Культурология

Savchenko Angelica

SOCIOCULTURAL SPACE

A distinctive feature of the present day is the society’s search for some new philosophical ideas which arise in various cultural trends and forms of culture. Recent studies indicate that social processes in society are more often examined on the basis of understanding the biological patterns. According to E. Wilson and Ch. Lumsden [15], who introduced the concept of genetic and cultural coevolution, the culture directly affects the selection of biological material and is affected by it as well. In addition, the scientific studies [2, 9] actively discuss the question of the leading role of the human environment in its evolution and genetics, the interconnection and interdependence of society, nature and human.

In this regard, the inseparable relationship of a person, nature and society, the leading role of culture in their evolution are increasingly discussed in various scientific fields. The culture is a powerful regulator of all social changes of society, its value orientations, as it produces a certain system of values in the sociocultural space, forming the moral basis of society, its priorities, directly affecting the consciousness of human, its thinking, needs, ways of interacting with the world, qualitatively changing human and society. Due to this in the modern sociocultural space there is a growing interest to human, its nature and uniqueness, and there is a concept that the environment affects the human and its genetics and shapes its culture.

Research in a new scientific field – epigenetics – gave us the opportunity to look at a human from the point of view of the inner world, the mechanisms that form and regulate its life, behavior, character, thinking, culture [2; 8; 14]. The epigenetic studies stated that in addition to genetic mechanism of transmission of hereditary information from one generation to another there is also an epigenetic mechanism by which changes at the gene level occur [8; 9]. According to the epigenetic findings, the environment plays a major role in the activity of certain genes. Biological and genetic processes in the human body are directly caused by interaction with this environment, and a human is able to influence its biology.

It is known that since its birth a human stays in a specific information and sociocultural space. In this space certain pictures of world views and human are formed; certain beliefs, ideas, behaviors, priorities are established, on the basis of which a human forms its world-view, life, thinking, behavior and culture. Therefore, to some degree the human life is run by programs founded and formed in early childhood under the influence of those cultural strata in which it lives and develops. Society, nature and human are interrelated and interdependent. The condition of one of them reflects the condition of another. According to the findings of epigenetics, these beliefs, ideas and views become dominant in the world perception of a human, stating on its biological condition and, in the future, at the gene level [8; 9; 15].

It shall be noted that evaluating the beliefs cultivated in a particular society, a human is able to understand their positive influence or limitations. Realizing the inadequacy of beliefs, ideas, attitudes developed both in a particular society and the perception of particular human, it changes everything that surrounds it, changing its life, biology and genetics; that is, a human influences the formation of sociocultural space.

Considering the findings of epigenetics, it can be noted that the person’s inner world is quite organized, and as a biological structure, a human cannot be studied in isolation from its thinking, consciousness, lifestyle, environment, behavior, culture etc. Human, society and culture are organic parts of nature. The environment contains not only a natural component, which exists independently of human and its activities, but also social and material conditions of existence, life, spiritual and moral values, social relations, linkages and relationships of different cultural backgrounds and information space in which the human is [13–15].

It is proven that the more cultured a society is, the more civilized is a human, and vice versa. Through culture a human accumulates and reproduces the experience of life, which is manifested in cultural dimensions. Interacting with the natural world and society, a human experiences its influence and affect it with its activities. So, culture is a bridge between the human nature and its environment, the biological and the social, the natural and the acquired in the process of human life, which leads to its evolution.

In this regard, in our view, it is possible to assume that the culture, moral and spiritual values, the ideological dominants that exist in the world view of a single human and society as a whole, form an information and cultural environment in which the human is living. This environment, according to the concept of epigenetics, programs human genes, and in future this impact will reflect on a biological level [2; 8; 9; 12]. So the state of human genetics and the genetics of future generations depends on what kind of information will be received by the human cells. So, the human environment is directly shaped by its genetics, ideology and culture.

References:

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13. Юдин Б. Г. О человеке, его природе и его будущем / Б. Г. Юдин // Вопросы философии. 2004, №2.

14. Eccles John Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self. ― London: Routledge, 1991

15. Lumsden Ch. J., Wilson E.О. Genes, mind end culture. The coevolutionary process. ― Harvard University Press, 1981. ― 428 p.