Globalization of cultural processes. Cultural globalization as a process of formation of a new global culture

Growing globalization covers all sides modern life. Having originated in economics, it then spread to politics and culture. At the moment, the United States benefits most from globalization, which is why it is often called Americanization.

Globalization in culture continues and complements economic globalization, but at the same time it has significant features. Many processes and trends take on more acute forms in it. In culture, globalization acts to a much greater extent as Americanization, since mass, commercial, and media culture, which is strengthening its global dominance, is predominantly American. Cultural globalization leads to the further displacement of high culture and the complete dominance of mass culture, to the erosion of cultural diversity, uniformization and standardization. More and more researchers point out that Hollywood and the Internet are celebrating victory all over the planet.

In foreign literature, there are three points of view on the processes of cultural globalization and commercialization. The first point of view comes from the fact that cultural globalization is an objectively necessary and fundamentally positive phenomenon. This position is defended, for example, by the Swiss linguist J. Molino. He believes that what exists in European countries ah, concerns about the American direction of globalization of the world have no serious grounds. He sees the main cause of concern in the fact that Europeans find it difficult to abandon their usual Eurocentrism, that for centuries they carried out globalization that was beneficial to them, and when it changed its direction, it is difficult for them to come to terms with it.

The second point of view, on the contrary, is sharply critical, one might say apocalyptic, in relation to cultural globalization. This position is especially clearly presented in the works of representatives of the Frankfurt school in philosophy T. Adorno and M. Horkheimer. They were the first to discover the phenomenon of the cultural industry, which gave rise to mass, commercial culture, today called media and postmodern. In their opinion, the spread of products of the cultural industry leads to the degradation of society, to the irreparable loss of what constitutes the basis of the authenticity of man and his existence. These ideas were continued in structuralism (M. Foucault), situationism (G. Debord), postmodernism (J. F. Lyotard, J. Baudrillard), and in other trends of modern thought.

The third point of view is, as it were, between the first and second, being moderately critical. Its foundations were laid by the English sociologist R. Hoggart, who studied in the 30s. XX century the process of introducing English workers who came from peasant backgrounds to urban culture. He noted that adaptation to mass urban culture was not automatic and passive: workers showed the ability to resist, evade, and deviate from its standards. In France, these ideas are developed by the historian M. de Certeau, who believes that strategy, system and language are set by the dominant economic order and power, while tactics, speech, tricks and tricks are created and applied by users and consumers of culture.

These positions to one degree or another reflect the real state of affairs. Each of them can be confirmed by certain facts. And yet the first point of view has fewer supporters than the other two.

Of particular relevance are the problems of the relationship between national cultures, Western and non-Western cultures, center and periphery, dominant and dependent culture, cultural imperialism, cultural identity, acculturation, etc. The complexity and severity of these problems are clearly visible in the example of the relations between the cultures of America and France. As the French researcher J. Leclerc notes, France and the United States are in many ways different civilizations. The first represents a civilization of traditional classical art and high culture. The second is the civilization of audiovisual art and mass culture. The first is best personified by the Louvre, a world center for storing and displaying masterpieces, which is visited by people from all over the world. The symbol of the second is Hollywood - world center producing films that captivated the whole world.

The globalization of the art world leads to an asymmetry in the flow of classical and audiovisual works, the art markets and the film market. It is believed that Americans have never seen French films, and many French have never seen American paintings. However, seemingly spontaneous, contradictory and changeable cultural flows, like any other, are subject to market logic. As a result, the emerging structures of French and American exports cultural values appear significantly different. On the one hand, there is a finite, limited, irreproducible and decreasing quantity classical works. On the other hand, there is an unlimited, reproducible and non-decreasing number of films. Absolute rarity meets absolute abundance. France, selling masterpieces, becomes poorer and is gradually left with nothing, since masterpieces are irreproducible. America, by selling copies of films, actually loses nothing and only gets richer. Absolute impoverishment collides with absolute enrichment. This situation is typical not only for France, but to a large extent for the whole of Europe.

