Culture plays an important role in the life of society, which consists primarily in the fact that culture acts as a means of accumulation, storage and transmission of human experience.
This role of culture is realized through a number of functions:
Educational and educational function. We can say that it is culture that makes a person a person. An individual becomes a member of society, a person in the course of socialization, i.e., mastering knowledge, language, symbols, values, norms, customs, traditions of his people, his social group and all of humanity .. All this is achieved in the process of upbringing and education.
Integrative and disintegrative functions of culture. The assimilation of culture creates in people - members of a particular community a sense of community, belonging to one nation, people, religion, group, etc. Thus, culture unites people, integrates them, ensures the integrity of the community. But, rallying some on the basis of some subculture, it opposes them to others, separates wider communities and communities. Within these broader communities and communities, cultural conflicts can arise. Thus, culture can and often performs a disintegrating function.
Regulatory function of culture. Culture as a whole determines the framework within which a person can and should act. Culture regulates human behavior in the family, at school, at work, at home, etc., putting forward a system of prescriptions and prohibitions. Violation of these prescriptions and prohibitions triggers certain sanctions that are established by the community and supported by the power of public opinion and various forms of institutional coercion.
The function of translation (transfer) of social experience often called the function of historical continuity, or informational. Culture, which is a complex sign system, transmits social experience from generation to generation, from era to era. In addition to culture, society has no other mechanisms for concentrating the entire wealth of experience that has been accumulated by people.
Cognitive function (epistemological) is closely connected with the function of transferring social experience and, in a certain sense, follows from it. Culture, concentrating the best social experience of many generations of people, acquires the ability to accumulate the richest knowledge about the world and thereby create favorable opportunities for its knowledge and development. It can be argued that a society is as intellectual as it fully uses the richest knowledge contained in the cultural gene pool of mankind.
Regulatory (normative) function connected primarily with the definition (regulation) of various aspects, types of social and personal activities of people. In the sphere of work, everyday life, interpersonal relations, culture in one way or another influences the behavior of people and regulates their actions and even the choice of certain material and spiritual values. The regulatory function of culture is supported by such normative systems as morality and law.
Sign function is the most important in the system of culture. Representing a certain sign system, culture implies knowledge, possession of it. It is impossible to master the achievements of culture without studying the corresponding sign systems. Thus, language (oral or written) is a means of communication between people. The literary language acts as the most important means of mastering the national culture. Specific languages are needed for understanding the world of music, painting, theater. The natural sciences also have their own sign systems.
1. Culture as a concept of cultural studies
The concept of "culture" is interpreted in domestic and foreign scientific literature ambiguously. Understanding its many semantic shades and definitions, as well as understanding what culture is after all, will help us to know the possible options for using this concept in history.
More than 2 thousand years have passed since the Latin word "colere" was used to denote the cultivation of the soil, land. But the memory of this is still preserved in the language in numerous agricultural terms - agriculture, potato culture, cultivated pastures, etc.
Already in the 1st century BC. Cicero applied this concept to a person, after which culture began to be understood as the upbringing and education of a person, an ideal citizen. At the same time, it was believed that the signs of a cultured person are a voluntary restriction of their desires, spontaneous actions and bad inclinations. Therefore, the term "culture" then denoted the intellectual, spiritual, aesthetic development of man and society, emphasizing its specificity, highlighting the world created by man from the natural world.
In everyday life, we usually attach approval to the word "culture", understanding this word as a certain ideal or ideal state with which we compare the evaluated facts or phenomena. Therefore, we often talk about professional culture, about the culture of performing a certain thing. From the same positions we evaluate the behavior of people. Therefore, it has become customary to hear about a cultured or uncultured person, although in fact most often we mean educated or ill-educated, from our point of view, people. Entire societies are sometimes evaluated in the same way, if they are based on law, order, gentleness of morals, as opposed to the state of barbarism. Do not forget also that in everyday consciousness the concept of "culture" is mainly associated with works of literature and art. Therefore, this term refers to the forms and products of intellectual and, above all, artistic activity.
And finally, we use the word "culture" when we talk about different peoples in certain historical epochs, we point out the specifics of the mode of existence or way of life of a society, group of people or a certain historical period. Therefore, very often you can find phrases - the culture of Ancient Egypt, the culture of the Renaissance, Russian culture, etc.
