definition
Broad sense: the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth created by human beings in the process of social and historical development. Especially social ideology. In class society, culture is the weapon of class struggle. A certain culture (as ideological culture) is a reflection of the politics and economy of a certain society, and it also has a great influence and function on the politics and economy of a certain society.
Narrow sense: refers to the spiritual wealth created by ideology, including religion, beliefs, customs, moral sentiments, academic thoughts, literature and art, science and technology, and various systems.
Culture is the reflection of human life, the record of activities, the accumulation of history, people's needs and demands for life, ideals and aspirations, and people's advanced spiritual life. It is a framework for people to know nature and think about themselves. She contains certain thoughts and theories, is people's recognition and observance of ethics and order, and is the way, method and criterion of people's life and survival. Thought and theory are the core and soul of culture, without which there is no culture. Any culture contains a kind of thought and theory, as well as the way and method of existence. Demand is reality, ideal is yearning, desire is longing, and requirements must be met.
Broad sense culture and narrow sense culture
1, the structural anatomy of culture, there are two points, namely material culture and spiritual culture; There are three levels, namely, material, system and spirit; There are four levels of theory, namely, material, system, custom, thought and values. There are six subsystems, namely, material, social relations, spirit, art, language symbols and customs.
2. Culture in a broad sense focuses on the essential differences between human beings and general animals and human social and natural, and focuses on the unique lifestyle of human Li Zhuo in nature, which covers a wide range, so it is also called grand culture.
3. Culture in a broad sense includes four levels: first, the material state culture layer, which is composed of materialized knowledge power, is the sum of people's material production activities and their products, and is a cultural thing that can be perceived and has material entities. The second is the institutional culture layer, which consists of various social norms established by human beings in social practice. Including social and economic system, marriage system, family system, political and legal system, family, nation, country, economy, politics, religious organizations, education, science and technology, art organizations and so on. The third is the behavioral culture layer, which appears in the form of folk customs and is found in daily life actions, with distinctive national and regional characteristics. Fourth, the cultural layer of mentality is the core part of culture, which is composed of values, aesthetic tastes and ways of thinking cultivated in human social practice and consciousness activities for a long time.
4. The cultural level of mentality can be subdivided into two levels: social psychology and social ideology.
5. Social psychology is people's daily mental state and ideological outlook, and it is a popular mentality without theoretical processing and artistic sublimation, such as people's demands, wishes and emotions.
6. Social ideology refers to the systematically processed social consciousness. It is often summed up by the theory of cultural experts, logically combed, and artistically perfected, fixed in materialized forms such as works and artworks and spread across time and space.
7. According to the density of social relations, social ideology can be divided into grass-roots ideology and high-level ideology. The former includes the concepts of political theory and legal rights, while the latter includes philosophy, literature, art and religion.
8. Grass-roots ideology is closely related to social existence and is the concentrated expression of economic foundation, but its emergence and development still have to play a role through the intermediate link of social psychology; High-level ideology is higher, farther away from the material and economic foundation, and has strong independence, but its intermediary with social existence is social psychology and grass-roots ideology.
9. Culture in a narrow sense excludes the part about material creation activities and their results in the historical life of human society, and focuses on spiritual creation activities and their results, mainly mentality culture, also known as "small culture".
10 and 187 1 British culturist Taylor put forward the early classical definition of culture in a narrow sense in his book Primitive Culture, that is, culture is a complex whole including knowledge, belief, art, morality, laws, customs and the abilities and habits acquired by anyone as a member of society.
There are two kinds of culture, one is production culture and the other is spiritual culture. Science and technology culture is production culture, and life ideology culture is spiritual culture. Any culture is used for life, and there is no culture that is not used for life. Any culture contains a theory, way, idea and understanding of life and existence.
In social life, people have formed the same understanding, ideas and thoughts, and followed certain rules, norms and order, which is culture. From the introduction of the outline of "Introduction to China Culture".
Culture is the phenomenon and atmosphere in which people pay attention to and discuss things of interest.
According to the number of people discussing something, culture can be divided into big culture and small culture. That is, compared with other cultures, the phenomenon and atmosphere in which people pay attention to and discuss things of interest is a big culture; However, the phenomenon and atmosphere in which people pay attention to and discuss things of interest is a small culture. -Excerpted from China's Happiness Research.
Culture is the material entity, value concept, meaning system and behavior mode created and shared by human groups, and it is the whole life state of human groups. Politicization (that is, the culture advocated by rulers in different periods) is a culture and a forerunner. What kind of politicization, there will be what kind of culture.
This definition reveals several aspects:
(1) Culture is the whole lifestyle and life process of human groups. The main components are symbols, values and meanings, and social norms. Symbol refers to the symbol that can convey the information of things, and it represents some information or meaning in life. The existence of culture depends on the ability of human beings to create and use symbols. Values are the criteria for people to judge things and behaviors in their daily lives, and determine people's judgment of distinguishing right from wrong in society. Social norms are a guide to action in a specific environment, which affects people's psychology, way of thinking, value orientation and actions.