In this situation, France came up with a “cultural exception” project, according to which the laws of the market and competition should not apply to all cultural values. Some of them should be exempted from market laws. In France itself this project has been carried out since the early 1980s. This idea finds understanding and support among the countries of the European Union.

Some countries manage to successfully resist American cultural expansion. Thus, Brazil has significant achievements in distributing its television series, Egypt is doing a lot to preserve its national culture. However, the greatest successes in this area have been achieved by India. IN last years More than 2,000 films are shown here, only about 10% of which are foreign. The same thing is observed in the field of music: Indians give unconditional preference to their national music.

Based on the examples given, some authors conclude that cultural globalization is not a cause for concern. However, the example of South Korea tells a different story. Back in the 80s. the country produced about 100 films annually and national film production completely dominated. After the abandonment of government regulation of the economy, the situation changed dramatically: in recent years, South Korea has been importing hundreds of American films, but producing much less of its own than before. The same fate befell the Hong Kong film industry: it could not withstand the competition with Hollywood.

As we see, the process of cultural globalization is extremely complex and contradictory and leads to ambiguous consequences. Such consequences include standardization and uniformization of cultures, their hybridization and “creolization.” Therefore, the question of the survival of local, national cultures remains open.

Gglobalization and cultural issues

Introduction

At a certain level of development, problems begin to cross borders and spread throughout the planet, regardless of the specific socio-political conditions existing in different countries - they form a global problem. Aurelio Peccei. " Human qualities»

Globalization!.. There is hardly any other phenomenon today that would cause such heated discussions and fierce debate. And this is natural. Firstly, he, one way or another, even in to varying degrees, affects the lives of the overwhelming number of people living on our planet. Secondly, it is so complex and contradictory that it does not lend itself to any simple explanation.

Globalization affects almost all aspects and aspects of the life of a modern person. The main thing in it is the ever-expanding exchange of information of a scientific, economic, political, personal, everyday, socio-cultural and other nature across all state and national cultural barriers. To consider all these aspects, a monograph is not enough. Therefore, we will try to present the essence of the problem, focusing on globalization cultural space.

Several years ago, a British traditionalist researcher ethnic cultures, finding herself in a remote African village, on the very first evening she was invited to visit one of its inhabitants. She went to him in anticipation of the long-awaited acquaintance with the traditional forms of leisure for the inhabitants of the African hinterland. Alas, there was bitter disappointment. She witnessed a collective video viewing of a new Hollywood film, which by that time had not yet even been released on the screens of London cinemas. Thus she came face to face with one of the typical manifestations of the globalization of culture.

Here’s another interesting example: a few years ago, the Tuareg, the largest tribe of nomads in the Sahara, began their traditional annual migration ten days later only because it was important for them to finish watching the American television series “Dallas.” And such examples can be multiplied: after all, in the Lower Bavarian village they watch a television series about life in Dallas, wear jeans and smoke Marlboro cigarettes in the same way, as in Calcutta, Singapore or in the “bidonvilles” near Rio de Janeiro. Residents of many countries today watch Western-produced films on television and video, advertising, and consume “food.” instant cooking", buy goods manufactured abroad, and also receive a livelihood by servicing the flow foreign tourists. The global economy absorbs and integrates the local one, and traditional culture is experiencing increasingly powerful foreign cultural influences.

Now we easily and habitually move from one country to another. It is enough to spend three hours on a plane, and you are already in another part of the world. Cell phones, satellite television, computers, and the Internet provide information about events and culture of various countries and continents. All this means that in recent decades humanity has entered into a fundamentally new stage of its development. It's about about the formation of a planetary civilization on the basis, on the one hand, of the organic unity of the world community, and, on the other, of the pluralistic coexistence of cultures and religions of the peoples of the world.

