In the twenty-first century, in the era of computer technology and high achievements, it seems that there are no states left in the world, the development of which would go a different way. Meanwhile, this is not at all the case - how many primitive peoples exist in Africa, for example. However, the fact that they are primitive does not mean at all that there is nothing to talk about them. It is with such ethnic groups that such a concept as local culture is directly connected. What is it?
A bit of history
In order to talk about local cultures, one should first take an excursion into the past - at the time when the concept of local civilizations arose and began to be actively used, which has a direct bearing on cultures.
First of all, it is worth clarifying what local civilization and civilization in particular are. This word has many definitions, which, however, are quite consistent with each other. Civilization is the process of development of society - spiritual and material, each of its steps to the next step - further and further from barbarism. When people realized that different states and regions of our planet are developing in a special way, in different ways, and you can’t talk about some common path for all countries and peoples, the concept of the diversity of civilizations appeared. This happened in the nineteenth century, and many scientists turned their attention to this problem. In the middle of the century, the French Renouvier proposed the term “local civilization”, by which he understood the development of society and culture of any region of the Earth apart from other cultures and values, based solely on its religion, its own worldview, and so on. A little later, another Frenchman, a historian by profession, successfully used the same term in one of his works, where he immediately identified ten local civilizations with an individual way of development.
After these two authors, there were a number of other scientists who actively applied the concept of local civilization in their writings and ideas. Among them was a sociologist from Russia - Nikolai Danilevsky, whose concept will be discussed in more detail below. In the meantime, it is worth returning to the question of what local cultures are.
Definition
So, if a local civilization develops relying only on its own culture, therefore, these same cultures will be called local. They are original, original and isolated - and either not connected at all, or very little connected with any other. Moreover, each such culture is doomed to death, and as soon as this happens, a new one appears.
Such are the cultures of the primitive peoples of Asia, Australia, America and Africa. There are few of them, but they are still there - and they represent unusually interesting cultural objects for research. According to the classification of the famous scientist Oswald Spengler, there are nine similar cultures: Maya, Ancient, Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Arabic-Muslim, Chinese, Indian, Western and Russian-Siberian.
Typical features
Local cultures have some specific features that characterize them well. First of all, it is a correlation with nature, its rhythms, life. Man doesn’t break anything. In addition, this contempt for innovation, as well as the sacred nature of knowledge and the canonicity of art. The basis of any local culture is religion and rituals.
Among the many issues studied by philosophy, sociology and cultural studies, one of the main places for a long time occupied the issue of historical and cultural process. Different points of view were put forward regarding what it is - can it be considered world culture, or should it be attributed to the constant change of local cultures? Each opinion had its supporters. One of those who adhered to the concept of local cultures was the sociologist Nikolai Danilevsky.
Nikolai Danilevsky
First, briefly get acquainted with an outstanding scientist. Nikolai Yakovlevich was born in the very early twenties of the nineteenth century in a military family. He attended the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, then the Faculty of Natural Sciences of St. Petersburg University. He was arrested in the Petrashevsky case, investigated fishing, for which he was awarded a medal. At the age of about forty, he became interested in the problems of civilization. Also known for refuting Darwin's theory. He died in Tiflis at the age of sixty-three years.
In the late sixties N.Ya. Danilevsky published a book entitled “Russia and Europe”, in which he outlined his vision of the historical process. He represented the whole world history as a set of distinctive civilizations. The scientist believed that there were certain contradictions between them, which he sought to identify. For the given civilizations forming the historical process, he coined the name - cultural-historical types. These cultural-historical types of Danilevsky, as a rule, did not coincide in periodization and space. According to Nikolai Yakovlevich, they belonged to the following regions: Egypt, China, India, Rome, Arabia, Iran, Greece. He also identified the Assyrian-Babylonian, Chaldean, Jewish, European types. The next cultural and historical type followed the European - the Russian-Slavic one, and it was he, according to the scientist, who is capable and even should reunite humanity. Thus, the sociologist opposed the East European civilization to the East European one - the struggle between East and West was obtained, in which obviously not the last one won. At the same time, an important detail, somewhat opposite to this belief, is interesting: N.Ya. Danilevsky emphasized in his work that not a single type, that is, not a single civilization, has the right to be considered more developed, better than the rest.
According to Danilevsky’s theory, cultural types are positive cultural objects, while there are also negative types — barbaric civilizations. In addition, there are ethnic groups that the sociologist did not define in either category. Danilevsky’s theory of local cultures basically assumes the fact that each cultural-historical type has four stages: birth, flowering, decline and, finally, death.
In total, as mentioned above, the sociologist identified eleven civilizations - not counting the Slavic. All of them were divided into two types by scientists. Nikolai Yakovlevich attributed the Indian and traditional Chinese to the first, secluded - these cultures, in his opinion, were born and developed generally without any connection with any other culture. Danilevsky called the second type successive and attributed the rest of civilization to it - these cultural types developed based on the results of the activities of the previous civilization. According to Danilevsky, such activity could be religious (the worldview of the ethnos is a firm faith), theoretical, scientific, industrial, artistic, political or socio-economic activity.
In his work N.Ya. Danilevsky repeatedly emphasized that, although some cultural-historical types undoubtedly influenced each other, it was only indirect, and in no case should it be considered as a direct effect.
Ranks of cultures according to Danilevsky
The sociologist assigned all distinguished civilizations to a particular category of cultural activity. The very first category for him was primary culture (another name is preparatory). Here he included the very first civilizations - those that did not prove themselves in any kind of activity, but laid the foundation, paved the way for the development of the following: Chinese, Iranian, Indian, Assyrian-Babylonian, Egyptian.
