Culture is a process of development of human strengths and abilities, an indicator of the measure of humanity in a person, a process that receives its external expression in all the wealth 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 in terms of their social significance and consequences of methods (technologies) for the implementation of the collective life of people. A multidimensional, multilevel structure allows her to implement a range of functions:

1. Accumulation (accumulation) of generic experience.

2. The function is epistemological, cognitive. (Covering all spheres of social consciousness, taken as a whole, culture gives a holistic picture of cognition and mastery of the world, as well as the level of skills and abilities of people).

3. The function of historical exchange, transfer of social experience. This function is called information... Society has no other mechanism for transferring social experience, "social inheritance", apart from culture. In this sense, culture can be called the "memory" of humanity.

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. The means of communication is primarily language.

5. Regulatory and normative functions. Here it acts as a system of norms and requirements imposed by morality and law.

6. The signifying function of culture is its ability to it; to create holistic, meaningful ideas about the world and the independence of the 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 the outside, make it understandable, meaningful to a loved one.

The transforming function of culture.The assimilation and transformation of the surrounding reality is a fundamental human need, since “the essence of a person is not exhausted by the inclination to self-preservation and, accordingly, the inclination to create conveniences, moreover, the specifically human essence is expressed in something else, in relation to which the created conveniences and the resulting self-preservation just the necessary base. "

If we consider a person only as a creature striving for maximum comfort 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 given given in transformation and creativity.

Protective function of cultureis 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 culture to create adequate defense mechanisms (medicine, public order bodies, technical and technological advances, 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 requires, in turn, means of environmental protection. The threat of an ecological catastrophe currently makes the protective function of culture a priority. Among the means of cultural protection - not only the improvement of safety measures - cleaning production waste, synthesizing new drugs, etc., but also the creation of legal norms for environmental protection.

The communicative function of culture.Communication is the process of exchanging information between people using signs and sign systems. A person as a social being needs to communicate with other people to achieve various goals. It is with the help of communication that complex actions are coordinated. The main channels of communication are visual, speech, tactile. Culture produces specific rules and methods of communication that are adequate to the conditions of human life.

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 cultureprovides a process of cultural continuity and various forms of historical progress. It manifests itself in the consolidation of the results of socio-cultural activities, the accumulation, storage and systematization of information. IN modern era every fifteen years there is a doubling of information. S. Lem drew attention to the fact that the volume of unexplored problems increases in direct proportion to the volume of accumulated knowledge. The situation of the "information explosion" required the creation of qualitatively new methods of processing, storing and transmitting information, more advanced information technologies.

Normative function of culturedue to the need to maintain balance and order in society, to bring the actions of various social groups and individuals in line with social needs and interests. The function of generally valid norms recognized in a particular culture is aimed at ensuring certainty, comprehensibility, and predictability of behavior. You can name the legal norms governing the relationship between people, social institutions, individuals and social institutions; technical norms caused by industrial practice; ethical norms of regulation of everyday life; environmental standards, etc. Many standards are closely related to cultural tradition and the way of life of the people.

In addition, other scientists also distinguish the following functions of culture:

Significative (sign) function of culture, literally - a function of assigning meanings and values. Thanks to the significative function, culture appears as a meaningful representation of the world, no matter in what concrete form this representation 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 defines the world around him, and thereby builds a picture of the world. Each 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 fosters moral values \u200b\u200bin a person.

Consumer (relaxation) function of culture.The function of relieving stress, tension. Natural methods of discharge are laughter, crying, fits of anger, screaming, confession. However, they belong to the category of individual and are not sufficient to relieve collective tension. Stylized forms of stress relief are used for such purposes - entertainment, holidays, festivals, rituals.

The social functions that culture performs allow people to carry out collective activities in the best way to satisfy their needs. The main functions of culture include:

social integration - ensuring the unity of mankind, a community of worldview (with the help of myth, religion, philosophy);

organization and regulation of the joint life of people through law, politics, morality, customs, ideology, etc .;

providing the means of life for people (such as cognition, communication, accumulation and transfer of knowledge, upbringing, education, stimulating innovation, selection of values, etc.); regulation of certain spheres of human activity (culture of everyday life, culture of recreation, culture of work, food culture, etc.).

In the 20th century in Russia, the word civilization came to be understood as the general state of society or even the level of education or specific persons, opposed to savagery or barbarism. Let's summarize the linguistic development of the word culture in modern languages:

• 1) an abstract designation of the general process of intellectual, spiritual, aesthetic development;
• 2) designation of the state of society based on law and order, gentleness of morals, etc. in this sense, the word culture coincides with one of the meanings of the word civilization;
• 3) an abstract indication of the peculiarities of the mode of existence or way of life characteristic of a certain society, a certain group of people, a certain historical period;
• 4) abstract designation of forms and products of intellectual and, above all artistic activities: music, literature, painting, theater, cinema.

The concept of "culture" means a historically defined level of development of society, creative forces and abilities of a person, expressed in the types and forms of organization of life and activities of people, as well as in the material and spiritual values \u200b\u200bthey create.

Culture is a multifunctional system. The main function of the phenomenon of culture is human-creative, or humanistic. All others are somehow connected with it and even follow from it.

The function of broadcasting social experience is often called the function of historical continuity, or informational. Culture is rightfully considered the social memory of humanity. It is defined in sign systems: oral traditions, monuments of literature and art, "languages" of science, philosophy, religion, and others. However, this is not just a "storehouse" of stocks of social experience, but a means of strict selection and active transmission of its best samples. Hence, any violation of this function is fraught with serious, sometimes disastrous consequences for society. The break in cultural continuity leads to anemia and dooms new generations to the loss of social memory.

