically, but we do not always understand, grasp and control it. In my opinion, this happens when a person is ready and open to these changes. The revision of old values ​​and the formation of new ones for many people is accompanied by complex mental processes associated with a restructuring of perception. In my case, radical changes in the personal value system at this stage occurred due to the study of books on human psychology and issiidiology. Both of these directions helped expand the usual boundaries of perception of our own existence and learn about the deep relationships of each of us with the surrounding reality.

For myself, I drew a direct analogy with how my life values ​​determined my direction in life, as well as my worldview. Our own values ​​grow from within depending on maturity, potential, aspirations, plans for the future and many other factors. I became convinced that spiritual values, like the garden of our soul, are collected bit by bit, grains that ripen for a long time and only then bear fruit that brings the true taste of deep happiness. But we also have our “anti-values,” which we define as shortcomings and imperfections. Both values ​​and “anti-values” form the range of our interests from the most ordinary, everyday to the most highly moral. And what we choose in favor of determines the path to becoming a person. And now I am deeply convinced that if it is important for me to see healthy, joyful, noble and grateful people around me, then first of all it is necessary to start with myself, by maintaining in myself the values ​​that I would like to see in others.

The most important role not only in the life of each individual person, but also of the entire society as a whole is played by values ​​and value orientations, which primarily perform an integrative function. It is on the basis of values ​​(while focusing on their approval in society) that each person makes his own choice in life. Values, occupying a central position in the structure of personality, have a significant impact on the direction of a person and the content of his social activity, behavior and actions, his social position and on his general attitude towards the world, towards himself and other people. Therefore, a person’s loss of the meaning of life is always the result of destruction and rethinking old system values ​​and in order to find this meaning again, he needs to create a new system, based on universal human experience and using forms of behavior and activity accepted in society.

Values ​​are a kind of internal integrator of a person, concentrating around themselves all his needs, interests, ideals, attitudes and beliefs. Thus, the value system in a person’s life takes the form inner rod his entire personality, and the same system in society is the core of its culture. Value systems, functioning both at the level of the individual and at the level of society, create a kind of unity. This occurs due to the fact that the personal value system is always formed based on the values ​​that are dominant in a particular society, and they, in turn, influence the choice of the individual goal of each individual and the determination of ways to achieve it.

Values ​​in a person’s life are the basis for choosing goals, methods and conditions of activity, and also help him answer the question, why does he perform this or that activity? In addition, values ​​represent the system-forming core of a person’s plan (or program), human activity and his inner spiritual life, because spiritual principles, intentions and humanity are no longer related to activity, but to values ​​and value orientations.

The role of values ​​in human life: theoretical approaches to the problem

Modern human values- the most pressing problem of both theoretical and applied psychology, since they influence the formation and are the integrative basis of activity not only of an individual, but also of a social group (large or small), collective, ethnic group, nation and all humanity. It is difficult to overestimate the role of values ​​in a person’s life, because they illuminate his life, while filling it with harmony and simplicity, which determines a person’s desire for free will, for the will of creative possibilities.

The problem of human values ​​in life is studied by the science of axiology ( in the lane from Greek axia/axio – value, logos/logos – reasonable word, teaching, study), more precisely a separate branch of scientific knowledge of philosophy, sociology, psychology and pedagogy. In psychology, values ​​are usually understood as something significant for a person himself, something that gives an answer to his actual, personal meanings. Values ​​are also seen as a concept that denotes objects, phenomena, their properties and abstract ideas that reflect social ideals and therefore are the standard of what is proper.

It should be noted that the special importance and significance of values ​​in human life arises only in comparison with the opposite (this is how people strive for good, because evil exists on earth). Values ​​cover the entire life of both a person and all of humanity, while they affect absolutely all spheres (cognitive, behavioral and emotional-sensory).

The problem of values ​​was of interest to many famous philosophers, sociologists, psychologists and teachers, but the study of this issue began in ancient times. So, for example, Socrates was one of the first who tried to understand what goodness, virtue and beauty are, and these concepts were separated from things or actions. He believed that the knowledge achieved through understanding these concepts is the basis of human moral behavior. Here it is also worth turning to the ideas of Protagoras, who believed that each person is already a value as a measure of what exists and what does not exist.

When analyzing the category of “value,” one cannot ignore Aristotle, because it was he who coined the term “thymia” (or valued). He believed that values ​​in human life are both the source of things and phenomena and the reason for their diversity. Aristotle identified the following benefits:

• valued (or divine, to which the philosopher attributed the soul and mind);
• praised (bold praise);
• opportunities (here the philosopher included strength, wealth, beauty, power, etc.).

Modern philosophers made a significant contribution to the development of questions about the nature of values. Among the most significant figures of that era, it is worth highlighting I. Kant, who called will the central category that could help in solving problems of the human value sphere. And the most detailed explanation of the process of value formation belongs to G. Hegel, who described changes in values, their connections and structure in three stages of the existence of activity (they are described in more detail below in the table).

Features of changes in values ​​in the process of activity (according to G. Hegel)

Stages of activity	Features of value formation
first	the emergence of subjective value (its definition occurs even before the start of action), a decision is made, that is, the value-goal must be specified and correlated with external changing conditions
second	Value is the focus of the activity itself, there is an active, but at the same time contradictory interaction between value and possible ways to achieve it, here value becomes a way to form new values
third	values ​​are woven directly into activity, where they manifest themselves as an objectified process

The problem of human values ​​in life has been deeply studied by foreign psychologists, among whom it is worth noting the work of V. Frankl. He said that the meaning of a person’s life is manifested in the value system as his basic education. By the values ​​themselves, he understood the meanings (he called them “universals of meanings”), which are characteristic of a large number of representatives not only of a particular society, but also of humanity as a whole throughout the entire path of its (historical) development. Viktor Frankl focused on the subjective significance of values, which is accompanied, first of all, by a person taking responsibility for its implementation.

In the second half of the last century, values ​​were often considered by scientists through the prism of the concepts of “value orientations” and “personal values.” The greatest attention was paid to the study of the value orientations of the individual, which were understood both as an ideological, political, moral and ethical basis for a person’s assessment of the surrounding reality, and as a way of differentiating objects according to their significance for the individual. The main thing that almost all scientists paid attention to is that value orientations are formed only through a person’s assimilation of social experience, and they find their manifestation in goals, ideals, and other manifestations of personality. In turn, the system of values ​​in a person’s life is the basis of the substantive side of the personality’s orientation and reflects its internal attitude in the surrounding reality.

Thus, value orientations in psychology were considered as a complex socio-psychological phenomenon that characterized the orientation of the individual and the substantive side of his activity, which determined a person’s general approach to himself, other people and the world as a whole, and also gave meaning and direction to his behavior and activity.

Forms of existence of values, their signs and features

Throughout its history of development, humanity has developed universal or universal values, which over the course of many generations have not changed their meaning or diminished their significance. These are values ​​such as truth, beauty, goodness, freedom, justice and many others. These and many other values ​​in a person’s life are associated with the motivational-need sphere and are an important regulating factor in his life.

Values ​​in psychological understanding can be represented in two meanings:

• in the form of objectively existing ideas, objects, phenomena, actions, properties of products (both material and spiritual);
• as their significance for a person (value system).

Among the forms of existence of values ​​there are: social, objective and personal (they are presented in more detail in the table).

Forms of existence of values ​​according to O.V. Sukhomlinskaya

The studies of M. Rokeach were of particular importance in the study of values ​​and value orientations. He understood values ​​as positive or negative ideas (and abstract ones), which are in no way connected with any specific object or situation, but are only an expression of human beliefs about types of behavior and prevailing goals. According to the researcher, all values ​​have the following characteristics:

• the total number of values ​​(meaningful and motivating) is small;
• all people’s values ​​are similar (only the levels of their significance are different);
• all values ​​are organized into systems;
• the sources of values ​​are culture, society and social institutions;
• values ​​influence a large number of phenomena that are studied by a variety of sciences.

In addition, M. Rokeach established a direct dependence of a person’s value orientations on many factors, such as his level of income, gender, age, race, nationality, level of education and upbringing, religious orientation, political beliefs, etc.

Some signs of values ​​were also proposed by S. Schwartz and W. Biliski, namely:

• values ​​mean either a concept or a belief;
• they relate to the individual's desired end states or behavior;
• they have a supra-situational character;
• guided by choice, as well as assessment of human behavior and actions;
• they are ordered by importance.

