Civilization and Culture: the "Centralization" of Values

Popov Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Doctor of Philosophy Professor of the Department of Sociology and Conflictology of Altai State University 656038, Russia, Barnaul, 66 Dimitrova str., room 513А popov.eug@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction. The question of the relationship between civilization and culture is posed both at the level of cultural and philosophical reception, and in an interdisciplinary perspective. As you know, the key approaches are traditionally two research areas: the civilizational and socio-cultural ones. In line with the first, the possibilities of identifying the meanings of civilizational development are revealed and the main vector of revealing the conjugacy of culture and civilization is indicated (N.Y. Danilevsky, A. Toynbee, A. Ferguson, N. Ferguson, O. Spengler and others), in the framework of the second, the value-semantic characteristic of cultural and civilizational interaction is determined (P.S. Gurevich, M.S. Kagan, N.I. Lapin, V.M. Mezhuyev, L.N. Stolovich and others). In this article, I do not aim at a detailed consideration of the essence of these scientific directions, it seems that they, as methodological grounds, allow us to obtain heuristically significant results and have long established themselves as valuable research trends. At the same time, the problem of the relationship between culture and civilization continues to be one of the key issues in modern philosophical and cultural studies - the search for points of conjugacy continues with greater or lesser efficiency. Thus, I aim to find a relevant methodology for the study of cultural and civilizational development. At the same time, only those perspectives are taken into account that allow us to identify the conjugacy of culture and civilization through the identification of objective criteria, or at least "procedural" ones that allow us to correlate the interaction of culture and civilization at the level of the course of certain specific processes and the formation of certain systemic changes in the development of both culture and civilization at the same time.

The starting point of the study will be an assessment of the potential of the developments of modern authors on the differentiation of the concepts of culture and civilization – it should be noted that a whole layer of scientific research is traditionally devoted to this particular angle. I believe, meanwhile, that it is necessary to move along the path of identifying mechanisms that not only affect the differentiation of meanings and processes occurring in the space of culture and civilization, but indicate the inextricable connection of these phenomena; in other words, it seems that understanding the state and development of modern culture is impossible without addressing the civilizational factor of human existence, equally like any characteristics of civilization, it is necessary to project on the state of culture as a whole or its fundamental elements.

From a cultural and philosophical perspective , discussions about the differences between culture and civilization mostly fit into two strategies: 1) assessment of the influence of civilization (civilization factor) on the crisis of culture – for example, Ryan Wei believes that the crisis of culture should always be viewed in the plane of the development of civilization: "it always undermined the culture condition, kept her fundamental values, contributed to the intensification of the crisis" ^{[26, p. 10]} (the statement is consistent with the idea of "centration" values, which will be discussed later); V. S. Stepin notes that "civilization is perceived as a social organism, which is characterized by the specificity of its interaction with nature, features of social relations and cultural traditions", but this interaction in a situation of "breaks" tradition and social reality leads to a growing crisis of culture ^{[19, p. 80]}; in addition, as suggested by the researchers, "the cultural matrix of industrial civilization transformerait traditional culture, transforming their life installation, replacing them with new ideological dominant" ^{[17, p. 185]}; and so on; 2) identification of culture as a value-semantic system, which is dominated by self-expression values and human development, and civilization as a way of survival of individuals in natural social and economic reality; in this regard, we take as a basis for interpretation of civilization, proposed N. And. By lapidim: "Civilization – historically as the way of life of the community of people and/or their complexes with certain geographical space, which provides a relatively stable existence of homo sapiens..." ^{[13, p. 6]}; this fact, underlying the differentiation of culture and civilization, recognized by some researchers propose in this regard, specifying the results of this ratio ^{[1; 4; 7-9; 11; 15; 24; etc.]}. As you can see, a key watershed in the differentiation of the phenomena under consideration become values – in fact, it values allow to give a correct assessment of the processes that affect the conjugation of culture and civilization. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that research on values is conducted both at the level of theorizing and conceptualizing various approaches to their reception, and in the system of empirical knowledge. Of particular interest in this regard are the results of two large-scale studies of values within the framework of seven rounds (1981-2020) of the World Values Survey^[1], as well as the European Social Survey^[2], aimed at a long-term (2001-2021) comparison of values, attitudes, attitudes and behavior of the population of European countries, including Russia. This article does not aim to analyze the empirical results obtained in the course of these studies, but some generalizations will be given to illustrate the approach called "centralization" of values.

The value system of culture and civilization. When identifying the relationship between culture and civilization, the key concept remains value. For example, within the framework of the activity approach, V.S. Stepin suggests paying attention to the fact that "in search of a system of values (my italics – E.P.), we will have to critically analyze the entire European cultural tradition. The fundamental ideological guidelines of the technogenic civilization – the understanding of man, his activities, his attitude to nature, the understanding of reason and scientific rationality, and the like – all these vital meanings and values form the categorical structure of human consciousness and manifest themselves in the most unexpected aspects of human life" ^{[17, p. 196]}. The search for a system of values is the general goal of both culture and civilization. Both phenomena are able to attribute certain meanings to them, to determine their role in the individual and collective existence of a person. Various ways of identifying changes occurring in the value system of culture and civilization are proposed. At the level of theorizing, at least three main research directions can be identified that give an idea of the search for an adequate methodology that allows identifying value changes taking place in the world.