In modern domestic cultural studies, it is customary to distinguish three approaches to the definition of culture - anthropological, sociological and philosophical.
essence anthropological approach is to recognize the inherent value of the culture of each people, which underlies the lifestyle of both an individual and entire societies. This means that culture is a way of existence of mankind in the form of numerous local cultures. This approach puts an equal sign between the culture and history of the whole society.
Sociological approach considers culture as a factor in the formation and organization of society. The organizing principle is the value system of each society. Cultural values are created by the society itself, but then they also determine the development of this society. Man begins to dominate what he himself has created.
Philosophical the approach seeks to identify patterns in the life of society, to establish the causes of the origin and features of the development of culture. In line with this approach, not just a description or enumeration of cultural phenomena is given, but an attempt is made to penetrate into their essence. As a rule, the essence of culture is seen in the conscious activity of transforming the surrounding world to meet human needs.
Also allocate functional definitions of culture that characterize it through the functions that it performs in society, and also consider the unity and interconnection of these functions. For example, among specialists in intercultural communication, a short but capacious definition is very popular E. Hall: culture is communication, communication is culture. Russian culturologists have similar definitions. Among them one should name one of the largest Russian philosophers MM. bakhtin, the author of the dialogue concept of culture. It proceeds from the fundamental idea that culture never exists on its own, but manifests itself only in interaction with other cultures. Any culture has a viewer, or a researcher, and this is not some kind of abstract subject who observes culture from the standpoint of a dispassionate automaton that captures any of its manifestations.
Thus, in all the considered definitions there is a rational kernel, each pointing to some more or less essential features of culture. At the same time, one can also point out the shortcomings of each definition, its fundamental incompleteness. As a rule, these definitions cannot be called mutually exclusive, but a simple summation of them will not give any positive result.
Culture is an essential characteristic of a person, something that distinguishes him from animals that adapt to the environment, and do not purposefully change it, like a person.
There is also no doubt that as a result of this transformation an artificial world is formed, an essential part of which are ideas, values and symbols. He opposes the natural world. And finally, culture is not inherited biologically, but is acquired only as a result of upbringing and education that takes place in society, among other people.
2. Functions of culture
The complex and multilevel structure of culture determines the diversity of its functions in the life of society and man. But there is no complete unanimity among culturologists on the question of the number of functions of culture. Nevertheless, they all agree with the idea of multifunctionality of culture, with the fact that each of its components can perform different functions. A comparison of different points of view on this issue allows us to conclude that the main functions of culture include adaptive, sign (significative), cognitive, informational, communicative, integrative, regulatory, axiological and etc.
2.1 The adaptive function of culture
The most important function of culture is adaptive, allowing a person to adapt to the environment, which is a necessary condition for the survival of all living organisms in the process of evolution. But a person does not adapt to changes in the environment, as other living organisms do, but changes the environment in accordance with his needs, adapting it to himself. This creates a new, artificial world - culture. In other words, a person cannot lead a natural way of life, like animals, and in order to survive, he creates an artificial habitat around himself.
Of course, a person cannot achieve complete independence from the environment, since each specific form of culture is largely due to natural conditions. The type of economy, dwellings, traditions and customs, beliefs, rites and rituals of peoples will depend on natural and climatic conditions.
As culture develops, humanity provides itself with ever greater security and comfort. But, having got rid of the old fears and dangers, a person stands face to face with new threats that he creates for himself. So, today you can not be afraid of such formidable diseases of the past as plague or smallpox, but new diseases have appeared, such as AIDS, for which no cure has yet been found, and other deadly diseases created by man themselves are waiting in the military laboratories. Thus, a person needs to protect himself not only from the natural environment, but also from the world of culture.
The adaptive function has a dual nature. On the one hand, it manifests itself in the creation of the means of protection necessary for a person from the outside world. These are all the products of culture that help primitive, and later civilized man, survive and feel confident in the world: the use of fire, the creation of productive agriculture, medicine, etc. These are the so-called specific means of protection person. These include not only objects of material culture, but also those specific means that a person develops to adapt to life in society, keeping him from mutual extermination and death. These are state structures, laws, customs, traditions, moral standards, etc.
There are also non-specific means of protection of a person is a culture as a whole, existing as a picture of the world. Understanding culture as a "second nature", a world created by man, we emphasize the most important property of human activity and culture - the ability to "doubling" the world, highlighting in it sensory-objective and ideal-figurative layers. Culture as a picture of the world makes it possible to see the world not as a continuous flow of information, but to receive this information in an orderly and structured form.