Classification of values

Today in psychology there are a huge number of very different classifications of values ​​and value orientations. This diversity has arisen due to the fact that values ​​are classified according to a variety of criteria. So they can be united into certain groups and classes depending on what types of needs these values ​​satisfy, what role they play in a person’s life and in what area they are applied. The table below presents the most general classification of values.

Classification of values

Criteria	There may be values
object of assimilation	material and moral-spiritual
subject and content of the object	socio-political, economic and moral
subject of assimilation	social, class and values ​​of social groups
learning goal	selfish and altruistic
level of generality	concrete and abstract
way of manifestation	persistent and situational
the role of human activity	terminal and instrumental
content of human activity	cognitive and subject-transforming (creative, aesthetic, scientific, religious, etc.)
belonging	individual (or personal), group, collective, public, national, universal
relationship between group and society	positive and negative

From point of view psychological characteristics The classification proposed by K. Khabibulin is interesting. Their values ​​were divided as follows:

• depending on the subject of activity, values ​​can be individual or act as values ​​of a group, class, society;
• according to the object of activity, the scientist distinguished material values ​​in human life (or vital) and sociogenic (or spiritual);
• depending on the type of human activity, values ​​can be cognitive, labor, educational and socio-political;
• the last group consists of values ​​based on the way the activity is performed.

There is also a classification based on the identification of vital (a person’s ideas about good, evil, happiness and grief) and universal values. This classification was proposed at the end of the last century by T.V. Butkovskaya. Universal values, according to the scientist, are:

• vital (life, family, health);
• social recognition (values ​​such as social status and ability to work);
• interpersonal recognition (exhibition and honesty);
• democratic (freedom of expression or freedom of speech);
• particular (belonging to a family);
• transcendental (manifestation of faith in God).

It is also worthwhile to dwell separately on the classification of values ​​according to M. Rokeach, the author of the most famous method in the world, the main goal of which is to determine the hierarchy of value orientations of an individual. M. Rokeach divided all human values ​​into two large categories:

• terminal (or value-goals) - a person’s conviction that the final goal is worth all the effort to achieve it;
• instrumental (or value-ways) – a person’s conviction that a certain way of behavior and action is the most successful for achieving a goal.

There are still a huge number of different classifications of values, summary which are given in the table below.

Classifications of values

Scientist	Values
V.P. Tugarinov	spiritual	education, arts and science
	socio-political	justice, will, equality and brotherhood
	material	various types of material goods, technology
V.F. Sergeants	material	tools and methods of execution
	spiritual	political, moral, ethical, religious, legal and philosophical
A. Maslow	being (B-values)	higher, characteristic of a personality that self-actualizes (values ​​of beauty, goodness, truth, simplicity, uniqueness, justice, etc.)
	scarce (D-values)	lower ones, aimed at satisfying a need that has been frustrated (values ​​such as sleep, safety, dependence, peace of mind, etc.)

Analyzing the classification presented, the question arises, what are the main values ​​in a person’s life? In fact, there are a huge number of such values, but the most important are the general (or universal) values, which, according to V. Frankl, are based on the three main human existentials - spirituality, freedom and responsibility. The psychologist identified the following groups of values ​​(“eternal values”):

• creativity that allows people to understand what they can give to a given society;
• experiences through which a person realizes what he receives from society and society;
• relationships that enable people to understand their place (position) in relation to those factors that in some way limit their lives.

It should also be noted that the most important place is occupied by moral values ​​in a person’s life, because they play a leading role when people make decisions related to morality and moral standards, and this in turn speaks about the level of development of their personality and humanistic orientation.

System of values ​​in human life

The problem of human values ​​in life occupies a leading position in psychological research, because they are the core of personality and determine its direction. In solving this problem, a significant role belongs to the study of the value system, and here the research of S. Bubnova had a serious influence, who, based on the works of M. Rokeach, created her own model of a system of value orientations (it is hierarchical and consists of three levels). The system of values ​​in a person’s life, in her opinion, consists of:

• values-ideals, which are the most general and abstract (this includes spiritual and social values);
• values-properties that are fixed in the process of human life;
• values-ways of activity and behavior.

Any value system will always combine two categories of values: goal (or terminal) values ​​and method (or instrumental) values. Terminal ones include the ideals and goals of a person, group and society, and instrumental ones include ways of achieving goals that are accepted and approved in a given society. Goal values ​​are more stable than method values, therefore they act as a system-forming factor in various social and cultural systems.

Each person has his own attitude towards the specific value system existing in society. In psychology, there are five types of human relationships in the value system (according to J. Gudecek):

• active, which is expressed in a high degree of internalization of this system;
• comfortable, that is, externally accepted, but the person does not identify himself with this value system;
• indifferent, which consists in the manifestation of indifference and complete lack of interest in this system;
• disagreement or rejection, manifested in a critical attitude and condemnation of the value system, with the intention of changing it;
• opposition, which manifests itself in both internal and external contradiction with a given system.

It should be noted that the system of values ​​in a person’s life is the most important component in the structure of the individual, while it occupies a borderline position - on the one hand, it is a system of personal meanings of a person, on the other, his motivational-need sphere. A person’s values ​​and value orientations act as the leading quality of a person, emphasizing his uniqueness and individuality.

Values ​​are the most powerful regulator of human life. They guide a person along the path of his development and determine his behavior and activities. In addition, a person’s focus on certain values ​​and value orientations will certainly have an impact on the process of formation of society as a whole.

Along with material production and material culture, spiritual production and the spiritual culture of society and man are distinguished. Spiritual production characterizes man and society.

Human spiritual production is a type of social production associated with the activities of consciousness, subconscious and superconsciousness (creative intuition) of a person. The result is the production of individual values. They have a value character primarily for the person who created them.

The sphere of consciousness can include those products that have a spiritual form and are associated with the production of knowledge, practical skills, ideas, images and other products. These products can be objectified and communicated to others using language, speech, mathematical symbols, drawings, technical models, etc.

The subconscious includes everything that was previously conscious or can become conscious in the future. certain conditions, these are skills, archetypes, stereotypes, social norms deeply internalized by a person, the regulatory function of which is experienced as the “voice of conscience”, “call of the heart”, “command of duty”. Conscience takes its due place in human behavior only when its commands are carried out as an imperative, as a duty that does not require logical arguments. The same applies to the sense of good manners, responsibility, honesty, so firmly internalized by a person that he does not detect their influence, turned into the inner world of a person.

Superconsciousness in the form of creative intuition reveals itself at the initial stages of creativity, not controlled by consciousness and will. The neurolinguistic basis of superconsciousness consists of transformations and recombinations of traces (engrams) stored in human memory, the closure of new neural connections, whose correspondence or inconsistency with reality is revealed only in the future.

The formation of a person’s individual consciousness, his spiritual production, is influenced by both the conditions of his life and those forms of spirituality that are determined by society. Therefore, the spiritual production produced by man will take the form of value only when correlated with the spiritual production of society, without the recognition of which it turns out to be powerless.

The heroes of Ilf and Petrov are spiritually - different people. They also developed different ideas about values. Thus, O. Bender dreamed of a million, served “on a silver platter,” Shura Balaganov was ready to limit himself to five thousand rubles, Ellochka the Ogre dreamed of a “Mexican jerboa,” which would allow her to compare with “Vanderbilt.” Everyone has their own ideas about values, since everyone has their own culture.

Thus, spiritual culture sets the spiritual values, benefits and needs of a person. For each individual person, the products of his spiritual creativity are, on the one hand, individual in nature, they are unique, inimitable. On the other hand, they have a social, universal nature, since consciousness is initially a social product.

Spiritual values ​​arise as a result of the spiritual activity of society and an individual. Sometimes some researchers identify these phenomena. Thus, we can come across this kind of statement that “Spiritual activity is a social activity aimed at creating spiritual values ​​and assimilating them by people.” This is wrong. Spiritual activity is the activity of producing a spiritual product. Any activity ends in its result, any production ends with the creation of a product. Practice shows that not every product of spiritual activity is a value for society or an individual. Therefore, not every spiritual activity produces value. An activity that does not find its completion in a product does not create values; a spiritual activity that does not end in a result remains in the realm of the possible and does not invade the realm of the actual, and therefore the active. Therefore, whether spiritual activity will lead to obtaining a spiritual product is a question. And since the activity is not completed, then it does not become a value in this case.