The cognitive function is associated with the ability of culture to concentrate the social experience of many generations of people. Thus, she immanently acquires the ability to accumulate the richest knowledge about the world, thereby creating favorable opportunities for its knowledge and development.

It can be argued that society is intelligent to the extent that it uses the richest knowledge contained in the cultural gene pool of mankind. All types of society differ significantly, primarily on this basis.

The regulatory function of culture is associated, first of all, with the definition 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 people's behavior 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 sign function, representing a certain sign system of culture, presupposes knowledge, ownership of it. Without studying the corresponding sign systems, it is impossible to master the achievements of culture.

Language is a means of communication between people. The literary language is the most important means of mastering the national culture. Specific languages \u200b\u200bare needed for understanding the world of music, painting, theater. Natural sciences also have their own sign systems.

The value, or axiological function reflects the most important qualitative state of culture. Culture as a system of values \u200b\u200bforms in a person quite definite value needs and orientations. By their level and quality, people most often judge the degree of culture of this or that person. Moral and intellectual content, as a rule, serves as a criterion for the appropriate assessment.

Functions of culture - a set of roles that a culture performs in relation to the community of people who generate and use (practice) it in their own interests; a set of methods (technologies) for the implementation of the collective life of people, selected by historical experience, the most acceptable in their social significance and consequences. At the same time, all the functions of culture are social, that is, they provide precisely the collective nature of people's life, and also determine or correct almost all forms of the individual, the activity of a person due to his connection with the social environment. The number of such functions is very large. They can be arranged in a hierarchical structure from the most general to relatively specific, providing functions of a higher level.

The most general and universal function of culture should be recognized as ensuring the social integration of people: the formation of the foundations of their sustainable collective existence and activities to jointly satisfy interests and needs, stimulating an increase in the level of their group consolidation and the effectiveness of interaction, the accumulation of social experience in the guaranteed social reproduction of their collectives as sustainable communities ...

The second level of the considered hierarchy can be attributed to functions that provide the main forms of integrated existence of communities of people:

• 1) the organization of people in their joint life activity through their structural differentiation into various kinds of relatively self-sufficient groups: socio-territorial neighboring communities (tribes, ethnic groups, nations), social and functional (industries, military, educational and other collectives, specialties, professions, professional constellations, classes), social (families, clans, social strata, estates), communicative (by dialects, languages, language families), religious-confessional (religious communities, sects, denominations, confessions), etc .;
• 2) regulation of the processes of interaction between people through historical selection, rationing and standardization of the most successful elements of social experience in this area and their implementation in the work of regulatory mechanisms of conventional (value orientations, morality, morality, customs, etiquette, etc.) or institutional (law, politics, ideology, ceremonial, etc.) properties;
• 3) consolidation and self-identification of people in a team through the development of common goals and ideals of their coexistence, group interests and needs, a sense of solidarity of the individual with the team and their protection, satisfaction with the current norms and rules of joint community and interaction, the formation of a system of images of group identity (ethnic, social, confessional, state and other markers) and the foundations of a person's personal self-identification in a team and self-identification with him, the interest of team members in his social reproduction as a process that meets their individual, and group interests.

The third level is the functions of culture, which provide the main means of joint life of people. These include:

• 1.the culture of demographic and social reproduction of community members, functioning through the development of norms of sexual relations, marriage and family and kinship obligations, norms of a neighbor's community, standards for the physical development of an individual and the protection of his reproductive capabilities, as well as a system of forms and means of purposeful intergenerational transmission of social experience ( upbringing, enlightenment, education, traditions, ceremonies and rituals, etc.), the development of norms and standards of socialization and in-culture of the individual, his social and cultural adequacy to the society of residence, stimulating his interest in forms of social self-realization acceptable to society, including ... in creative and innovative activity, in the transformation of an individual from a “product and consumer” of culture into its “producer”;
• 2.the culture of adaptation of the community to the natural and historical conditions of its habitat, realized through the accumulation of experience and its implementation in the norms, rules and forms of direct life support (primarily in the provision of food, heat, housing, in the methods and traditions of health protection and interpersonal mutual assistance of people) , ensuring the collective security of the community (defense) and the individual, the security of community members, their property and legitimate rights, interests (law enforcement system);
• 3.the culture of the development of an artificial material-spatial environment of the community and the provision of its members with social benefits, expressed in the formation of principles, norms, rules and standards for building the territorial infrastructure of the area of \u200b\u200bresidence (settlements and their internal structure, transport communications, the location of the most important industries and other functional zones, etc.), development of the system of energy supply and production of means of production (tools), ensuring the production and distribution of consumer goods and services, etc .;
• 4.the culture of property, power and social prestige associated with the development of technologies and forms of power-proprietary claims and relations acceptable to the community, ways of acquiring wealth, the formation of a hierarchy of social statuses, the order of status growth and its symbolic marking (titles, regalia, prestigious clothing , decorations, household environment, style of behavior, etiquette, etc.);
• 5.the culture of social patronage, manifested in the traditions of providing material and other support to people who find themselves in a situation of non-competitiveness (by age, injury, congenital disabilities, victims of war or natural disasters, etc.), charity, mercy, assistance to those in distress , the ideology of humanism and the absolutization of the value of human life, the mythology of social justice, "leveling", the patronage of the collective over the individual, etc .;
• 6.the culture of knowledge and worldview, accumulation and cumulation of socially significant knowledge, ideas and experience: rational (science and everyday observations), irrational (religion, mysticism, esotericism, superstition), logical and metaphysical (philosophy, common sense, folk wisdom), figurative (art, metaphorical thinking and judgments, game forms of behavior, etc.);
• 7. culture of communication and exchange of information and social experience between people, realized in the form of processes: symbolization of objects and phenomena (formation of designating concepts, words, signs, symbols, etc.), addition of languages \u200b\u200bof information exchange ("natural" oral and written verbal, non-verbal sign languages \u200b\u200band body plastics, symbolic and ceremonial actions, arts, specialized languages \u200b\u200bof service and technical symbols - mathematical, computer, topographic, drawing, musical, etc., various sign systems, sound signals, insignia, functional attributes, digital languages, graphic and sound coding of objects and products, etc.),
• 8 addition of systems for recording information (in graphic, sound, specific and other forms), its replication and broadcasting, as well as institutions involved in the accumulation, preservation and access to socially significant information (archives, libraries, museums, depositories, data banks, card indexes etc.);
• 9.the culture of physical and mental rehabilitation and relaxation of a person, including the norms and forms of health protection and personal hygiene adopted in the community, the traditions of cooking, social norms of rest (systems of weekends, vacations, exemption from active activity due to age and state of health), traditions of physical culture and sports, health tourism and other forms of active recreation, traditions of national and folk holidays, carnivals, mass festivities, various forms of entertainment, play and intelligence, leisure, a system of institutions of organized leisure, etc.