2.2 Significative ffunction
Culture as a picture of the world is connected with another function of culture - symbolic, significative, those. naming function. The formation of names and titles is very important for a person. If some object or phenomenon is not named, does not have a name, is not designated by a person, it does not exist for us. By assigning a name to an object or phenomenon and evaluating it, for example, as threatening, we simultaneously receive the necessary information that allows us to act in order to avoid danger. Indeed, when marking a threat, we do not just give it a name, but enter it into the hierarchy of being.
Thus, culture as an image and picture of the world is an ordered and balanced scheme of the cosmos, serving as the prism through which a person looks at the world. This scheme is expressed through philosophy, literature, mythology, ideology, as well as in the actions of people. Its content is realized fragmentarily by the majority of members of the ethnos; it is fully accessible only to a small number of cultural experts. The basis of this picture of the world are ethnic constants - the values and norms of ethnic culture.
The complex and multilevel structure of culture determines the diversity of its functions in the life of society and man.
Culture is multifunctional system. Let us briefly characterize the main functions of culture. The main function of culture is human-creative, or humanistic. All the rest are somehow connected with it and even follow from it.
The most important function broadcasts(transmissions) social experience. It is often called the function of historical continuity, or information. Culture, which is a complex sign system, is the only mechanism for the transfer of social experience from generation to generation, from era to era, from one country to another. Indeed, besides culture, society does not have any other mechanism for transmitting all the richest experience accumulated by man. Therefore, it is no coincidence that culture is considered the social memory of mankind. The break in cultural continuity dooms new generations to the loss of social memory (the phenomenon of mankurtism) with all the ensuing consequences.
Another leading function is cognitive (gnoseological). It is closely connected with the first and, in a certain sense, follows from it. Culture, concentrating in itself the best social experience of many generations of people, immanently acquires the ability to accumulate the richest knowledge about the world and thereby create favorable opportunities for its knowledge and development.
It can be argued that a society is as intellectual as it uses the richest knowledge contained in the cultural gene pool of a person. The maturity of a culture is largely determined by the measure of mastering the cultural values of the past. All types of society differ significantly primarily on this basis. Some of them demonstrate an amazing ability through culture, through culture, to take the best that people have accumulated and put it at their service. Such societies (in Japan, for example) demonstrate tremendous dynamism in many areas of science, technology, and production. Others, unable to use the cognitive function of culture, are still reinventing the wheel and thereby dooming themselves to backwardness.
Regulatory (normative) the function of culture is primarily connected with the definition (regulation) of various aspects, types of social and personal activities of people. In the sphere of work, everyday life, interpersonal relations, culture in one way or another influences the behavior of people and regulates their actions, actions, and even the choice of certain material and spiritual values. The regulatory function of culture is based on such normative systems as morality and law.
semiotic, or iconic(from the Greek. semeion - sign) function - the most important in the system of culture. Representing a certain sign system, culture implies knowledge, possession of it. It is impossible to master the achievements of culture without studying the corresponding sign systems. So, the language (oral and written) is a means of communication between people, the literary language is the most important means of mastering the national culture. Specific languages are needed for knowing the special world of music, painting, theater. The natural sciences (physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology) also have their own sign systems.
valuable, or axiological(from the Greek axia - value) function reflects the most important qualitative state of culture. Culture as a system of values forms a person's well-defined value needs and orientations. By their level and quality, people most often judge the degree of culture of a person. Moral and intellectual content, as a rule, acts as a criterion for an appropriate assessment.
Communicative the function of culture is that culture does not exist outside of society, it is formed through communication. This communication can be direct, direct (communication between people of the same profession, for example) or indirect (with the help of the works of writers, we learn the life of past generations). Pushkin's poetry, works of art and journalism L.N. Tolstoy, the music of Tchaikovsky, the scientific works of Vernadsky, Tsiolkovsky provide an opportunity not only to look back at the past, but also to reflect on the present and future.
Function socialization performs the task of entering a person into society. To make a rational person out of a primitive individual, which would distinguish him from the animal world and contribute to his life precisely in human society.
The process of socialization consists in the assimilation by a person of a certain system of knowledge, norms, values that allow a person to become one.
I would especially like to point out adaptive(adaptive: from lat. adaptio - adaptation; it is also sometimes called protective) and creative(creative: from lat. creatio - creation) functions of culture.