But even if we receive a certain spiritual product, the question of its value also requires its own special study and practical application. In civilization there is a social division of labor, and sometimes different and even opposing forms of property operate. This leads to the emergence of not only alien, but sometimes hostile interests and products of spiritual culture. This leads to the fact that products of spiritual culture that are alien to some groups of the population are not perceived by them as values, since they were not produced by them and these products do not correspond to their interests. There is no self-identification between a given spiritual culture and the spiritual values ​​of a group alien to it. But alien social or ethnic values ​​can be mastered and turned into one’s own.

In civilization, the products of elite spiritual culture remain alien to the majority of the population. But the affirmation of the social nature of production leads to the fact that they begin to be assimilated by society, its lower classes. Thus, the noble culture of Russia in the 19th century remained an alien phenomenon to the peasant and proletarian masses. Changing social conditions in post-revolutionary Russia led to the fact that the development of Russian spiritual heritage became a mass phenomenon. Many norms of etiquette, living conditions, forms of morality, and aesthetic ideals began to be adopted by society and turned into a component of its mass culture.

The situation is more complicated when mastering spiritual values ​​that are hostile to a given subject. Hostile values ​​cannot be mastered in principle, since they lead to the destruction of the subject of spiritual production, to the destruction of those values ​​that meet his interests. Therefore, spiritual activity that culminates in the production of products hostile to a given social subject does not and cannot act as a value.

Spiritual culture as a value has a number of features compared to material values.

Spiritual production is directly social in nature. The products of spiritual activity themselves are initially of a social nature. Therefore, they do not need to affirm their cultural form in value, market relations. But in the conditions of civilization, spiritual products of culture forcibly and contradictorily acquire value functions and appear in commodity form. This leads to the fact that civilization reproduces the contradiction between the directly social nature of spiritual products and those limited forms of their existence that market production imposes on them.

A word, an idea, an ideal, a norm, no matter in what individual form they exist, are initially products of society and have a directly social character.

Material values ​​in the conditions of civilization cannot establish their social, universal form without bypassing the market. The market is an organic form for establishing the value nature of products of material culture.

Spiritual values ​​cannot be measured by working time, unlike material ones. Since spiritual values ​​are initially of a directly social nature, their production is based on the entire time of society. But in the conditions of civilization there is a certain contradiction between the activity and time carried out by the whole society, and working time. This leads to the fact that the products of spiritual production receive a form of existence limited by working time, and their production is carried out in the free time of society.

The price of material assets is based on the amount of labor that is produced in work time. The price of spiritual values ​​is based on surplus labor and product. The entire set of spiritual values ​​cannot be exchanged except for the surplus product of society.

When exchanging and distributing cultural values, their total amount does not decrease, but does not remain unchanged - it increases. Thus, literacy, a sign of written culture, arises as a local, limited phenomenon; it covers a limited circle of people. It is gradually spreading among the wider population, and the number of literate people is increasing. But its cultural value does not decrease during exchange and distribution and does not remain unchanged. It's a different matter with a material product. Having been produced during its distribution, it is exchanged for services, products of mental labor, as a result of which it is quantitatively reduced, consumed, and if it is not reproduced again and again, it may disappear.

During consumption, spiritual values, unlike material ones, do not disappear, but are preserved. Spiritual values ​​are replicated, copied and thus preserved. The mastery of scientific knowledge by an individual or society does not detract from the total amount of scientific knowledge, but moreover, creates better conditions for its production and dissemination. The mastery of a cultural norm by an individual and the community as a whole does not at all eliminate normativity from cultural life, but, on the contrary, creates better conditions for the functioning of cultural phenomena in society. The more widespread a moral norm is, the more stable it becomes.

An increase in the amount of material assets at the disposal of one person requires for their preservation and reproduction an increasing amount of labor and time, so that further assimilation of material wealth in individual form becomes impossible. Those. individual consumption of material assets is limited at any given moment in time and space. A contradiction arises between living and past labor and product.

An increase in the number of spiritual values, for example, knowledge, makes their owner more informed, “richer” in the production and consumption of new cultural values. Thus, a knowledgeable, informed person receives more information from the same message than an ignorant person. A person who has mastered moral norms and values ​​can endlessly continue the process of his improvement. We can say that there is no limit to the development of spiritual values, but there is a limit to the development of material values. This allows us to say that the area of ​​spiritual values ​​has different properties and relationships than the sphere of material culture, and its laws are not reducible to the laws of material production. One could call many spiritual values ​​a fractal-fractal sphere, different from systems of a different order - organic or holistic.

The values ​​of spiritual culture in modern conditions are increasingly of an authorial nature. Karl Jaspers believed that it was the authorial character that distinguishes “post-Axial” cultures. If we look at history, we will find that authorship appears long before the Axial Age. Already the laws of King Hammurabi and the sculptural portrait of Nefertiti are related to authorial, not anonymous cultures. But the ratio of these or those in history changes. The closer we get to modern times, the faster the role of original cultures increases. This is due, first of all, to the action of the general sociological law of the increasing role of the individual in history. In the field of broadcasting and production of cultural values, this law manifests itself especially clearly.

In addition, it is superimposed on another pattern of historical development of culture, associated with the increasing role of human individuality, with its separation from tribal, family, social, professional ties and relationships. The rapid development of culture even in our days is leading us to a situation in which the free, harmonious development of individuality, regardless of any external scale for a person, a social, national, spiritual measure, will turn into the law of social life and humanity.

In the field of production of spiritual values, their production bears the imprint of the personality of their creator, creator. In the field of material assets, the product is mainly impersonal, anonymous.

The lifetime of material culture is limited by physical and moral wear and tear. Material culture is constantly in need of updating and renovation. Spiritual values ​​are not limited in time. The achievements of spiritual culture are enduring. We admire the cultural monuments of Antiquity, for example, the Parthenon and the Colosseum.

Material culture has maximum value insofar as it is useful. Spiritual culture can have value while being materially useless, spiritually illusory, and sometimes even false. So, going west, Columbus's ships sought to open new routes to the already known India. And when they discovered new lands, the team believed that these were unknown areas of India. So, as a result of illusions, the greatest geographical discovery was made and a new continent appeared on the maps - America.

In spiritual culture we can distinguish two types of activity:

1. Spiritually productive activity; 2. Spiritual and practical activities.

Accordingly, we can distinguish two types of values ​​of spiritual culture: spiritually productive and spiritually practical.

Spiritual-productive activity is activity aimed at the production of spiritual products - mental, mental, rational and irrational, scientific and aesthetic, iconic and symbolic, etc. Spiritually productive activity is a spiritual activity associated with the transformation of objective reality in human consciousness or the processing of past products of spiritual production. The products and results of this activity are spiritual, perfect shape and reflect, first of all, the real world of man. At the center of spiritually productive activity is the activity of understanding this world and producing knowledge about it. Although spiritual activity is considered primarily as a reflection of the real world surrounding a person, this process of reflection cannot be reduced only to cognitive activity, knowledge production. Reflection and cognition are not identical categories. The process of reflection also includes other types of spiritual activity - the production of moral norms, aesthetic ideals, etc. All knowledge is reflection, but not all reflection is knowledge. Reflection is not limited to knowledge of this world, but includes other forms of spirituality - adequately and inadequately reflecting human world. A specific idea of ​​the value of an object may diverge from knowledge about it. For example, we know that smoking tobacco harms not only the smoker, but also the people around him. This is our knowledge. But for some reason the value of smoking remains for many people, despite the fact that they know that smoking is harmful to human health. Thus, the value attitude towards the world has its own specifics. Reflection processes cover not only cognition, but also include other forms. For example, we admire and admire the sunset. During this period we do not recognize it, but we experience it, we feel it, we rejoice. Accordingly, in our consciousness we form mental images in which we reflect the state of our world of feelings; we are able to remember these mental images in order to reproduce them from memory over time. And the value here is the memory of the feelings that we experienced, but not the memory that we once looked at the sunset. Although, we can assume that admiring the sunset may be accompanied by the production of some element of knowledge for us. Then it will be important for us to know and remember that on such and such a date, such and such a month, we admired the sunset. In this case, the experiences that we experienced at the same time are not important for us, but for us it is the date of the event that is important and of value. As we see, one type of activity – spiritually productive – can produce different types values ​​– sensual, in our case, aesthetic, and cognitive.