It should be emphasized that in all the cases under consideration we are talking not about practical technologies for achieving a utilitarian result (creating a consumer product), but about social norms that regulate the admissibility and preference of certain methods of carrying out this activity.

The fourth and subsequent levels of cultural functions are associated with the differentiation of culture into specialized functional segments ("economic culture", "military culture", "trade culture", "religious culture", "pedagogical culture", etc.) and systems of quality criteria implementation of certain social functions ("culture of labor and consumption", "culture of everyday life", "culture of language", "culture of scientific thinking", "culture artistic creation", etc.). In both cases, here we mean, first of all, the level of compliance of the applied technologies (and hence the qualitative parameters of the results) in a particular sphere of life with the generally accepted technological standards in the relevant area, which have developed in the process of historical selection of such technologies for signs of their acceptability and admissibility from the point of view of social cost and long-term social consequences (the criterion of utilitarian efficiency in this case is less significant) and were fixed in value complexes of a specific property, usually called "prof. culture "and" lifestyle culture ".

Thus, in all the diversity of functions of culture, one can single out such "profile" directions as social-integrative, organizational-regulatory-normative, cognitive-communicative, recreational and evaluative.

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The task assigned to culture - to link people into a single humanity - finds expression in a whole series of its specific social functions.

List of cultural functions with some explanations:
a) function of adaptation to the environment,
b) cognitive,
c) informative,
d) communicative,
e) regulatory,
f) estimated,
g) delimitation and integration of human groups,
h) socialization (or human-creative).
Let's consider them in more detail.

The function of adaptation to the environment can be considered the most ancient and perhaps the only one common to humans and animals, although, unlike animals, a person is forced to adapt to two types of circumstances - natural and social. If for fossil people, for example, the first manifestations of culture that directly indicated an adaptation were items of clothing made of animal skins and fire, then for our contemporary it is either a space suit, or a deep-sea bathyscaphe, or the most complex structures and devices. Everything that helps the primitive and later civilized human individual to survive and thrive in the natural environment surrounding it, being a product of culture, performs the function of adaptation. However, as already mentioned, man is "inscribed" not only in the natural world, but also in society, where, unfortunately, quite often, despite the successes of civilization, and sometimes directly through their fault, every now and then the animal makes itself felt law: "man is a wolf to man." And here, too, within the framework of culture (or anti-culture!), Means of adaptability have been developed over the course of millennia: from state structures and laws that keep people from mutual extermination, to weapons manufactured for defense or attack. It is on the absolutization of the function of adaptability in society that the well-known doctrine of "social Darwinism" is built.

Cognitive function

The cognitive (or epistemological) function finds its expression primarily in science, in scientific research. This is most clearly manifested in the modern scientific and technological revolution. The cognitive function of culture has a double orientation: on the one hand, at the systematization of knowledge and disclosure of the laws of development of nature and society; on the other - on the person's knowledge of himself. Paradoxically, at the current stage of civilization development, the first direction immeasurably prevails over the second. Man has comprehended the world around him much better than the depths of his own soul, his own intellect. Evidence of our ignorance of ourselves surrounds us every day.

Informative function

The informative function ensures historical continuity and the transfer of social experience. Humanity has no other way of preserving, increasing and distributing accumulated spiritual wealth in time and space, as through culture. The culture is not inherited or almost not inherited genetically and biologically. In other words, a person comes into this world as, to one degree or another, a blank sheet of paper on which the older generations - the carriers of the previous culture - write their letters. It is believed that biology is not involved in this process, although temperament, abilities and talents can be inherited. This happens in time. And in space?
Let's imagine that some sophisticated cultural bearer, say, a modern French intellectual, moves to live from Paris to Africa and finds a wife from the Zulu tribe. Naturally, their physical closeness and their child by themselves will not become a factor in the spread of culture, but the mutual exchange of information in the family about life in France and about the life of blacks in South Africa will directly lead them to general spiritual enrichment. Bernard Shaw once said this very well: “If you have an apple and I have an apple, and we exchange them, then everyone has an apple. But if each of us has one idea, and we pass them on to each other, then the situation changes. Everyone immediately becomes richer, namely, the owner of two ideas. " And even three or more, for each juxtaposition of ideas activates human thought.
The channel for transmitting information in time and space is not only spiritual, but also material culture. Any instrument of production or commodity, as E.B. Tylor, representing only another link in an unbreakable chain of related products or phenomena, according to the laws of semiotics, carries on himself certain information about a person, about the social relations of his era and his country. An experienced archaeologist can recreate a living picture of the past from individual shards and debris, just as an ethnographer can recreate the life and beliefs of some distant tribe.