Historical roots of globalization

A careful look at history shows that globalization is not a phenomenon of the late twentieth century. Its sprouts can be found in the mythological layers of cultures different nations. Since time immemorial, people have believed that once all the children of the Earth lived as a single monolingual family, and then they were “as yet wounded by diversity.” They believed that the day would come when sin would be atoned for, and people belonging to different linguistic nations and races, professing different political convictions and religious beliefs, would establish strong ties with each other, feel themselves to be part of a universal human whole, and join forces in the name of a common cause. The ancient Greeks, oriental sages, and European medieval thinkers spoke about this.

It is enough to recall cosmopolitanism - the ideology of “world citizenship”, which has always been characterized by the idea of ​​the world as the fatherland of all people. The emergence of this ideology was historically associated with the decline of the Greek city-states after the Peloponnesian Wars. Then a person who had previously considered himself a citizen of his city-state began to feel a sense of belonging to a larger community, “world citizenship.” First clearly formulated within the Cynic philosophical school, this consciousness was further developed by the Stoics, especially in the Roman era. This was greatly facilitated by the multinational character of the Roman Empire. But only the fifteenth century became the century in which humanity, in the full sense of the word, discovered Earth. The caravels of H. Columbus, F. Magellan and other navigators carried European values, traditions, religion, customs, tools, tools, etc. with them to Africa, Asia and America. In the figurative expression of G. Hegel, “the world has become round for Europeans.” Later, during the Renaissance and Enlightenment, the idea of ​​world citizenship was developed by A. Dante, T. Campanella, G. Lessing, I. Goethe, I. Schiller, I. Kant, I. Fichte and others. The dream of an integrated humanity captivated many philosophers of the 19th century and 20th centuries in the East and West. This was facilitated by the active colonization of Africa, Hindustan and vast territories of Asia.

It has long been known that the innovations of one civilization are soon adopted by other peoples. But in earlier times these were, as a rule, just purely technological borrowings. Because the Chinese invented gunpowder, the compass and paper, the Europeans who borrowed these technologies did not become “sinicized.” And because half of China rides a bicycle invented by Europeans, the traditional Chinese culture has not Europeanized at all. But there were other examples. Thus, Peter I, who transplanted not only European technologies, but also significant fragments of European culture onto Russian soil, significantly changed Russia.

Of course, everything said above constituted only the prehistory of modern cultural globalization. In reality, the date of its origin can apparently be considered 1870, when the British agency Reuters, together with the French company HAVAS, divided the globe into zones for the exclusive collection of information.

At the beginning of the 20th century. ideas about the formation of the United States of Europe spread. Later they took on a form associated with the creation of new centralized world structures. On this wave, the so-called mondialism (from the French monde - world) arose - a cosmopolitan movement for the creation of a world government.

The 20th century gradually developed a global ethics. Slowly, with difficulty moral standards made their way into international law. The Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals punished war criminals on behalf of all mankind, creating the most important precedent for the international protection of human rights. Globalization processes have become noticeable in the religious area. Here it is necessary to mention “ecumenism” (from the Greek oikumene - inhabited world, universe) - a movement for the unification of all Christian denominations that arose at the beginning of the 20th century.

Now we will look at M.O. Rudenko’s article on cultural globalization, from which we will try to understand what the danger of this process is and draw certain conclusions.

Cultural globalization

“If culture is viewed primarily as a way of life or order within which people construct meaning through practices of symbolic representation, then cultural globalization should be understood primarily as changes in the context of meaning construction, changes in identity, a sense of place and self in relation to a given place, general ideas, values, aspirations, myths, hopes and fears.

The constitutive role of culture in the process of globalization is determined by the potentially global consequences of culturally rich “local” actions. In other words, we are talking about reflexivity(the ability that an explanation (theory) has when it turns to itself, for example, the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of sociology; the peculiarity of reflexive social explanations and theories of all types is that they can also act in the direction of reproducing or transforming those social situations addressed) the nature of social activity: local customs and lifestyles at the present stage have global consequences, while there is also an intervention of the local in global processes.

However, more importantly, control consumerism(an organized movement of citizens and/or government organizations to expand the rights and increase the influence of buyers on sellers and producers of goods) over ideas in the context of globalization is truly total. Global capitalism seeks to subjugate, commercialize and commodify all ideas and material products in which ideas are contained - television, advertising, newspapers, books, films, etc.