A feature of spiritually productive activity is the fact that at the end of it we have a spiritual product that has separated from its creator: a scientific discovery, invention, project, symbol, sign, poem, painting, etc. After this, the spiritual product begins to live its own independent life: visitors to the exhibition look at the painting, the writer’s novel is sold and sold out, poems are memorized, etc.

The second type of values ​​is associated with spiritual and practical activity. This is an activity to master and transfer human experience, practice, accumulated elements of spiritual culture values. This is an activity that is inseparable from human life and does not exist outside of it. These are the spiritual values ​​that are created by actors, dancers, reciters, ballet dancers, orators, politicians, and priests. The area of ​​spiritual and practical activity also includes morality, art, law, politics, religion, and ideology. These are spiritual and practical types of relationships. They form spiritual and practical values. These values ​​are inextricably linked to the practical behavior of people. We can talk a lot about morality, ethics, and teach other people moral standards and behavior. But in practical life we can commit immoral acts. In the first case, our values ​​will remain unrealized; they will exist in the sphere of the possible, the potential, the mental. These values ​​will not receive real and effective existence. In the second case, spiritual values ​​will be realized; they, “capturing the masses,” will turn into a material force capable of transforming the world.

A person, both in his historical development (phylogeny) and in his individual life (ontogenesis), develops different values ​​and different attitudes towards them, value orientations. Man has created a new huge world, unknown to nature. He developed techniques and technology, created advanced means of transport and forms of communication, communications and communication. But how can they be used for the benefit of man and humanity, and not for evil? Today, more than ever, the question is: in the name of what does man exist? What are the values ​​that should guide him? What should he focus on? Neither the most advanced technology, nor technology, nor economics can answer these questions; they do not tell us about the meaning of life. We learn about this from art, literature, philosophy, and the spiritual sphere of society. People treat them differently.

We can distinguish different value orientations of culture.

1. Conformism. In this case, the individual adapts to the system of values, rules, norms, prohibitions, ideals that were not created by him, before him, and which he must master. In this case, the experience of past and departed generations determines and limits the forms of behavior of the living and living, dictates to them their own, limited, measure of development.

2. Aculturality, asociality. This type of orientation is characterized by rejection of the experience of the past, those cultural values ​​that were created and accumulated by past and passing generations of people. In this case, the individual refuses the cultural heritage, denies its historical value, and tries to impose his own, sometimes individualistic, ideas about cultural values ​​and rules of behavior on society. For people who have chosen this path, the past culture appears as a hostile force that destroys them, which in turn must be denied. This is typical of the behavior of criminals, traitors, “degenerates,” and representatives of socially antagonistic groups.

3. Alienation. This type of value orientation is characteristic of people who perceive the existing culture as an alien, neutral, unnecessary, unfamiliar system of values, towards which they develop an indifferent, indifferent attitude. These people are characterized by a position of apathy, “non-participation,” “inaction,” and non-involvement in cultural values.

4. Transformation. A person of such an orientation chooses the path of creative development of the values ​​of the past, in which everything that contributes to the progressive development of the culture of society and man is selected and inherited. In this case, the individual becomes a conscious participant in the process of creating new cultural values. To paraphrase V. Khlebnikov, we can say that the stellar road of humanity was divided into the milky way of acquirers and the thorny path of inventors. Favorable conditions for creativity are not always provided for the creators of a new culture. As a rule, they encounter misunderstanding among their contemporaries, and even rejection. Because of their independent position, their personal life is most often tragic and conflicting. They are inconvenient for the average person because of their originality and dissimilarity from “everyone.” As I. Severyanin once wrote:

Artists, beware of the bourgeoisie!

They will waste your gift

With your hostile sleep

Your body is like a barrel organ;

They will sand the fire

In the soul, where there is law, there is lawlessness.

Each person, social group, nation, at first glance, has its own values, sometimes different from the values ​​of others. But recently, in conditions when the processes of establishing the social nature of production began to acquire a global, global character, the question of universal human values ​​arose.

The existence of universal human values ​​is based on cultural universals. Cultural universals include those cultural phenomena that are common to all peoples, regardless of their skin color, religion, or economic status. For example, games, sports, clothes, household utensils, dancing, etc.

Recognition of the existence of not only material, but also spiritual values.

Recognition of values ​​not just of objects that have a physical, bodily, material nature, but also of a social nature, i.e. being social relations.

Recognition as values ​​not only of social objects - norms, institutions, rituals, but also of their creators and bearers - people, work collectives, ethnic communities and groups, associations and organizations.

Recognition of values ​​that are not only individual, national, but also global in nature.

We can divide universal human values ​​into a number of types according to what areas of public life they cover: economic, social, political, spiritual.

Cultural universal heritage - everything that is “cultivated” by man and humanity during its existence on earth, products and results of labor, activity, many generations of people: fields and forests, parks and gardens, buildings and structures, means of communication and discovery and inventions, knowledge and ideas, norms and ideals.

The universal value consists not only of finished products of activity, but also of various types, forms, methods of labor and activity of man and humanity, which are aimed at preserving and increasing the cultural heritage of mankind, as well as transferring it in the form of tradition, inheritance, to the new, younger generation.

Universal human values ​​are formed as a result of the affirmation and special, cultural attitude of people towards their common property. This relation appears in the form social norms, laws, ideas that have universal human status.

Universal values ​​include those that characterize the behavior of an individual or human communities, as well as the relationships between them.

Universal human values ​​are:

Humanism, respectful attitude, tolerance and tolerance in communication between people.

Freedom and personal integrity.

Equality of all before the law and recognition of this equality by all humanity.

Personal and family life, the right to create a family and preserve it.

Freedom of thought, conscience and confession.

Labor and protection from unemployment, which ensures a person’s social and personal life.

The right to education, medical care, preservation of health.

Every individual has the status of a citizen, and therefore recognition as a full participant in legal relations.

The presence of property in one form or another - public or private, personal or collective.

Participation in political life in organized or unorganized forms, in managing the affairs of society and the state.

Interstate and international values ​​play an important role in relations between people.

Peace between nations, the exclusion of wars as a means of resolving controversial issues.

The rights of peoples to self-determination up to the creation of their own state.

The sovereignty of peoples, recognition of the supremacy of the rights of the people in solving political, economic, social problems and a number of others.

A person is surrounded by deep flows of information, he has accumulated huge reserves of knowledge, he is possessed by all kinds of desires and dreams. Without the right value orientations, all of them can pass by a person. It is very important to develop the right view of the world, formulate your own goals, guidelines in life, and be able to correlate them with the megatrends that will be characteristic of the culture of the 21st century. American futurologists D. Nasbitt and P. Aburdin identified ten main trends that await human culture. These include the global economic boom of the 1990s, the rise of free market socialism, the privatization of the welfare state, the rise of the Pacific Rim, the decade of women in leadership, the rise of biology, the renaissance of the arts, the universalist lifestyle, the religious revival of the new millennium, the triumph of personality. As we can see, the last four megatrends completely embrace the world of values ​​of spiritual culture.

Literature on topic 11

Anisimov S. F. Spiritual values: production and consumption. M. 1988.

Bashnyanin G.I. Economic measurement. Structure. Principles. Functions. Lviv. 1994.

Bunich P.G. New values. M. 1989.

Brozhik V. Marxist theory of assessment. M. 1982.

Vyzhletsov G.P. Axiology of culture. St. Petersburg 1996.

Drobnitsky O. G. The world of animated objects. M. 1967.

Leiashvili P.R. Analysis of economic value. M. 1990.

Marx K. Capital. T. 23.

Nietzsche F. The Will to Power. Experience of revaluation of all values. M. 1910.

Nasbitt D., Eburdin P. What awaits us in the 90s. Megatrends: Year 2000. Ten new directions for the 90s. M. 1992.

Production as a social process. M. 1986.

Rickert G. Sciences about nature and sciences about culture. St. Petersburg 1911.

Rickert G. Philosophy of History. St. Petersburg 1908.

Severyanin I. Poet's Library. M. 1975.

Simonov P.V., Ershov P.M., Vyazemsky Yu.P. Origin of spirituality. M. 1989.

Frank S. L. Ethics of nihilism // Milestones. From the depth. M. 1991.

Schweitzer A. Culture and ethics. M. 1973.