Communicative function

The communicative function of culture is inextricably linked with the informative, like semiotics, inseparable from informatics. The carriers of the communicative function are mainly the verbal language, specific "languages" of art (music, theater, painting, cinema, etc.), as well as the language of science with its mathematical, physical, chemical and other symbols and formulas. If the original sign systems existed for a long time and were passed down from generation to generation, from person to person, only verbally and graphically, over relatively short distances in time and space, then with the development of technology, the latest vehicles and media (printing, radio, television, cinema, audio and video recordings) the communicative capabilities of culture, i.e. its ability to preserve, transmit and replicate cultural values \u200b\u200bhas increased immeasurably. People who are no longer alive continue to exist among us spiritually, as the fate of many outstanding personalities shows. Since the second half of the twentieth century, after physical death, many of them have actually managed to ensure their audiovisual immortality. Strengthening the communicative capabilities of culture leads to a certain erasure of its national characteristics and contributes to the formation of a single common human civilization.

Regulatory function

The regulatory (or normative) function manifests itself primarily as a system of norms and requirements of society for all its members in all areas of their life and activities - work, everyday life, intergroup, interclass, interethnic, interpersonal relations. T. Parsons, along with symbolism and voluntarism, considered normativity as one of the most important features of culture. The main task of the regulatory function is to maintain social balance in a particular society, as well as between individual groups of people in the interests of the survival of the human race or any part of it.
The regulatory function of culture is carried out by it at a number of levels: the highest of them are moral norms. Of course, they change in the course of history and from people to people. However, with the growth of spiritual culture, the development of mass communication, the reduction of distances and the immeasurable strengthening of contacts and interchanges between peoples, the awareness of each inhabitant of the Earth of his individuality and, at the same time, of his belonging to all of humanity grows. Moral norms are mutually enriched and become more and more common to all mankind. People are more and more aware that they are all passengers of one ship filled with atomic death, and only unity, fueled by a common morality, is capable of saving them from destruction. The oldest social institution that formulated and supported moral norms was the church, its various religions and confessions. It is significant that, despite certain discrepancies, the basic commandments of all the largest religions in the world coincide in many respects, i.e. are universal in nature. This is how they differ sharply from the norms of the so-called "class morality", according to which the commandments "Thou shalt not kill!" opposed to the call "If the enemy does not surrender, he will be destroyed!", and the commandment "Do not steal!" - a call for the "expropriation of the expropriators" or even more expressive - "Rob the loot!"
The next level at which the regulatory function of culture is carried out is the rule of law. If the norms of morality are contained mainly in religious texts and documents, as well as in secular moralizing literature, then the norms of law, invariably based on the norms of morality and concretizing them, are set out in detail in constitutions and laws. At the same time, they acquire not only moral, but already legal force. Differences in the norms of law among different peoples are much more noticeable than in the norms of morality. This is due to the specific history of each nation, its temperament, the achieved level of culture and other factors. For example, the attitude to the death penalty in different states seems to be very indicative: the higher the culture of a society and its well-being, the more humane it is towards its criminals and advocates its abolition. And vice versa, the less cultured, and, consequently, the poorer the nation, the more embittered and ruthless its citizens are towards offenders.
Customs and rituals are an integral part of culture, another level where its normative side is manifested along with morality and law. A custom is a stable system of human behavior in different spheres of life and in different situations, which has become the norm and is passed down from generation to generation. Having taken the form of a certain model, the customs are very stable and conservative, accompanying the peoples for centuries, despite any social upheavals. In comparison with the norms of law, it is much more difficult to change customs, almost impossible, because the “common” people, in spite of everything, do not live as indicated by this or that regime, but as bequeathed by their ancestors. Customs, to a much greater extent than moral or legal norms, are nationally colored, retain a unique originality and, more than that, as if they express the soul of the people. Their originality is largely due to the specifics of the natural environment and agricultural activities - the reason why they are more characteristic of the village than the city. As for the rituals, unlike customs, they are purely religious in nature and are closely related to certain confessions or types of faith.
In addition to the norms of morality, law, customs and rituals, the regulatory function of culture is also manifested in the norms of behavior at work, in everyday life, in communication with other people, in relation to nature. This level of normativity includes a wide range of requirements, starting with elementary neatness and compliance with the rules of "good taste" accepted in a given society or in a given social group, and ending with general requirements for a person's spiritual world and the quality of his work. This, so to speak, is the everyday, “civilizational” level of culture. The rules of education, etiquette, personal hygiene, the culture of communication with people, etc. belong to the same level.

Estimated function

The evaluative (axiological) function of culture is expressed in the fact that the people who represent it in theory and in practice seek to answer the question posed by Socrates: "What is good?" Throughout the history of mankind, his brightest minds sort of classify all objects and phenomena of the surrounding world in terms of their “usefulness” or “harmfulness” for the survival of future generations. In the course of practical activities, there is a natural selection of values \u200b\u200bproduced by human intelligence as the main driving force of culture. With the accumulation of experience, many values \u200b\u200bare revised and "disappear", new ones appear, enriching the already established tradition. For different peoples at different stages of development, the concepts of "good" and "evil" and the developed systems of values \u200b\u200bare different, however, they all have a kind of common human "core" that is gradually expanding.
The more primitive an individual or society is taken, the more limited and simpler the range of its values. In this sense, there is a huge difference between primitive man and modern thinker, between the tribes of "savages" and the rule of law.