Accordingly, an important factor-catalyst for the processes of borrowing and subsequent institutionalization of cultural practices is their commercial potential - everything that can generate profit in conditions market economy doomed to commercialization. Today we can state that in the world, including in Russia, there is a demand and fashion for new, globalized cultural practices.

Globalization in the sphere of culture leads to the intensification of the processes underlying the formation of a wide range of phenomena of modern culture - the “culture of excess” (J. Baudrillard’s term), which is characterized by an oversaturation of meanings and a lack of value judgments, recataloging, transcoding, rewriting all familiar things in new terms .

Although the result of globalization processes cannot be cultural homogenization (the creation of a single structure) or a decrease in cultural diversity in the world, globalization is quite capable of leading to an increase in uniformity different cultures, not least through the mechanisms of consumerism. Cultural globalization can occur on the basis of Western values ​​- the Reformation, Enlightenment and Renaissance - values ​​that essentially gave rise to today's crisis phenomena in the world, or it can lead to the development of a new system of values ​​as a result of a new spiritual revolution, and then it will be carried out on the basis of this new value systems.

It seems that such prerequisites are undoubtedly being formed, and indirect confirmation of this is the growing diversity of new cultural practices, actively reflected by public consciousness, including methods of sociocultural analysis, which involve consideration of the semantic world of meanings in a socio-historical context.”

Analysis of cultural unification

Thus, after reading the article, we understand that the unification of cultures is increasingly becoming a global problem fraught with serious threats. The world in which we have to live is becoming less bright and less and less colored by local color. Many customs, ceremonies, rituals, and forms of behavior that in the past gave humanity its folklore and ethnographic diversity are gradually disappearing as the bulk of society adopts new standard forms of life.

Can traditional cultures of peoples exist in the conditions of such globalization? Will peoples be able to preserve their cultural identity, will many of the features of national cultures not irreversibly disappear, subject to erosion in the conditions of increasing standardization of the way of life? Indeed, unlike the adaptation of products - Coca-Cola, chewing gum and jeans - foreign cultural influence, for example, in the field of music and literature, cinema and television, is by no means a harmless phenomenon, since it can affect vital fragments of the worldview. Artistic images penetrate through borders and customs into the core area of ​​the national culture, gradually subjecting it to unpredictable changes.

Historically established cultures are main source, from which a person draws life meanings that build a hierarchy of his values. A person who has lost his cultural roots faces psychological disorientation, loss internal rules regulating and ordering his aspirations and goals.

But the globalization of culture, leading to its unification, carries risks not only for the individual, but also for society as a whole. The fact is that ethnocultural diversity in the modern world performs many vital functions. Thus, social history shows that different ethnic groups are guided by different approaches to solve the problems that arise before them. Thus, in one culture a passion for money may dominate, in another - technical knowledge, in a third - political ideals, in a fourth - belief in immortality. No one can predict the course of history, no one knows what abilities and qualities humanity will need to survive in the future - near and distant. Consequently, it must have in reserve a rich arsenal of properties, each of which may be required to adequately respond to the challenges of history - social and natural. That is why care must be taken that cultural interaction does not lead to homogenization, i.e. to the destruction of a specific ethnic picture of the world.

It is obvious that the process of cultural globalization itself initially contains a certain potential for conflict. “Cultural imperialism” inevitably causes a response - an increased need for self-affirmation, preservation of the basic elements of one’s national picture of the world and way of life. This desire often takes the aggressive form of categorical rejection of global cultural changes. The general process of destruction of borders is contrasted with cultural isolation and hypertrophied pride in one’s originality. This leads to numerous ethno-religious conflicts, the emergence of nationalist tendencies in politics, and the growth of regional fundamentalist movements. For example, processes of religious radicalization have begun in the culture of many countries of the Islamic world. This also applies to the traditional cultures of the Caucasus, Africa, and some countries Latin America and Asia. IN Lately there has been a rise in religious fundamentalism also within Christian tradition. The level of violence on ethnic and national grounds is increasing: Palestinians and Kurds, Sikhs and Tamils, Irish Catholics and Welsh, Armenians and Azerbaijanis do not want to agree with the globalization of culture, which threatens them with assimilation. Therefore, terrorism and national liberation wars remain on the agenda. All this can be interpreted as a form of a specific reaction to globalization.