The term “culture” is of Latin origin. Initially it meant “cultivation, cultivation of the soil,” but later acquired a more general meaning. Culture is studied by many sciences (archaeology, ethnography, history, aesthetics, etc.), and each gives it its own definition. Distinguish material And spiritual culture. Material culture is created in the process of material production (its products are machines, equipment, buildings, etc.). Spiritual culture includes the process of spiritual creativity and the spiritual values ​​created in the form of music, paintings, scientific discoveries, religious teachings, etc. All elements of material and spiritual culture are inextricably linked. Man's material production activity underlies his activity in other areas of life; at the same time, the results of his mental (spiritual) activity materialize and turn into material objects - things, technical means, works of art.

Spiritual culture is a unique integrity of art, science, morality, and religion. The history of the formation of culture has a number of features. The accumulation of cultural values ​​proceeds in two directions - vertically and horizontally. The first direction of accumulation of cultural values ​​(vertically) is associated with their transfer from one generation to another, i.e. with continuity in culture.

The most stable aspect of culture is cultural traditions, elements of social and cultural heritage that are not just passed on from generation to generation, but are also preserved for a long time, over the lives of many generations. Traditions imply what to inherit and how to inherit. Values, ideas, customs, and rituals can be traditional.

The second line of accumulation of cultural values ​​(horizontally) is most clearly manifested in artistic culture. It is expressed in the fact that, unlike science, what is inherited as values ​​is not individual components, actual ideas, parts of theory, but the whole piece of art.

Different approaches to the interpretation of culture:

• Philosophical-anthropological: culture is an expression of human nature, a body of knowledge, art, morality, law, customs and other characteristics inherent in man as a member of society.
• Philosophical-historical: culture as the emergence and development of human history, the movement of man from nature, the herd into historical space, the transition from a “barbarian” state to a “civilized” one.
• Sociological: culture as a factor in the formation of the life of a society, cultural values ​​are created by society and determine its development.

FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE:

• cognitive – a holistic idea of ​​a people, country, era;
• evaluative – selection of values, enrichment of traditions;
• regulatory or normative - a system of norms and requirements of society for all its members in all areas of life and activity (standards of morality, law, behavior);
• informative – transfer and exchange of knowledge, values ​​and experience of previous generations;
• communicative – the ability to preserve, transmit and replicate cultural values, development and improvement of personality through communication;
• socialization – the individual’s assimilation of a system of knowledge, norms, values, accustoming to social strata, normative behavior, and the desire for self-improvement.

In creativity, culture is organically fused with uniqueness. Each cultural value is unique, be it a work of art, an invention, a scientific discovery, etc. Replicating something already known in one form or another is the dissemination, not the creation, of culture.

"Mass culture" formed simultaneously with the society of mass production and consumption. Radio, television, modern means of communication, and then video and computer technology contributed to its spread. In Western sociology, “mass culture” is considered commercial, since works of art, science, religion, etc. act in it as consumer goods that can generate profit when sold if they take into account the tastes and demands of the mass viewer, reader, music lover .

“Mass culture” is called differently: entertainment art, “anti-fatigue” art, kitsch (from the German jargon “hack”), semi-culture. In the 80s The term "mass culture" began to be used less frequently, since it was compromised by the fact that it was used exclusively in a negative sense. Nowadays it has been replaced by the concept "popular culture", or "pop culture". Characterizing it, American philologist M. Bell emphasizes: “This culture is democratic. It is addressed to you, people without distinction of classes, nations, levels of poverty and wealth.” Moreover, thanks to modern means Thanks to mass communication, many works of art of high artistic value have become available to people. "Mass" or "pop culture" is often contrasted "elite" a culture that is complex in content and difficult for the unprepared to perceive. It usually includes films by Fellini, Tarkovsky, books by Kafka, Böll, Bazin, Vonnegut, paintings by Picasso, music by Duvall, Schnittke. The works created within the framework of this culture are intended for a narrow circle of people with a keen understanding of art and are the subject of lively debate among art historians and critics. But the mass viewer or listener may not pay any attention to them or may not understand them.

Recently, scientists have started talking about the emergence "screen culture" which is associated with the computer revolution. “Screen culture” is formed on the basis of the synthesis of computers and video technology. Personal contacts and reading books fade into the background. Appears new type communication, based on the possibilities of free access of the individual to the world of information. These are, for example, video phones or electronic banks and computer networks that allow you to receive information from archives, book depositories, and libraries on a computer screen. Thanks to the use of computer graphics, it is possible to increase the speed and improve the quality of the information received. The computer “page” brings with it a new type of thinking and education with its characteristic speed, flexibility, and reactivity. Many today believe that the future belongs to “screen culture”.

In the context of internationalization, the problems of preserving the culture of small peoples are becoming more acute. Thus, some peoples of the North do not have their own written language, and the spoken language is quickly forgotten in the process of constant communication with other peoples. Such problems can only be resolved through a dialogue of cultures, but on the condition that this must be dialogue “equal and different”. A positive example is the existence of several official languages ​​in Switzerland. Equal opportunities have been created here for the development of the cultures of all peoples. Dialogue also presupposes interpenetration and mutual enrichment of cultures. It is no coincidence that cultural exchange (exhibitions, concerts, festivals, etc.) has become a good tradition in the life of modern civilization. As a result of dialogue, universal cultural values ​​are created, the most important of which are moral norms, and primarily such as humanism, mercy, and mutual assistance.

Level of development of spiritual culture is measured by the volume of spiritual values ​​created in society, the scale of their dissemination and the depth of assimilation by people, by each person. When assessing the level of spiritual progress in a particular country, it is important to know how many research institutes, universities, theaters, libraries, museums, nature reserves, conservatories, schools, etc. it has. But alone quantitative indicators Not enough for a general assessment. It is important to take into account quality of spiritual products - scientific discoveries, books, education, films, performances, paintings, musical works. The purpose of culture is to form every person’s ability to be creative, his sensitivity to the highest achievements of culture. This means that it is necessary to take into account not only what has been created in culture, but also how people use these achievements. That's why important criterion The cultural progress of society is the degree to which people achieve social equality in introducing them to cultural values.

CLASSIFICATION OF VALUES:

• Vital – life, health, physical and spiritual well-being, quality of life.
• Social – social status and well-being, social equality, personal independence, professionalism, comfortable work.
• Political – freedom of speech, civil liberties, law and order, legality, security.
• Moral - goodness, honesty, duty, selflessness, decency, loyalty, love, friendship, justice.
• Religious - God, divine law, faith, salvation, grace, ritual, Holy Scripture and Tradition.
• Aesthetic – beauty, style, harmony, adherence to traditions, cultural identity.

The crisis situation that has developed in Russia is manifested with particular force in the spiritual life of society. The situation in the culture of our fatherland is assessed as extremely difficult and even catastrophic. With the inexhaustible cultural potential accumulated by previous generations and our contemporaries, the spiritual impoverishment of the people began. Mass lack of culture is the cause of many troubles in the economy and environmental management. The decline of morality, bitterness, the growth of crime and violence are evil growths based on lack of spirituality. An uncultured doctor is indifferent to the suffering of the patient, an uncultured person is indifferent to the creative quest of an artist, an uncultured builder builds a beer stall on the site of a temple, an uncultured farmer disfigures the land... Instead of native speech, rich in proverbs and sayings, there is a language clogged with foreign words, thieves' words, and even obscene language. Today, what the intellect, spirit, and talent of the nation has created over centuries is under threat of destruction - ancient cities are being destroyed, books, archives, works of art are being lost. folk traditions skill. The danger to the present and future of the country is the plight of science and education.

The problem of protecting and preserving the cultural heritage of the past, which has absorbed universal human values, is a planetary problem. Historical cultural monuments are also dying from the inexorable destructive influence natural factors: natural - sun, wind, frost, moisture and “unnatural” - harmful impurities in the atmosphere, acid rain, etc. They also die from the pilgrimage of tourists and excursionists, when it is difficult to preserve a cultural treasure in its original form. After all, let’s say, when the Hermitage in St. Petersburg was founded, it was not designed to be visited by millions of people a year, and in the New Athos Cave, due to the abundance of tourists, the internal microclimate has changed, which also threatens its further existence.

Science as a whole can be viewed from three perspectives:

• as a special system of knowledge;
• as a system of specific organizations and institutions with people working in them (for example, industrial research institutes, the Academy of Sciences, universities), developing, storing and disseminating this knowledge;
• as a special type of activity - a system scientific research, developmental research.

