The interpretation of culture as a cult and rational discourse

Rozin Vadim Markovich Doctor of Philosophy Chief Scientific Associate, Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences  109240, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Moscow, ul. Goncharnaya, 12 str.1, kab. 310 rozinvm@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Problem statement

My cultural studies were carried out within the framework of the second version. In the books "Cultural Studies", "Ancient Culture", "Theoretical and Applied Cultural Studies", I analyzed and implemented as an approach the semiotic version of culture, psychological and social ^[9-12]. I was also familiar with the first version, but I did not attach much importance to it, considering it religious and in this sense not entirely scientific. Indeed, for example, Nikolai Berdyaev and Svetlana Neretina directly point to the sacred aspect. "Culture," writes N. Berdyaev, "was born out of a cult. Its origins are sacred. It originated around the temple and was organically connected with religious life... Culture has religious foundations" ^[2]. S.Neretina adds to this the statement about the "death of culture" as a central concept for the humanities of the twentieth century. "Trust in culture," writes S. Neretina, "and now almost everyone nods to it and no matter what, that's why they don't have the same weight now... they talk so much about it because it has passed away. It became the central concept of twentieth-century philosophy. Its universal charm is the charm of a dead culture... The processes that are currently taking place can also be called post‒Christian because we have entered a different world of ethics, or rather non- or non-ethics. … To one degree or another, cultural theorists are connected with religion, and therefore the question of the unity of Christianity and culture is not an outsider, as it is, for example, for that part of the world community that is not connected with religion as closely as branches with the trunk of the world tree.… Today we have the right to raise the question of the end of culture. Not about the end of life, not about the death of a person, but about the end of culture as a phenomenon that had its beginning and, accordingly, should have its end... Therefore, in my opinion, now, in the era of transition, it is necessary not to rely on culture (akin to religious prayer). A critique of cultural reason is necessary..." ^{[7, p. 230, 231, 258, 271, 273]}.

But relatively recently I got acquainted with the wonderful work of the Soviet and Russian historian and philosopher Mikhail Gefter, "There will be no third millennium. The Russian history of playing with humanity". In it, he, in particular, suggests that culture appeared as an objective condition ("sum of means") for overcoming the fear of death. "I am trying," explains M. Gefter, "to define culture as an attitude to something that is not given to a person directly, but has a saving and transformative meaning for him. Culture ‒ This is the sum of the means by which a person has lightened the burden of discovering death by using speech, which may have arisen in connection with this" ^[5].

I drew attention to the phrase: culture "is not given directly, but has a saving and transformative meaning for a person." What does it mean, "it is not given directly," indeed, it is not a thing or an object opposed to the eye. Consequently, a person believes culture, and not only thinking rationally, but also in terms of faith, so perhaps its boundaries are not clear, as M.Bakhtin writes, "the inner territory of the cultural area is not: It's all located on borders, borders run everywhere." And the "saving and transformative meaning" is because it is the sum of means that make it possible to face death almost without fear, because as a cultural person he is not only finite (mortal), but in terms of language, cultural memory, and creativity immortal.

Phylogenetic analogies

Well, okay, I thought, this is Gefter's interpretation of culture, and there can be many interpretations of a statement. I remembered, however, that when reconstructing the very first culture ("animistic", according to E. Taylor, "archaic", in my version), I also put death as one of the problems requiring a kind of salvation. I show that somewhere around the turn of 20-30 thousand years BC, a person stopped understanding what death was and began to be terribly afraid of it, what illness, dreams and cave paintings created by himself (there are no animals and people, but they are visible).

So, a man of that time invents a soul scheme, endowing souls, firstly, with immortality (the soul always lives, so you don't have to be afraid of death, it's just a change of place of residence), secondly, with characteristics (it can leave the body and come back), allowing you to understand what death, illness, dreams, rock paintings. Death is the departure of the soul from the body forever; illness is temporary, it can return and then a person will recover.; dreams are the journey of souls during sleep; rock paintings are the evocation of the soul (therefore they are visible, but they are not as having a body).