Firstly, we are talking about the acquisition of its stability by the value system due to the fact that both culture and civilization acquire their integrity and the systemic ordering of the various elements that make up it; this side of the problem, for example, draws attention to A.N. Danilov, who believes that "historically, civilizational integrity is an instant in the epistemic the chain, and the question of its stability is a temporary matter. In the conditions of global instability, connections and interactions arise that fix a new civilizational integrity that combines the advantages of previous systems and minimizes their disadvantages" ^{[3, p. 55]}, and J. Story, who expressed the idea that the most heuristically significant methodological perspective in this case would be the "ontologization" of culture and civilization: we can talk about orderliness only when "we understand the nature of the influence of existential processes on both phenomena under consideration – it is the perspective of their ontologization that allows us to build a new coordinate system for assessing the conjugacy of culture and civilization" ^{[25, p. 20]}. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a high level of reception of cultural and civilizational development outside the paradigm of "ontologization" of culture and civilization, finding the key value-semantic foundations of the existence of individuals and societies today. A number of modern authors – V.V. Gruzdeva and G.V. Gruzdev ^[2], V.M. Rozin ^[16], V.S. Stepin - argue about the need to take into account the integrity of culture in the analysis of socio-cultural dynamics, manifested not only in the preservation of its identity and traditional values, but also in correlation with the fundamental principles of human individual and collective existence.18], N.I. Lapin ^[12], V.V. Kortunov ^[10] and others.

Secondly, the methodology of research on the conjugacy of culture and civilization develops around the assessment of the role of certain forms of social consciousness in the identification of these phenomena; in this perspective, the search is conducted for various manifestations of the influence of civilization on science, philosophy, law, art, etc. In fact, it seems that such a line of research complements the perspective of the "ontologization" of culture and at the same time brings us closer to understanding the fact that culture influences the forms of social consciousness directly, forming certain value attitudes, and civilization, in turn, has an indirect impact – through politicization, technization, sociologization, and the legitimization of meanings. genesis. Thus, H. Dobull and co-authors, considering the changes in human values during his life, tend to believe that "at the turn of the interaction of culture and civilization" the "struggle for values" is escalating, and not least it is determined by philosophy, law, politics, science ^{[21, p. 270-271]}. Another well-known author, researcher of values Shalom Schwartz expresses a fair idea about the need to receive the influence of civilization on the forms of social consciousness (on their changes) from the perspective of anthroposocietal methodology, bearing in mind that the value choice of an individual and society is formed under the influence of civilization, but this influence is indirect and "palpable" mainly at the level of public consciousness ^{[23, p. 181-183]}. N.I. Lapin ^[12], V.N. Leksin ^[14], E.A. Tyugashev ^[20] and others express their ideas in approximately the same direction. The proposed research perspective predictably affects the value aspect one way or another, which becomes the most heuristically significant for establishing the points of conjugacy of culture and civilization. Therefore, the third key direction of the study of the designated problem should be called the value-internalization approach, complementing the well-known anthroposocietal perspective in terms of determining the role of social experience in identifying the fundamental values of human development.

Within the framework of this approach, researchers often turn to the characteristics of the civilizational foundations of the global crisis and generally consider the conjugacy of culture and civilization in the aspect of crisis and manifestations of socio-political and socio-economic crisis. For example, a number of researchers note that, "given the changed historical context, it would be more accurate to call the crisis type of general civilizational existence technogenic-consumer – it is based on the cult of self-valuable technological progress and unrestrained material consumption" ^{[6, p. 406]}. At the same time, the authors interpret civilization as "historically changing types of the global world order and lifestyles. Perhaps the most common is the ternary periodization of such types: traditional (pre–industrial) – industrial (technogenic) - post-industrial (informational) civilizations" ^{[6, p. 407]}. As we can see, researchers consider the values of consumption correlated with the values of world order economism as the basis for understanding modern civilization. However, at the same time, at the peak of these interpretations, ideas are increasingly being heard that culture has the necessary compensatory mechanism that determines the alignment of values at the level of the spiritual life of a person and society – in this case, the social experience accumulated over centuries and even millennia not only gives an incentive for the development of civilization, but also ensures the spiritual security of a person and society, creates a kind of "safety cushion" for culture. From this point of view, the approach according to which, in the case of identification of cultural and civilizational development, it is possible to use the concept of building a spiritual and ecological civilization looks quite reasonable ^{[5; 6, p. 409]}. On the other hand, it is necessary to take into account the mechanism of "centralization" of values.