Naturally, the problem of globalization of culture becomes most relevant for developing countries. But at the same time, it also faces developed countries, for example, France, Canada, and small European states experiencing the expansion of mass - and, above all, American - culture. Over the past decades, governments and international institutions, such as those of a united Europe, have been trying to combat “cultural imperialism.” Most European countries now have laws protecting cultural identity, and there are special subsidy systems aimed at supporting national culture. There are even attempts to control the moral and cultural aspects of the content of artistic production.

“Why did everyone make such a terrible mistake? - exclaims Professor J. Comaroff. - Why, while, according to all calculations, it should have died quietly, the politics of cultural self-awareness suddenly revived with a noise on a worldwide scale? And is this a revival? Could it be that this is a completely new social phenomenon?

A paradoxical situation is emerging - the closer and more intense the ties between countries and peoples become, the greater the importance and scale of global processes and problems, the more diverse the civilizational and culturally and the world becomes more “mosaic”. To indicate this paradox, scientists came up with special term- “glocalization”. That is, at the same time, globalization and “localization” - protection of originality traditional cultures.

Dissatisfaction with globalization resulted in a massive interethnic protest movement, called “anti-globalist.” It was compiled by students, church communities, environmentalists, trade unionists, non-governmental organizations, leftists, pacifists, and anarchists. At first, after a loud and noisy wave of protests in Seattle, Prague and Genoa, they were perceived mainly as troublemakers, rowdies who did not know what to offer in return for the globalization policy pursued by the “seven” developed countries. But after the First and then the Second Social Forum (2001 and 2002), it became clear that anti-globalism had already outgrown the framework of a purely “protest” movement and clearly did not amount to a denial of the very idea of ​​global integration.

“Anti-globalists” are often accused of not knowing what they want. To this they respond: “We want the real thing.” global peace, where citizens of all states are citizens and not just consumers. A world where citizens' desire to protect their way of life and environment is not undermined by trade and investment agreements." We are talking about such generally significant guidelines as social justice, global democracy based on human rights, and sustainable development. The “anti-globalization” movement today has become a factor in big politics, which governments, international organizations and corporations are forced to reckon with. On the side of the “anti-globalists” is the sympathy of a significant part of the Western public, who are seriously concerned about the negative aspects of globalization.

Globalization is not an automatic process that will end without conflict and ideal world. It is fraught with both new opportunities and new risks, the consequences of which for us can be very significant. But people are not passive observers; they are not so much spectators as creators of their own history. Therefore, they have the opportunity to correct the current globalization - all peoples and all cultures should benefit from these processes. Therefore, globalization may lead not to the unification of cultures according to the American model of a “consumer society,” but to “multiculturalism.” In other words, as a result of the emergence of a global system, each national culture will occupy an equal position among other cultures. Or, to put it even more simply, global civilization should not lead to a single average global culture.

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Globalization of culture is the acceleration of the integration of nations into the world system due to the development of modern means of transport and economic relations, the formation of transnational corporations and the world market, thanks to the influence of the media on people. The term "globalization of culture" appeared in the late 80s. in connection with the problem of bringing nations closer together and expanding cultural contacts of peoples.

Globalization is one of the distinguishing features modern stage social development. This fact is noted by almost all researchers who emphasize that historical era at the turn of the century is characterized primarily by the expansion and deepening of globalization processes.

The phenomenon of globalization is conceptualized in many works by both well-known and novice authors who have devoted thousands of pages to clarifying its essence and describing its features. M. Castells, I. Wallerstein, J. Stiglitz and W. Beck, 3. Brzezinski and N. Chomsky, J. Soros and J. Beauvais, M.I. wrote about globalization. Voyeikov and N.M. Rimashevskaya, A.I. Utkin and M.G. Delyagin and others. However, most of those who wrote about globalization dealt mainly with the economic, political or demographic aspects of this problem. They touch upon issues related to the impact of globalization on the development of both world culture and the cultures of individual nations and peoples insofar as they practically do not focus their attention on them. How does globalization affect the development of culture?