Having solved these problems, the archaic man extends the scheme of the soul to natural and social phenomena (elements), which as a result came to life and became understandable in their actions. Let's say that the wind is a living being with a soul: you can summon it by drawing (the Australian aborigines draw a spiral for this, an obvious image of sand swirled by the wind in a spiral), and ask for something. "It was customary for all Slavs to feed the wind with bread, cereals, and meat. Each nation had its own traditions of cajoling the wind… The ancient Aztecs believed that the god of wind, Ezecatl, set the sun and moon in motion. Round temples were built in honor of the wind god, because he did not like corners.…North America had its own interesting rituals. So, the Chorti Indians used a lasso to catch the north wind, which brings diseases and evil, and tied it up.…According to legend, one day an old woman came to Solomon and asked him to punish the wind that scattered the flour she had just bought. The wise Solomon, not wanting to blacken God in the eyes of people in the face of the wind, laid the blame and compensation for damage on the sailors who that day prayed to Heaven to send them a strong tailwind ..." ^[8]

And here, for example, is how an archaic person understood the appearance of a second soul in a mother ‒ an unborn child. Her fiance, who is also a hunter, by killing an animal, distills his soul to the land of his ancestors. But when he acted as a husband, he acted back, distilling the child's soul into the mother's body. It turned out that the husband was, on the one hand, a hunter, and on the other, the husband himself, who was involved in the birth of a future family member. To understand this, archaic man painted, summoning souls to act.: here, a husband shoots an animal as a hunter, and as a husband shoots his wife; the first condition for the reproduction of animals, the second is the birth of an unborn child.

Petroglyph (Neolithic. Tiu, North Africa).

Remembering all this and comparing this reconstruction with the reconstructions of subsequent cultures, I came up with the following assumption. Yes, M. Gefter is right when he says that culture is the sum of means that provide a life-saving and transformative effect. But not only with regard to death, although perhaps this was the initial "problem situation", but also all other important problems for life (understanding the natural and social elements, the birth of children, etc.). At the same time, a person has to put a special reality (in an archaic culture ‒ souls, in the next, "Ancient Kingdoms", ‒ the reality of pagan gods, in ancient culture ‒ gods and "things", in the Middle Ages ‒ the Christian God, in Modern times ‒ nature and personality), which explains and conditions everything. But if this reality explains and conditions everything and is not given directly, then it becomes clear why it is worshipped (praised and glorified) and perceived by a special sensory organ ‒ the sacred ("third eye", wisdom, enlightenment, etc.). And what is it then, if not a cult (culture as a cult), and at the same time a sum of funds (semiotic, psychological, social, I added, referring to my research on culture)?

At one time, studying the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages, I could not understand how an ancient man, who had already tasted the complexities of philosophy and science, could accept God in three persons, all-good and all-powerful, and not see a lot of contradictions in the Holy Scriptures. But after thinking about it, I had to agree that such a step was exactly the saving grace. The fact is that by this time, ancient culture was in deep crisis and was coming to an end. Faith in pagan gods has been greatly shaken (they behaved no better than humans, their power began to look ephemeral), but the fear of death has not gone away. Yes, the Christian God looked fantastic, but he promised eternal life, strong power, justice and love. Here is an illustration of just one of these promises, but what kind of immortality. "Therefore we believe," writes Tatiana the Assyrian (112-185), "that at the end of everything there will be a Resurrection of bodies."… Let the fire consume my body, but the world will accept this substance, dispersed like steam; let me perish in rivers or seas, let me be torn apart by beasts, but I will hide in the treasury of the rich Lord. A weak and godless man does not know what is hidden; but the King God, when He wills, will restore to its former state the essence that is visible to Him alone" ^[15].

The assumption of a new sacred reality, its cult, does not at all deny the search for rational means of solving the problems that arise. St. Augustine, coming to the conclusion that God is not a natural phenomenon, but a "Spirit" ^{[1, p. 35]}, simultaneously develops a rational formula in the "Confession", saying that the Lord is "the truth the path and creation", a concept that largely guided the real life activities of a medieval man who cultivated Christianity ^[1].

But the concept of nature, which has taken the place of God, seems to be the exact opposite of the cult. However, aren't the laws of nature a symbolic tracing paper of "divine laws", and didn't God create nature based on mathematics, Roger Bacon argued, partly following Plato? And in the Renaissance, did Nicholas of Cusa bring nature closer to the Creator and rational mathematical constructions?