"Centralization" of values. The methodology of "centralization" of values was proposed by the Dutch scientist Annamaria Hagen in her work on the critique of social experience and cultural universals. Her research was based on some results of the World Values Survey (hereinafter WVS) – as you know, the ranking of values is conducted in the review on at least 15 grounds, but for Hagen, two key ones were important – socio-cultural and civilizational, moreover, it was on these two grounds that the long-term monitoring of the transformation of values was conducted: in The emphasis was placed on the cluster of values of self-expression and individualization (personalization), within the framework of the preposition of civilizational development, the specifics of the polarization of values on the grounds of their politicization, legitimization, economism, etc. were established. In the WVS itself, the concept of "centralization" of values does not appear, meanwhile A. Hagen notes that this process (or mechanism) it is precisely to the greatest extent that it corresponds to such a state of influence of civilization on culture, which inevitably leads to the transformation of values and to a change of direction in the reception of the meanings of human existence corresponding to these value structures ^{[22, p. 10-11]}. By the way, in the works of R. Inglehart ^[7] (including co-authorship with K. Welzel ^[8]) a generalization of the important results of the WVS is also presented, and their comments are quite consistent with the characteristic of the changes taking place in the value system proposed by A. Hagen: "... we are investigating changes in this area (in the field of value orientations of individuals. – E.P.) during the period of the first four "waves" of the Values Survey. It turns out that there are significant intergenerational differences in rich post-industrial societies: young people generally place much more emphasis on secular-rational values and values of self-expression than representatives of older age groups. On the contrary, in low-income countries that have not had significant economic growth in the last 50 years, there are no intergenerational differences: representatives of younger and older age groups show approximately the same indicators on the scale of traditional/modern values" ^{[8, p. 19]}. What is the "centralization" of values and what is the heuristic potential of using this perspective of modern philosophical and cultural studies?

According to A. Hagen ^{[22, p. 7-9]}, all values are by definition universal from the point of view of the fact that they are formed and developed in the space of culture, some of them – absolute – in the core of culture and therefore remain practically unchanged for many, many centuries, in general, since identification of the phenomenon of humanity and the culture belonging to it. But with the rapid development of civilization, values are being "pulled" from the space of culture into the space of civilization – basically this happens "under the weight" of active socio-political and socio-economic determinants: values begin to be included in the process of "centralization", i.e., their attraction into the system of civilizational development to ensure technogenic, legal and other priorities civilizations. Metaphorically, this process can be represented as a tug–of-war - forces periodically change, as do the meanings of being, culture gets the opportunity to free itself from "compromised values" ^{[22, p. 14]}, and civilization uses them to strengthen the positions of politicization, legitimization, technocratization of the meanings of being, etc.

The results of the European Social Survey confirm the perspective of the study proposed by A. Hagen – recently, some key values in the context of European countries, as well as Russia, have noticeably lost in the hierarchy and have been displaced by economic profile values, which in itself, according to R. Inglehart and K. Welzel, is an example of the influence of the civilizational factor on culture to such an extent that it loses its fundamental intergenerational ties, as well as the most significant channels of transmission of socio-cultural experience ^{[8, p. 19-20]}. For example, according to the European Social Survey, the traditional value of the family for all European cultures has dropped over the past five years (2016-2021) in the hierarchy of values from 3rd to 6th^[3]; according to A. Hagen, if key values lose their place in the hierarchy of cultural universals and "fall out" of the first three or five positions, then in this case we can talk about the powerful impact of the civilizational factor, which led to the "centralization" of values – key values undergo transformation or receive new semantic connotations ^{[22, p. 13]}.

From the standpoint of the methodology of modern study of culture and civilization, the "centralization" of values has the potential to identify the value crisis of culture. In my opinion, a value crisis is not just a certain state of values and related cultural norms (most often researchers state exactly this state of affairs when talking about a crisis of culture as a whole or a value crisis as such), but most likely an "aggravation" of the civilizational factor and the result of redistribution ("centralization") values from the space of culture to the space of civilization. I believe, therefore, that the characteristic of the "centralization" of values best meets the objectives of philosophical and cultural studies, especially those that aim to objectify the value crisis.

Conclusion. Objectification of the relationship between culture and civilization is a necessary condition for rethinking many of the consequences of such conjugacy, in particular, understanding the value crisis, which often falls into the attention of researchers in various scientific fields. The attempt to define the boundaries of the relationship between culture and civilization by identifying the "centralization" of values in line with the appropriate methodology allows, in my opinion, to approach a more specific (relevant) criterion analysis of the problems of cultural and civilizational development. In fact, the appeal to the specifics of the "centralization" of values allows us to solve the following key research tasks: firstly, to determine the boundaries of the conjugacy of culture and civilization at the level of value-semantic transformations, secondly, to identify criteria and signs of the unfolding value crisis or crisis of culture as a whole, and finally, thirdly, to come closer to understanding mechanisms of "ontologization" of culture, ensuring the spiritual security of man and society.                                        

^[1] See: World Values Survey. URL:https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp (accessed 12.10.2022)

^[2] See: European Social Survey. URL:https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org (accessed 13.10. 2022)