Culture in the Context of Social Crisis

CIAO DATE: 4/01

Social Sciences

Vol. 31, No. 4/2000

Culture in the Context of Social Crisis
By Kirill Ragzlogov _*
Translated by Sergey Kamensky

The period under review in this article – from 1996 to 1999, – though being short in the context of history, can be deemed as a turning point in the development of both world and national culture.

On a world scale it is distinguished by the processes of convergence of the various forms of recording and transfer of experience and information (including in artistic forms) on the basis of the newest digital technologies which made it essentially possible the merging of the pillars of cultural industry (the press, cinema and TV, computers) and communications (telephone, TV and electronic networks). Digitalization has accelerated the processes of both globalization of culture and diversification of cultures, which set the basic parameters of the development of man and mankind in the 21st century and the third millennium.

Within the country the mentioned period was characterized by redistribution of the priorities of cultural development, notorious stabilization of new interconnections and interrelations between the various forms and components of culture (both traditional and new ones) and the downfall of illusions of accelerated progressive movement of society and culture.

It was just in the second half of the 90s that the rapid progress of the commercial forms of the culture of "McDonald's and Coca-Cola" on the spaces of the country reached the limits of saturation, there was formed and established itself in general the mass culture of national type (pop-music, detective fiction, infotainment synthesis on TV, etc.). This advance was consolidated by the election campaign of 1996 the leading role in which was played by television and show-business – the commercial, mainly privatized forms of mass culture which ensured the victory of Boris Yeltzin and thus promoted even greater marginalization of culture in a narrow sense (of the branch of culture) – the sphere of material and spiritual heritage and traditional arts. And it were the latter ones that were earlier (in the times of both Brezhnev and even more of Gorbachev) actively used by the state in the attempts to legitimize the regime. The "creative intelligentsia" still seemed to be "in force," only the place of Alexiy II, Sakharov, Solzhenitzyn and Likhachev in the vanguard was occupied by variety "stars"(and only after them there came theater and cinema). The mass compensatory entertaining culture – not in words but in deeds – has become a political priority on a state (but not departmental) scale.

The crisis of the state budget which followed after the end of 1996 and greatly manifested itself at first with the limitation of financing the budget sphere to only wages and then with the reduction and delays of payment of the latter just only confirmed the diagnosis since social sphere, and culture within its framework, was the first victim of the policy of sequesters.

At the same time the rapid development of the sphere of entertainment, including non-state or half-state industry of entertainment, engendered the illusion of a quick going out of the crisis on the basis of the formation of a "new middle class" which could become a stable base for social functioning of commercial, classical, and "high" culture. Hence there was an orientation of the Federal (Presidential) program of development of culture and art for 1997-1999 not only and not so much on the preservation of available national wealth as on the support of the development of progressive movement in culture.

This superproblem coincided in its orientation with theoretical developments of UN and UNESCO by the order of which the World report on culture and development "Our Creative Diversity" was prepared and published just in 1996. The purpose of the mentioned report, as well as that of the respective report of the Council of Europe, was bringing culture from the periphery to the center of steady development as a result of transferring of the main accent from quantitative parameters of economic growth to qualitative nature of the evolution of man on the basis of a set of original cultures formed in the course of historical process.

Without changing the general orientation of development the financial crisis in Russia of August 1998 cast doubt on the pace of progress to the expected harmonization of socio-cultural relations and accordingly reminded about the prematurity of a refusal from protective policy. The transition period, as it often happens, resulted in bifurcation of not only culture itself (into traditional – "high," and commercial – mass) but also of the cultural policy: into nation-wide – "mediacentrist," and branch – "artcentrist."

The second half of the 90s was marked by a certain stabilization of conflict relations between the search and mass forms of culture. The diversification of art life manifesting itself most brightly in mass sprouting of new theatrical collectives and kaleidoscopic change of styles in show-business and on TV cast doubt on the idea of the development of prevailing style of the "threshold of millennia" in scales of both the country and the planet.

The crisis of society can both promote and prevent the development of art. In this sense the state and changes of national art culture in the period under review testify to that the crisis should be understood not only and not so much as general decline but rather as a transition stage to a qualitatively new condition of both society and culture.