The function of delimiting and integrating human groups boils down to the following: just as it is impossible to imagine a language "in general", because it exists only in the form of a multitude of specific languages, so culture always appears before us in a certain national-historical form. Moreover, it is in this diversity that the wealth of world civilization consists. That is why, as N.A. Berdyaev, "it is impossible and senseless to oppose nationalities and humanity, national plurality and all-human unity." And further: “Feeling like a citizen of the universe does not at all mean the loss of national feeling and national citizenship. Man joins the cosmic, universal life through national life. " And culture is most often the expression of the national spirit.
In real life, ethnic groups, nations and countries are separated not so much by geography and political boundaries, which are easily surmountable and changeable, as by their cultural and psychological characteristics, which have a long history and enormous resistance to assimilation and alien influences. This is the sought-after, chaste "soul" of the people, along which the last frontiers of their individuality and sovereignty pass. The entire course of world history teaches: despite the loss of both economic and political independence, despite attempts to create huge "empires", small ethnic groups and peoples were preserved and revived as such precisely thanks to their loyalty to their culture, psychological makeup, way of life, customs and customs, faith, etc. Is this not what the irrepressible rise of national sentiment among large and small peoples of the collapsed Soviet Union or the cultural revival of the numerous national states of Asia, Africa and Latin America, which at various times threw off the imperial yoke of colonialism, speaks of? Thus, culture acts as a powerful factor of differentiation and demarcation between relatively small and sometimes very significant human groups, which does not exclude, however, the processes of their mutual enrichment. Moreover, it is they, these processes of interethnic exchange, according to the dialectical law of denial of negation, that provide interconnection between cultures of different eras and peoples, contributing to their "symphonic" fusion into a polyphonic world civilization. Evidence of this is the emergence of an omnipotent scientific and technical layer of modern culture, which has no national specifics, gradually embraced all countries and neutralizing the tendency to delimit humanity on the basis of races and nationalities.

Socialization function

The function of socialization (or human-making), in essence, is associated with the implementation of one single and most important task: to make a rational social person out of a primitive biological individual. In other words, all of the above cultural functions - from the function of adaptation to the function of delimiting and integrating human groups - are combined in this one synthetic function and obey it. The process of socialization is the assimilation by the human individual of a certain system of knowledge, norms and values \u200b\u200bthat allow him to act as a full member of society. At the same time, we are talking not only about what each of us is shaped and nurtured by the surrounding social environment, but also about the need for active inner work of the person himself, striving to preserve and improve his uniqueness in any conditions. If socialization, for one reason or another, is not accompanied by the formation of full-fledged personalities, then a society of “cogs” arises, mute inhabitants, incapable of further development, as, for example, took place during the period of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”. Conversely, the domination of individualism weakens social ties, generally accepted norms and values \u200b\u200bare no longer taken into account, the people lose their organic unity, and a period of instability sets in. Ideal for social development is the balance between the collective and the personal. In post-revolutionary Russia the first was proclaimed as the main thing; these days, the needle of the national barometer swung in back sideforeshadowing new challenges. They can be overcome only by enhancing political culture in every possible way, achieving true harmony between society and an individual, between the process of socialization and the process of the formation of the personality of each citizen.
The above separate consideration of the main functions of culture in society is, of course, rather arbitrary. IN real life it is impossible to differentiate them the way we did it. They are closely intertwined, merge into one another and practically represent a single process, in general, ensuring the movement of humanity along the winding and often unpredictable paths of progress.

In the process of accumulating historical experience, knowledge, skills, and diverse values, culture began to perform (and performs) the following functions.

1. Socialization function (or human creation, humanistic)... The process of socialization consists in the assimilation by a person of a certain system of knowledge, norms and values \u200b\u200bthat allow him to act, create as a full member of society. Thanks to the means of culture, as noted, there is both socialization and individualization of the individual.
2. Cognitive (or epistemological) function... This function finds its expression, first of all, in science, scientific research. The cognitive function of culture has a dual orientation. On the one hand, it is aimed at the systematization of knowledge and the disclosure of nature and society, on the other, at the person's knowledge of himself.
3. Social function... This function ensures historical continuity and transfer of social experience to new generations. Humanity has no other way of preserving, increasing and spreading accumulated spiritual wealth (language, books, technology, aesthetic values \u200b\u200b...) in time and space, but through culture.
4. Environment adaptation function... This function can be considered the most ancient and almost the only one common for man and animals, although, unlike the latter, which have no culture, man has gone immeasurably further in the matter of protection from elemental forces. He has learned and is forced to adapt to two types of circumstances - natural and social.
5. Sign (semiotic) function... Culture is a certain sign system. Mastering culture is impossible without studying its sign systems. The sign function is inseparable from the normative function. The carriers of this function are mainly the verbal language, specific "languages" of art (music, theater, painting, cinema, etc.), as well as the languages \u200b\u200bof science with its mathematical, physical, chemical and other symbols and formulas. The sign function of culture is also called significative (signifying, attributing meaning). The most important conventional signs of human culture are words. Objects and phenomena by no means always obey the will of man, manipulate them. And words - the signs with which we designate them - obey our will, uniting into semantic chains - phrases. It is much easier to manipulate signs, with the meanings given to them, than with the phenomena themselves.
6. Regulatory (or normative) function... It manifests itself in the existence of systems of norms and requirements of society for all its members in all areas of their public and personal life and activities - work, everyday life, intergroup, interethnic, interpersonal relations. The regulatory function of culture is carried out at a number of levels: moral, legal, everyday, etc. The highest norms for regulating human behavior are the norms of morality. The next level at which the regulatory function of culture is carried out is the rule of law. The level where the normative side of culture is manifested mainly at the everyday level is customs and rituals. The regulatory function of culture is also manifested in the norms of behavior at work, in everyday life, in communication with other people. in relation to nature.
7. Socio-integrative function... This function consists in uniting people into social communities, social groups, strata, estates, castes, ethnic groups, etc.
8. Estimated (axiological) function... It is expressed in the fact that the people who represent it in theory and in practice seek to answer the question posed by Socrates: "What is good?" Throughout the history of mankind, its brightest minds sort of classify all objects and phenomena of the surrounding world in terms of their "usefulness" or "harmfulness" for the survival of future generations.
9. Function of differentiation and integration of human groups... In real life, ethnic groups, nations and countries are separated not so much by geography and political boundaries as by their cultural and psychological characteristics. Therefore, culture acts as a factor of differentiation between relatively small, and sometimes very significant human groups.
10. Communicative function... Thanks to culture, people enter into communication with each other, find common interests and mutual understanding.
11. Criterion function... It consists in comparing the development, the degree of perfection of social institutions, individual individuals and society as a whole.
12. Ethnic (ethno-integrating) function... If an ethnos is deprived of its internal cultural ties, it will inevitably collapse.