Most of those who study the sociocultural consequences of globalization evaluate it exclusively as a phenomenon that carries a pronounced negative element. However, it is clear that globalization contributes to the formation of a vision of an interconnected world, where the existence of different peoples and cultures is possible only when they accept the principle of cultural pluralism as an imperative. Globalization clearly increases the density of the “information flow” and gives different cultures a chance to break out of their ethnic or national limitations and gain the dynamics of their own development. At the same time, globalization causes changes not only in the economic, political or legal sphere of society, but also most directly affects the processes that take place in the sphere of culture, in such branches as art, science, education, and upbringing.

On the one hand, globalization clearly helps to accelerate the process of “sociodynamics of culture” (A. Mol). Shendrik A.I. Sociology of culture: Tutorial for students. M., 2005. Under its influence, the rate of production, distribution and consumption of cultural values ​​increases sharply. The cycle time for the production and consumption of cultural values ​​is sharply reduced, which leads to an increase in the amount of information received by the individual, broadening his horizons, and increasing his intellectual level. Thanks to new information technology, a person of global society had the opportunity to get acquainted with a whole set of artifacts that were inaccessible to people of industrial and post-industrial society due to the lack of the opportunity for a significant part of them to make excursion trips to various countries, travel around the world, and use the services provided by famous repositories of cultural property, where a significant part of the world is concentrated cultural heritage. Virtual museums, libraries, art galleries, concert halls, existing in the “worldwide information web”, make it possible to get acquainted with everything that was created by the genius of this or that artist, architect, composer, regardless of where these or those masterpieces are located: in St. Petersburg, Brussels or Washington. The repositories of the world's largest libraries have become available to millions, including the libraries of the US Congress, the British Museum, the Russian state library and many other libraries, the collections of which have been used for centuries by a narrow circle of people involved in lawmaking, teaching and research activities.

Globalization has legitimized the existence of a certain cultural standard, according to which a person in the information society must own several foreign languages, be able to use a personal computer, carry out the process of communication with representatives of other cultural worlds, understand the development trends of modern art, literature, philosophy, science, etc.

Globalization has increased the intensity of cultural exchanges and dramatically expanded the circle of those who make the endless process of transition from one cultural world to another. In essence, it made the borders transparent for talents and practically lifted restrictions on the movement from country to country of outstanding performers, conductors, artists, directors, many of whom now spend much more time abroad than in their homeland. The results of creativity in the context of globalization cease to be the property of one nation or another, but become the property of all humanity. Today, no one is surprised if a performance is staged on the stage of the Bolshoi or Marlinsky theaters by a French or American choreographer; if the greatest tenors of the world sing on Red Square, etc.

Globalization creates the preconditions for culture to go beyond the boundaries of communal-tribal and local-territorial entities. Thanks to new information technologies, ideas, symbols, knowledge and skills accumulated by one or another ethnic group, etc., become widespread in other cultural worlds, helping to form among different nationalities a more accurate idea of ​​what a particular culture is. , what place it occupies among many national and ethnic cultures.

At the same time, there is no doubt that globalization is rapidly widening cultural inequality between countries and peoples. Today, in terms of the level of education, the provision of personal computers per capita, the presence of personal libraries, the frequency of visits to various cultural institutions, the share of funds allocated from the budget for cultural needs, etc. The countries of the “golden billion” are an order of magnitude ahead of the outsider countries. Almost all researchers of the phenomenon of globalization, as well as leading experts from the UN and other well-known international humanitarian organizations, pay attention to this fact. Globalization has led to fundamental changes in the system of relationships between folk, elite and mass culture; it has lowered the status of not only the first two, but also culture as such, which today is not perceived by many as the ultimate goal of the human race, as I. Kant has repeatedly said. M. Weber, G. Simmel and others, but as a means to achieve success in life and material well-being. At the same time, it exalted mass culture, turning it into the leading element of the cultural system of post-industrial society. Many domestic and foreign researchers write about mass culture as a quasi-culture, as a kind of ersatz, a substitute designed to satisfy the undemanding tastes of a poorly educated part of the population.