The adaptive function consists in the fact that with the help of artificially created tools and devices - tools, medicines, weapons, vehicles, energy sources - a person has incredibly increased his ability to adapt to the world around him, to subjugate the forces of nature. He is not afraid of hunger, floods, epidemics. But some unfavorable factors, eliminated by technological progress, are being replaced by others generated by it. Famine and plague are defeated, but the soil is depleted, forests are being cut down, water is being poisoned, the environment is deteriorating, and new diseases are appearing. And not only of natural origin (for example, AIDS), but also of artificial origin (for example, radiation sickness). Thus, material culture, technical progress, on the one hand, reduce the threat to human life and health, and on the other hand, increase it. The function is accompanied by dysfunction.
The creative function of culture is to transform and master the world. Exploring and cataloging plant and animal species, systematizing the types of elementary particles, experimenting with natural phenomena, mastering outer space, a person expands the habitat. His curiosity is manifested, and not the desire to defend himself. The mastery of the forces of external nature goes hand in hand with the mastery of the inner forces of the psyche. In the East, complex systems of psychotechnics, meditation, martial arts and concentration of the will, non-traditional methods of medicine, techniques for controlling one's body and consciousness have been developed.
Together, the adaptive and creative functions of culture ensure the creation of a "second nature" (Hegel) - a special artificial world in which and through which a person makes socialization and becomes a cultural member of society.
Of course, the role of culture is not limited to these functions. There is no complete unanimity among scientists on this issue. In the relevant literature, one can find the allocation of a number of other functions. There are many of them, because we have already said that culture is a multifunctional system.
Literature
1. Cultural studies. History of world culture [Text] / ed. A.N. Markov. - M.: UNITI, 2001. - 326 p.
2. Introduction to cultural studies [Text] / ed. V.A. Saprykin. Part 1. - M .: MGIEM (TU), 1995. -210 p.
culture- this is the process of development of human strengths and abilities, an indicator of the measure of the human in a person, a process that receives its external expression in all the richness of reality created by people. Functions of culture- a set of roles that culture performs in relation to the community of people who generate and use (practice) it in their own interests; set of selected histories. experience of the most acceptable methods (technologies) in terms of their social significance and consequences for the implementation of the collective life of people. Multidimensional, multi-level structure allows it to carry out a number of functions:
1. Accumulation (accumulation) of tribal experience.
2. The function is epistemological, cognitive. (Covering all spheres of social consciousness, taken as a whole, culture gives a complete picture of the knowledge and development of the world, as well as the level of skills and abilities of people).
3. The function of historical exchange, the transfer of social experience. This function is called informational. Society has no other mechanism for the transmission of social experience, "social heredity", apart from culture. In this sense, culture can be called the "memory" of mankind.
4. Communicative function. Perceiving the information contained in the monuments of material and spiritual culture, a person thereby enters into indirect mediated communication with the people who created these monuments. First of all, language is the means of communication.
5. Regulatory and normative functions. Here it acts as a system of norms and requirements imposed by morality and law.
6. The significative function of culture is its ability; to develop holistic, meaningful ideas about the world and independent philosophical and poetic worlds. For this culture has developed a stock of meanings, names, signs, language. Science, art, philosophy are specially organized sign systems, designed to represent the world from different sides, to make it understandable, meaningfully close to a person.
The transformative function of culture. Mastering and transforming the surrounding reality is a fundamental human need, since "the essence of a person is not limited to a tendency to self-preservation and, accordingly, a tendency to create conveniences; moreover, a specifically human essence is expressed in something else, in relation to which the created conveniences and the just the necessary base.
If we consider a person only as a creature striving for maximum convenience and self-preservation, then at some historical stage his expansion into the external environment should have stopped, since in the process of mastering and arranging the world there is always a certain amount of risk that persists with an increase in the size of transformations. . However, this does not happen. After all, a person is immanently inherent in the desire to go beyond the limits of the given given in transformation and creativity.
The protective function of culture is a consequence of the need to maintain a certain balanced relationship between man and the environment, both natural and social. The expansion of the spheres of human activity inevitably entails the emergence of more and more new dangers, which requires the culture to create adequate protection mechanisms (medicine, public order, technical and technological achievements, etc.). Moreover, the need for one type of protection stimulates the emergence of others. For example, the extermination of agricultural pests damages the environment and, in turn, requires means of environmental protection. The threat of ecological catastrophe now brings the protective function of culture into the category of paramount ones. Among the means of cultural protection is not only the improvement of safety measures - the purification of production waste, the synthesis of new medicines, etc., but also the creation of legal norms for nature protection.