(2) The recessive part of culture is a system of values and meanings, and the dominant form is various symbols, which are mainly reflected in material entities and behavior patterns.
3) For the whole human being, culture is the creation of human beings, while for people in a specific time and space, culture is mainly reflected in the existing framework of survival and development.
(4) Culture changes with the range of human groups. -from the sociology course "bit by bit"
Interpretation of Modern Chinese Dictionary
1. The sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth created by human beings in the process of social and historical development, especially spiritual wealth, such as literature, art, education, science, etc.
2. Archaeological terminology refers to the complex of transferred cultural relics and relics that are not easily distributed in the same historical period. The same tools, utensils and manufacturing techniques are the characteristics of the same culture, such as Yangshao culture and Longshan culture.
3. Ability to use words and general knowledge: learning culture and cultural level.
concept
Definition: Culture is the reflection of human personality and its ecological condition.
Culture in a broad sense is the sum of all material wealth and spiritual wealth created by human beings. Including world outlook, outlook on life, values and other ideological parts, natural science and technology, language and writing and other non-ideological parts. Culture is a unique phenomenon in human society. Culture is created by people and unique to people. Only human society can have culture, and culture is the product of people's social practice.
Zhang Ronghuan, a contemporary anthropologist and cultural scholar, redefined culture in March 2008, pointing out that culture is a reflection of human personality and its ecological situation, which provides a complete and appropriate theoretical support for studying the ideology, spiritual products and lifestyle of human society. In a comprehensive study of scientific anthropology, philosophical anthropology and theological anthropology, culture shows the relationship between "personality and * * *" and reality at a certain level of human existence, that is, the connection and performance of people with high quality personality at the biological, historical, social and self levels, which is culture. Culture contains the highest meaning that people believe in truth; Knowledge and good deeds; Goodness and beauty are the highest meaning of human beings and the highest expression of culture. Culture is also the social presentation of human studies. The truth of human beings can only come from human beings themselves, and all substances other than human beings are embodied in human life, because the secret of nature exists in human culture, while the secret of human culture exists in nature. Only by improving the understanding of the relationship between human beings and the environment by scientific craftsmen and wise men can human beings transcend the narrow and closed understanding of science. Beyond the concept of ignoring personal life for philosophy; Beyond theological soul and supernatural understanding! Culture is a tool for people's happiness. Through cultural exchange and absorption, people can feel and understand the realization of individual, collective and even human goals and ideals, justice and public welfare in the social practice of creating living conditions, and obtain personality satisfaction. Happiness is the warmth of passion between people from the river of heart to the deep sea of love; Is the simplicity of good people. When people pay the sweat of responsibility, their foreheads will inevitably radiate happiness. It laid a theoretical foundation for the emergence of happiness science; Culture is the cutting body of civilization. Civilization is the rise of human personality and its ecology, which directly leads to the emergence of civilization. Civilization is the development result of consanguinity, racial integration and belief exploration. The higher level of human civilization should be in the practical project of building "personality and its ecological cultivation" for all mankind: using a kind of scientific anthropology, a kind of philosophical anthropology and a kind of theological anthropology to find out the result of the relationship between personality and sex at a certain level of human existence. That is to say, people with high quality personality will have the result of human * * * isomorphic culture after being connected at the biological level, historical level, social level and self-nature level. The existence of civilized society and civilization is cyclic, and it is the existence of cyclic life groups, and it reaches its peak on the basis of human * * * same body culture. Civilized society has been developing towards the advanced trend of human society, which is the development of nature and human beings, physical property and humanity, * * * communication between God and human beings, * * * unity, * * * glory and * * * life; But human happiness (advanced civilization) can only be the product of personality society; This is the result of a new personality and a new ecological harmony. The study and application of civilization should be used to solve all misfortunes among countries, nationalities, beliefs, human beings and their environment. Therefore, we must start with the rise and harmony of human beings and their ecology, and realizing the revival and unity of human beings is the only way to a higher civilization of human beings.
In fact, there are many definitions of culture, and many sociologists and anthropologists have made definitions and statistics: during the 80 years of1871-1951,there were as many as 164 definitions of culture, and Taylor, the originator of anthropology, was the first scholar to define culture in modern times. He believes that customs and any other talents and habits acquired as members of society are the total results of human efforts to adapt themselves to the environment and improve their lifestyles. Is this meaning reasonable? W. H. Kelly made the following criticism:
There is something wrong with the definition of (1), and you can never list all the contents contained in the concept. Although "others" can summarize things that are not listed, if they are not listed, they will be easily overlooked. For example, "language" is not listed in the definition, and language is an important part of culture.