Thus, culture as a multifactorial, multifunctional social phenomenon acts as an indicator of a person's spirituality, his inner freedom, the independence of his views, assessments, judgments.

Based on the generalization of all knowledge gained in the course of work about culture, its structure and components, it is possible to determine its main social functions.

1. Adaptive culture function... Culture ensures human adaptation to the environment, natural and historical conditions of his habitation. The word adaptation (from Latin adaptayio) means adaptation, adaptation. Every kind of living creatures adapts to their environment. In plants and animals, this occurs in the process of biological evolution due to variability, heredity and natural selection, through which the features of body organs and mechanisms of behavior that ensure survival in given environmental conditions (its ecological niche function and are genetically transmitted from generation to generation) ). Human adaptation occurs in a different way. A person, due to the peculiarities of his biological evolution, does not have an ecological niche assigned to him. He lacks instincts, his biological organization is not adapted to any stable form of animal existence. Therefore, he is not able to lead, like other animals, a natural way of life and is forced, in order to survive, to create an artificial, cultural environment around him. Biological incompleteness, non-specialization, inability of the human race to a certain ecological niche turned into the ability to master any natural conditions by forming artificial conditions of its existence - culture. The development of culture gave people the protection that nature did not provide them: the opportunity to accumulate experience and translate it into the norms, rules and forms of direct life support (food, heat, housing), the collective security of the community (defense), the individual security of community members, their property and legitimate interests (law enforcement), etc. Ultimately, all man-made material culture, social organization, system of economic, political and social relations play an adaptive role.

2.With adaptive function is closely related integrative function culture that ensures the social integration of people. At the same time, we can talk about different levels of social integration. The most general level of social integration is the formation of foundations, their sustainable collective existence and activities to jointly meet interests and needs, stimulating an increase in the level of their group consolidation and the effectiveness of interaction, the accumulation of social experience in guaranteed social reproduction of their collectives as sustainable communities.

The second level of social integration should include the provision of culture of the main forms of integrated existence of communities of people. Culture unites peoples, social groups, states. Any social community in which its own culture develops is strengthened by this culture, because a single set of views, beliefs, values, ideals, patterns of behavior characteristic of a given culture is spreading among the members of society. On this basis, the consolidation and self-identification of people is carried out, a sense of belonging to a given social community is formed - the feeling of "we";

However, solidarity between “ours” can be accompanied by wariness and even hostility towards “strangers”. The formation of group solidarity presupposes the existence of representatives of the circles - "they". Therefore, the function of integration has as its reverse side the disintegration of people, which can lead to the most negative consequences. History shows that cultural differences between communities have often become the cause of confrontation and enmity.

3. The integration of people is carried out on the basis of communication. Therefore, it is important to highlight communicative function of culture... Culture forms the conditions and means of human communication. It is only thanks to the assimilation of culture that truly human forms of communication are established between people, since it is culture that provides the means of communication - sign systems, assessments. The development of forms and methods of communication is the most important aspect of the cultural history of mankind. At the earliest stages of anthropogenesis, our distant ancestors could come into contact with each other only through direct perception of gestures and sounds. Articulate speech was a fundamentally new means of communication. With its development, people also received unusually wide opportunities for transferring various information to each other. Later, written speech and many specialized languages, service and technical symbols are formed: mathematical, natural science, topographic, drawing, musical, computer, etc .; systems for fixing information in graphic, sound, specific and other technical form, its replication and broadcasting, as well as institutions engaged in the accumulation, preservation and dissemination of information are being formed.

4. Socialization function... Culture is the most important factor of socialization, which determines its content, means and methods. Socialization is understood as the inclusion of individuals in social life, their assimilation of social experience, knowledge, values, norms of behavior corresponding to a given society, social group. In the course of socialization, people master the programs stored in the culture and learn to live, think and act in accordance with them. The process of socialization allows an individual to become a full-fledged member of the community, to take a certain position in it and live as required by the customs and traditions of the community. At the same time, this process ensures the preservation of the community, its structure and the forms of life that have developed in it. In the historical process, the "personal composition" of society and social groups is constantly renewed, performers change, as people are born and die, but thanks to socialization, new members of society are attached to the accumulated social experience and continue to follow the patterns of behavior fixed in this experience. Of course, social life does not stand still; certain changes take place in it. But any innovations in social life, one way or another, are conditioned by the forms of life and ideals inherited from their ancestors and are also transmitted from generation to generation due to socialization.