The communicative function of culture. Communication is the process of exchanging information between people using signs and sign systems. Man, as a social being, needs to communicate with other people in order to achieve various goals. It is with the help of communication that complex actions are coordinated. The main channels of communication are visual, verbal, tactile. Culture produces specific rules and methods of communication that are adequate to the conditions of people's life.
The cognitive function of culture. The need for this function stems from the desire of any culture to create its own picture of the world. The process of cognition is characterized by the reflection and reproduction of reality in human thinking. Cognition is a necessary element of both labor and communication activities. There are both theoretical and practical forms of knowledge, as a result of which a person receives new knowledge about the world and himself.
Information function of culture ensures the process of cultural continuity and various forms of historical progress. It is manifested in the consolidation of the results of sociocultural activities, the accumulation, storage and systematization of information. In the modern era, information is doubling every fifteen years. S. Lem drew attention to the fact that the volume of unexplored problems increases in direct proportion to the amount of accumulated knowledge. The situation of "information explosion" required the creation of qualitatively new ways of processing, storing and transmitting information, more advanced information technologies.
Normative function of culture is due to the need to maintain balance and order in society, to bring the actions of various social groups and individuals into line with social needs and interests. The function of generally valid norms recognized in a particular culture is aimed at ensuring certainty, understandability, and predictability of behavior. You can name the legal norms that regulate the relationship between people, social institutions, individuals and social institutions; technical norms caused by industrial practice; ethical standards for the regulation of everyday life; environmental standards, etc. Many norms are closely related to the cultural tradition and way of life of the people.
In addition, other scientists also distinguish the following functions of culture:
Significative (sign) function of culture, literally - the function of assigning values and values. Thanks to the significative function, culture appears as a meaningful idea of the world, no matter in what specific form this idea is expressed - in the form of a philosophical system, poem, myth, scientific theory. After all, it is with the help of signs, symbols, metaphors, formulas, numbers, names that a person determines the world around him, and thereby builds a picture of the world. Every nation, country has its own sign system, which consists of verbal and non-verbal images and symbols.
Value (axiological) function of culture. Culture shows the significance or value of what is valuable in one culture and not so in another.
Spiritual and moral function of culture Culture instills and nurtures moral values in a person.
Consumer (relaxation) function of culture. The function of relieving stress, tension. Of the natural ways of discharge - laughter, crying, fits of anger, screaming, confession. However, they belong to the category of individual and are not sufficient to relieve the collective tension. For such purposes, stylized forms of stress relief are used - entertainment, holidays, festivals, rituals.
Culture as an integral phenomenon performs certain functions in relation to society.
Adaptive function - culture ensures the adaptation of a person to the environment. The term adaptation means adaptation. Animals and plants develop adaptation mechanisms in the process of biological evolution. The mechanism of human adaptation is fundamentally different; it does not adapt to the environment, but adapts the environment to itself, creating a new artificial environment. Man as a biological species remains the same in a very wide range of conditions, and culture (forms of economy, customs, social institutions) differ depending on what nature requires in each particular region. A significant part of cultural traditions has rational grounds associated with some useful adaptive effect. The other side of the adaptive functions of culture is that its development increasingly provides people with safety and comfort, labor efficiency increases, new opportunities for spiritual self-realization of a person appear, culture allows a person to fully reveal himself.
Communicative function - culture forms the conditions and means of human communication. Culture is created by people together; it is the condition and result of people's communication. The condition is because only through the assimilation of culture between people are established truly human forms of communication, culture gives them the means of communication - sign systems, languages. The result is because only through communication can people create, store and develop culture; in communication, people learn to use sign systems, fix their thoughts in them and assimilate the thoughts of other people fixed in them. Thus, culture connects and unites people.
Integrative function - culture unites the peoples of the social groups of the state. Any social community that develops its own culture is held together by this culture. Because among the members of the community, a single set of views, beliefs, values, ideals characteristic of a given culture is spreading. These phenomena determine the consciousness and behavior of people, they form a sense of belonging to one culture. The preservation of the cultural heritage of national traditions, historical memory creates a link between generations. This is the basis for the historical unity of the nation and the self-consciousness of the people as a community of people that has existed for a long time. A broad framework of cultural community is created by world religions. One faith closely binds representatives of various peoples that make up the world of Islam or the Christian world.