(2) The word whole is not appropriate, and there are contradictions between cultural elements. Emphasis on the whole only highlights harmony.
(3) The culture created by human beings is not necessarily aimed at improving life, but also has destructive aspects, such as nuclear weapons. Is this criticism appropriate (1)? If language is included, this definition has listed the important components of culture.
(2) The word whole does not exclude contradictions, and everything is the totality of contradictions.
(3) The culture created by human beings is destructive, but it is not the original intention, but the deviation between will and reality. Culture was originally produced to adapt to and improve life, but the result is the opposite. Therefore, Mr. Zhang believes that this concept can be added with language.
David popenoe, an American sociologist, defined culture as follows from the perspective of abstract definition: First, a group or society has the same system of values and meanings, including the materialization of these values and meanings. People learn the culture of their society by observing and accepting the education of other members. The first two sentences of this definition sum up Taylor's first sentence. Culture is a guide to human behavior, just as instinct is to animals.
Robin Fox further pointed out that culture and instinct have the same nature:
(1) are owned by members of a certain race.
(2) Most cultural behaviors, like instinct, are subconscious and can be learned without thinking. Stimulating them will cause a specific reaction.
Because: in the process of growing up, individuals often unconsciously store the existing lifestyles and habits of society into their brains and form cultural codes. Because of the action of these ions, people can get all kinds of movements without going through the brain, which is the same as that animals are dominated by physical fitness. (3) They learned it the day after tomorrow.
nature
In a broad sense, it refers to the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth created by human beings in social and historical practice. In a narrow sense, it refers to social ideology and corresponding institutions and organizations. As an ideology, culture is a reflection of the politics and economy of a certain society, and it also acts on the politics and economy of a certain society. With the emergence and development of the nation, culture is national. Every social form has its own culture, and every culture develops with the development of social material production. The continuity of the development of social material production determines that the development of culture also has continuity and historical inheritance.
Generally refers to writing ability and general knowledge: learning culture | cultural level.
When talking about the concept of "culture", Mr. Ai Jun, a sociologist and deputy editor-in-chief of Trade Union Expo, pointed out that its connotation and extension are very different, so culture is divided into broad sense and narrow sense. Some scholars understand culture as three natures, namely, historicity, collectivity and influence. Therefore, there is a broad saying that "culture refers to the sum of material wealth and spiritual wealth created by human beings in social and historical practice". In his view, the concept of culture is difficult to define, sometimes large, sometimes small. The broad sense of "culture" covers a wide range. Narrow sense culture. Generally speaking, all cultural phenomena involved in the field of spiritual creation belong to the narrow sense of culture. In fact, the emergence of any theoretical concept has problems that are difficult to define in detail. However, Ai Jun believes that the understanding of culture should be subjective factors such as values, aesthetic taste and way of thinking, which is equivalent to the concepts of spirit, social consciousness and moral system that people often say. In his view, it takes two forms: tangible and intangible. For example, ideological fields such as thought, morality, values and religion belong to intangible culture; And "a painting, a temple, a Beijing opera, a book, an activity" and so on are all tangible. He pointed out that in today's society, "culture" is embodied in four aspects: spiritual food, values, religious beliefs and moral norms. For example, if we classify the history of a certain stage into the category of "culture", we can only say that this history has inspired our thinking, or that this history has been written into a work and published, or that this history has brought us a shock in value. For another example, some people have objections to Quanjude's application for intangible cultural protection of commercial enterprises, and think that Quanjude should not belong to the category of intangible culture. In fact, what needs to be protected is not the commercial store Quanjude, but the ups and downs that Quanjude has gone through, its business philosophy, moral code of conduct, the enlightenment of its business history, and the value brand it has formed, all of which belong to the category of intangible culture and need to be protected. Therefore, in the understanding of "culture", Ai Jun believes that our understanding of the concept of culture should not be static; It is dynamic and will change with people's spirit, value orientation, moral concept and social consciousness. The simplest example, in the early days of reform and opening up, we only understood "culture" as "spirit", so we had the statements of "material civilization" and "spiritual civilization"; Later, with the renewal of our concept and the development of society, we thought that "spirit" could not fully contain some social and cultural connotations, so we adopted the concept of "advanced culture" in some important documents later. In fact, the category of spirit has been included in the concept of grand culture, and "advanced culture" is actually a category of grand culture that is conducive to social development and represents the trend of social development.
What is "Wen"? The intricate trace is a kind of boundary. "
"Change" means change. Generally speaking, a phenomenon that all kinds of things get together in an orderly way is "Wen". Applying this concept of "beauty and harmony" to everything is "culture-oriented" and the requirement of "culture". Beauty and harmony are the highest requirements of culture. The core of culture is man, and culture is man's ideal and effort to transcend natural attributes.