The peculiarity of scientific knowledge lies in its deep insight into the essence of phenomena and their theoretical nature. Scientific knowledge begins when a pattern is realized behind a set of facts - a general and necessary connection between them, which makes it possible to explain why a given phenomenon occurs this way and not otherwise, and to predict its further development. Over time, some scientific knowledge moves into the field of practice. The immediate goals of science are the description, explanation and prediction of processes and phenomena of reality, that is, in a broad sense, its theoretical reflection. The language of science differs significantly from the language of other forms of culture and art in its greater clarity and rigor. Science is thinking in concepts, and art is thinking in artistic images. At different stages of the development of society, scientific knowledge performed various functions: cognitive-explanatory, ideological, prognostic.

Over time, industrialists and scientists saw in science a powerful catalyst for the process of continuous improvement of production. Awareness of this fact dramatically changed the attitude towards science and was an essential prerequisite for its decisive turn towards practice. You have already become familiar with the revolutionary influence of science on the sphere of material production. Today, science is increasingly revealing another function - it is beginning to act as social power, directly involved in the processes of social development and management. This function is most clearly manifested in situations where the methods of science and its data are used to develop large-scale plans and programs for social and economic development, for example, such as the program for economic and political integration of member countries of the EEC.

In science, as in any area of ​​human activity, the relationships between those who are involved in it, and the actions of each of them are subject to a certain system ethical (moral) standards, defining what is permissible, what is encouraged, and what is considered impermissible and unacceptable for a scientist in different situations. These norms can be divided into three groups. TO first relate universal human requirements and prohibitions, such as “don’t steal”, “don’t lie”, adapted, of course, to the peculiarities of scientific activity.

Co. second This group includes ethical norms that serve to affirm and protect specific values ​​characteristic of science. An example of such norms is the selfless search and defense of truth. Aristotle’s saying “Plato is my friend, but truth is dearer” is widely known, the meaning of which is that in the pursuit of truth, a scientist should not take into account either his likes and dislikes, or any other non-scientific considerations.

TO third This group includes moral rules that relate to the relationship of science and the scientist with society. This range of ethical standards is often identified as a problem freedom of scientific research and social responsibility of a scientist.

The problem of the social responsibility of a scientist has deep historical roots. Among the areas of scientific knowledge, genetic engineering, biotechnology, biomedical and human genetic research occupy a specific place. The undeniable achievements of these sciences are combined with the growing danger for humanity of ill-considered or malicious use of their methods and discoveries, which can lead to the emergence of so-called mutant organisms with completely new hereditary characteristics that have not previously been found on Earth and are not due to human evolution.

The development of genetic engineering and related fields of knowledge required a different understanding of the connection between freedom and responsibility in the activities of scientists. Over the centuries, many of them, not only in word but also in deed, had to affirm and defend the principles of free scientific research in the face of ignorance, fanaticism, and superstition. Today, the idea of ​​unlimited freedom of research, which was certainly progressive before, can no longer be accepted unconditionally, without taking into account social responsibility. After all, there is responsible freedom and there is a fundamentally different free irresponsibility, fraught, given the current and future capabilities of science, with very serious consequences for humans and humanity.

Main components of worldview:

• cognitive – includes knowledge, scientific knowledge, styles of thinking of a community, people;
• value-normative – ideals, convictions, beliefs, norms;
• emotional-volitional – socio-psychological attitudes of the individual and society, transformation into personal views, beliefs, values, knowledge, norms of the community, people;
• practical – updating of generalized knowledge, values, ideals and norms, a person’s readiness for a certain type of behavior.

“Any reorganization of society is always connected with the reorganization of the school. New people and strength are needed - the school must prepare them. Where public life took a certain form, the school was established there accordingly and fully corresponds to the mood of society.” Written in the second half of the 19th century, these words are still relevant today.

Throughout a person’s life, there is a process of his socialization - his assimilation of the social experience of past and contemporary generations. This process is carried out in two ways: during the spontaneous influence of life circumstances on a person and as a result of targeted influence on him by society, in the process of education and, above all, through the educational system that has developed in society and meets its needs. But society is heterogeneous: each class, social group, the nation has its own idea of ​​the content of education.

Main directions of education reform:

• democratization: expansion of rights and freedoms educational institutions, openness of discussion and decision-making;
• humanitarization: increasing the role of humanitarian knowledge in the training of specialists, increasing the number of specialists in the field of humanities;
• humanization: society’s attention to the individual, his psychology, interests and needs;
• computerization: use of new modern technologies training;
• internationalization: creation of a unified education system at the national and global levels.

IN modern world there are a huge number of different types of schools and other educational institutions: Quaker schools in England, providing religious-pacifist education, comprehensive schools and vocational schools educational establishments in the CIS countries, theological seminaries in all Christian countries, madrassas in the Muslim countries of the East, universities, colleges, technical schools. But in this extremely variegated variety of systems and types of education, one can trace the general directions of its development in the modern world.

Religion is certain views and ideas of people, corresponding rituals and cults. Faith, according to the Gospel, is the realization of what is hoped for and the assurance of what is not seen. It is alien to any logic, and therefore it is not afraid of atheists’ justifications that there is no God, and does not need logical confirmation that He exists. The Apostle Paul said: “Let your faith rest not on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.” Features of religious faith. Its first element is faith in the very existence of God as the creator of everything that exists, the manager of all affairs, actions, and thoughts of people. According to modern religious teachings, a person is endowed by God with free will, has freedom of choice and, because of this, is responsible for his actions and for the future of his soul.

Stages of development of religion:

• natural religion: finds its gods in natural conditions;
• religion of law: the idea of ​​an omnipotent God-lord, obedience to divine commandments;
• religion of redemption: belief in the merciful love and mercy of God, liberation from sins.

Structure of religion:

• religious consciousness;
• religious faith;
• religious ideas;
• religious activities;
• religious communities, denominations, churches.

Religious consciousness:

• religious psychology, which includes: feelings and moods, habits and traditions, religious ideas;
• religious ideas, which include: theology (theory of God), cosmology (theory of the world), anthropology (theory of man).

Anthropological foundations of religion:

• ontological (ontology is the philosophical doctrine of being) - this is the attitude of a mortal person to eternity, belief in personal immortality, the assumption of the posthumous existence of the soul;
• epistemological (epistemology theory of knowledge) is a person’s cognitive attitude to Infinity, the contradiction between the abstract possibility of knowing the world as a whole and the real impossibility of such knowledge, only religion explains the world as a whole from its beginning to the “end of time”; a religious worldview is a holistic worldview;
• sociological - this is the attitude to real conditions human life in the past, present and future, man's desire for a justly ordered world;
• psychological - a feeling of fear, loneliness, uncertainty, the desire to be sovereign, self-sufficient, to be understood, to be involved in the world of other people, to assert oneself, to find a second “I”, to resolve the problem of understanding in the sphere of religious consciousness, hope in God.

Functions of religion:

• worldview is a religious worldview, an explanation of the world, nature, man, the meaning of his existence, worldview;
• compensatory - this social inequality is compensated by equality in sinfulness, suffering, human disunity is replaced by brotherhood in the community, the powerlessness of man is compensated by the omnipotence of God;
• regulatory is a regulator of people’s behavior, it organizes the thoughts, aspirations and actions of a person, groups, communities with the help of certain values, ideas, attitudes, traditions;
• cultural transmission is the introduction of a person to cultural values ​​and traditions of religious culture, the development of writing, printing, art, and the transfer of accumulated heritage from generation to generation.

The idea of ​​the existence of God is the central point of religious faith, but does not exhaust it. Thus, religious faith includes: moral standards, moral standards that are declared to originate from divine revelation; violation of these norms is a sin and, accordingly, is condemned and punished; certain legal laws and regulations, which are also declared to have either occurred directly as a result of divine revelation, or as the result of the divinely inspired activity of legislators, usually kings and other rulers; faith in the divine inspiration of the activities of certain clergy, persons declared saints, saints, blessed, etc.; Thus, in Catholicism it is generally accepted that the head of the Catholic Church - the Pope - is the vicar (representative) of God on earth; faith in the saving power for the human soul of those ritual actions that believers perform in accordance with the instructions of the Holy Books, clergy and church leaders (baptism, circumcision of the flesh, prayer, fasting, worship, etc.); faith in the divine direction of the activities of churches as associations of people who consider themselves adherents of a particular faith.