The function of socialization - culture is the most important means of including individuals in social life, their assimilation of social experience, knowledge of values, norms of behavior that correspond to a given society, social group and social role. The process of socialization allows the individual to become a full-fledged member of society, take a certain position in it, and live as required by customs and traditions. At the same time, this process ensures the preservation of society, its structure, the forms of life that have developed in it. Culture determines the content of the means and methods of socialization. In the course of socialization, people master the programs of behavior stored in culture, learn to live, think and act in accordance with them.
The information function of culture - with the emergence of culture, people have a special “suprabiological” form of information transmission and storage that differs from animals. In culture, information is encoded by structures external to the person. Information acquires its own life and the ability to develop on its own. Unlike biological information, social information does not disappear with the death of the individual who obtained it. Thanks to this, in society, it is possible that what will never be possible in the animal world is the historical multiplication and accumulation of information that is at the disposal of man as a generic being.
The cognitive function of culture is determined by a certain criterion of knowledge, mastery of the human forces of nature and society, as well as the degree of development of the "human" in man himself. Encompassing all forms of social consciousness, taken in their unity, culture gives a complete picture of the knowledge and development of the world. Of course, culture is not reduced to the totality of knowledge about the world, but systematized scientific knowledge is one of its most important elements.
However, culture not only characterizes the degree of human knowledge of the surrounding world. At the same time, culture reveals not only the degree of development of forms of social consciousness in their unity, but also the level of skills and abilities of people manifested in their practical activities. Life is extraordinarily complicated and all the time it poses more and more new problems for people. This causes the need for knowledge of the processes taking place in society, their awareness both from scientific and artistic and aesthetic positions.
Culture also contributes to the realization of man's heuristic goals, his search for the most productive forms of learning new things, the discovery of new ways and methods of social life, and the strengthening of man's power over the elemental forces of nature.
As follows from what has been said, the role of culture in this case was reduced to something specific and not much, but important.
In today's ideas about the functions of culture, the most important place, as a rule, is given to the human-creative function.
So the efforts of the great thinkers, who called to see in culture only a condition for the development of human qualities, were not in vain. But the real life of culture is still not limited to the human-creative function. The variety of human needs served as the basis for the emergence of a variety of functions. Culture is a kind of self-knowledge of a person, since it shows him not only the world around him, but also himself. This is a kind of mirror where a person sees himself both as he should become and as he was and is. The results of knowledge and self-knowledge are transmitted in the form of experience, worldly wisdom, through signs, symbols from generation to generation, from one people to another.
The axiological (value) function of culture, it captures the ability of the accumulation of artistic values in culture and their influence on the way of thinking and human behavior. The whole variety of material and spiritual culture can act as material and spiritual values, which are evaluated in terms of truth or untruth, beautiful or ugly, permissible or forbidden, fair or unfair, etc.
The totality of the established, well-established value orientations of the individual form a kind of axis of his consciousness, providing a certain continuity of culture and motivation for his behavior. Because of this, orientations are the most important factor regulating and determining human actions. Developed value orientations are a sign of a person's maturity, an indicator of the measure of his sociality. This is the prism of perception not only of the external, but also of the inner world of the individual. Thus, the axiological or value function of culture is manifested not only in the assessment of culture, its achievements, but also in the socialization of the individual, in the formation of social relations, and people's behavior.
The aesthetic function of culture, first of all, is manifested in art, in artistic creativity. As you know, in culture there is a certain sphere of "aesthetic". It is here that the essence of the beautiful and the ugly, the sublime and the base, the tragic and the comic is revealed. This sphere is closely connected with the aesthetic attitude to reality, to nature. V. Solovyov noted that “beauty, spilled in nature in its forms and colors, is concentrated, condensed, emphasized in the picture”, and the aesthetic connection between art and nature “does not consist in repetition, but in the continuation of that artistic work that was started by nature ".
Related to the aesthetic function is the hedonic function. Hedonism in Greek means pleasure. People enjoy reading a book, visiting architectural ensembles, museums, visiting theaters, concert halls, etc. Pleasure contributes to the formation of needs and interests, affects the lifestyle of people.
The main, synthesizing function of culture, reflecting its social meaning, is the humanistic function. All the functions mentioned above are somehow connected with the formation of personality, human behavior in society, with the expansion of his cognitive activity, the development of intellectual, professional and other abilities.
The humanistic function is manifested in the unity of opposite, but organically interconnected processes: the socialization and individualization of the individual. In the process of socialization, a person masters social relations, spiritual values, turning them into the inner essence of his personality, into his social qualities. But these relations, values a person masters in his own way, uniquely, in an individual form. Culture is a special social mechanism that implements socialization and ensures the acquisition of individuality.