Globalization has sharply aggravated the problem of national-cultural identity, which today has become one of the most important problems, disturbing not only cultural scientists, but also politicians, public and religious figures, progressive-minded representatives of natural science. As many researchers emphasize, now “even economic problems fade into the background in comparison with the impossibility for representatives of the main social groups find an acceptable answer to the question “Who are we?” Fedotova N.N. Identity crisis in the context of globalization // Man, 2003, No. 6.

As practice and the results of numerous sociological studies show, an individual who does not identify himself either with the civilization within which his activities take place, or with the culture of the nation to which he belongs by the fact of his birth, or with that point in geographical space called " small homeland", nor with that period of time, which is designated as a certain historical era, finds himself outside the system of established connections and relationships formed in a given society in the process of its historical development. He turns into an autonomous subject, distinctive feature which, to use G. Fedotov’s term, is “renegadeism.” Shendrik A.I. Sociology of culture: A textbook for students. M., 2005. The emergence of a significant number of individuals who have lost the idea of ​​their national and cultural affiliation leads to destabilization of the social system, sharply increases the level of social tension, calls into question the ability of a particular country to maintain its sovereignty and territorial integrity, to resist pressure from both outside. , and from within, find the necessary resources and use them effectively in conflict situations, which often arise between different countries, peoples and states.

As Russia transforms into a country occupying a certain place in the system of the international division of labor, the process of desacralization of the basic values ​​of national culture intensifies, at a fast pace the number of those who consider themselves “citizens of the world” is growing, who are inclined to view Russian history as a continuous series of absurdities, mistakes and crimes. There is no need to prove the fact that the adoption of such attitudes by the broad masses (and this is precisely what the ideologists of globalization strive for) is extremely dangerous, because history does not know examples of a nation that admitted its spiritual defeat retaining its creative potential and being able to turn into an active historical a subject that influences processes occurring in various spheres of society.

Globalization has established the principle of multiculturalism as the basic principle of coexistence of different cultural worlds, which its ideologists consider as an imperative of state cultural policy, implemented in information society. However, according to Western researchers, the implementation of the idea of ​​multiculturalism in practice results in many negative consequences, which clearly aggravate the already complex socio-cultural situation that has developed in almost all developed Western countries. Multiculturalism manifests itself in attempts to substantiate the demands of representatives of certain groups not by their individual qualities, but by the status of members of these communities, the desire to make this or that cultural identity of the group the basis for putting forward various demands of a political and economic nature. The life of modern Western societies is full of examples of such manifestations. Typical for the beginning of the 20th century. the goal is to assimilate representatives of other cultural traditions entry into the dominant culture today is often perceived as evidence of racism or nationalism.

Globalization leads to a lowering of the status of national languages ​​and the establishment of English as the only means of intercultural interaction, although it is the native language of only 380 million people on the planet. Today it is published in English most of books, newspapers and magazines. More than 80% of materials posted on the Internet are English-language texts. The same can be said about audiovisual products found on the Internet, which are almost all created by English-language authors. Knowledge of English has become an indispensable requirement for those who expect to get a job in large firms, banks, insurance companies, etc. English language is a means of communication between diplomats, air traffic controllers, law enforcement officials, customs officials, etc. This process is growing year by year, and if the trends discussed above continue, then the day is not far when the majority of residents, especially in developed countries, will speak English, and not the language of their ancestors.

In the process of globalization, the variety of types of cultural interaction disappears. As it deepens and expands, expansion becomes the dominant type of interaction between different cultural worlds, during which the values ​​of another culture are forcibly introduced into the value system of one culture. Today it is obvious that over the past decades there has been a massive saturation of the cultural space of various countries with examples of American mass culture, which causes alarm not only among radical fundamentalists and conservatives, but also among sober-minded politicians, public and religious figures who are well aware of the consequences of the reorientation of broad layers population on the values ​​of American mass culture.