There is a variety of beliefs, sects, and church organizations in the world. These are various forms polytheism(polytheism), the traditions of which come from primitive religions (belief in spirits, worship of plants, animals, souls of the dead). Various forms are adjacent to them monotheism(monotheism). Here are national religions - Confucianism (China), Judaism (Israel), etc., and world religions, formed during the era of empires and found adherents among peoples speaking different languages ​​- Buddhism, Christianity, Islam. It is world religions that have the greatest influence on the development of modern civilizations.

Buddhism - the earliest world religion in terms of its appearance. It is most widespread in Asia. Central region Buddhist teachings constitutes morality and norms of human behavior. Through reflection and contemplation, a person can achieve the truth, find the right path to salvation and, observing the commandments of holy teaching, come to perfection. The elementary commandments, obligatory for everyone, come down to five: do not kill a single living creature, do not take someone else's property, do not touch someone else's wife, do not tell lies, do not drink wine. But for those who strive to achieve perfection, these five commandments-prohibitions develop into a whole system of much more strict regulations. The prohibition of killing goes so far as to prohibit the killing of even insects that are barely visible to the eye. The prohibition to take someone else's property is replaced by the requirement to renounce all property at all. One of the most important precepts of Buddhism is love and mercy for all living beings. Moreover, Buddhism prescribes not to make any distinction between them and to treat good and evil, people and animals equally favorably and compassionately. A follower of the Buddha should not pay evil for evil, because otherwise not only are they not destroyed, but, on the contrary, enmity and suffering increase. You can't even protect others from violence and punish murder. A follower of the Buddha must have a calm, patient attitude towards evil, avoiding only participation in it.

Christianity - the second oldest world religion. Nowadays it is the most widespread religion on Earth, numbering over 1024 million adherents in Europe and America. The moral rules of Christianity are set out in the commandments of Moses: “thou shalt not kill”, “thou shalt not steal”, “thou shalt not commit adultery”, “honor thy mother and father”, “thou shalt not make thyself an idol”, “thou shalt not take the name of the Lord God in vain”...Central in Christianity are the idea of ​​human sinfulness as the cause of all his misfortunes and the teaching of deliverance from sins through prayer and repentance. The preaching of patience, humility, and forgiveness of offenses is limitless. “Love your enemies,” Jesus teaches. “Bless those who curse you, give thanks to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you.”

Islam (Muslim) - the latest world religion to emerge. There are about a billion of its adherents on Earth. Islam became most widespread in North Africa, South-West and South Asia. “Islam” translated into Russian means “submission”. Man, according to the Koran, is a weak creature, prone to sin, he is not able to achieve anything in life on his own. He can only rely on the mercy and help of Allah. If a person believes in God and follows the instructions of the Muslim religion, he will deserve eternal life in paradise. Demanding obedience to Allah from believers, Islam prescribes the same obedience to earthly authorities. A characteristic feature of the Muslim religion is that it vigorously intervenes in all spheres of people's lives. Personal, family, social life of Muslim believers, politics, legal relations, court - everything must obey religious laws.

In this regard, today people are increasingly talking about the processes of “Islamization,” which means, firstly, the content of political programs put forward and implemented in a number of countries in the Muslim world (Pakistan, Iran, Libya). Although their embodiment may be different, nevertheless, they all declare their goal to be the construction of an “Islamic society” in which economic, social and political life will be determined by the norms of Islam.

Secondly, “Islamization” refers to the continuing spread of this relatively young religion in several areas of Asia, Africa, India, and the Far East. The process of “Islamization” is very controversial. On the one hand, it reflects the desire of the peoples of developing countries to free themselves from the remnants of colonialism and Western influence, on the other hand, the implementation of Islamic slogans by the hands of extremists can bring untold troubles to humanity.

The influence of religion on a person is contradictory: on the one hand, it calls a person to adhere to high moral standards, introduces him to culture, and on the other hand, it preaches (at least many religious communities do this) submission and humility, refusal of active actions even when they aim at the good of people. In some cases (as in the situation with the Sikhs), it contributes to the aggressiveness of believers, their separation and even confrontation. If we cannot give a general formula that allows us to assess whether a particular position is progressive or reactionary in relation to religious faith, then some general provisions, concerning the relationship between believers, between believers and atheists, still exist.

They exist as moral, legal (legal) relations. First, in respect for another person, for other people, even if they believe in a different God (or gods), they believe in the same God differently, if they do not believe in God, they do not perform religious rites at all. To believe or not to believe in God, to perform religious rites or not is a private matter for each person. And not a single one government agency, none government agency, no public organization has the right to hold anyone accountable - criminal or civil - for his faith or non-belief. This does not mean that the state and society are indifferent to any religious activity.

There are religions that require human sacrifices, the rites of which physically and spiritually disfigure people, excite crowds and direct them to pogroms, murders, and outrages. Of course, the state, the law, public opinion Against this. But this is not religion itself, not faith itself, but activity harmful and illegal. And the state’s fight against this activity does not at all mean that it violates the principle of freedom of conscience.

A person whose spiritual life is highly developed, as a rule, possesses an important personal quality: he acquires spirituality as a desire for the height of one’s ideals and thoughts, which determine the direction of all activities. Spirituality includes warmth and friendliness in relationships between people. Some researchers characterize spirituality as the morally oriented will and mind of a person.

It is noted that the spiritual is a characteristic of practice, not just consciousness. A person whose spiritual life is poorly developed unspiritual. At the heart of spiritual life - consciousness. You already have some idea about it. Let us recall: consciousness is a form of mental activity and spiritual life, thanks to which a person comprehends, understands the world around him and his own place in this world, forms his attitude towards the world, determines his activities in it. The history of human culture is the history of the human mind.

The historical experience of generations is embodied in created cultural values. When a person communicates with the values ​​of the past, the culture of the human race seems to flow into the spiritual world of the individual, contributing to his intellectual and moral development. Spiritual life, the life of human thought, usually includes knowledge, faith, feelings, needs, abilities, aspirations, and goals of people. The spiritual life of an individual is also impossible without experiences: joy, optimism or despondency, faith or disappointment. It is human nature to strive for self-knowledge and self-improvement. The more developed a person is, the higher his culture, the richer his spiritual life.

The condition for the normal functioning of a person and society is the mastery of the knowledge, skills, and values ​​accumulated over the course of history, since each person is a necessary link in the relay of generations, a living connection between the past and the future of humanity. Anyone who, from an early age, learns to navigate it, to choose for himself values ​​that correspond to personal abilities and inclinations and that do not contradict the rules of human society, feels free and at ease in modern culture. Each person has enormous potential for the perception of cultural values ​​and the development of their own abilities. Ability for self-development and self-improvement - fundamental difference man from all other living beings.

Ethical(custom, moral character) - means to always act in accordance with the moral law, which should be the basis of the behavior of all.

Religious(piety, piety) - faith dominates in life, not reason, selfless service to God, fulfillment of divine commandments. Accept the will of the Heavenly Father and build your life in accordance with it.

Humanistic(humanity) is the desire for improvement, self-expression, self-affirmation of the individual, the harmonious development of human value abilities, feelings and reason, the development of human culture and morality.

Criteria for the spiritual culture of a person.

• Active creative attitude to life.
• Willingness for dedication and self-development.
• Constant enrichment of your spiritual world.
• Selective attitude to sources of information.
• System of value orientations.

A person can preserve his uniqueness, remain himself even in extremely contradictory conditions only if he has formed as a personality. To be an individual means to have the ability to navigate a variety of knowledge and situations and to bear responsibility for one’s choices, and to be able to withstand many negative influences. The more complex the world and the richer the palette of options for life aspirations, the more the problem is more pressing freedom to choose one's own life position. The relationship between man and the culture around him constantly changed in the process of civilization development, but the main thing remained the same - the interdependence of universal, national culture and the culture of the individual. After all, a person acts as a bearer of the general culture of humanity, both as its creator and as its critic, and universal human culture is an indispensable condition for the formation and development of a person’s spiritual culture.