According to G.V. Dracha, culture - as a multifunctional system, has another very important function - broadcast (transfer) of social experience... She is often called function of historical continuity... 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. Therefore, it is no coincidence that culture is considered the social memory of humanity. The rupture of cultural continuity dooms new generations to the loss of social memory (the phenomenon of mankurtism) with all the ensuing consequences.

According to other classifications, the functions of culture include:

1) Cognitive or epistemological.A culture that concentrates the best social experience of many generations of people inherently acquires the ability to accumulate the richest knowledge about the world and thereby create favorable opportunities for its cognition and development. 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 work 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.

2) Regulatory (normative) function culture is associated 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 people's behavior 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.

3) Semiotic, or iconic(from the Greek semeion-teaching about signs) function - occupies an important place in the cultural system. Being a certain sign system, culture presupposes knowledge and possession of it. It is impossible to master the achievements of culture without studying the corresponding sign systems. So, language (spoken or written) is a means of communication between people, literary language is the most important means of mastering national culture. Specific languages \u200b\u200bare needed to understand the special world of music, painting, theater. Natural sciences (physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology) also have their own sign systems.

4) Value, or axiological function reflects the most important qualitative state of culture. Culture as a system of values \u200b\u200bforms in a person quite definite value needs and orientations. By their level and quality, people most often judge the degree of culture of a particular person. Moral and intellectual content, as a rule, serves as a criterion for the appropriate assessment.

N.G. Bagdasaryan distinguishes the following among the functions of culture: transforming, protective, communicative, cognitive, informational, normative. Let's start characterizing them.

1) Transform functionculture. The assimilation and transformation of the surrounding reality is a fundamental human need, since “the essence of man is not exhausted by the inclination to self-preservation and, accordingly, the inclination to create conveniences; only the necessary base ”.

If we consider a person only as a creature striving for maximum comfort 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 given given in transformation and creativity.

2) Protective function of cultureis 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 culture to create adequate defense mechanisms (medicine, public order bodies, 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 requires, in turn, means of environmental protection. The threat of an ecological catastrophe currently makes the protective function of culture a priority. Among the means of cultural protection - not only the improvement of safety technology - cleaning production waste, synthesizing new drugs, etc., but also the creation of legal norms for environmental protection.

3) The communicative function of culture... Communication is the process of exchanging information between people using signs and sign systems. A person as a social being needs to communicate with other people to achieve various goals. It is with the help of communication that complex actions are coordinated. The main channels of communication are visual, speech, tactile. Culture produces specific rules and methods of communication that are adequate to the conditions of human life.

4) Information functionculture provides a process of cultural continuity and various forms of historical progress. It manifests itself in the consolidation of the results of socio-cultural 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 volume of accumulated knowledge. The situation of "information explosion" required the creation of qualitatively new methods of processing, storing and transferring information, more advanced information technologies.

5) Normative function 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, comprehensibility, and predictability of behavior. You can name the legal norms governing the relationship between people, social institutions, individuals and social institutions; technical standards caused by industrial practice; ethical norms of regulation of everyday life; ecological norms, etc. Many norms are closely related to the cultural tradition and way of life of the people.

Thus, whatever is the basis of the functional analysis of the phenomenon of culture, the main thing here is that all the wealth and integrity of each culture forms a certain way of understanding both the world and being in it. The result of this specific vision of the world in which a person lives is called a cultural picture of the world - a system of images, ideas, knowledge about the structure of the world and a person's place in this world. So, ultimately, the semantic connections formed thanks to culture form those fundamental rhythms, images and meanings of human life, those spatial and temporal dependencies that constitute the prerequisite for the cultural process.

A very short paragraph. I will not even break it down into separate posts. So:

Functions of culture:
1. Human-creative (humanistic)
2. Translational (function of transferring social experience)
3. Cognitive (epistemological)
4. Regulatory (normative)
5. Semiotic (sign)
6. Value (axiological)

1. Human-creative (humanistic) function of culture - the main function. All others are somehow connected with it and even follow from it.
- Why didn't they write it like this: "The main function of culture is human-making. It will be subdivided into ..."
- We don't know. But it turns out, in other words, we can say: "The main function of culture is to make a man out of a monkey"))
- But no, you can't make a man out of a monkey, no culture will help!
- ... But if a newborn man is slipped to monkeys, then he will be a monkey. And in order for him to become a person, people must educate him.
- It turns out that the main function of culture is educational? O_o Why not say so right away?
- ... Educational - somehow too narrow. Educational and educational ... and that "will not be enough." That is why they said "human-creative"))) True, this is some kind of monster word. But everything fit.

2. Function of broadcasting (transfer) of social experience (function of historical continuity, information function) - "social memory of mankind", which is objectified in sign systems:
- oral legends,
- monuments of literature and art,
- "languages" of science, philosophy, religion, etc.
It is not just a storehouse of stocks of social experience, but a means of strict selection and active transmission of its best examples.
Therefore, any violation of this function is fraught with serious, sometimes disastrous consequences for society.
Disruption of cultural continuity leads to anomie (-???) , dooms the new generation to the loss of social memory (the phenomenon of mankurtism).
- Stop, anomie - what's this? O_o
- Some kind of "namelessness")) Let's google it! ... We are wrong: "nomos" is not a "name", but a "law" :) So this "negation of the law" turns out, but in general, see the comments, I will write there.