Miniature of the 13th century (God creates the world,

previously calculated mathematically by Him)

"All our wise and divine teachers," writes Nikolai Kuzansky, "agreed that the visible is truly the image of the invisible, and that the creator can thus be seen from creation as if in a mirror and likeness.…

Such are mathematical subjects... experienced men compared the blessed Trinity to a triangle with three equal right angles; since, as will be shown, it must necessarily have infinite sides, it can be called an infinite triangle. We follow them too. Still others, trying to represent infinite unity in a mathematical figure, called God an infinite circle. And the contemplators of a completely actual divine existence called God an infinite ball. Again, we will show that they also understood the greatest maximum correctly and that they all have the same meaning.<…>

Truly, God used arithmetic, geometry, and music in the creation of the world, along with astronomy ‒ arts that we also use to explore the proportions of things, elements, and movements"^[6].

Although in modern times the earthly reality, comprehended in natural science and mathematics, comes to the fore, the sacred (spiritual) meaning of nature remains, and therefore it is understood not only rationally, but also experienced as a cult. However, the fear of death is returning, as it becomes almost impossible to conceive of resurrection from the dead as a natural, natural process. Considering this point, the famous Swedish scientist and engineer of the early 18th century, Emanuel Swedenborg, abandoning his studies in science and switching to Christian salvation, eliminates the very concept of death. In his teaching, every person is an immortal spirit, but after the cycle of earthly life, some spirits who love goodness and the Lord undergo transformation into angels and go to heaven to serve Him, while others who are inclined to evil turn into demons and fall into hell, where they continue to live, opposing heaven and angels ^[13]. However, the world represented in Swedenborg's teaching could not take the place of culture as a new cult.

The formation of modernity as the realization of a social project

Unfortunately, at the present time, the New European culture (modern) is coming to an end, and very dramatically, since the very existence of our civilization has been in doubt. The initial premise of modernity dates back to the establishment of the "Peace of Westphalia" (the middle of the 17th century), which established freedom of religion and social development of peoples on its territory. But there was a question of how to ensure well-being for the new communities that were forming to replace the Catholic class society, which was gradually disintegrating; "freedom, brotherhood and equality" alone was clearly not enough.

Solving this problem, Francis Bacon outlines the concept of "mastering nature", understanding the latter not only as a natural kind of being (movements that occur by themselves, Aristotle), but also as a source of forces and energies, processes subordinating mathematical relations, latent divine principle (the meaning of the new cult). "Let them,‒ wrote F. According to Bacon in the New Organon, the human race will only seize its right to nature, which has assigned it divine grace, and may it be given power" ^{[3, p. 193]}.

The concept of mastering nature is the second prerequisite. The third is a new understanding of personality: it is both a natural education and a rational (spiritual and reflective) one. The transformation must begin with the personality, F. believed. Bacon: "but before we can reach the more remote and intimate in nature, it is necessary to introduce a better and more perfect use of the human spirit and mind."<..The way to this was opened to us by no other means than the just and legitimate belittling of the human spirit" ^{[4, p. 69]}.

The fourth prerequisite can be considered the consequences arising from the concept of mastering nature ‒ the need to create natural sciences (natural science), "new magic" (engineering), as well as a new social organization ("New Atlantis"), which would ensure the implementation of this concept as a kind of "social project". The term "social project" was authored, but the design character of the emerging modernity was evident (F.'s ideasBacon attracted many people, and they began to be brought to life).

Why the realization of the planned F.The bacon of the social project, which was refined and developed, including new projects (for example, "Enlightenment", "Creation of industry", "Welfare States") led to both planned results and serious negative consequences (environmental crisis, two world wars, social inequality, etc.). Here There are three main reasons. First, the implementation of social projects (unlike, for example, architectural and technical ones ^{[14, pp. 49-61]}), due to a lack of understanding of social processes, does not allow building an object that exactly corresponds to the project; as a rule, it differs greatly from the planned one ^{[14, pp. 84-87]}. Secondly, man is a creative and developing being: if he first created a new social order and institutions according to a project, then he later invents ways to use them for other purposes, for example, for his own and not for the common good (corruption, rent-building, seizing institutions and turning them into an instrument of personal power). The third reason is the very nature of culture as a semiotic and social organism ‒ culture is changing, becoming more complex, so that sooner or later the fundamental schemes and scenarios that define it cease to be effective, moreover, they become destructive.