The next category is monobasic cultures that have shown themselves in one kind of activity. This, for example, is Jewish culture - it was in it that the first monotheistic religion was born, which became the basis for Christianity. Greek culture left behind a rich heritage in the form of philosophy and art, Roman gave the world system a state system and a system of law.
An example of a further category - a dibasic culture - is the European cultural type. This civilization succeeded in politics and culture, leaving behind the outstanding achievements of science and technology, creating a parliamentary and colonial system. And, finally, the last rank Danilevsky called as four-base - and this is only a hypothetical kind of culture. Among the types identified by the sociologist, there is no one that could belong to this category - according to Danilevsky, a culture of this kind should be successful in four areas: science and art as spheres of culture, faith, political freedom and justice, and economic relations. The scientist believed that Russian-Slavic should become a similar cultural type, called, as we recall, in his words, to reunite humanity.
Among Westerners and Slavophiles, the work of Nikolai Yakovlevich caused a great stir - especially, of course, among the latter. It became a kind of manifesto and served as an impetus for a comprehensive wide discussion by such scientists and thinkers as, for example, V. Solovyov or K. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, and many others.
Oswald Spengler
The work of the German Spengler entitled "Sunset of Europe", which appeared at the beginning of the last century, is often compared with the work of Danilevsky, but there is no exact evidence that Oswald relied on a treatise by a Russian sociologist. Nevertheless, in many respects their works are really similar - a comparative analysis will be given a little later.
The German scientist published his book exactly after the First World War, and therefore it was an incredible success - it was a time of disappointment in the West, and it was he who was criticized as Danilevsky, Spengler. He also opposed each other different civilizations, but he did it much more categorically than his Russian counterpart. Spengler divided the first civilizations into eight types: Egyptian, Indian, Babylonian, Chinese, Greco-Roman, Byzantine-Arabic, West European and Maya. He also separately set Russian-Siberian culture. Civilization seemed to the scientist to be the penultimate stage of the development of culture - before sinking into oblivion. At the same time, Spengler believed that in order to go through all the stages - from birth to death - every culture needs a thousand years.
In his work, the scientist asserted the existence of a cycle of local cultures that suddenly appear and invariably die. Each of them has its own attitude, they exist apart from everything else. According to Spengler, there can be no continuity, since each culture is as self-sufficient as possible. Moreover, one cannot even understand a different culture, because you are brought up on other customs and values.
After Spengler and Danilevsky, there were a number of other scientists who turned to the study of this issue. We will not dwell on this, since the analysis of the concept of each of them is worthy of a separate article. Now we turn to a better comparison of the theories of Nikolai Danilevsky and Oswald Spengler.
Spengler and Danilevsky
The first difference between the concepts of the two great minds has already been mentioned in passing above. It was said that, according to Spengler, each culture has lived an average of a thousand years. Thus, the scientist sets the time frame - which you will not meet with Danilevsky. Nikolai Yakovlevich does not limit the existence of cultures and civilizations to any time interval. In addition, as also indicated earlier, for Spengler, civilization is the penultimate stage of development - before death; Danilevsky does not describe anything like this in his work.
In order for this or that cultural-historical type to appear, the emergence of a state is necessary - this is the opinion of a Russian sociologist. Oswald Spengler believes that for this purpose it is not states that are needed - cities are needed. Nikolai Yakovlevich in all spheres of culture sees religion as one of the most important elements - Spengler does not have such a conviction.
However, one should not assume that the opinions of great thinkers only diverge. They have the same (or roughly the same) ideas. For example, the idea that the existence of an ethnic group does not imply the existence of history. Or that all cultures / cultural-historical types are local and closed on themselves. Or that the historical process is not linear. Both scholars agree that it is impossible to divide history into the Ancient World, the New Age and the Middle Ages, they both criticize Eurocentrism - we can go on and on about the similarities and differences between the concepts of the two colleagues.
Modern view: culture-civilizations
Let's skip the ideas and teachings of the followers of Danilevsky and Spengler and turn to our days. A scientist by the name of Huntington believes that the main problem is the confrontation of the so-called culture-civilizations, the main of which are eight: Latin American, African, Islamic, Western, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu and Orthodox Slavic. According to the scientist, all these cultures are incredibly different from each other, and to overcome this chasm will not work for quite a long time. In order to erase all borders, it is necessary that culture-civilizations receive common traditions, a common religion, a common history. Representatives of different civilizations think differently about freedom and faith, about society and man, about the world and its development, and this difference is enormous. Thus, Huntington also has a position on the opposition of Western civilization - Eastern. However, he believes that the West has a tendency to assimilate the basic cultural values of other civilizations, for example, interest in Buddhism and Taoism, if we talk about religion.
A little more about cultures
In addition to local ones, the existence of specific and middle cultures is distinguished. In addition, in this connection it is impossible not to mention the dominant culture. These are all those values, norms, rules that are adopted in a particular society. This is something that the whole of society or its greater part recognizes. A dominant culture is a variant of the norm for all representatives of a given society, that is, a given civilization. And as it is logical to assume, in any civilization among those that distinguished Danilevsky, Spengler, and Huntington, there is a dominant culture. These norms are laid down with the help of control over any or several social institutions. It holds in its hands the dominant culture and education, and jurisprudence, and politics, and art.
About the concepts of specific and middle culture a little more in detail - below.
Specific and middle cultures
The first is one that differs from the others in some specific features or characteristics. She does not have the properties of developed cultures. The second, on the contrary, is most closely connected with all areas and traditions with other cultures, has a set of typical features and characteristics (politics and business, society and religion, education and culture - all these spheres share common qualities among several civilizations). It is born due to the combination of cultures of different ethnic groups living in the neighborhood. Middle culture is considered the most viable.
The problem of local cultures, their confrontation, as well as the clash of East and West, has been and remains one of the most relevant to this day. This means that there is a basis for the emergence of new research and new concepts.