3. Cognitive (epistemological) function of culture - the ability of culture to accumulate the richest knowledge about the world, creating opportunities for its knowledge and development. This is due to the ability of culture to concentrate the social experience of many generations of people:

"She (culture) realizes only truth in knowledge, in philosophical and scientific books; good - in morals, life and social institutions; beauty - in books, poems and paintings, in statues and architectural monuments, in concerts and theatrical performances ... "(Berdyaev N.A. The meaning of history. - M, 1990, - S. 164)

It can be argued that society is intellectual to the extent that it uses the richest knowledge contained in the cultural gene pool of mankind. All types of society differ significantly, primarily on this basis.

- What is this heresy: "cultural gene pool"?
- In biological genes, the program for the development of the organism is recorded, in the "cultural gene pool" - the program (potential) for the development of human society, as I understood it. They are so figuratively expressed.

4. The regulatory (normative) function of cultureassociated with the definition (regulation) of various aspects, types of social and personal activities of people. It relies on regulatory systems such as moralityand right.
- And what is the Jewish Talmud based on - morality or law?
- He relies on his religion ... Like the Koran and the Bible ...
- And why then religion was not included in the list of systems on which the regulatory function of culture is based?
- In the USA and in Russia, the church is separated from the state ..
- So what? Church statutes do not apply to culture?
- Well, kagbe are, but they shouldn't)))
- ... She herself realized that she said nonsense)))
- Or maybe religious prescriptions themselves are based on "morality" and "law."
- Well, "religious morality" - I can quite imagine that, but "religious law" ... Law is something of a state))
- Yes? But as agacan wrote about the trial in Iran over Muslim women who decided to change their religion to Christian? This means that the law is RELIGIOUS there.
- Well, then Iran ... I don't understand what to discuss here. Religion is a part of culture, it also has a regulatory function, and what a bigger one than others ... But the normative function of religion is also based on "morality" and "law." Something like this.
- ... Thank you, God, for the enlightenment in the brain))) Let's continue:

In the sphere of work, everyday life, interpersonal relations, culture in one way or another affects the behavior of people and regulates their actions, actions, and even the choice of certain material and spiritual values.
- Is advertising a part of culture?
- This is part of "mass culture", we went through this last time))
- And when there were no advertisements, what regulated the choice of material and spiritual values?
- ...Traditions. Oral legends)) Royal decrees (for example, commoners were forbidden to wear clothes made of materials used for clothes of rich Buratins, I still remember this from school)) .. That is, everything is the same - "morality and law."
- Is ethics moral?
- ... Wikipedia said that ethics is "a philosophical study of the essence, goals and causes of morality and ethics."
- And etiquette? This is not morality and not a right, but it regulates behavior ...
- Etiquette is a "set of rules of conduct", but not "law", of course. And each culture / subculture has its own. But for some reason they don't remember him in this section. I do not know why. Maybe they considered it insignificant ...

5. Semiotic (sign) function of culture- a symbolic system of culture, which must be mastered. It is impossible to master the achievements of culture without studying the corresponding sign systems.
Language (spoken or written) is a means of communication between people.
The literary language is the most important means of mastering the national culture.
Specific languages \u200b\u200bare needed for understanding the world of music, painting, theater.
Natural sciences (physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology) also have their own sign systems.
- Just a set of common phrases of some kind. .. Sign language, by the way, forgot to mention)) ... Something in this piece I do not like, and what - I can not understand. The picture does not add up ...
- What they called the "language of science" - just a list of terms that each science has its own?
- Both terms and symbols ... Don't bother me. I can't figure out what I don't like here!
- I do not like that there is no normal definition: "a semiotic function is ..." .. I do not like that their "definition" includes an action that someone must perform: "a sign system that must be mastered." A function cannot be a "sign system". The function DOES something itself, otherwise it is not a function.
.. No, it doesn't. I will think about this later))
- You're lying, you'll forget! .. :))

6. The value (axiological) function of culture - a function that reflects the most important qualitative state of culture.
Culture as a system of values \u200b\u200bforms a person's quite definite value orientations. By their level and quality, people most often judge the degree of culture of a particular person.
Moral and intellectual content, as a rule, serves as a criterion for the appropriate assessment.
- God, what the fuck.
- Oh, we have demonstrated our level of culture)))
- Yes, we demonstrated it here a long time ago, why be ashamed now ... I do not want to say about this. The function is not formulated. Some incomprehensible nonsense is written.
- As recently as last week we ourselvestold one girl that if something is not clear to her, it does not mean that nonsense is written)))
- ... No, in principle everything is clear here, only vaguely formulated. I would say this: the value function of culture is its ability to form a person's certain value preferences (or orientations).
And "which reflects" could be said later. In general, the matter is complicated with definitions, here we lack knowledge of logic.
... And then, I would not say: "they judge the degree of culture" ... They judge about belonging to a certain culture / subculture, and not about the "degree of culture". This is some kind of philistine and snobbish opposition - "cultural / uncultured". It is not appropriate for a cultural scientist to express himself like that))
- So he said: PEOPLE judge. That is, not culturologists, but the most ordinary people.
- Well then, I don't understand at all: the townsfolk have something to do with it ...

And by the way: she herself said that "function" answers the question "what does it do", that is, its definition should be expressed by a verbal noun. "Ability" is a quality, not a function! It should be formulated as follows:
The value function of culture is the formation of certain value preferences (orientations) in a person.

- Since we have given birth to such a valuable thought, maybe we will return to the previous function? What does the "sign function of culture" do?
- It expresses culture in signs :)) ... which must be mastered. It "encodes" culture, preserving it for transmission from generation to generation. ... No, my brains no longer work today, I'm sorry)) I said - I'll think about it tomorrow ... And for today - that's it.