In the unstable atmosphere of social life art with its imaginary world, polemics of art trends, reflection and intentions for the people connected with creative work is sometimes considered the only strong reality. Artists passing from one style to another, visionaries and quarrelers are represented as more sober and consistent people than politicians. The very pursuit of art for many people is a form of severance with a society. There is no connection between an artist, quality of his works and public, there are no ways to determine the significance of this or that phenomenon.

On the contrary, for others the pursuit of art is a game in politics and a game with politics. There is a tendency when an artist occupies a place in society because he responds to all modern political events. It is characteristic of the so-called radical artists. Paradoxically they inherited this feature from the official artists of the Soviet period. Postmodernist consciousness raised a question on the possibility of the creation of new works but postmodernist ideas in Russia became public domain just when freedom of creativity appeared. Postmodernism in Russia came after the ban on modernism had been lifted.

In the period under review the processes of creative reorientation were, perhaps, less painful than in the post-perestroika decade. Many artistic teams functioning on "bare enthusiasm" gained a foothold in their connections with the governing bodies. It manifested itself most brightly in theatrical movement where there just recently appeared a counter-trend to "reinstitutionalize" actors' companies, formerly independent but now aspiring to find the status of state or municipal companies. This trend, naturally, started to prevail in monumental arts. The characteristic feature of art of recent years is the reflection over mass consciousness and its ideals. Here are two trends. Some work with the stereotypes of the passed epoch. Many works use the cliches developed by the art of the Soviet period. The heritage of pop-art is treated in an original way. Pop-art in Russia is much more expressive than in the USA or Great Britain. Sots-art using symbolics and attributes of the Soviet times is its version.

Constant recurrence to the elements of the Soviet past is connected not so much with any emotional experience as with the fact that the Soviet culture, first of all mass culture, created an official, clear to everybody language of its own. Modern artists need a system of signs, therefore they continue to borrow from the already gone Soviet language. Public institutions continue to play a great role. However, neither the state, nor civil society (represented in this aspect by critics, experts, curators...) could formulate the system of criteria concerning the modern situation in art. Artists are often so opposed to each other that they cannot unite themselves even for the achievement of goals necessary for all. The old Soviet creative unions and associations are split into groupings and often quarrel among themselves.

The absence of civilized art market, the parallel development of traditional trends, new experimental forms and commercial mass culture leads to contrasts. Some artists are begging, others are filling up the ranks of the "middle class" and even of the "nouveaux russes." The property stratification of society is also reflected in the forms of distribution of art. A typical example in this sense is a dramatic fall of cinema attendance, which in 1997-1998 was replaced with quantitatively insignificant parameters of the spectators' return in large cities and with the formation of a narrow group of prestigious cinemas giving the basic share of distribution revenues. Thus, professionals say that 90% of national cinema revenues are derived from one cinema "Pushkinsky" in the center of Moscow, which shows mainly American action movies.

Most spectators with low income continue to keep their predilection for national (Soviet, in particular) cinema watching films free-of-charge on TV. As a result there is a gap between financial performance and real interests of audience.

The "neo-merchant" eclecticism in architecture and other arts characterizes in its turn the aesthetic tastes and predilections of the "nouveaux russes" – appreciable participants of modern art market. However, the sponsorship and patronage of art after the August crisis were sharply reduced. The collections formed by banks rendered a great support to modern art in the beginning of the 90s. Now the formation of these collections was stopped. This is a paradox but the demand for modern Russian art (of most different kinds, genres and trends) is often greater abroad than at home.

Processes in the sphere of mass culture are more and more closely interwoven with the search forms of art culture. The spheres of advertising and show business not only quickly absorb post-conceptual refinements but also generate new trends of creative experiments. The narrow-minded understanding of culture traditional for our country consists in that it was always alienated from technological and business spheres and long-term tendencies of the development of modern civilization and is consequently doomed to "reducing" culture to the spheres of art and heritage which the Ministry of culture is called upon "to manage". Such an understanding formed the basis of the overestimated value status of culture (or, to put it in religious terms, spirituality) and real neglect of its needs.