In the process of cognition, such a quality of a person’s inner world as intelligence is formed. The word is of Latin origin and means knowledge, understanding, reason. But this is a human ability that differs from his feelings (emotions), will, imagination and a number of others. Intelligence, first of all, is closest to the concept of “mind” - a person’s ability to understand something, to find the meaning of any things, phenomena, processes, their causes, essence, place in the world around them. A person’s intellectual potential is associated with the culture on which he bases his activities, which he has mastered and which has penetrated into his inner world. Intelligence is a person’s ability to obtain new information based on what he had at one or another stage of the cognition process, through reasoning, conclusions, and evidence.

The spiritual world of man is not limited to knowledge. An important place in it is occupied by emotions - subjective experiences about situations and phenomena of reality. A person, having received this or that information, experiences emotional feelings of grief and joy, love and hatred, fear or fearlessness. Emotions, as it were, paint acquired knowledge or information in one or another “color” and express a person’s attitude towards them. The spiritual world of a person cannot exist without emotions, a person is not an impassive robot processing information, but a personality capable of not only having “calm” feelings, but in which passions can rage - feelings of exceptional strength, persistence, duration, expressed in the direction of thoughts and forces to achieve a specific goal. Passions sometimes lead a person to greatest feats in the name of people's happiness, and sometimes for crimes. A person must be able to manage his feelings. To control both these aspects of spiritual life and all human activities in the course of his development, will is developed. Will is a person’s conscious determination to perform certain actions to achieve a set goal.

The worldview idea of ​​the value of an ordinary person, his life, forces today in culture, traditionally understood as the repository of universal human values, to highlight moral values ​​as the most important, determining in the modern situation the very possibility of his existence on Earth. And in this direction, the planetary mind is taking the first, but quite tangible steps from the idea of ​​the moral responsibility of science to the idea of ​​​​combining politics and morality.

It is necessary to explain the differences and relationships between spiritual and material culture.

Justify your point of view on the emergence of subculture, mass and elite culture, counterculture.

Consult history materials that address cultural issues, as well as training course MHC.

Try to determine the state of the spiritual culture of your country.

Pay attention to the achievements of science and technology that exist in the world and in your country.

Try to determine the features of education in the world, in Russia, in your country.

When determining the role of religion, consider the problem as a dialogue and cooperation between believers and non-believers, because the basis of this process is freedom of religion.

To complete tasks on Topic 8 you need:

1. KNOW THE TERMS:
Spiritual culture, folk culture, mass culture, elite culture.

2. DESCRIBE:
Religion as a cultural phenomenon, education in modern society.

3. CHARACTERIZE:
The diversity of cultural life, science as a system of knowledge and a type of spiritual production, the scientific picture of the world, the essence of art, its origin and forms.

What is important to you and what is it? Each person who is asked such a question will answer it individually. One will say that the most important thing in life is career and wealth, another will answer that this is power and status in society, the third will give the example of family, relationships and health. The list could go on for quite a long time, but we just need to understand that what is important to a person controls his actions. Based on what his priorities are, he will make friends, get an education, choose a place of work, in other words, build his life.

And the topic of this article is life priorities, or, more precisely, life values. Next we will talk about what they are, what kinds of values ​​there are, and how their system is formed.

What are life values?

So, a person’s life values ​​can be called the scale of assessments and measures with the help of which he verifies and evaluates his life. IN different periods existence of man, this scale has been transformed and modified, but certain measures and assessments have always been present in it and continue to be present now.

A person's life values ​​are absolute values- they occupy the first place in his worldview and have a direct impact on which areas of life will be a priority for him, and what he will perceive as secondary.

What are the life values?

First of all, it should be pointed out that a person’s system of life values ​​can consist of several elements:

• Human values
• Cultural values
• Individual values

And if the first two elements are determined mainly by people’s general ideas about what is good and what is bad, what is important and what is secondary, as well as the characteristics of the culture in which a person was born and raised, then the third element can be attributed to purely subjective worldviews peculiarities. Although in this case, something in common can be identified that unites the life values ​​of all people in general.

Thus, the general system of human life values ​​includes:

• Health is one of the main values ​​in life, shared by many people and valued quite highly. But health can include not only spiritual well-being, but also social well-being, expressed in the absence of social crises in life. Particular attention is paid to indicators of physical and social well-being, which are reflected in external attractiveness and in attributes of social status, such as social status, possession of certain things, compliance with standards and brands;
• Success in life is another value that has been held in high regard for a long time. Receiving is the key to a stable future, a successful career, availability and public recognition - all this is important for many people. But at the same time, the number of adherents of the so-called downshifting is quite large - a phenomenon in which people who have already managed to achieve success and social status, come to the understanding that they no longer have the strength to endure social pressure, retire from business and go into a simple life in order to maintain peace of mind and integrity. Today, the skill of adapting to different conditions and life circumstances and the ability to earn money without being hired;
• Family remains one of the main life values ​​for people all over the world, despite the fact that today there is a tendency to refuse marriage, especially early marriage, refusal to have children, as well as the promotion of same-sex relationships. In addition, even the fact that in our time money can be used to obtain an endless number of sexual relationships and the appearance of love cannot be compared with the fact that a real family and the need for procreation are still significant for people;
• Children - and here we can again say that, despite the propaganda of abandoning children (childfree), for the vast majority of people children continue to remain the meaning of existence, and the birth and upbringing of offspring turns into. AND great value here is the opportunity for a person to leave behind offspring as a trace, as well as the transfer of his life experience and the consolidation of his individual “I” in something that will continue to exist longer than himself.

Guided by all this, we can conclude that the system of people’s life values, which they are guided by throughout their lives, in most cases is represented by their desire for self-realization, and its transmission over time.

But, in addition to the listed life values, we can name a number of others, which are also very common:

• Closeness with loved ones
• Friends
• Freedom of judgment and action
• Independence
• Work that matches your life purpose
• Respect and recognition from others
• and opening new places
• Creative implementation

Differences in life values ​​and priorities are explained by the fact that people differ in. This suggests that your system of life values ​​is completely individual, but what matters most to you, and what you value as the most important thing in life, for someone else may mean absolutely nothing or nothing at all. absent from his value system. Although, of course, things that are significant for everyone, like moral values, have a place to be, regardless of where a person was born and at what time.

Now let's talk about how the formation of a system of life values ​​occurs.

Features of the formation of a system of life values

The system of life values ​​of each person begins to form from the first years of his life, but it is finally formed only upon reaching a responsible age, i.e. by about 18-20 years, although even after that it may change in some ways. The process of its formation itself takes place according to a certain algorithm.

Schematically, this algorithm can be expressed as follows:

• Aspiration > Ideal
• Aspiration > Goal > Ideal
• Aspiration > Values ​​> Purpose > Ideal
• Aspiration > Means > Values ​​> Goal > Ideal

However, subsequently, between all these points, another one appears - ethics, as a result of which the whole scheme takes on the following form:

• Aspiration > Ethics> Tools > Ethics> Values ​​> Ethics> Goal > Ethics> Ideal

From this it turns out that first of all, the ideal and the very desire for this ideal arise. An ideal, which can also be called an image, if there is no desire for it, is no longer such.

At the first stage, which is most often instinctive, the ideal is neutral from an ethical point of view, i.e. it cannot be assessed in any way, and it can be formed in the form of a sensory-emotional substance, the content of which is quite difficult to determine. The meaning that is attached to the ideal is formed only at the stage of transformation into a goal. And only after this, reaching the third stage, the formation of values ​​occurs, serving as resources, conditions and rules for, which leads to the ideal. And the entire algorithm ultimately ends with the so-called inventory of the necessary and available means to achieve the goal.

Each element of the presented algorithm is extremely important, but you need to pay attention to the fact that the ideal, goal and means are formed and selected under the influence of not only needs, but also ethical norms, which seem to “filter” all stages of the algorithm. At the same time, ethical standards may exist in the human mind, as well as in the mass consciousness, representing the results of the action of previous algorithms, and therefore be perceived as “existing objectively.” In addition, they can also be formed as new ones, being conditioned by a newly emerged ideal and the corresponding algorithm.

The life of any person, as we have already mentioned, from childhood begins to obey this algorithm, and it does not matter what it concerns: choice future profession, loved one, political or religious views and actions performed. And here “ideals” play a special role, regardless of whether they exist in a person’s consciousness or in his subconscious.

To summarize, we can say that a person’s system of life values ​​is a fairly stable structure, despite the fact that it is subject to changes, both small and global. And a person’s awareness of his own system of life values ​​is the first step towards understanding his own.

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