The means by which cultural expansion is carried out are cinema, television, music, and the Internet. According to statistical authorities, today 85% of the most visited films are American (and in countries such as the UK, Brazil, Egypt, Argentina - 100%). Email and the World Wide Web allow the United States to dominate the global movement of information and ideas. Satellites carry American television programs to all latitudes.

The United States has cemented its dominance in world science. The world's elite are educated in American universities, where many thousands of foreigners receive their education. There are approximately 450 thousand foreign students studying in the United States. As practice shows, after returning home after completing their studies, almost all of them become, to one degree or another, conduits of ideas formed under the influence of American professors, American image life, American art, American media. This creates extremely favorable opportunities for the spread of American influence.

People have a neutral attitude towards American culture. Moreover, those who have children try to protect them from the strong influence of American culture, raise them “on Russian fairy tales and Soviet cartoons,” and limit access to a computer and television. Thus, we can conclude that youth hobbies subsequently lose their power and are replaced by awareness negative influence West to Russia.

But the most important negative consequence of the transformation of globalization into a world phenomenon is that globalization has dealt a powerful blow to the basic structures of almost all national cultures.

It is precisely with the noted negative consequences that the rejection of the version of globalization that is currently being implemented is associated. Related to this is the intensive search for its alternative models, which is being conducted today by scientists, politicians, and public figures in many countries around the world.

culture world system russia

Globalization and culture

The current state of social development has long been called globalization.

Note 1

The process of globalization is characterized by the integration of all spheres of social life into a certain totality. The event of globalization has become a natural development of those social ideals that were laid down by the philosophy of history of the Enlightenment.

Globalization within the framework of spiritual culture has both positive and negative consequences. Negative ones include the detrimental impact of technical development of production on the cultural sphere. In a way, culture comes under the influence of machines and the thinking they generate. Also, in some aspects, culture is negatively affected by the capitalist system of society, which is based on the acquisition of profit.

The positive consequences of globalization in the field of culture include the creation of a prototype of universal thinking, an information space accessible to everyone, the establishment and improvement of cultural connections and information flows, which ensures the penetration of different cultures into all parts of the planet.

In foreign research literature traced three main approach to assessing the process of globalization of culture:

1. Globalization of culture is a necessary and positive process. Fears are born of the reluctance of countries to give up their national characteristics, which is regarded as a false position.
2. Moderate-critical approach, whose representatives believe that society resists globalization processes in culture; has a kind of immunity to it.
3. Globalization is the apocalypse of culture (T. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, J. Baudrillard, etc.). This approach reveals the nature of the cultural industries created by globalization. The cultural industry gives rise to mass, postmodern culture. This type of culture leads to social degradation.

Of the three points of view, the last two have the largest number of supporters in the modern world.

Mass culture

Globalization in the sphere of culture leads to the creation of mass culture.

Its main consumer is the “man of the masses,” as H. Ortega y Gasset calls him “the man without a face.” Mass culture connected with the current modern society paradigm of consumption and service provision. By and large, culture is also a set of goods and services provided to a person.

Mass culture has the following features:

1. Development of the media (newspapers, television, radio, etc.), providing educational information to the population on issues of what is happening in politics, social and cultural development.
2. Mass ideology and propaganda system that shapes the political, evaluative and legal mood of the population
3. Social mythology, reflecting the mental level of development of the population, its level of worldview, established moral and value imperatives.
4. The educational system and the “culture of childhood”, the purpose of which is to include a person entering life into the system of political, social and cultural relationships.
5. The dominance of the leisure industry, the system of cultural events aimed at regulating and maintaining a socially acceptable level of manifestation of the emotional, sensory and aesthetic aspects of the life of the population.
6. Stimulating the level of consumer demand (advertising and PR culture).
7. Culture of a physically developed body.