As soon as there appeared a new sphere of cultural development a new department was formed for it. If one returns to global tendencies it becomes clear at once that none of them today is in the sphere of competence of the Ministry of culture, nor they are generally perceived as a part of culture. Therefore culture is ousted into the ghetto of a special television channel. In technological departments somewhat responsible for the development of the society culture, as a rule, is considered as an annoying hindrance on the way of progress. The domination of technocratic orientation has recently resulted in practical liquidation of culturology as an independent branch of knowledge in the nomenclature of scientific specialities. This fact obviously contradicts the leading tendencies of the development of social sciences and humanities in postindustrial and, moreover, information society.

The taking of TV beyond the framework of culture becomes an original "common place" in the consciousness of both custodians of tradition and "high" culture and TV professionals. On the one hand, no conference on culture and art is held without exposure of "anti-culture" dominating in mass media (first of all on TV). On the other hand, just after his appointment as the NTV chief producer Leonid Parfyonov said in straight and plain terms: "Television is not culture, and if it is culture then it is mass culture". The similar point of view is expressed by the representative of quite another generation and another TV genre – the president of the Russian Television Academy Vladimir Pozner, who stressed that commercial television is first of all neither a part of culture nor a part of the regime – it is business.

But, you see, business can be made on whatever you like, including culture. There are forms of culture, which under present conditions contradict business, at least in its simplified treatment. There are other forms developing mainly or even exclusively on a commercial basis: they are the so-called cultural industries – book-publishing, television, cinematography in some countries, manufacture of audio and videorecordings and a host of many others. The forms of culture predisposed to market are, as a rule, referred to as mass culture based on that consumers (and not customers as it is in a traditional system) are ultimately paying for cultural benefits and services supporting in such a way that what interests them first of all. Though on commercial television this mechanism is not direct but indirect, through advertising, under certain conditions it nevertheless guarantees the adaptation of cultural production to predilections, tastes and aspirations of more or less wide audience.

The adherents to traditional culture may not always like it. They can consider that it is not culture that is flourishing on small screens but anti-culture, while this term actually means another culture – the culture of other people guided by other norms, values and ideals. The great merit of UNESCO is that it is in this organization that they started to use systematically the word "culture" in the plural – "cultures" bringing together two main tendencies of modern social development. In this context the formation of the concept of the "culture of the world" becomes a natural and regular step.

The document prepared by the UNESCO Director General for UN in 1998 emphasizes that the culture of the world is based on fundamental values for the sake of which the United Nations were created and in the name of which they function. The culture of the world is based on the aspiration to make these values the foundation of views and behavior of people at all levels of human society. One cannot but agree with that the construction of the culture of the world is a problem to the solution of which any state – both large and small – can make a significant contribution. But to become public domain, this contribution should be distributed through the networks of mass media and communications, including air TV broadcasting and Internet. Then each state and each people will benefit from the establishment of the culture of the world, and nobody will suffer. The culture of the world is an important tool of exercising the right of all peoples of our planet to live in peace. It is interesting to note that when discussing the UN and UNESCO program "On the Way to the Culture of the World" the following point of view was expressed in our country: the culture of the world is not the world culture. However, it seems to me that it is not incidental that the UNESCO Director General Federico Mayor dwelt just on the formulation of the "culture of the world." It is just culture in the wide anthropological sense of this term that allows to bring together various aspects of human activity directed on the development of an individual and human communities. This was stressed in the report "Our Creative Diversity." Within the framework of such an understanding both mass culture and mass media are the necessary elements of the culture of the world.

Thus, the crisis comprises the elements of disintegration, destruction, and the loss of orientations but at the same time the formation of essentially new elements of social and cultural development, new paradigms of art creativity based on the primacy of compensatory and entertaining functions of mass culture. In this context, the relations between different generations, between internal and external cultural environment become especially acute.

Endnotes

Note *: K. Razlogov, Ph.D. (Arts), Professor, Director of the Russian Institute of Culturology. (The material provided by K. Bogemskaya is used in the article). The article was published in Russian in the journal Svobodnaya mysl, No. 5, 2000. Back.