Modernity is no exception. Currently, the results of the "Westphalian Peace" are no more than history; nature is considered not only as a source of well-being, but also an object of global human activity that threatens his very existence and life on earth; personality is understood not so much as reasonable, but rather selfish and unreasonable; human activity is considered as an element, the laws of which man She doesn't know; her products, such as artificial intelligence, are like a new reality ready to enslave humans. In this context, a person ceases to feel the cult of New European culture. Hence the statement that modernity and the future are characterized by complexity and uncertainty.

The search for a cult for the next big culture ("future culture")

Mikhail Gefter sees this cult in a properly understood history, i.e. one that is meaningful and reflected on the main contradictions and trends ("The future is not just what lies ahead. The future is what lies ahead, chosen from what was once rejected in the past, which has disappeared and will never return" ^[5]). At the same time, he believes, Marx already discussed this topic, and the culture that is replacing modernity should be planetary and consciously built. Since, however, there is no single line of development, there may be several developments from the bifurcation point in which we are located, one of the development scenarios is a catastrophe, the end of life.

"Marx's conclusion," he writes, "is that capitalism has outlived its "second sixteenth century" and has now begun anew. So, capitalism has a resource unknown to communist theory ‒ at the expense of what? At the expense of the planet's space. Capital is spreading, its scale is changing… It is very important to Marx that Russia is on the way. But the difficulties of the internal movement of “Capital” are also important, where the subject is declared as unitary and planetary. But the planetary one is not unitary!.. In short, the “Manifesto" is canceled! Another task arises: capitalism can only be overcome by capitalism, and Marx leaves to engage in political economy.…However, the question arises: what about the course towards the revolution of the proletariat ‒ not to make a revolution? No, and Marx can't give up on that either.… By the way, the picture that Marx painted for the narodniks... is not meaningless even now. There is a world of high civilizations, where the new Russia is once again playing the role of a marginal. And where the civilized World, for the sake of self-preservation, must make billions of earthlings a field of activity. And within themselves, economically and anthropologically, to facilitate the change of activity ‒ so that everyone lived differently, but lived like people. To do this, we must somehow move from the world of giant corporations and the consumption race to the World that is already on the way. Or die, which is not at all excluded" ^[5].

But the correct history in Gefter's version is a rather complicated structure, culture as a cult should probably be understandable not only to educated and intellectuals, but also to the majority of the population. Anyway, that was the case in the past. Today, there is a second contender, perhaps more understandable ‒ space. I wondered why space issues have become so active in recent decades (Russian cosmologists, Elon Musk, etc.). Isn't it because space reality is seen as a cult for the future culture? Here is one example, although it seems to be about the philosophy of technology.

"In the Question of Technology in China," writes Yuk Hui, a rising Hong Kong star of Western philosophy of technology, "I developed the concept of cosmotechnics to show that there is no one universal and homogeneous technique, and therefore we rather need to rediscover the various types of cosmotechnics and describe them from historical and philosophical points of view. vision. I have given a preliminary definition of cosmotechnology as the fusion of moral order and cosmic order through technical activity…I call it cosmotechnics because I am convinced that “cosmos” does not mean space beyond the Earth's atmosphere, but, on the contrary, locality. Each culture has its own cosmology, which is a product of its own geography and the imagination of the people belonging to it... The main observation is that these cosmologies contain ways of knowing and being, so they cannot simply be rejected because they do not correspond to modern scientific theories. Of course, some superstitious and illusory elements must be abandoned, but cosmology is much richer than such outdated beliefs. Instead of viewing them as a thing of the past or replaced by something else, we can approach them in a different way: by making our thinking individualize in the face of such incompatibilities. This is what we can call a thinking task today" ^{[16, pp. 68-69]}.

There are overtones of both cult ("moral and cosmic order", "people's imagination") and rational decisions ("cosmologies contain ways of knowing and being"). There are other contenders for the role of a cult for future culture, but all of them are not yet accepted by the main participants in the modern discourse of "Salvation". It took two to three, if not four, centuries for the discourse of medieval Salvation to be established. The question is, does modern humanity have such a reserve of time?